Climate Politics

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 […]

Turns Out He Does Know Jack

Former Interior deputy pleads guilty to lying in Abramoff investigation The second in command at the U.S. Interior Department in Bush’s first term has pleaded guilty to telling big, fat lies to the Senate during the Jack Abramoff lobbying investigation. That’s what the kids call obstruction of justice, and it could have netted J. Steven […]

Griles: tip of a slimy iceburg

Carl Pope addresses the Griles conviction that Andrew obliquely mentioned below, and adds this interesting info: You might think that having the number two guy at Interior go to the slammer would serve as a cautionary warning to the Administration — but no. Instead, Bush is eagerly racing to make certain that it’s harder for […]

On climate, U.S. attitudes are split along partisan lines

Since it came out about a year ago, An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore's climate change documentary, seems to have pushed the issue into mainstream consciousness.

Millions saw the movie itself -- but they were largely true believers anyway. Perhaps more importantly, Gore's Academy Award has earned him a wider audience among the potentially undecided: 39.9 million TV viewers tuned in for the Academy Awards themselves, plus 49 million saw Gore on Oprah. Heck, combined, that's more than the total number of people who voted for George W. Bush in 2006! It's almost as good as being on American Idol.

But, how much effect has this media blitz had on attitudes among Americans?

Sadly, it's not as dramatic as you may think.

Including a funny one from Olberman

What’s that? You say you’d like another Gore post? I’m here to serve! Here’s Keith Olberman with a segment that is, per usual, both funnier and more educational than the vast bulk of what you find on cable news: Here’s a clip put together by Politics TV — a good clip from Gore’s testimony: And […]