Category Archives: politics

I’ve been watching Presidential debates since the Carter-Reagan era, and I have never seen a more entertaining or more revealing debate than the Republicans on YouTube. Since the questioners knew this was their one and only shot at a national audience, they asked what they really wanted to know, without undue fawning and with goodContinue reading “Best Debate Ever: Republicans on YouTube”

John Howard lost not only his position as prime minister of Australia last week, but even his long-held seat in parliament — a defeat widely described as "humiliating." His support for the war in Iraq and against action to reduce the risks of climate change had a lot to do with that humiliation. For thoseContinue reading “The End of the World, According to John Howard”

The best coverage I’ve seen on the humiliating defeat of right-wing Australian PM John Howard comes from the Wall Street Journal, which forthrightly highlights the global warming side of the picture: Unlike his rival [Howard], Mr. Rudd promised to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, the 1997 international accord aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Doing soContinue reading “Good News for the Planet: Bush Alley Loses in Australia”

Yesterday California sued the federal government, demanding the right to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. You will recall that this was the issue before the Supreme Court this spring, in which the court decisively ruled that the EPA does have the right — and the responsibility — to regulate CO2 emissions. Predictably, the Bush administration hasContinue reading “CA to White House: Lead, Follow, or Get Out of the Way”

Last month Julie Gerberding, the director of the highly-respected Centers for Disease Control, testified on global warming before the Senate, but her  was sharply cut by the White House. Subsequently she told the New York Times that she said everything she needed to say, but if you look at the testimony, I promise you, youContinue reading “White House Claims Executive Priviledge to Avoid Global Warming Inquiry”

Anyone else prefer print to YouTube? Here’s John Edwards on why we need to act to reduce the huge risks of global warming, for reasons both moral and practical: It’s not just what we do over there [in Iraq}. We are four percent of the world’s population, emitting 25% of the world’s greenhouse gases. We’reContinue reading “John Edwards on Why Global Warming is a Crisis”

So says Nature. Oxford economist Gwyn Prins and scientist Steve Rayner, writing for the famous English publiciation, call for a post-Kyoto "silver buckshot" approach that sounds a lot like what is happening in England right now: …labelling of consumer products; market instruments, such as emissions trading; and market stimuli, such as procurement programmes for cleanContinue reading “Nature: Kyoto Is Over, but Crisis Continues”

CNN catches the Vice-President sleeping through a cabinet meeting devoted to the California wildfires. He looks so cute when he’s asleep! His hands folded, like a baby. Well, I guess we know what he’s really doing at his "undisclosed location." Napping.