Climate Politics

Learn how to recognize the shills

Yesterday I wrote about an energy conference in Utah at which Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer enthusiastically shilled for coal and demanded more federal money for it. Looking more closely at the conference, I see I shouldn’t have been surprised. The Salt Lake Tribune story from yesterday is all but a press release for Utah Gov. […]

USDA Seeks to fill enviro slot on Organic Board

The United States Department of Agriculture seeks to fill an "environmentalist" slot on the National Organic Standards Board, an opening announced in an April 16th press release. Why should you care? The NOSB makes recommendations to the USDA on what is allowable under USDA Organic Standards. Cloned animals? Recombinant DNA? Sewage sludge? The Board influenced all the decisions to keep these substances out, and will make important future recommendations as well.

Contact Katherine E. Benham, of the National Organic Program. Nominations close August 17, 2007. The position will probably be filled around January, as that's when environmentalist Andrea Caroe's term ends.

More in the press release here. Holla, people! I know you know someone!

Parody is so pre-9/11

I can’t do much to improve on the humor of the two lead paragraphs in this AP piece: The head of the Environmental Protection Agency said Monday the growth of greenhouse gases by less than 1 percent in 2005 shows the administration’s program to address global warming “is delivering real results.” The pronouncement by EPA […]

Really

The 33rd meeting of the G8 is happening in early June, in Germany. German Chancellor Angela Merkel — perhaps in retaliation for the infamous backrub — is determined to put climate change high on the agenda. Not surprisingly, the U.S. and Canada are working to water down the draft communique Merkel has put together. Somewhat […]

Denmark is a model of energy independence

Back in January, Jonathan Cohn wrote a fantastic piece in The New Republic about Denmark. Conventional economic wisdom says that countries must choose between robust social services and economic growth. But, Cohn wrote, Denmark casts doubt on that notion: Over the last decade, the Danes have turned the conventional wisdom on its head by boasting […]

Will campaign coverage drown out or draw out competing stories?

Can you believe we're already several galloping laps into horse race reporting on the 2008 presidential campaign? Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi describes this phenomenon more eloquently than I can (and with more profanity than I would probably dare) here. For anyone already snorting in disgust and tuning out the constant stream of chatter about who's raised more money, who's realigning their image this way or that (with what hunting photo-op or change of hairdo), and who's notched up a point and a half in Iowa polls, Taibbi is spot on:

The election, after all, is nearly a full Martian year away, with a Super Bowl and two World Series still to play out in between -- which means that the "urgency" of breaking campaign news is now and will remain for at least a year an almost 100% media concoction.

Quit with the coal boosting already

Down in Salt Lake City, the National Governors Association is holding a three-day Energy Summit. Tired of federal slacking, the NGA has for the first time in its history drawn up a specific list of priorities for Congress to consider this session. Here’s what they said: At the top of the list – in fact, […]

The basic approach of the Bright Lines project

((brightlines_include))

After a decade of brutal political trench warfare, the surreal debate in the U.S. on the reality of climate change is over. A Democratic Congress looking to put climate in play in 2008, serious buy-in for federal regulation from a band of corporate heavyweights, and a rash of climate conversions from the likes of Pat Robertson and Frank Luntz (author of the infamous strategy memo advising Bush administration operatives how to muddle the climate change debate) demonstrate that a significant and probably permanent shift in climate change political gravity has taken place within the last year.

U.S. environmentalists have a very brief opportunity to reshape our climate agenda in order to meet the demands and seize the opportunities of new circumstances, and the stakes could not be higher. It is likely that the actions of U.S. environmentalists in the next two or three years –- more so than any other group of people on the planet -– will determine whether a functional global response to abrupt climate change is advanced.

Maybe the Pentagon can persuade red-staters

The military -- which tends to insist on operating in a reality-based world, as a matter of self-preservation -- thinks global heating is a big threat.

A bit from the story:

Today, 11 retired senior generals issued a report drawing attention to the ability of climate change to act as a "threat multiplier" in unstable parts of the world. The Army's former chief of staff, Gen. Gordon R. Sullivan, who is one of the authors, noted he had been "a little bit of a skeptic" when the study group began meeting in September. But after being briefed by top climate scientists and observing changes in his native New England, Sullivan said he is now convinced that global warming presents a grave challenge to the country's military preparedness.

"The trends are not good, and if I just sat around in my former life as a soldier, if I just waited around for someone to walk in and say, 'This is with a hundred percent certainty,' I'd be waiting forever," he said.

The Err Up There

EPA relaxes clean-air requirements for ethanol-fuel plants Before last week, plants turning corn into liquor (yes, please) were allowed to emit 250 tons of emissions per year before triggering clean-air regulations, while those processing corn into ethanol fuel could emit only 100 tons annually. Just doesn’t seem fair, does it? So the U.S. EPA did […]