Climate Politics

A smattering of presidential campaign news

Recent news on the presidential campaign front: • Barack Obama held an “Economic Competitiveness” summit today with leaders from the business, labor, education, and philanthropy, in which he touted his plan to invest $150 billion in the green energy sector and create five million new jobs. “This can be the moment when we make a […]

Aftermath of Supreme Court’s Exxon decision

Estimated time for full ecological recovery by affected species from the Exxon Valdez oil tanker spill: 15 - 30 years.

Estimated time for full financial recovery by Exxon Mobil Corp. from yesterday's Supreme Court decision: 4.5 days.

As written in yesterday's opinion:

The real problem, it seems, is the stark unpredictability of punitive awards.

Was Florida guv’s big Everglades deal an attempt to keep him in the running for VP?

Over on The Wall Street Journal‘s Environmental Capitol blog, Keith Johnson raises the question of whether Charlie Crist’s $1.75 billion deal to buy 300 square miles of the Everglades from U.S. Sugar Corp. was timed to keep his chance at the VP spot alive, as some Floridians have suggested. Last week Grist noted that Crist’s […]

House blocks uranium mining near Grand Canyon National Park

The House Natural Resources Committee pulled a rarely-used move today to block uranium mining in one million acres of public land near the Grand Canyon, using their authority to order the Bush administration to immediately halt mining claims. Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), chair of the Subcommittee on National Parks, Forest and Public Lands, suggested using […]

McCain on nuclear waste problem

With John McCain in Nevada today promoting, among other things, his love of nuclear power, Sierra Club is circulating this video of McCain talking about nuclear waste. McCain’s a proponent of using Yucca Mountain to dispose of the waste, and a lot of Nevadans don’t like that idea very much. In the video, though, he […]

What the next president should say

Here is what I would like the next president to tell the American people:

1. The era of cheap energy is over. We will never again see cheap gas, and we can expect the price of electricity to rise inexorably.
2. In order for the United States to survive, we need to rebuild our energy infrastructure.
3. To reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, we need to implement a carbon tax or cap-and-trade system. This is a national security issue.
4. We need a Manhattan-style government-funded project to develop new forms of renewable energy. We should be spending several tens of billions of dollars every year on this research.
5. Increased drilling or unconventional sources of fuel, like oil shale or tar sands, will provide so little fuel that they are simply not worth doing.

The truth is that there is no way to avoid the pain of high energy prices. There are no easy solutions, and no way for us to continue living as we have in the past. Changes are on the way. Deal with it.

This underscores a key point that I have not seen discussed. Given that we need to rebuild our energy infrastructure anyway, it makes sense and is possible to take care of climate change at the same time we take care of energy. In this way, I don't think we have to set the problems of energy and climate in opposition to each other.

McCain names his energy plan and bashes Barack Obama while he’s at it

John McCain gave another energy speech today (bringing the grand total in the past week to four), this one in Las Vegas. It seems like the big new thing in this speech is that he’s given a name to the various components of his energy plan that he’s rolled out slowly over the past week: […]

National Intelligence Assessment finds that climate change poses national security threat

A National Intelligence Assessment of the security challenges presented by climate change, which Congress requested last year, has been completed, and the intelligence community has come to the same conclusion that many have before: Climate change poses a threat to national security. The report looks at the national security implications of climate change through 2030, […]

White House refuses to open email about regulating greenhouse gases

The White House has refused to accept the Environmental Protection Agency’s conclusion that greenhouse gases are pollutants that must be controlled, and has told EPA officials that the email they sent containing the document of their findings would not be opened, reports The New York Times. Apparently the email in question has been hanging in […]

Day three of the UN Dispatch-Grist collaboration

The UN Dispatch-Grist collaboration continues today with a discussion of the top user-rated idea on On Day One: 'Eat the View,' by Roger Doiron. This idea was so popular, it even found its way into The New York Times.

Here's what he suggests:

Announce plans for a food garden on the White House lawn, making one of the White House's eight gardeners responsible for it, with part of produce going to the White House kitchen and the rest to a local food pantry. The White House is "America's House" and should set an example. The new President would not be breaking with tradition, but returning to it (the White House has had vegetable gardens before) and showing how we can meet global challenges such as climate change and food security.

Kate Sheppard, David Roberts, and Timothy B. Hurst respond below the fold.