From the Department of Counterintuitive Thinking: The debate about climate change needs to become more political, and less scientific. That is from climate researcher Mike Hulme, in a provocative essay at The Conversation. The above quote makes more sense when you read the sentence that follows: Articulating radically different policy options in response to the risks posed…Continue Reading…
Do you remember the famous “just say no” public service ads from the 1980s–the commercials that urged kids to say no to drugs? (There was also a spin-off “just say no” to premarital sex.) I think many of us can agree that the basic idea was well meaning. And naive and simplistic. The just say…Continue Reading…
In the early 2000s, when the Bush Administration started formulating its domestic energy policy, they snookered U.S. environmental groups with a classic bait & switch. Bush & company made a lot of noise about opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), which has long been a symbolic icon for green groups. Environmentalists promptly went…Continue Reading…
Ben Smith at Politico has picked up on something that speaks to why the (temporarily) successful anti-Keystone pipeline protest is meaningful to the climate debate. Smith noticed this: Whatever the objectives of protesters involved in Occupy Wall Street, they have succeeded in engaging the country in a conversation about income inequality. A quick search of…Continue Reading…
Yesterday’s announcement by the Obama Administration to postpone a final decision on the Keystone pipeline until after the 20012 Presidential has triggered much chatter and insta-analysis. There are two smart takes worth pointing out. The first is this NYT op-ed by Michael Levi, a climate and energy expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, which…Continue Reading…