Climate Politics
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Drilling down on oil
It may be true, but domestic oil drilling won’t help.This post originally appeared on the Great Energy Challenge blog, in partnership with National Geographic and Planet Forward. It’s an unfortunate fact that stress has a way of making people crazy. At the moment, rising oil prices are creating a lot of stress. One of the […]
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Congressional asshats get the old, white parody they deserve
Billy Joel’s “Uptown Girl” has never felt fresher than in this stirring rendition from our friends at the Natural Resources Defense Council. But that’s sort of damning it with faint praise. Upton BillYou know Fred Upton’s Bill will make you ill I thought he’d never be a smokestack guyBut now he hates clean air I […]
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Al Gore hasn’t written his new book and people already hate it
Al Gore is penning a new book about “the political, social and economic forces that are shaping what America and the world will become in ensuing decade.” It sounds exactly like Fareed Zakaria’s The Post American World. Even though his book has yet to be written, people with exclusive access to the inside of the […]
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Sorry, but the U.S. isn’t about to wean itself off of nuclear
The reality is, the United States doesn’t have the option to walk away from nuclear power, which supplies almost 9% of the nation’s energy and about 20% of its electricity. […] Nuclear energy’s drawbacks are glaring at the moment, but it’s worth remembering that no major source of energy the United States is using comes […]
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Representative warns against ‘overreacting’ to tsunami by saving lives or whatever
Shorter Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.): “If the GOP cuts tsunami monitoring, people will die.” If you cut on detection of tidal waves, volcanic eruptions, severe weather events, weather buoys, satellite observation and weather patterns, those sorts of things, people will die. Shorter Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa): “Come on, let’s not overreact to a few thousand people dying […]
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Still giving lessons in how not to communicate
The White House is just lousy at messaging across the board, as I and others have noted many times. Obama also seems to have bad luck. He endorsed offshore drilling shortly before the biggest offshore oil disaster in history. He embraced new nuclear power plants in a speech last February, and now we are seeing […]
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If Rush Limbaugh’s heart fell out of his chest and into a bowl of raisins, you wouldn’t spot it
[vodpod id=ExternalVideo.1011853&w=620&h=511&fv=config%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fmediamatters.org%2Fembed%2Fcfg3%3Fid%3D201103150020] Rush Limbaugh is laughing at Japan’s earthquake refugees. “They’ve given us the Prius. Even now, refugees are recycling their garbage.” Here, he began to laugh, continuing, “and yet, Gaia levels them! Just wipes them out!” h/t John Rennie for the headline Read more: “Rush Limbaugh Mocks Japan Quake Refugees [VIDEO],” The Huffington Post
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Polluters have the tech they need to reduce toxic mercury and make Americans healthier
Listen up, polluters.Photo: sara b.Yesterday, EPA released plans for its long-awaited “utility MACT” rule, which would regulate toxic air pollutants like mercury. I want to address one contested point in particular — the availability of technology to reduce mercury emissions — but first some scene setting. The benefits of making Americans healthier From a health […]
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Romney may be the Koch mule of Campaign 2012
Meet the new boss, whose boss is the same as the old boss’s boss. Looks like David Koch has already hosted a fundraiser for Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign. Romney has in the past acknowledged the existence of global warming, which is pretty good considering, but now we’re waiting for him to cut and paste […]
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Regional cap-and-trade saves jobs and money
This post originally appeared at Sightline’s Daily Score blog. I’m not big on parroting press releases, but I’m going to make an exception for Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), the Northeast’s carbon cap-and-trade program. RGGI is quietly demonstrating that carbon markets can work wonderfully. So it’s too bad no one seems to be paying attention any longer. […]
