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The facts of cap-and-trade [VIDEO]
It’s a smidge belated, but the folks at Clean Energy Works have a smart video rejoinder to Annie Leonard’s December hit video on cap-and-trade. (Readers may recall me flying off the handle about Leonard’s video, here and here.) In The Facts of Cap-and-Trade, Nat Keohane, economist for Environmental Defense Fund, gives a thoughtful and friendly defense of cap-and-trade — why […]
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An argument against Murkowski’s radical attempt to overrule EPA scientists
Today one of my Republican colleagues introduced a proposal to brazenly overturn sound scientific work done by our nation’s leading public health experts and prohibit the Environment Protection Agency from doing its job to protect the health and welfare of the American people. This extremely damaging proposal is a political stunt designed to effectively strip […]
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Supreme Court ruling on elections puts concept of any kind of reform into doubt
In a ruling today, the Supreme Court rolled back campaign finance laws to the pre-Watergate era: Sweeping aside a century-old understanding and overruling two important precedents, a bitterly divided Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that the government may not ban political spending by corporations in candidate elections. The ruling was a vindication, the majority said, […]
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New Sierra Club chief brings confrontational style to the job
Michael BrunePhoto courtesy Sierra ClubThe Sierra Club’s new leader will come to the job with a record of “environmental agitation” against big industrial polluters. The group announced on Wednesday that Michael Brune, 38, currently head of Rainforest Action Network (RAN), will replace Carl Pope as executive director as of March 15. Brune honed RAN’s strategy […]
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It’s all about independents — and independence
The amazing table above comes from a new Allstate/National Journal/Heartland Monitor poll of 1200 Americans conducted January 3 to 7 . Even after a multimillion dollar disinformation campaign funded by big oil and corporate polluters, the public still understands that the climate bill would help the U.S. economy (unlike their view of the bailout bills […]
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Coal ash first real test of Obama commitment to health and safety regulation
A critical test of the Obama Administration’s commitment to reviving the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is teeing up behind closed doors at the White House. Once again, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is cast in the role of regulation killer, supported by a slew of state and other federal agencies that are polluters […]
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NYT’s Kim Severson on the value of school gardens
Anyone who has come home from school carrying a sprouting bean in a foam cup can attest that growing plants has long been used as a teaching tool. — Kim Severson of the NYT slips a full-throated defense of school gardens into a profile of a new Brooklyn Edible Schoolyard Project
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Copenhagen Accord is the priority, says U.S. climate envoy. But what about a binding treaty?
U.S. Climate Envoy Todd Stern.A month after he rode herd at Copenhagen’s COP15 climate talks, Todd Stern is exhorting participants to make the outcome of the conference meaningful. “Life needs to be breathed into the Copenhagen Accord,” the State Department’s special envoy for climate change tells Grist. He insists that the three-page document represents a […]
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Why are libertarian right wingers defending a dysfunctional, state-engineered food system?
Such scenes would not be possible without government policies that encourage cheap corn. Why do conservatives fetishize indsustrial food, again? Wikimedia commonsBack in 2002, in the right-wing National Review, Rod Dreher declared the rise of the “crunchy cons” — political conservatives who had come to value alternative food systems and reject the dreck served up […]
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How Scott Brown’s victory can help get climate legislation over the finish line
So was that it? With the stunning Scott Brown victory in Massachusetts, have we already reached the end of the Obama era? After all — play dramatic cord — the Democrats no longer have 60 votes! I say good riddance. Sure, if you’re a climate-movement activist, it’s not hard to be bummed, big time, by […]
