Climate Politics

It Just Gets In the Way

U.S. Interior considering revamp of Endangered Species Act, draft shows Last week, a U.S. Interior Department memo quietly changed where endangered species are protected. Now it seems the feds have been giving the Endangered Species Act an even broader rethink. A leaked draft shows that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has toyed with shifting […]

Climate contrarian blocks Gore concert plans

If climate change is the “greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people,” then an all-star climate concert on the Capitol lawn has got to be some kind of descent into madness. So sayeth Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), who’s vowing to indefinitely block a resolution allowing Al Gore’s Live Earth concert to rock the Capitol […]

‘Nature for nature’s sake’ has limited appeal

Stephanie’s post on Dave Foreman’s rant raises a subject that’s been hashed over on this site many times. But we’ve got some new readers around, so I’m going to hash it over some more. Here’s how I see it. If you really love "nature for nature’s sake," you’ll want to do or say whatever it […]

Judge refuses request for a closed courtroom in global warming case

You may have heard about efforts by the motor vehicle industry to invalidate state laws restricting greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks. California crafted a rule, other states adopted it, and the industry filed suit.

It's a legal argument that stretches back to 2005. And with three active cases -- in California, Rhode Island, and Vermont -- it's not going away soon.

In a dramatic new twist, the industry asked the court in the Vermont case to hold most of the trial in secret.

Fun all around

Rep. Jay Inslee’s wife Trudi asked me to pass this along to you: America needs a clean energy revolution, and we need your stories! Are you, your company, or community building the clean energy economy today? We want to tell the world about it. We will share clean energy stories on the website apollosfire.net, and […]

Earth Firster urges a return to conservationism

Dave Foreman spills his guts on the difference between real conservationists and the rest of us, who are interested in saving the environment for utilitarian reasons here, urging a return to conservation's roots in the preservation of wildness for its own sake, and slamming utilitarian environmental approaches to conservation. I actually thought the movement had gotten past this debate; apparently I was wrong.

Key phrase:

... [N]ature conservationists who work to protect wilderness areas and wild species should be called conservationists, and ... resource conservationists, who wish to domesticate and manage lands and species for the benefit and use of humans, should be called resourcists.

When environmentalists turn their attention from the so-called "built environment" to nature, they can take either a conservationist or a resourcist pathway. I've named environmentalists who have a utilitarian resourcist view "enviro-resourcists."

And I've ruffled some feathers with this view.

I've ruffled even more feathers lately by warning that enviro-resourcists have been slowing gaining control of conservation groups, thereby undercutting and weakening our effectiveness, and that nature lovers need to take back the conservation family.

EcoTalking

As I mentioned, I was on EcoTalk radio the other day, talking about the Waxman hearings on political interference with climate science. I did two segments, which you can download as mp3s: part one (11 min.), part two (7 min.). I think it went fairly well.

Will he run?

A while back, certain … sources of mine in Tennessee (hi Amanda!) let me in on what was back then still a quiet rumor: a Republican savior is on the way. Soon to be riding to the rescue of downtrodden Republicans, burdened with a weak field of presidential candidates, is Fred Thompson, lawyer, actor, and […]

Wherein we puzzle through the truthiness

I was recently made aware of the fact that the conservative National Review has a newish blog called Planet Gore. That’s right: the only conservative blog I know of on global warming is primarily focused on mocking Al Gore — who is, you’ll recall, a big Fatty Fatterstein. This pungent discovery got me pondering a […]

Time to quit pretending otherwise

Late last week Chris Mooney had a long and characteristically careful post on HuffPo clarifying the hurricane/climate change connection, exactly what Gore’s said about it, and exactly where Gore can and cannot be legitimately criticized for it. The crucial point in the post, though, is not about hurricanes. It’s this: Nevertheless, when it comes to […]