Climate Politics
All Stories
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Water and the War on Terror
While leaders in Washington have been war-gaming the national security risks of climate change, they’ve only started to connect the dots to the closely related threats emanating from the growing crisis of global freshwater scarcity. At first blush, water and national security may not seem to be interlinked. But the reality, as narrated in my […]
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Democratic candidate in Colo. guv race questions climate science
“I get in trouble every time I say this, but I’m not 100 percent absolutely sure that climate change is occurring at the rate that some people fear it is and is going to be as catastrophic.” — Denver mayor and gubernatorial candidate John Hickenlooper, speaking at the Colorado Rural Electric Association’s annual meeting. Hickenlooper […]
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Lindsey Graham’s dilemma, part two: Trying to deal a winning hand without ACES
As we saw yesterday, Sen. Lindsey Graham is in a pickle. He wants a climate bill. He wants to put a price on carbon. He wants to bring diverse constituencies to the table. He wants to craft something the public can support. But he can’t use the bill that already did all that stuff! The […]
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Obama’s cholesterol beef isn’t with the burgers, but the buns
(Photo by Vanessa Pike-Russell, Creative Commons)It must have surprised many that a president as young and vigorous as Barack Obama could be experiencing rising cholesterol, as reported last week. But even more surprising is the misinformation being doled out by the people around him about the likely causes. “Too many burgers,” came the ready explanation. […]
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Gore’s climate remedy must match diagnosis
Al Gore’s eminence in the global climate movement is on impressive display in his full-throated defense of climate science in Sunday’s New York Times. His essay, “We Can’t Wish Away Climate Change,” is triple the paper’s standard length for op-eds. Only Gore could command such a bully pulpit, and probably no one else could so […]
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Lindsey Graham’s dilemma, part one: How ACES got dealt a poor hand
Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.), Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) appear set to introduce a draft of their new climate/energy legislation this week. Graham says they are trying to hash out a moderate bill that can draw broad public support and pick up a few Republican votes. Now, as it happens, what Graham is […]
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Study suggests junk food taxes may beat healthy food subsidies
An interesting new study was just published in Psychological Science, about a lab experiment at SUNY Buffalo that suggests junk-food taxes increase the overall nutritional quality of a shopping trip, while subsidies on healthy foods actually decrease the nutritional quality (via Science Daily). [Study author and clinical psychologist Dr. Leonard] Epstein and colleagues simulated a […]
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Sen. Inhofe’s latest attack is on climate scientists, not just science
Sen. James Inhofe, (R-Okla.), the Senate’s chief spokesman for climate deniers, says so many outrageous things (see his recent interview on Grist) he’s all but lost his power to surprise. Last week, though, the Oklahoma Republican crossed a line that I find shocking, attempting to discredit scientists through innuendo and the kind of intimidation that […]
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The Climate Post: Climate bill + climategate = Bill ‘Climate’ Gates!
First things first: Recent political difficulties for the president and key colleagues in the Senate have not removed energy and climate issues from the White House and majority’s agenda. Obama told business executives yesterday that the U.S. economy must start “to put a price on carbon pollution.” He touted his White House’s activities on energy […]
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James Inhofe, Senate’s top skeptic, explains his climate-hoax theory
Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), one of the world’s most vociferous climate skeptics, is practically giddy these days. He’s argued since 2003 that global warming is a massive “hoax” being played on the American people, and now he believes he’s got more backing than ever before for his claim, from “Climategate” emails to errors in the […]
