Climate Politics
All Stories
-
A Bonn in the Oven
It’s a fair bet that many in the diplomatic horde converging on Bonn, Germany, for the latest round of global warming talks would rather be somewhere else. In the past when they’ve gathered, negotiators charged with forging an international strategy against climate change could usually expect to produce enough forward movement, however incremental, to go […]
-
Gallons of Gasp
A panel appointed by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences has drafted a report recommending that the U.S. require automakers to improve the fuel economy of new vehicles. The 13-member panel, made up mostly of engineers and consultants who have worked for auto and oil companies, contends that fuel economy for cars and SUVs could […]
-
Fuel on the Hill
U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, five cabinet secretaries, and 25 congressional Republicans fanned out across the country yesterday to try to bolster public support for the Bush administration’s drill-based energy plan. Now that fuel costs are falling and fuel supplies are rising, the administration has taken to describing the current energy situation in the country […]
-
Kweisi for You
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People said last week that it would sue companies that manufactured lead paint. NAACP President Kweisi Mfume described exposure to lead paint as a “civil rights issue.” The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has found that low-income children are eight times more likely to live […]
-
Non Bonn Jovial
Delegates from about 180 countries began talks today in Bonn, Germany, to try to salvage the Kyoto treaty on climate change, even though the U.S. has withdrawn from it. The European Union is lobbying Japan not to follow U.S. President Bush’s lead by rejecting Kyoto. But Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi yesterday downplayed the talks […]
-
Visibly Upset
The 1,900 new power plants called for in U.S. President Bush’s energy plan pose a big threat to air quality in places where smog is already bad, experts say. They are also concerned about moves by the Bush administration to end efforts by former President Clinton to force dozens of dirty, old coal-powered plants to […]
-
![]()
![]()
Diary of Dick Cheney's secretive group discovered!
Congressional investigators were thwarted by the White House this week in their attempts to determine the identities of the people who met with Vice President Dick Cheney’s secret energy task force. Indeed, even the names of some task force members remain unknown. The task force’s influential report gave short shrift to various environmental concerns long-believed […]
-
Boston Tree Party
Last Friday, the Boston Globe printed an angry letter to the editor from Todd Paglia of the environmental group Forest Ethics. The charge? That the Globe advertising department, without reasonable explanation, had refused to run a Forest Ethics ad critical of Massachusetts-based Staples, a major Globe advertiser, and that an ombudsman column backing the department’s […]
-
A plan to drill under the Great Lakes is fracturing the Michigan Republican Party
Only a few things really get Americans to sit up and pay attention. Oprah’s weight. Ally’s hair. And a rise in the price of gasoline. The latter, coupled with lucrative campaign contributions from the energy industry, is why President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney thought that an energy plan based on new drilling from […]
-
Boxer Comes Out Swinging
The Natural Resources Defense Council said it would file a lawsuit today against the U.S. EPA for ignoring a congressional deadline to have a plan in place by last Friday to reduce arsenic levels in drinking water. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said she and several other senators would file papers in support of the NRDC […]
