Climate Politics
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Why are we propping up corn production, again?
News flash: high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is a lousy product. As Tom Laskawy reported here Tuesday, a recent study by Princeton researchers found that rats fed chow laced with HFCS gained more weight than rats fed equal calories of table sugar. All processed sweeteners add empty calories to food; but calorie for calorie, HFCS appears […]
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Canada Rules
The undemocratic design of the US Senate is a huge obstacle to progress in the Northwest. How did the Senate get set up in the first place? Richard Rosenfeld, writing six years ago in Harper’s answers that question. The 1787 Constitutional Convention created the Senate in a triply split vote won by states representing just […]
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The Climate Post: Once more unto the breach, dear friends
First Things First: President Barack Obama signed health care reform into law this week, exposing a rarely acknowledged political pre-existing condition among the pundit class: despite the conventional wisdom, no matter how many years experience a given observer has had in Washington, whatever political party you favor — nobody ever really has any idea what’s […]
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Home Star advances in the House
The Home Star program, which could jumpstart a national revolution in residential energy efficiency, is one tiny step closer to becoming law. The House Subcommittee on Energy and Environment on Wednesday passed the Home Star Energy Retrofit Act of 2010, which could create 168,000 jobs by investing up to $6 billion in residential energy efficiency […]
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Van Jones: “I feel like I’m just getting started”
Van JonesBy now the Strange Episode of Van Jones is well known in and outside of politics. Jones became White House Special Advisor for Green Jobs in March of 2009. Shortly thereafter began a summer of crazy, as Tea Party activists stormed congressional offices and the air waves, shouting warnings of incipient tyranny. In July, […]
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Building a Green Tea Party
A leading thinker on the left recently wrote that elite authorities have failed us and require grassroots input to become accountable. A leading thinker on the right recently wrote that centralized authorities have failed us and should be balanced by stronger local economic, political, and social networks. Now Woody Tasch of the Slow Money Alliance […]
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What can the health-care act teach the food movement?
President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton celebrate healthcare reform. Will food reformers ever get to celebrate a wide-ranging policy victory? Photo: White HouseWhat follows is the first of a two-post series. “This is what change looks like,” declared a triumphant President Obama after the House had narrowly passed an historic healthcare-reform bill. What would […]
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American Enterprise Institute accidentally makes the case for climate legislation
Several folks have already taken note of this but I wanted to add a few thoughts. Mark Perry at the American Enterprise Institute seems to be inadvertently making the case for climate change legislation. First, he lists a series of things environmentalists predicted would happen assuming business-as-usual levels of pollution. Then, using this chart, he […]
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Designed to Obstruct, US Senate Erodes Public Trust
Last time, I illustrated how the un-democracy of the US Senate hogties the Pacific Northwest. It radically underrepresents the most-populous, diverse, and innovative parts of the country, making it exceedingly difficult for the nation to adapt to the demands of a radically new global era by, for example, adopting sweeping new approaches to energy and […]
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Murky future for Clean Water Act restoration
Now that health insurance reform has passed Congress, is it finally time to restore the health of America’s waters? I know what you’re thinking — the Clean Water Act already protects the nation’s waters, right? That we learned our lesson and cleaned up our water act after the Cuyahoga River caught fire in 1969? Wrong. […]
