Climate Politics
All Stories
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Cuts Like a Knife, but It Feels So Wrong
Details of environmental cuts in Bush’s budget emerge Now that the nation’s water is all cleaned up, the Bush administration has proposed sharply cutting a federal assistance program designed to help modernize aging sewer systems and prevent toxic runoff into streams and rivers — from $1.35 billion in 2004 to $730 million. And now that […]
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Imaginary Numbers
Bush’s new budget relies on imaginary Arctic Refuge revenue You’re the president, you’ve promised to cut the country’s enormous deficit in half by the end of your term, and you’re required to produce a budget showing how you’re going to do it. You’ve got a Congress that hasn’t consented to drilling in the Arctic National […]
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Greenpeace shifts tactics as it looks ahead to four more years of Bush
At a time when environmental groups are facing questions about their own mortality and rethinking strategies for surviving Dubya‘s second term, Greenpeace USA — the environmental group best known for in-your-face, laws-be-damned direct action — is getting in touch with its inner Gandhi. Greenpeace rabble-rousing in days of yore. Greenpeace/John Cunningham. In the last few […]
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Faith-Based Initiative
Religious leaders make the environment a “values issue” More than 1,000 Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish religious leaders from some 35 states have signed and begun circulating a statement opposing President Bush’s environmental policies. And evangelicals aren’t far behind, having drawn up an “Evangelical Call to Civic Responsibility” that emphasizes Christians’ duty to care for the […]
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Old MacDonald Had a Conniption
Proposed Bush budget cuts environment spending and ag subsidies Turns out tax cuts for the wealthy aren’t cheap. President Bush’s fiscal 2006 budget, sent to Congress today, would cut the U.S. EPA budget by about 6 percent and the National Park Service budget by nearly 3 percent, part of a broad range of cuts that […]
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New Republican leaders emerging in battle against climate change
Last week, an international task force co-chaired by Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe (Maine) predicted a fast-approaching “point of no return” for climate change — possibly in as few as 10 years — after which the crisis and its symptoms will be irreversible. Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine). You probably didn’t read about it in the U.S. […]
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I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means
In SOTU speech, Bush mentions eco-responsible energy, dodges climate In his State of the Union speech last night — in between 27 utterances each of the words “freedom” and “terror” or their variants — President Bush squeezed in a brief nod to green issues. He said that the country needs “environmentally responsible” energy sources, just […]
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Eternal Sunshine of the British Mind
U.K. freedom-of-information rules promise access to crucial enviro data In sharp contrast to America’s growing number of terror-inspired no-right-to-know rules restricting citizens’ access to government info crucial to environmental health and safety, new rules in Britain that took effect Jan. 1 are intended to do just the opposite (no, not incite terrorism): ensure citizens’ access […]
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Exeter Stage Left
Climate eggheads conclude we’re toast, not sure when we’ll hear the ding A three-day scientific conference on global warming in Exeter, U.K., that wrapped up today vividly illustrates the frustrating current state of the climate-change debate. There was a palpable sense of urgency among the scientists in attendance, as various studies predicted that global warming […]
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Reid Between the Mines
Senate Democratic leader Reid is a friend to the mining industry Sen. Harry Reid, the new leader of the Senate Democrats, knows full-well that his home state of Nevada isn’t a liberal or environmental stronghold. Thus he has had to balance his party’s political agenda with his state’s economic interests, and one of those big […]
