Climate Politics

Senate candidate shows energy policy promise; rocks at parties

Oregonian candidate for U.S. Senate Steve Novick seems refreshingly up on energy issues:

But is he electable? Well, they say Bush got votes because people perceived him as a guy they could relax and have a beer with:

An interview with Ralph Nader about his presidential platform on energy and the environment

He brought you the seat belt. He launched a consumer advocacy empire. He got over 2 million votes in the 2000. We interview with Ralph Nader about his presidential platform.

Bush aide: Slightly less than doubling of GDP is ‘recessionary’

Need more proof that Bush will never, ever, in a million gazillion years, sign a decent climate bill? Here’s what his right-hand hack Jim Connaughton had to say ($ub. req’d) about the relatively tepid Lieberman-Warner bill: James Connaughton, the chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, cited EPA’s worst-case modeling projections for the […]

Word

James Howard Kunstler, who has a new post-peak-oil novel out this week (World Made by Hand, which I hope to review soon) hits the nail on the head in his weekly commentary:

Race and opportunity

Obama: Jones:

The world is waiting for us to lead the way

This is the third in a series on why we should push for climate legislation this year. See also Part I and Part II.

Why push for a climate bill in 2008? I've already offered some reasons in my previous posts: the politics will be much the same in 2009 (Okay, David offered that one), we don't want to squander the current momentum, and in any case, we simply can't afford to wait.

But if those aren't reason enough, here's another: The world is waiting for us to act. To solve the global warming problem, China and other developing countries also must cap their emissions, and they won't do this until our own cap is in place.

From a New York Times report:

"China is not going to act in any sort of mandatory-control way until the United States does first," said Joseph Kruger, policy director for the National Commission on Energy Policy, a bipartisan group in Washington.

Along with India and other large developing countries, China has long maintained that the established industrial powers need to act first because they built their wealth largely by burning fossil fuels and adding to the atmosphere's blanket of greenhouse gases.

If the U.S. -- the wealthiest country on Earth -- won't establish a cap, how can we expect developing countries to do it?

House committee to investigate EPA panel members’ conflicts of interest

A House committee has opened an investigation into possible conflicts of interest concerning members of U.S. EPA expert panels that advise the agency on matters such as banning or restricting the use of certain toxic chemicals. The EPA stirred up controversy last year when it dismissed a toxicologist from a panel that was reviewing the […]

Ship pilot charged in San Francisco oil spill

The pilot of the ship that spilled more than 50,000 gallons of oil into the San Francisco Bay in November has been charged with criminal negligence, harming federally protected birds, and violating the Clean Water Act. If found guilty, Capt. John Cota could face up to 18 months in jail and more than $100,000 in […]

G20 climate meeting ends, accomplishing nothing

In case you’ve been wondering what happened at this weekend’s gathering of the G20 biggest-polluting countries, the answer is: pretty much nothing. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair formally announced his goal to eke out a meaningful climate agreement, and declared, “We have reached the critical moment of decision on climate change. There are few, […]

More notable stuff from a panel with the campaigns’ energy folk

Here are some bits and pieces that didn’t fit in to my other post about the presidential energy adviser panel: — At the end of the panel, host Alan Murray called on the audience to use their little clicker widgets to indicate: which of the candidates would you vote for based on the energy policy […]