Climate Politics
All Stories
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Forest Fire
We hear that when U.S. Forest Service Chief Mike Dombeck issued (or at least appeared to issue) a new policy last week barring the cutting of old-growth timber on national forest lands he did not exactly have the green light from President Clinton. We like Mike. In fact, according to our sources, the president-for-the-next-few-days and […]
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Let's hope campaign finance reform saves the day
I will never believe he won. I’ll always think he got a minority of both the popular and the electoral vote. To me he’ll always be President-Under-False-Pretense. The president-elect prepares to step up to the plate. Well, but you know, the Rs would feel the same way if a few hundred Florida votes had tipped […]
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An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure
What do you do when you want to move fast but the way ahead is dark, possibly dangerous, and almost entirely unknown? Accelerate? Proceed with moderation? Slow way down? Stop? Don’t spray it. That question underlies most environmental regulations. We are not sure what pesticides are doing to soils, waters, other creatures, or ourselves. We […]
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Will election 2000 lead to reform or not?
The crowds demonstrating outside Florida courtrooms and counting rooms have been reminding me of the historical opera “Boris Godounov.” It opens with peasants milling about, waiting to find out who will be their next czar. Every now and then a handler comes out and whips them up to yell for Boris, who is not the […]
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Both Gore and Nader could have won with this more sensible election system
From the standpoint of most environmentalists, very little went right on election day. Ralph Nader fell short of getting 5 percent of the vote, so the Green Party won’t qualify for federal matching funds in 2004. And it seems likely that Al Gore, despite receiving more of the popular vote than his Republican rival, won’t […]
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Did the top U.S. negotiator at The Hague climate talks drop the ball?
Lots of grumbling lately from environmental insiders displeased with the way Frank Loy handled negotiating duties for the U.S. during the fruitless climate change talks at The Hague, Netherlands. The main complaint: Bad clock management. Pretty boy Loy. Photo: Courtesy of IISD. Without getting too mired in bad sports metaphors, the knock on Loy, the […]
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Americans dragged their heels at The Hague, but others are acting to stop climate change
The most earth-shaking event of the past two weeks had to do with leadership, or lack thereof, but it did not unfold in Florida. It happened in the Netherlands. The stunning lack of leadership came from the Clinton-Gore administration. The meeting in The Hague was the sixth attempt since the Kyoto conference of 1997 to […]
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Greenpeace student activists stir things up at The Hague
THE HAGUE, Netherlands Bill McKibben reports from The Hague: Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four Part Five The Hague, with its constant drizzle, qualifies as one of the gloomiest cities I’ve ever visited, and the tense, uncertain busyness of the convention center doesn’t add much to the atmosphere. But a 20-minute train ride […]
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The endless campaign shows it's time to change the electoral system
What is it we are learning in the aftermath of this crazy election? How powerful a single vote can be? Or how worthless a single vote can be, when 19,000 of them can be tossed out in one county? When boxes of ballots get lost? When recounts are demanded or stopped depending on their expected […]