Posts Under ‘climate politics’ Category

Why U.S. Climate Policy is Radioactive

Below is a guest post from Jonathan Gilligan, an associate professor in the Department of Earth & Environmental Sciences, Vanderbilt University. He is also the associate director of Vanderbilt’s Climate Change Research Network. Gilligan works at “the intersection of science, ethics, and public policy with a focus on the ways in which scientific knowledge and…Continue Reading…

Getting Past the Argument

This essay by Bill McKibben is getting a lot of eyeballs. Originally published yesterday in The Washington Post (where it was among the most widely read articles for part of the day), it has since been reproduced in Salon and The Huffington Post.  At the Washington Post, the piece thus far has generated over 1200…Continue Reading…

Cherry Picking Risks

In the Guardian, Jules Boykoff takes stock of the seriousness with which national security experts inside and outside the U.S. military view climate change, a subject I’ve often take up here and elsewhere. As Boykoff drily notes: This isn’t a tree-hugging festival. It’s the US military and its partners making clear-eyed calculations based on the best…Continue Reading…

Stop the Presses!

A former Republican governor from a conservative state who is now considering a run for President is….get ready for it..vouching for climate science and not denying the existence of global warming. Shocking! Unbelievable! He also must not be seriously thinking he can win the GOP nomination. Here’s the excerpt of Jon Huntsman’s interview with Time…Continue Reading…

With Friends Like These, Who Needs Republicans

There is this assumption in environmental and climate circles that the Republican party represents (in the United States) the biggest obstacle to political progress on climate change. Recent developments certainly support this view. Since 2009, the GOP has become increasingly hostile to climate science. Republican presidential hopefuls are marching to this same Tea Party beat (even those…Continue Reading…

Waterboarding and Climate Change

Those two terms don’t have much in common unless you’re a 2012 Republican Presidential candidate running away from your prior positions on torture and the environment. I’m referring to former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, or T-Paw as he’s known in his home state. Via Andrew Sullivan (who is all over Dick Cheney for claiming torture…Continue Reading…

On Revkin, Romm and the Zero Sum Climate Debate

The response by some climate scientists and climate bloggers to a nuanced perspective on the tornado/climate change issue reveals just how zero sum the climate debate remains in some corners. In a follow-up to this superb post, Andy Revkin draws attention to a missing component in recent tornado-related commentary from some prominent voices in the…Continue Reading…

Chris Mooney Spins Himself Dizzy Over Nisbet

What world is Chris Mooney living in? In his latest attempt to spin the Matthew Nisbet report into something it’s not, Mooney is pleased to announce that this Miller-McCune “story came out quite well,” which extensively quotes him. Well, I think the story on Nisbet’s report was fair and turned out quite well, too. How about…Continue Reading…

Climate Doom Fatigue

Over at Climate Central, I ask: Can we have a sustainable conversation on climate change?

On Climate & Energy Policy, Dems Dance Alone

My issues with Joe Romm aside, he has written a post today that is spot-on. (My rule is to play the argument, not the man.) Riffing off this superb Ezra Klein piece, Romm writes: In the climate bill debate of the past two years, Obama and the Democrats embraced Republican ideas in an effort to…Continue Reading…