Climate Politics

Monica Who?

El Nino — and El Other Nino

In its first move on global warming, the Bush administration has asked that the next international summit on climate change be delayed two months. When talks to hammer out the details of the Kyoto treaty collapsed last November at The Hague, Netherlands, the chair of the talks, Jan Pronk, scheduled another session for this May. […]

"Clean cars" are the devil's tools, diverting attention from truly green solutions

The “clean car” is cool this season. “Is your car an energy hog? Get a new one,” a web ad bombards me before I have finished the morning’s second cup of coffee. “Your vote counts here,” says the flashing ad that rates the energy efficiency of the web surfer’s car, luring owners to buy a […]

Navajo pageant winner is an enviro star

Outfitted in moccasins and traditional dresses, the four contestants in the 49th Miss Navajo Nation Pageant — held this past September in Window Rock, Ariz. — demonstrated a dazzling array of cultural skills. They discussed, in Navajo, the Treaty of 1868. They carded and spun wool, and they displayed rugs they had woven. They prepared […]

Should locals be more involved in public lands decisions?

Roadless and fancy-free. Photo: U.S. Forest Service. As the Clinton administration rushes to complete its lands legacy agenda in the American West, two methods of resolving public land issues have clashed head-on. The first is embodied in President Clinton’s move earlier this month to protect 58.5 million acres of roadless national forest — a quick, […]

Forest Fire

We hear that when U.S. Forest Service Chief Mike Dombeck issued (or at least appeared to issue) a new policy last week barring the cutting of old-growth timber on national forest lands he did not exactly have the green light from President Clinton. We like Mike. In fact, according to our sources, the president-for-the-next-few-days and […]

Let's hope campaign finance reform saves the day

I will never believe he won. I’ll always think he got a minority of both the popular and the electoral vote. To me he’ll always be President-Under-False-Pretense. The president-elect prepares to step up to the plate. Well, but you know, the Rs would feel the same way if a few hundred Florida votes had tipped […]

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure

What do you do when you want to move fast but the way ahead is dark, possibly dangerous, and almost entirely unknown? Accelerate? Proceed with moderation? Slow way down? Stop? Don’t spray it. That question underlies most environmental regulations. We are not sure what pesticides are doing to soils, waters, other creatures, or ourselves. We […]

Will election 2000 lead to reform or not?

The crowds demonstrating outside Florida courtrooms and counting rooms have been reminding me of the historical opera “Boris Godounov.” It opens with peasants milling about, waiting to find out who will be their next czar. Every now and then a handler comes out and whips them up to yell for Boris, who is not the […]

Both Gore and Nader could have won with this more sensible election system

From the standpoint of most environmentalists, very little went right on election day. Ralph Nader fell short of getting 5 percent of the vote, so the Green Party won’t qualify for federal matching funds in 2004. And it seems likely that Al Gore, despite receiving more of the popular vote than his Republican rival, won’t […]