Climate Politics
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What to expect from Britain’s new coalition government
Prime Minister David Cameron and Energy and Climate Change Secretary Chris Huhne heading out to announce that the government will cut its greenhouse-gas emissions by 10 percent over the next 12 months.Photo: Prime Minister’s OfficeEnvironment policy didn’t break the surface during the U.K. election campaign. How will it fare in a coalition of parties at […]
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Obama’s unconvincing ‘anger’ at BP and lax regulators
Obama giving his “angry” speechPresident Obama has so far declined to give voice to the connection between the massive, stomach-churning fossil-fuel disaster in the Gulf of Mexico and the massive, stomach-turning damage that fossil fuels wreak every day. He hasn’t used his bully pulpit to highlight the opportunities to use energy more intelligently and gather […]
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Solid at the core: the integrity of the emission limits in the American Power Act
David Doniger posted an overview based on NRDC’s “first read” of the Kerry-Lieberman American Power Act discussion draft. Here I will delve more deeply into the environmental integrity of the core emission limits in the bill. There is good news here. While the reductions fall well short of what the latest science suggests is needed, […]
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Brits are aghast at us Yankee “greens”
U.K. farm owner, “eco-dwelling” builder, and Grist reader JRWoodman offers some perspective on the apparently greenish platform of the new Conservative-LibDem coalition government: The UK’s Conservative party springs out of the old families that lived in stately homes in the countryside and enjoyed country pursuits. To this day if you look at an electoral map […]
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Tools for supporting international action on global warming: American Power Act
The draft of the American Power Act is now out (see NRDC’s first read summary of the entire bill). The core global warming pollution limits in the bill, covering all major pollution sources, are a solid foundation for Senate legislation to put a final bill on President Obama’s desk this year. So how does this […]
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Want to phase out a hazardous substance? Dump it in the Gulf!
A U.S. Air Force plane sprays chemical dispersants over the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.Photo: Deepwater Horizon ResponseEPA chief Lisa Jackson, along with other EPA officials and representatives from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, gave a press teleconference on use of dispersants in the Gulf Wednesday afternoon. I attended and got in […]
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16 tips for avoiding climate burnout
Cross-posted from The Skywriter — 1Sky’s Blog. I have spent my lifetime face to face with some of the most brutal and inhumane acts ever committed, but nothing has been as traumatizing for me as trying to get action to tackle the climate crisis. As a long time human rights defender and prior Executive Director […]
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Poll results on energy, climate, and offshore drilling are all over the map
More evidence that polls are to be taken with a thousand grains of salt: A few days ago, former Obama pollster Joel Benenson released the results of a survey showing that 61 percent of those queried support a comprehensive clean energy bill that would charge energy companies for carbon pollution, and 39 percent said they […]
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Another reason why Elena Kagan might be a green Supreme Court justice
Conventional thinking is that there’s not much exciting about Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan, either in her life story or in her legal area of expertise, administrative law. But there’s an interesting argument that Kagan’s drab-sounding expertise is precisely what environmental advocates need on the court. Climate-change overlaps quite a bit with administrative law — […]
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[updated] Lisa Murkowski (R-ExxonValdez) opposes forcing oil companies to pay to clean up oil spills
On the Senate floor a few moments ago, Sens. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J), and Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) asked for unanimous consent to pass their Big Oil Bailout Prevention Liability Act of 2010, which would raise the liability cap on offshore drilling accidents from $75 million to $10 billion. Unanimous consent simply means the […]
