Climate Politics

All Stories

  • Un-democracy and the US Senate

    This series is about flawed institutions of governance. Notice the word “governance”—not “government.” It’s not about inadequate or wrong-headed laws and policies. Nor is it about heroic, passable, or ineffectual leadership. Such things are the normal stuff of public debate, and we write scores of posts each year about them here at the Daily Score. […]

    Alan Durning Politics

  • Can we stop obesity without taxes?

    Michelle Obama went before the Grocery Manufacturers Association today seeking its support for her “Let’s Move” anti-obesity initiative. The GMA, which counts food companies like Kraft, General Mills, and Coca-Cola among its membership, isn’t necessarily friendly territory for Michelle Obama. But if the standing ovation she received is any indication, Big Food is trying hard […]

    Tom Laskawy Politics

  • Howell Raines: "Why has our profession… helped Fox legitimize a style of journalism that is dishon

    For the first time since the yellow journalism of a century ago, the United States hasa major news organization devoted to the promotion of one political party….  In a bygone era of fact-based commentary typified, left to right, by my late colleagues Scotty Reston and Bill Safire, these deceptions would have been given their proper […]

    Joseph Romm Politics

  • EIA FAQ on CO2 emissions

    I came across these answers to frequently asked questions from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.  There’s some good information on emissions and conversion factors:   How much carbon dioxide (CO2) is produced when different fuels are burned? How much CO2 does the United States emit? Is it more than other countries? What are the largest sources of total greenhouse […]

    Joseph Romm Politics

  • Jeff Goodell: ‘It’s a bad idea for geoengineering to be the equivalent of the Pompeii sex room’

    Jeff Goodell.To head off the worst impacts of climate change, should human beings deliberately engineer the earth’s climate? Or rather, should they try, with uncertain odds of success and at least some chance of inadvertent catastrophe? Should they even learn how, or would the knowledge itself wreak havoc? These are the sorts of questions journalist […]

    David Roberts Politics

  • China and India to report their global warming pollution every two years

    Both China and India have now reaffirmed that they will report their global warming emissions every two years. The framework of this was agreed in the Copenhagen Accord which outlined that every two years developing countries will report their national emissions inventories and emission reduction actions based upon internationally agreed guidelines (as I discussed here).  […]

    Jake Schmidt Politics

  • Carly Fiorina said cap-and-trade ‘will both create jobs and lower the cost of energy’

    Cross-posted from the Wonk Room. In pursuit of the California Republican Party nomination for the 2010 Senate, Carly Fiorina has abandoned her support for cap-and-trade legislation. The former Hewlett Packard executive hopes to unseat Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who has championed clean energy legislation as the chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee. In […]

    Brad Johnson Politics

  • New Gallup poll shows sharp partisan divide in understanding of climate change

    Newly released Gallup polling seems to show a sharp drop in the percentage of Americans who know about, are concerned about, and understand the threat of global warming. The piece leads with a graph showing a sharp increase in the percentage of Americans who think the seriousness of global warming is generally exaggerated:   When […]

    Josh Nelson Politics

  • The other half of Kerry-Graham-Lieberman is weak too

      The second half could be enough to make you cry.Sens. John Kerry, Lindsey Graham, and Joe Lieberman (KGL) are supposedly going to unleash their long-awaited tripartisan climate/energy bill soon. Based on the (extremely tentative) information that’s gotten out so far, it looks like it will implement some sort of cap-and-trade system for electric utilities, […]

    David Roberts Politics

  • Chu compares climate disinformation campaign to tobacco industry's efforts

    Here is our Nobel prize-winning physicist Energy Secretary, Steven Chu, in a San Jose Mercury News interview:   SJMN:  Are you worried that the political will to enact a national policy or somehow tax or price carbon emissions is gone now? If you look at recent polls, the number of Americans who believe that global warming is […]

    Joseph Romm Politics