Climate Politics

Stern in Berkeley

Friday saw a real eye-opener down here in the Berkeley area. Sir Nicholas Stern (of the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change) was speaking at the UC campus, and there was quite a buzz.

Sir Nick is a celeb for sure, and all sorts were there: left, green dead-enders like myself, lots of climate and energy scientists, and a good smattering of new energy VCs, like the fella behind me from Nth Power (which, by the way, isn't giving up on silicon for thin film just yet).

On Revkin’s piece on poverty and climate change impacts

(A topic I return to every once in a while. See here and here.)

The link that Jason posted Sunday deserves a closer look, if you missed it over the weekend. Revkin has written an excellent, if somewhat depressing, piece on the fact that while climate change is overwhelmingly the responsibility of the world's rich nations, the nations that suffer most will be the world's poorest.

It also reminds me of something else I heard Tim Flannery say last week: whatever else we know about climate change, we know that it will stress nations, and stressed nations sometimes do horrible things. The solution to climate change must therefore necessarily be a multilateral one.

On the Markey, get set

I’m a little late on this, but Nation editor Katrina Vanden Heuvel has some smart advice for Rep. Ed Markey, chair of the new House committee on global warming. Speaking of whom — you saw my interview with Markey a while back, right? Good.

Forest Eviction

Judge tosses out Bush administration’s forest-management rules Heads-up to the Bush administration: You can’t always get what you want. (As always, the Rolling Stones know best.) On Friday, a federal judge tossed out the administration’s revised forest-management rules, issued in 2005, which allowed national forest managers to approve logging, mining, cell-phone towers, and other commercial […]

Breaking: Supreme Court rules against Bush admin. in global warming case

Word just came down that the Supreme Court has ruled against the Bush administration in the landmark global warming case of Massachusetts v. EPA. The ruling was 5-4, with conservatives dissenting and the crucial vote of Anthony Kennedy going with the … non-conservatives. Background on the case here, here, here, and here. The court addressed […]

Nom de Doom

Bush renominates controversial industry folk to environmental positions President Bush is recycling — nominees, that is. To fill three top environmental jobs in his administration, Bush has re-suggested three folks with ties to polluting industries, all of whom were blocked by Congress the first time they were nominated. William Wehrum, temporary-seeking-permanent administrator for the EPA’s […]

Supreme Slapdown

Supreme Court rules against Bush administration in global-warming case In a landmark Supreme Court case — the first ever on the issue of global warming — the court has ruled that carbon dioxide is a pollutant under the Clean Air Act and that the U.S. EPA should regulate it as such. Boo-yah! The ruling is […]

Right before my very eyes: Ethiopia

The vista of Ethiopia's ancient Rift Valley, speckled with shimmering lakes, stretches before me as our motorized caravan heads south from Lake Langano, part of a study tour on population-health-environment issues organized by the Packard Foundation. Sadly, the country's unrelenting poverty and insecurity are as breathtaking as the view -- Ethiopia currently ranks 170 out of 177 countries on the UN Development Programme's Human Development Index.

Where to find green news

Lately I’ve been feeling guilty about the fact that I frequently fail to cite where I find the links and articles I blog about. (Adding a "via so and so" or "hat tip: such and such" is good blog etiquette.) It’s not deliberate, it’s just that by the time I get around to blogging on […]

April Fools joke?

With the Bush administration, you never can tell: The White House has renominated three people for top jobs affecting the environment who were previously blocked in Congress because of their pro-industry views. According to industry lobbyists and Republican aides in Congress, Bush intends to skirt the Senate approval process if necessary by making recess appointments […]