Climate Politics
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Hoping for a shakeup at the G8/G20
I arrived in Toronto yesterday and, along with thousands of activists, media, and government officials arriving for the upcoming G8 and G20 summits, was promplty greeted by an unusual earthquake centered a few hours away outside of Ottawa. Unfortunately, if our Canadian hosts have their way, that could be the only groundbreaking event I’ll witness […]
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California: Jerry Brown kicked off clean energy revolution once, aims to do it again
Jerry Brown, then and nowTrivia questions for energy geeks: Which state approved the country’s first energy-efficiency standards for appliances? The first green building codes? The first big wind farms? And who was governor when all those fine things happened? The answer is California under Gov. Jerry Brown — aka Governor Moonbeam — who just happens […]
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Fannie and Freddie attack clean-energy plan
Few new ideas brighten the faces of clean-energy advocates as much as Property Assessed Clean Energy, or PACE, the Berkeley-born financing tool that’s spreading quickly throughout the country. The three-year-old model has put rooftop solar panels, high-efficiency furnaces, and other home improvements within reach of thousands of American homeowners, and there’s hope it could reach […]
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G20 leaders to meet and discuss global warming … but only a little bit
G20 leaders meet at the 2009 London summit.Photo: Downing Street via Flickr On June 26-27, leaders from the 20 largest economies will meet in Toronto, Canada, as a part of the Group of 20 summit. These countries represent 85 percent of the world’s global warming pollution and 83 percent of the world’s economic output. So […]
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Judge who ruled against offshore drilling moratorium invests in oil industry
The federal judge who overturned Barack Obama’s offshore drilling moratorium appears to own stock in numerous companies involved in the offshore oil industry — including Transocean, which leased the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig to BP prior to its April 20 explosion in the Gulf of Mexico — according to 2008 financial disclosure reports. So Yahoo […]
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California’s climate law in peril, Governator pissed
California’s pioneering climate law, the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, is officially under threat in this November’s election. The ballot initiative known as the California Jobs Initiative, which “would halt enforcement of the Global Warming Solutions Act until the state’s unemployment rate falls to 5.5 percent or less,” on Tuesday received the necessary qualifications […]
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Presidents keep failing to get us off oil, but Americans aren’t helping
Who’s to blame for America’s 40-some years of stagnation on energy policy — cowardly politicians or a lazy public? Time‘s Bryan Walsh finds some fault with both in a new post. The case against politicians: Energy is one of those bipartisan issues that any politician can dust off — usually whenever gasoline prices have gotten […]
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Public support for offshore drilling continues to plummet, despite GOP scare tactics
On the 64th day of the nation’s worst environmental disaster, Americans’ opposition to offshore oil drilling continues to grow. Center for American Progress’s Daniel J. Weiss has the details: A CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll of adults taken on June 16, the day after President Obama’s Oval Office energy address, found an 18 percent swing towards […]
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Big Oil plays jobs card as it fights offshore-drilling moratorium
First we saw interview after interview with out-of-work fishermen and shrimpers. Now we’re hearing from oil-rig workers. Jobs are the trump card of political debate in America these days and, not surprisingly, that card is now being deftly played by critics of the Obama administration’s six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. […]
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How To Talk About Energy Policy
Matthew Yglesias makes a strong case that the “energy independence” frame has backfired when it comes to moving the public on climate-friendly energy policy. I agree. (Jon Stewart illustrates better than anyone how poorly this line has fared—as far back as the Nixon years!) And Yglesias isn’t alone. My colleagues in the climate policy communications […]
