Climate Politics

When the Can Comes Around

Canada replaces environment minister, pledges to get greener As part of a major cabinet shakeup, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has replaced oft-criticized Environment Minister Rona Ambrose with former Treasury Board head John Baird, acknowledging that his government needs to greenify. “We’ve clearly determined we need to do more on the environment,” Harper said. “Particularly […]

An interview with California environmental adviser Terry Tamminen

Terry Tamminen is a compact, affable man. With his bluntness and lack of pretense, it’s easy to see why Arnold Schwarzenegger trusted him. The California governor brought Tamminen on as his environmental adviser in 2003, elevated him to secretary of the state EPA, and then appointed him a senior cabinet adviser in 2004. In part […]

An interview with Australian politician and rabble-rouser Bob Brown

Bob Brown goes to great heights to protect his homeland. Photo: Rainforest Action Network Bob Brown looks a caricature of an Australian senator: a bit disheveled in a rumpled gray suit, unfashionable glasses, and a goofy grin. But a little rumple goes a long way. In a career that has spanned three decades, Brown has […]

Where Credit is Due

Democrats take control of U.S. Congress, vow energy-fund reallocation Here at Grist, we’re advocates of multipartisan cooperation and fans of progress, no matter what its origins. But as the Democratic-led, greener-seeming Congress takes over today, we’d like to allow ourselves a whoop. Whoop! One of the Dems’ top priorities is an energy package that will […]

The Salt Lake City mayor is doing amazing green things

I just got done with a long and interesting conversation with Salt Lake City’s hard-charging mayor, Rocky Anderson. If you haven’t been following the guy, check out this remarkable article in The Nation. Prepare to have your accustomed-to-bad-news socks knocked off. Since his election in 1999, he’s implemented a comprehensive plan to green the city […]

Naughty and Nice

How the energy industry spent its holiday vacation While you were whooping over your Wii, the energy industry exulted in a few holiday gifts of its own. Just before Christmas, a federal appeals court gave ExxonMobil a $2.5 billion break, slashing in half the $5 billion in damages that had been awarded to thousands of […]

Global warming is one of his top priorities

You probably heard that John Edwards has officially declared his candidacy for president. Here are his top five priorities:

• Provide moral leadership in the world
• Strengthen our middle class and end poverty
• Guarantee universal health care for every American
• Lead the fight against global warming
• Get America and other countries off our addiction to oil

Edwards, who's been working primarily on poverty since the 2004 election, announced in the 9th Ward of New Orleans. Here's the video:

Everybody does it

Thanks to Andrew for bringing up science politicization, something I've been meaning to talk about for a while. This was originally a comment on his post, but it got too long so I'm putting it up here.

It seems to me that discussions of science politicization run together two distinct issues.

Washington guv defangs oversight panel

Washington State Governor Christine Gregoire may have announced a major program to clean up the Puget Sound just last week, but this week the tides have, er, turned.

This week, she's planning to limit the power of an independent citizen oversight panel intending to keep an eye on the oil industry -- probably the biggest threat to Sound health.

Discuss

People talk about the "politicization" of science all the time, usually in the form of an accusation designed to paint an opponent as biased or corrupt. Let's take a moment to think about the term and what it means.

Science is a multi-layered, collective, and impersonal process consisting of three parts:

1. individual scientists working under the scientific method,
2. the results of the individual scientists undergo peer-review and are published for the community to evaluate, and
3. important claims are then re-tested in the "crucible of science" -- they are either reproduced by independent scientific groups or have their implications tested to insure consistency with the existing body of scientific knowledge.