Climate Politics

Personal ethics pledge my left foot

At the Environment and Public Works hearing yesterday, Sen. Inhofe (R-Okla.) displayed an amazing lack of understanding about energy as he tried to get Gore to make a meaningless pledge. Now the EPW Minority web page repeats the inane charge:

Former Vice President Al Gore refused to take a "Personal Energy Ethics Pledge" today to consume no more energy than the average American household.

But why should Gore take such a pledge? Gore is a champion of greenhouse gas reductions, not energy reductions. Gore explained he buys 100 percent renewable power and is planning to build a solar power system. Thus the electricity Gore consumes in his Tennessee home does not contribute to global warming.

Just doesn’t (or shouldn’t) make sense for conservatives

During his marathon live-blogging yesterday, David "Boss-man" Roberts wrote about the GOP love of nuclear power: "Why are Republicans obsessed with this? It's mystifying. Don't they have anything else to talk about?"

Well, they love clean coal too. The question to me has always been why alleged conservatives have so much time for nuclear when it doesn't align with one of their cherished principles: If "big-government nanny-state market interference" had a poster child, the cooling towers of a nuclear plant would be it.

An interview with Rep. Ed Markey about the politics of climate change

Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) received the chairmanship of the newest House committee — and, along with it, a turf war with one of the oldest and longest-serving Democrats on Capitol Hill, the formidable Michigan Rep. John Dingell. Rep. Edward Markey. The House voted to create the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming earlier […]

FOX News on Gore’s testimony

Fox News on Gore’s testimony: Is it me, or does Brit Hume misunderstand science at a pretty fundamental level?

Memo to Inhofe:

When you’ve lost J-Pod, you know you’ve gone overboard.

Gore gets a warm welcome on Capitol Hill, and a few heated exchanges

Exhibiting a curious mixture of nostalgia and irreverence, Al Gore returned to the halls of Congress yesterday to make the case for sweeping federal action to fight global warming. Buoyed by his recent Academy Award triumph, Gore testified at hearings in both the House and the Senate. Audiences of hundreds lined the oak-paneled walls of […]

Anderson in the NYT today

With so much going on in D.C. today, we nearly missed this great story on our man Rocky Anderson in the New York Times today. Hey Rocky!

For today anyway!

If Gore had asked me what I’d like him to emphasize to Congress, I would have said: The No. 1 most important thing to do is put a price on carbon. Carbon tax: better than cap-and-trade. Cap-and-trade: better than nothing. Cap-and-trade with auctioned permits: better than cap-and-trade without. We should be pursuing widely distributed, small-scale […]

Odds and ends

Substantively, most of what Gore said to the Senate echoed what he said to the House. There were a few things to note about the Senate hearing, though: Gore’s introductory remarks to the Senate (videos here) were a huge step down from his performance in the House. To my eye, he seemed shaky, hesitant, stiff, […]

Even by his standards, this was pathetic

I know that Sen. James Inhofe is a far-right bomb-thrower. I know he’s built a career out of saying absurd things, particularly about global warming. I know nobody expects anything different from him. Despite all that, I was astonished at his performance in today’s hearing. It’s not that he disagrees with Gore. Plenty of legislators […]