News & Comment

As he seeks the support of undecided voters in key swing states, Mitt Romney is portraying himself as a centrist at heart—not as the “severely conservative Republican” he said he was during the hard-fought GOP primaries. This kinder, gentler Romney was very much on display in his televised debates with President Obama. But a close examination of his energy plan, released on August 23, reveals no such moderation; rather, it is a blueprint for the systematic plunder of America’s farm and wilderness areas, coupled with a neocolonial invasion of Canada and Mexico. Essentially, the plan is intended to remove most impediments to the exploitation by U.S. energy firms of untapped oil, gas and coal fields in the United States, Canada and Mexico, regardless of the consequences for national health, safety or the environment. In particular, the plan has five key objectives. read more »

While Hurricane Sandy batters increasing stretches of the East Coast, she has also thrown up somewhat of a false dichotomy question: “Climate change or freak storm?” Climate scientists remain split on the debate of whether extreme weather can indicate a shifting global climate, as Tom Chivers of UK newspaper the Telegraph noted, “The answer is no, or yes, or better yet ‘you’re asking the wrong question’.” While millions of Americans batten down the hatches and millions more stay glued from afar to Sandy’s ruinous spectacle, no resolution will be found to the climate change/freak storm question. But it is nonetheless the question on millions of minds today, as it is every time an extreme weather event strikes. So why is neither presidential candidate this year exploring the issue with us? read more »

Here is what it’s possible to say for certain: Climate change is happening. It’s likely that we’ll get better at dealing with erratic and extreme weather. There’s a high probability that, over the next decades, we’ll worry more often about crops dying and about monster storms. And just as it’s almost normal now for each passing year to be one of the hottest ten on record, soon it may seem routine to hear that the hurricane that’s currently headed towards your city is the largest ever measured. The two men running for president did not mention this issue when they met in three debates, and neither has shown much interest in addressing it in the next four years. But if the summers stay hot and the hurricanes abnormally large, enough people might start believing that climate change is problem that they’ll have to. read more »

Conservatives and the Christian Right regularly blame hurricanes on abortion, liberals, government and "teh gay." But Hurricane Sandy actually is an "unprecedented." This "Frankenstorm," with a gale-force wind diameter of 1040 miles, is the largest hurricane in Atlantic history, with the lowest barometric pressure. read more »

It is ironic, way beyond ironic really, that the Nation’s Capital – and the entire Northeast – is staring down the barrel of an incredibly powerful storm about which a National Weather Service meteorologist has said, ”I’ve never seen anything like this and I’m at a loss for expletives to describe what this storm could do.” Perhaps this weather scare that may well be much more than just a scare is God’s revenge for the refusal of the U.S. government to take action on the climate crisis. read more »

The climate silence is complete: Climate change got not a single mention in any of the three presidential debates nor in the vice presidential debate this year. That hasn’t happened for 24 years. In the final debate on Monday night, focused on foreign policy, moderator Bob Schieffer didn’t ask anything about energy or climate, but he posed a couple of open-ended questions that would have given easy entrée to either candidate had they any inclination to bring up the topic: “What is America’s role in the world?” and “What do you believe is the greatest future threat to the national security of this country?” In a debate about global challenges and global threats, Romney and Obama both chose to say nothing at all about the climate crisis, the most global of all challenges and threats. read more »

In January 2012, I, like many other people, thought the Keystone XL pipeline controversy was over. We had won a hard-fought victory in suspending the proposed tar sands pipeline from crossing the border from Canada into the USA. But shortly after reveling in the victory, I read the words of President Barack Obama said during a March speech in Cushing, OK. “And today, I’m directing my administration to cut through the red tape, break through the bureaucratic hurdles, and make this project a priority, to go ahead and get it done,” the president said. To my horror and disappointment, that is exactly what he did. Today TransCanada, the company behind the Keystone XL pipeline, has already started construction on the southern leg of the pipeline. Some residents in Texas and other allies who have come from all over the country are trying to stop this from happening. I am honored and humbled to be able to share part of their story. read more »

Not a word has been said in the presidential debates about what may be the most urgent and consequential issue in the world: climate change. President Obama understands and accepts the scientific consensus that the burning of fossil fuels is trapping heat in the atmosphere, with potentially catastrophic long-term effects. Mitt Romney’s view, as on many issues, is pure quicksilver — impossible to pin down — but when he was governor of Massachusetts, climate-change activists considered him enlightened and effective. Yet neither has mentioned the subject in the debates. Instead, they have argued over who is more eager to extract ever-larger quantities of oil, natural gas and coal from beneath our purple mountains’ majesties and fruited plains. read more »

We've had four and a half hours of presidential and vice-presidential debates. We've covered a lot of ground. There's been a lot of substance. Yet it is unconscionable that the biggest crisis the world faces has not yet warranted a mention: global warming. Will it be mentioned in the last presidential debate on Monday? read more »

We know, we know. No one in Washington wants to talk about climate change. Neither Barack Obama nor Mitt Romney mentioned the subject in the second presidential debate on Tuesday. And there’s a widespread belief that a cap-and-trade program to cut carbon emissions won’t resurface in Congress anytime soon. Still, that hasn’t stopped our friends on the other side of the Atlantic from tackling the issue. And there’s a new report from the analysts at the Environmental Defense Fund, looking at the track record of Europe’s cap-and-trade system over the past seven years. Some of the lessons here are worth a closer look. read more »