Climate Politics
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Mounting stresses, failing states
After 50 years of forming states from colonies and from the Soviet breakup, the international community is focusing on the disintegration of states
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The death knell for comprehensive cap-and-trade
I’ve resisted writing the obligatory “what Scott Brown’s victory means for the climate bill” post, mainly because the real answer is Nobody Knows and Everyone’s Full of Sh*t. What pundit wants to say that? Certainly everyone in the DC Village agrees that the Mass. special election was the Biggest Thing Evar (unlike, say, the Oregon […]
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U.N. scientist refutes Daily Mail claim he said Himalayan glacier error was politically motivated
In an exclusive interview — “exclusive” in the sense that many of the people smearing Dr. Murari Lal haven’t bothered to ask him whether the original story was accurate — Dr. Lal asserts that the “most vilest allegations” in the Daily Mail story are utterly false. Sunday, the Daily Mail’s David Rose wrote a sensational piece supposedly based on direct […]
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And the winner of the USDA food safety sweepstakes is …
Dr. Elisabeth Hagen! No, you’re not expected to know who she is. Suffice it to say that, as anticipated, USDA Chief Tom Vilsack turned to an under-the-radar choice for Under Secretary of Food Safety. Hagen, currently the USDA’s Chief Medical Officer, will, if confirmed, take charge of the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), which […]
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Low expectations for Obama’s State of the Union speech
Barack Obama’s first official State of the Union speech is tomorrow at 6pm Pacific. Pondering what to say about it, I’ve become a bit nostalgic for Bush-era SOTUs. We’d all gather around the screen and wait for him to say the word “energy” or, in a few rare cases, “climate.” When he said the U.S. […]
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Messaging that can save the clean energy bill
Frank LuntzI finally got around to reading through the latest polling and focus group results from messaging whiz Frank Luntz. Luntz, for those of you who don’t already know, is infamous in green circles as the author of a 1995 memo coaching Republicans on how to win the environmental messaging war. (See Amanda Little’s 2007 […]
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Congressional coal ash defenders ignore damages back home
With the Environmental Protection Agency expected to release its proposed regulations for power plant coal ash any day now, there is an intense behind-the-scenes lobbying effort by industry interests hoping to keep the waste from being declared hazardous and thus subject to the strictest federal oversight. President Obama’s regulatory czar, Cass Sunstein of the White […]
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Did Jamie Oliver meet his match in ‘America’s Fattest City’?
When last we saw British superstar chef-turned-food-system-reformer Jamie Oliver, he was in the midst of teaching “the fattest city in America” how to cook. How did it go? Well, thanks to the miracle that is reality television, we’ll find out one episode at a time. The series — Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution — doesn’t premiere […]
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Welcome to the Corporatocracy
Coss Posted from Biodiversivist. Corporatocracy. Ever wonder why you can step across the Mexican border and instantly move from one of the richest countries on Earth to one of the poorest? It’s all about governance. Mexico’s government is hobbled by the corrupting influence of wealthy individuals. Politicians trapped in that system have no choice […]
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Lesson for schools: sweetened junk shouldn’t count as food
Sugar in school: give the people what they want? Reporter Ed Bruske spent a week working in a Washington, D.C. public school lunchroom. His series of articles (1, 2, 3) that resulted are fantastic reading for anyone following the ongoing debate regarding school lunches and the challenges for enacting real reform. Today’s entry looked at […]
