Climate Politics

What will London’s new mayor, Boris Johnson, do for the environment?

Ben Tuxworth, communications director at Forum for the Future, writes a monthly column for Gristmill on sustainability in the U.K. and Europe.

Boris Johnson is mayor of London. It's pretty surprising to many of us here, including a fair number of political commentators and, I'd be willing to bet, even a number of the people who voted for him. It's hard to imagine an American equivalent. George Bush as president has some of the connotations, but lacks the class overtones (Johnson is an old Etonian) that we find so irresistible in Britain.

Johnson's trademarks thus far in his political career have been saying what he thinks (sounds great, but includes occasionally referring to black people as "picaninnies"), being posh and funny, and having blond hair. Despite being a senior member of the Conservative team, in his media appearances he is charmingly off-message, with a self-deprecating gag to deflect any serious questions. He's become a sort of mascot for English love of wit but hatred of the intellectual.

So far so good, but compared to the previous mayor, Ken Livingstone, who battled Maggie Thatcher for the soul of London in the '80s and who defined the new office of London mayor, Johnson seems almost willfully lightweight, with no policy record and no real policies, particularly on the environment. Beyond the knee-jerk stuff -- fight crime! get rid of bendy buses! affordable housing for all! -- Johnson's campaign has been very short on specifics. "This guy is just fumbling around," Arnold Schwarzenegger said after seeing him speak at a conference last year.

Cities

Why don’t candidates who claim to be interested in climate change talk about cities more? That’s where the rubber is hitting the road: Officials in King County and other places are rethinking the way their communities grow and operate, all with an eye toward reducing their overall carbon footprint. After decades of policies that encouraged […]

Senators both GOP and Dem introduce destined-to-fail legislation

Senate Democrats are trying once again to yank $17 billion in tax breaks away from oil companies that are enjoying booming profits. The Consumer-First Energy Act, introduced in the Senate on Wednesday, would also put a 25 percent tax on oil companies that don’t invest in renewable energy. Bill cosponsor Harry Reid (D-Nev.) sums up, […]

Alaska legislature looking for polar-bear skeptics

The Alaska legislature wants to use $2 million in state money to fund an “academic based” conference to highlight the views of scientists who don’t think the polar bear should be put on the endangered-species list. The U.S. Interior Department must make a decision by May 15 on whether polar bears are a threatened or […]

Or how to prove you’re even dumber than your opponents

There are a lot of things I miss about Bill Clinton. "Triangulation" is not one of them.

For those unfamiliar with the term, triangulation is the political strategy by which a candidate takes the stupidest ideas of his/her opponent and adopts them as his/her own, thus depriving one's opponent of a monopoly on stupidity and dispelling any misconception that you might be a candidate of substance and principle.

If you remember, after the spectacular rise of the charismatic Bill Clinton, political consultants identified "triangulation" as the key to his victory. A cynical person might say that's because consultants can make more money telling would-be candidates how to triangulate than how to be as charismatic as Bill.

Anyway, that's what I think is behind Hillary's embrace of the gas-tax holiday. Beh.

McCain: We went to war for oil

In ’91, that is! Not in 2003. No sir.

Unilever supports rainforest destruction moratorium

Greenpeace just announced a big win in its anti-palm oil campaign: just five days after launching a campaign to pressure food and cosmetics giant Unilever to stop purchasing palm oil from rainforest destroyers, Unilever met Greenpeace halfway. Apparently nervous about the prospect of orangutan-suited activists continuing to scale their corporate headquarters (see picture), the company agreed to support a legal moratorium on rainforest destruction. Given that Unilever uses five percent of the world's palm oil and chairs the so-called Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, that's big news!

Baroo?

NBC reporting that Clinton has cancelled her morning show appearances and all public events tomorrow.

Save us, Al!

“Perhaps the only guy that can end this is Al Gore.” — David Gergen, political consultant and former presidential adviser, commenting on the never-ending Democratic primary during CNN’s live coverage Tuesday night

Obama takes NC; Clinton appears to win Indiana

Barack Obama claimed North Carolina, and Hillary Clinton is the likely winner out in Indiana. In his speech in Raleigh, Obama noted the need for new, clean energy policy, and took the opportunity to knock Clinton and McCain’s “gas-tax holiday” plan: The man I met in Pennsylvania who lost his job but can’t even afford […]