Climate Politics
All Stories
-
The Best Offense Is a Bad Defect
In a groundbreaking decision, a San Francisco jury determined yesterday that gasoline containing the additive MBTE is a defective product and that two major oil companies were aware of but did not disclose the additive’s dangers when they began marketing it. The lawsuit was brought by the South Tahoe Public Utility District after it discovered […]
-
Ski-don’t
There’s good news and bad news for environmentalists on the personal-watercraft front. On the up side, the National Park Service announced yesterday that it would permanently close five national parks to personal watercraft. Park officials and much of the general public object to personal watercraft in parks, saying Jet Skis and their ilk disrupt wildlife […]
-
The Letter of the Log
More than 220 prominent scientists sent a letter to President Bush today calling for an end to logging on federally owned lands. The scientists, including E.O. Wilson, argued that the economic value of timber from public lands was insignificant compared to the environmental damage from logging, and that taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize […]
-
Parking Is Expensive
Today is tax day in the U.S. (need we remind you?), but not many of your tax dollars will go to support the national park system — and certainly not enough, conservationists say. The system is suffering from a $4.9 billion backlog in maintenance and improvement projects, a 40 percent shortfall for interpretive and educational […]
-
Eight Bawl
Environment ministers from the Group of Eight — the world’s industrialized powers — met over the weekend for a round of talks in preparation for the World Summit on Sustainable Development, to be held later this year in Johannesburg, South Africa. Although the issue of climate change was not on the agenda (much to the […]
-
Science Fry Day
A $10 million annual fellowship program that provides money to graduate students in environmental science, policy, and engineering has been eliminated by the Bush administration, officials announced late last week. The fellowships, which were part of the U.S. EPA’s Science to Achieve Results program, were the only federal monies specifically earmarked to fund environmental studies […]
-
Al Gore Rhythm
Speaking at the Florida Democratic Party Convention — widely regarded as the first stop on the 2004 campaign trail — former Vice President Al Gore attacked the Bush administration on Saturday for favoring corporate America and trashing environmental protections. In his most outspoken speech since the 2000 presidential campaign, Gore decried the return to “the […]
-
Lies, Lies, and Videotape
A picture is worth a thousand words: So reasoned Interior Secretary Gale Norton when she mailed copies of a videotape of Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to major television stations and encouraged news producers to use the footage in their coverage of the debate over drilling. (In contrast to videos of the Arctic Refuge produced […]
-
Supremely Bad Judgement
The Florida Supreme Court dealt a blow to environmentalists and landowners yesterday by ruling that property owners in the state must continue to foot most of the bill for Everglades restoration, despite overwhelming support for a 1996 amendment to the state constitution that would have made polluters pay instead. The court determined that the amendment, […]
-
Boxer Takes Off Her Gloves
Senate Democrats accused the Bush administration yesterday of slowing the pace of toxic waste cleanups under the Superfund program as a favor to industry, which historically has picked up most of the tab for the costly cleanups. A Senate Environment and Public Works subcommittee asked Superfund officials to explain why the administration dropped 25 sites […]
