Climate Politics
All Stories
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Golden State Warrior
It was a sunny weekend for environmentalists in California, where Gov. Gray Davis (D) signed into law a measure closing a loophole that developers have exploited to avoid development restrictions and jack up property values. The loophole enabled developers to subdivide properties based on out-of-date land maps. Conservationists often wound up paying inflated prices to […]
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Almost Heaving, West Virginia
Lawyers representing the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy and residents of Coalfield, W. Va., asked the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday to consider limiting mountaintop-removal coal mining. Instead of taking coal from mountains, mountaintop removal take the mountain from the coal by blasting away entire hilltops, which scars landscapes and fills streams with debris. A U.S. district […]
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With national attention elsewhere, what will happen to the hinterland?
It turns out that this “new economy” of ours may be just as subject to boom and bust as was the economy based on cattle, oil, and lumber. Last month’s terrorist attacks emptied Las Vegas, caused hunters to cancel trips to Idaho and Montana and silenced the phones for ski-resort reservations in Colorado. The West’s […]
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The political reshuffling in the U.S. could help the environment
It is impossible to conceive of human acts as wholly devoid of humanity as last month’s terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. The nation is reeling, emotionally stranded by confusion, shared suffering, and a stunningly new sense of danger. But if something good has come out of this paroxysm of grief and alarm it […]
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What's changed, what hasn't, and what should for the environmental movement
I was in New York City on Sept. 11, so recently I’ve seen a lot of things go up in smoke. First there were the airplanes, careening nose-first into the World Trade Center towers and — it seemed almost uncanny at the time — failing to emerge on the other side. Then there were the […]
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A post-Sept. 11 manifesto for environmentalists
I. The time will soon come when we will not be able to remember the horrors of Sept. 11 without remembering also the unquestioning technological and economic optimism that ended on that day. II. This optimism rested on the proposition that we were living in a “new world order” and a “new economy” that would […]
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Fairer Faucet
For the first time, construction of new housing developments in California will be contingent on water availability, under a bill signed yesterday by Gov. Gray Davis (D). The new law prohibits cities and counties from approving housing projects of 500 or more units unless water agencies verify that there is sufficient water to serve the […]
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United They Stand
In a sign-of-the-times statement, Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said yesterday that his committee would stop work on an energy bill for the rest of year to avoid “issues that divide, rather than unite us.” Prior to the Sept. 11 attacks, a sweeping energy package was a […]
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David Friedman, Union of Concerned Scientists
David Friedman is a senior analyst with the clean vehicles program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. UCS educates and works with the public to advocate for environmental solutions based on the best scientific understanding. The Clean Vehicles Program develops and promote strategies to reduce the adverse impacts of the U.S. transportation system. Monday, 8 […]
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Going With the Grain
In a closely contested vote yesterday, the U.S. House defeated an amendment to a massive farm bill that would have shifted $19 billion from crop subsidies to conservation efforts. The defeat, which was engineered largely by lawmakers from traditional farming states, paves the way for approval of a 10-year, $171 billion farm bill that would […]
