Climate Politics
All Stories
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Transparency at the Bonn climate negotiations
You might think that the international global warming negotiations are occurring in some backroom, filled with smoke, and outside the view of the world. That is after all, what some opponents to global warming solutions would have you believe. But that is the farthest thing from the truth. Let me give you some examples from […]
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Agriculture: A necessary complication in the climate negotiations
Despite a sense that the international climate change negotiations, convened in Bonn, Germany this week, are grinding forward at a painfully slow pace, there is a momentum to the process that makes adding new ideas very difficult. It took several years of behind the scenes technical work and at least two years of carefully planned […]
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House approves “Cash for Clunkers” bill, enviros unimpressed
The House approved a measure on Tuesday that would give Americans a cash incentive to trade in their old, gas-guzzling automobiles for slightly more efficient models. The “Cash for Clunkers” bill passed through the chamber with a 298 to 119 vote, and the Senate could vote on similar legislation later this week. The bill would […]
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Newt Gingrich: “I am not a citizen of the world.”
“Ich bin ein Berliner” – not! The other intellectual leader of the GOP – the one whose first name isn’t Sarah – summed up the narrow minded and ultimately self-destructive “every-country-for-themselves” mentality of the modern conservative movement Monday. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich was keynoting the biggest GOP fundraiser of the year for the Senate […]
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Waxman-Markey could save $3,900 per household and create 650,000 jobs by 2030
The energy efficiency provisions in the House energy and climate bill (H.R. 2454) could save $750 per household by 2020 and $3,900 per household by 2030, according to an analysis by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE). An ACEEE news release notes that not only will efficiency reduce the costs to consumers and […]
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Offsets: Pissing the earth away
More than 2 and half years ago I wrote: “Mommy, where do carbon offsets come from?” “Well, you see sweetheart, when a major polluter and a consultant love money very, very much, they express that love in a special way. Nine months later, the consultant produces an extremely large paper packet.” Offsets, the idea that […]
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Why do U.S. environmentalists remain irrationally committed to a losing strategy?
Watching the remains of a movement strain our every organizational fiber to advance a climate bill we know is a travesty reminds me of G.K. Chesterton’s observation about sex: the pleasure is momentary, the position ridiculous, and the expense damnable. Waxman-Markey ought to be opposed by U.S. environmentalists for obvious and pragmatic reasons — street […]
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Should Wilderness Society strip Rahall of award?
“Something like a shadow has fallen between the past and the present, an abyss wide as war that cannot be bridged by any tangible connection, so that memory is undermined and the image of our beginnings betrayed, dissolved, rendered not mythical but illusory. We have connived in the murder of our own origins.” — Edward […]
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Sierra Club, MoveOn call on House leaders to strengthen climate bill
The Sierra Club, MoveOn, and other green and progressive groups have sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) asking her to work to strengthen the American Clean Energy and Security Act when it moves to the House floor. The letter also went to Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.), the bill’s […]
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On working with the UNFCCC and making aerial climate art
500 marshmallows organize for climate action.Robert van Waarden / Spectral QFor better or worse, ours is the age of distraction. Texting while in lectures, talking while in the car driving, iphoning while going, well, anywhere really. The possibilities for connecting beyond our immediate environment can take 25 hours of the day, and those possibilities are […]
