Climate Politics

Titular head of GOP says we’re in period of global cooling

OMG. RNC Chair Michael Steele (i.e., the titular head of the GOP) says that global warming is really “global cooling.” Sam Stein at HuffPost excavates Steele’s thoughts on global warming from his little-noticed stint as guest host of a conservative talk radio show on March 6: We are cooling. We are not warming. The warming […]

Will combining climate and energy into one big bill help or hurt the climate cause?

Congressional leaders want to combine energy and climate provisions into one big bill this year, rather than moving a few smaller bills on the issues. But while some on Capitol Hill are cheering this as a way to expedite the process, others are skeptical about the chances of passing one giant bill in 2009, and […]

Americans care about global warming, but don’t see how it connects to other environmental problems

A new poll shows that Americans do care about global warming, but don’t seem to realize how prevalent it really is. This week Gallup released data from its latest poll on global warming indicating that more Americans — 41 percent, the highest number since 1998 — believe that global warming is exaggerated. This sounds like […]

A finger to ineffectual Democrat talkers, and a thumbs up to a possible alternative

This week the Middle Finger Flag gets waved at the Democrats. Yeah, that’s right, the whole lot of ’em. Recently Obama released a budget proposal that included a carbon cap-and-trade plan that would auction — rather than give away to polluting companies — 100 percent of the pollution credits. This is exactly what every policy […]

Obama tells business leaders he’s serious about changing energy policy

Obama spoke on Thursday to the Business Roundtable, whose members include the leaders of energy giants like ExxonMobil, Shell Oil, Southern Company, Peabody Energy Corporation, and Arch Coal. Message: Yes, we’re serious about this green energy thing. But the truth is that these problems in the financial markets, as acute and urgent as they are, […]

WSJ: hacks and handout-seekers hate O's climate plan

Environmental Capital reports that Obama's approach to climate change legislation is foundering, because it's tied to an ambitious social agenda. Which is weird, because Obama's cap-and-trade proposal isn't tied to an ambitious social agenda.

Many Democrats are upset that President Obama's budget earmarks most of the $646 billion in cap-and-trade revenue for generic tax cuts and to help fund other programs, rather than for specific help to cushion the blow of increased climate regulation.

This is a bit tricky to parse, but it helps if you understand that the word "earmark" here is used to mean "the opposite of an earmark." Congresscritters want the money from cap-and-trade for projects in their own states (green infrastructure, vote-buying, what-have-you), and Obama wants to return most of it to taxpayers.

So where is this "ambitious health and social welfare agenda" stuff coming from? For that, we are referred to Bush-era EPA official and liar G. Tracy Mehan, III. Mehan has penned a fairly boring article in which he runs down the usual pros and cons of various flavors of carbon taxation, and then concludes:

W.Va. state senator drinks ‘coal slurry’ as a political statement

Well, that’s one way to make a point about the need to regulate coal waste: CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WSAZ) — A West Virginia State Senator made a unique statement Thursday by drinking a bottle of what he referred to as coal slurry. Senator Randy White (D-Webster) introduced a bill on the senate floor that limits coal […]

It is conservatives, not environmentalists, who want to redistribute costs and burdens — to future

In a boilerplate 'winger column on cap-and-trade, the Wall Street Journal's Kimberly Strassel says that Obama's carbon policy, despite all the rhetoric about reducing emissions and preventing climate change, is secretly just an effort to REDISTRIBUTE WEALTH [bwa ha ha, etc.].

In a similarly boilerplate 'winger column on climate change, Dan Gainor (The Boone Pickens Fellow at the Business & Media Institute -- wonder what T. Boone thinks about this) says that no matter what environmentalists say about "science" and "public health" and so forth, their secret agenda is to CONTROL PEOPLE [evil laugh].

These are very, very common conservative charges against environmentalists. In fact, you'd be hard-pressed to find 'wingers saying anything else on the subject. So it's worth addressing briefly.

Now, as Jason Grument said in response to Strassel's column at the Eco:nomics conference, any government policy redistributes resources: cancer research, invading Iraq, loosening regulations on banks, food stamps, carbon policy, anything. That is the nature of government. The relevant question is whether it's a wise or just redistribution of resources.

But it's important to go beyond that. Lurking behind these attacks is a bedrock conservative faith: that absent government intervention, the market allocates resources with perfect efficiency and those within it are free. Anything government does effectively disturbs a state of grace. Conservatives wouldn't put it so bluntly, but it's the only thing that makes sense of their rhetoric.

So it's worth occasionally reiterating: right now, with respect to climate, we are allocating resources inefficiently and imposing enormous costs and constraints on future generations. We are making them less free -- controlling them, you might say. Environmentalists do not want to control people for the sake of controlling them. They want people to bear the costs and burdens of their own behavior instead of sloughing them off to their kids and grandkids.

Conservatives think running up this enormous ecological and economic debt is "freedom." They think its proper distribution of resources. That's twisted and irresponsible.

Are emission targets ever really ‘science-based’?

Are emission targets ever really ‘science-based’? Or are we playing a dangerous game of self-deception? Last month, Senator Barbara Boxer proposed six principles for climate legislation, the first of which was: 1. Reduce emissions to levels guided by science to avoid dangerous global warming. The National Call to Action on Global Warming, announced last week […]

Tom Vilsack shows you how to get to Sesame Street

Politico followed Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack on Tuesday as he made an appearance on Sesame Street with Cookie Monster. See the video for some shameless pandering to cookies, and a jab at beets: