Climate Politics
All Stories
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Should low-probability, high-impact risks govern policymaking?
All due respect to Paul Krugman, but the Weitzman thesis [PDF] has always made me a little uncomfortable. The idea is that it’s human nature to disregard unlikely risks, but if the unlikely risks are catastrophic enough then legislators should build policy around them. If there’s, say, a 2 percent chance that global warming could […]
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Kaine’t touch this
I’m not convinced by the recent buzz around Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine as Obama’s VP choice, for reasons having little to do with his horrendous record on coal. However, his horrendous record on coal does make it particularly irksome that Obama is so publicly feting him. If I’d been here I would have written this […]
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Nixon: Not a closet enviro
It’s become something of a canard, when ritually invoking the need for bipartisanship on environmental issues, to note that Richard Nixon created the EPA. You might take this to mean that Nixon valued environmental protection. Historian Rick Perlstein would like to disabuse you of that notion.
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More drilling in exchange for comprehensive energy legislation
Democrat Barack Obama on Friday said he would be willing to support some offshore drilling if it were necessary to enact a comprehensive energy plan, and indicated that he could support the bipartisan energy plan put forward by the Senate’s “Gang of 10” that includes both drilling and a major investment in renewables. The shift […]
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Obama releases new ad blasting’s McCain’s ties to oil industry
The campaign 2008 energy ad wars continue, delving deeper into negative territory. Today, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama released a new television ad accusing GOP rival John McCain of being in the pocket of Big Oil. The ad highlights the astronomical profits that oil companies have recently reported, and the roughly $2 million in campaign […]
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Coastal governors stand in the way of offshore drilling, even if Congress approves it
President Bush keeps repeating his call for Congress to lift the moratorium on offshore drilling. Republican presidential candidate John McCain is consistently drilling home the same message. And on Wednesday of last week, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said that just in case the ban is lifted, his department is laying the groundwork so offshore drilling […]
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Obama softens opposition to offshore drilling, and more political news
Barack Obama opened the door to offshore drilling on Friday, saying, “My interest is in making sure we’ve got the kind of comprehensive energy policy that can bring down gas prices. If, in order to get that passed, we have to compromise in terms of a careful, well thought-out drilling strategy that was carefully circumscribed […]
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What power politics looks like
As I left for vacation a week ago (hi, I’m back!), I was thinking Republican strategy on energy couldn’t get much nastier. Of course I was wrong. The right is convinced that drilling is its ace in the hole — enough to reverse declining Republican fortunes, maybe even enough to turn a few elections. They’ve […]
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Groups urge action as report finds black Americans are more likely to suffer in changing climate
A new report finds that African-Americans in the United States will suffer the effects of climate change more severely than white Americans. They are twice as likely to live in cities where the heat-island effect makes already-high temperatures more severe. They’re also likely to be “fuel poor.” Increases in energy demand due to greater use […]
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McCain says he trusts Big Oil over energy and economic experts
John McCain said today that he believes what Big Oil says about the amount of oil still available in the United States’ outer continental shelf, rather than estimates offered by energy experts, economists, and the government’s Energy Information Administration. A questioner in the crowd at the National Urban League conference in Orlando, Fla., asked the […]
