Climate Politics
All Stories
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I Fjord Your Pain
McCain, Clinton, other senators take global-warming tour in Alaska Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.), and two other Lower-48 colleagues are touring Alaska this week to see for themselves the destructive impacts of climate change. They’ve flown over Yukon forests devastated by spruce bark beetles — believed to be thriving thanks to unusually high […]
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Balked Alaska
House GOPers oppose legislative maneuver to open Arctic Refuge Two dozen House Republicans have publicly criticized the GOP leadership’s plan to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling by attaching language to a filibuster-proof budget measure. In a letter to Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and other House leaders, the rebel GOPers — including three […]
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Why aren’t conservationists fighting poverty?
It’s a shame. Conservationists are sitting on the sidelines while the Big Game unfolds before our eyes. A major campaign is under way to change the terms of development, alleviate crushing debt, and help poor people around the world live better lives. Successes are being racked up. And conservation and environmental groups are nowhere to […]
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Passage of energy bill highlights lack of united Democratic opposition
Four years, two failed conference attempts, and one filibuster after the Republican leadership first introduced the Bush-backed energy bill into Congress, the controversial legislation is being signed into law today by the president, yielding a major victory for the White House — and exposing Democrats’ continued inability to rally around a unified vision and stay […]
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New Asia-Pacific climate pact is long on PR, short on substance
Staunch U.S. allies, enviro activists, and just about everyone else was caught flat-footed last week when the U.S., Australia, and four Asian countries unveiled a new pact intended to help curb greenhouse-gas emissions. In the days since, some details about the surprise alliance have trickled out, but its mission and intended impact remain murky. Known […]
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Task force takes aim at NEPA, freaks out environmentalists
Rep. Richard Pombo meets the press in April. Photo: U.S. House of Representatives. You have to want to get to Nacogdoches, a Texas town that’s not on the way to anywhere. This eastern outpost, nearly 150 miles from Houston, is the oldest town in the state, with enough lore to fill volumes. It’s the site […]
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Two Chevrons Don’t Make a Right
Chevron may have paid agents of Nigerian military to attack villagers On Jan. 3, 1999, a number of residents of Opia, Nigeria, visited a Chevron oil rig to demand compensation for fishing gear destroyed by the oil company’s operations. On Jan. 4, Nigerian military personnel attacked and burned the villages of Opia and Ikenyan, leaving […]
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EPA says race, income shouldn’t be environmental-justice factors
It may surprise some people to hear that the Bush administration’s EPA just drafted a strategic plan on environmental justice. Insidiously, and perhaps less surprisingly, advocates say, the move threatens to redefine that term into irrelevance. The agency’s new plan defines environmental justice as “the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of […]
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New nominees for top spots at EPA worry enviros
While the green community and the press fixate on the energy bill that’s finally wending its way to President Bush‘s desk, a changing of the guard under way at the U.S. EPA is sliding by virtually unnoticed. Who are these three jokers? When Stephen Johnson assumed his post at the head of the agency in […]
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Beach Blanket Politico
Green activist Donna Frye leading in race for mayor of San Diego San Diego may soon get a jolt of green in City Hall. Veteran surfer chick and longtime environmental activist Donna Frye (D) took 43 percent of the vote in the city’s mayoral election on Tuesday, far ahead of the 27 percent earned by […]
