Barack Obama
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Critical List: Hurricane Adrian rises; Romney’s climate change problem
Here we go: first hurricane of the year. Wild elephants killed one person in a rampage through an Indian city. Poor guy, but also, poor elephants! They were probably only there because their habitat is shrinking. Obama's meeting with the heads of oil-rich African states. Romney believes in climate change, but not in doing anything […]
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Hey Obama: Defend our public lands!
The Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.Cross-posted from ThinkProgress. The nation’s public lands are a central part of our national heritage, imagination, and spirit. Millions of Americans visit our public lands each year to experience history firsthand and wonder at some of the nation’s most beautiful natural spaces. That’s why one of my proudest accomplishments from the […]
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The New Yorker slams oil-focused Obama for letting the planet burn
We’re screwed.Check out Elizabeth Kolbert in The New Yorker: When Obama took office, he appointed some of the country’s most knowledgeable climate scientists to his Administration, and it seemed for a time as if he might take his responsibility to lead on this issue seriously. That hope has faded. The President sat on the sidelines […]
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Perilous pipeline: Will Hillary Clinton give the OK to a massive tar-sands pipeline?
Oil refineries outside Channelview. Do we really need to add a tar-sands pipeline to the mix?Photo: KM&G-MorrisWill Hillary Clinton put the desires of a giant oil corporation ahead of the needs and health of low-income communities and communities of color? Will anyone else in the Obama administration stand up and stop her? With the State […]
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States fight back against nuclear power, even as the feds remain in its thrall
This is part three in a series on the United States and nuclear power. Read parts one, two, and four. Although Democrats and Republicans in Congress feed at the nuclear industry’s trough in equal measure, Republicans in particular have been trying hard for years to bring about a renaissance of nuclear power in the United States. […]
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Carbon President: Why does Obama keep OK’ing big fossil-fuel projects?
The future’s looking hot.Photo: The White HouseThis essay was originally published on TomDispatch and is republished here with Tom’s kind permission. In our globalized world, old-fashioned geography is not supposed to count for much: mountain ranges, deep-water ports, railroad grades — those seem so 19th century. The Earth is flat, or so I remember somebody […]
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Obama administration overseeing explosion in renewables on public land
The Bush administration issued more than 40,000 permits for oil and gas drilling on public lands, but approved zero solar projects (even though they received 300 applications). In contrast, in 2010 alone the Bureau of Land Management approved 9 solar projects representing 3,682 megawatts of electric power, reports Climate Central. Why the difference? According to […]
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L.A. Times: Obama is throwing ‘the environment and public health under a bus’ to get reelected
Photo: The White HouseThe L.A. Times has delivered a blistering editorial that everybody in the White House should read: In the 2012 campaign, environmentalists don’t matter That’s the message President Obama is sending as the administration caters to smokestack and other industries. Ouch. Here’s the whole thing: Shortly after his party’s “shellacking” in the midterm […]
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Obama’s oil plan shows he still doesn’t get post-truth politics
In his weekly address, Obama once again promoted an energy plan that centrally involves increased domestic drilling for oil and gas. You can read the ugly details at The New York Times or Politico. Here’s the political thinking that informs this move: Gas prices are rising and people are angry. Republicans and conservative Dems are […]
