Climate Politics
All Stories
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Right-wingers exploit tsunami by accusing enviros of exploiting tsunami
Was global warming behind the recent catastrophic tsunami in the Indian Ocean? Of course not. Nor did it cause the Iraqi insurgency, the national debt, or Ashley Simpson’s lip-synching episode. A devastated village in India. Photo: USAID. Global warming is an atmospheric phenomenon caused by a buildup of airborne greenhouse gases, and though it’s expected […]
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An interview with Kevin Knobloch, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists
The Bush administration is gearing up to push for second-term priorities — including an energy bill, power-plant emissions legislation, and amendments to the Endangered Species Act — under a cloud of accusations that it has manipulated federal scientific research on these and other issues to support its agenda. These arguments have been voiced most prominently […]
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Darling Nikki
EPA inspector general making enemies on Capitol Hill Nikki Tinsley, the inspector general of the U.S. EPA, is ruffling feathers in Washington, D.C., these days. A registered independent appointed by President Clinton in 1999, she has developed a reputation for integrity, professionalism, and steely resolve. She views her job not simply as monitoring for fraud […]
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“And Now!” Grinned the Grinch, “I Will Stuff Up the Tree!”
Bush admin overhauls forest management policy The Bush administration unveiled sweeping changes to federal forest-management policy on Dec. 22, while Americans milled through malls and airports, minds dancing with visions of, well, everything but forest management. The changes will “streamline” approval of forest-management plans by eliminating a key provision, long despised by timber companies, that […]
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Bushies gut national forest rules
Three days before Christmas, the Bush administration announced that it's making the biggest overhaul to forest-management rules in some three decades. The news made the front page of today's New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, etc. -- but ya gotta know it'll slip by unnoticed by a great many folks stuck in whited-out airports in the Midwest and teeming malls everywhere else.
It's been a while since the Bushies pulled one of these announce-an-environmental-abomination-when-no-one's-looking stunts, but they returned to the tactic with a real doozy this time.
"A key wildlife protection that has governed federal forest management for more than two decades will be dropped under new regulations announced Wednesday by the Bush administration, and requirements for public involvement in planning for the country's 192 million acres of national forest will be dramatically altered," write Bettina Boxall and Lisa Getter in the L.A. Times.
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With Leavitt on the way out, who’ll be next to head up the EPA?
Leavitt, left, accepts Bush’s nomination to head HHS and leave EPA behind. Photo: WhiteHouse.gov. There were plenty of “Leavitt or leave it” jokes when former Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt (R) took the helm at the U.S. EPA just over a year ago. Many insiders didn’t expect him to stay long at the agency, figuring he […]
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It Was a Dark and Stormy Year …
2004 sets records for heat and natural disasters 2004 may be the fourth warmest year on record and the most expensive to date for insurance companies stuck with the tab for cleaning up after natural disasters, according to new data released this week. Extreme weather conditions in many parts of the world, including a record […]
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Hagelian Dialectic
Kyoto opponent Hagel may ally with Blair for new climate agreement U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair’s efforts to cajole the U.S. into doing something about climate change — and shake off his rep as a Bush “poodle” — may have found an ally in Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.). Hagel met with Blair this week in […]
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Dude, Where’s the After Party?
U.N. negotiators begin talking about post-Kyoto actions Two months before the Kyoto Protocol even takes effect, representatives meeting in Buenos Aires for the annual U.N. conference on climate change are already discussing plans for reducing emissions post-Kyoto. So far, says Eliot Diringer of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, participants have agreed that any […]
