Climate Politics
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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 […]
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Murkowski’s floor speech on EPA regulations was full of deceptions
This morning Lisa Murkowski took to the floor of Congress to introduce her joint resolution of disapproval, which would overturn the U.S. EPA’s endangerment finding deeming greenhouse gas emissions a threat to public health. It was one of the most spectacular displays of mendacity and misdirection I’ve ever seen from a U.S. senator, and that’s […]
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The Climate Post: Asian ice granted temporary stay of execution
First things first: A new U.S. senator and a blip in the post-Copenhagen U.N. negotiations may cause comprehensive global climate policy to melt away faster than the Himalayas-or will they? Surgeon General’s warning: Many points in the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report have been revealed to be wrong as scientists observe global […]
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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 […]
