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The Weekly Outrage
"Some courts are taking laws written more than 30 years ago to primarily address local and regional environmental effects, and applying them to global climate change. The Clean Air Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the National Environmental Policy Act were never meant to regulate global climate change." —George W. Bush, April 16, 2008 The…
Read MoreGood News, Bad News on the Rez
The Navajo Nation — America’s largest Native American reservation — has breathtaking scenery, disheartening poverty, and a lot of sunny, windy days. So it was good news both on and off the Rez that the Nation has contracted with an East Coast renewable energy firm to build 500 megawatts of wind power generation there. The…
Read MoreGovernors are Setting National Clean Energy Agenda
No matter what the president said Wednesday about his global warming commitment, many of America’s governors aren’t buying. Long ago they gave up hope of White House leadership on the subject and have taken matters into their own hands. Today, the governors are meeting at Yale to discuss ways they can combat global warming that…
Read MoreHow Do You Describe…Bush?
What’s the best expression to describe the Bush administration these days? Pig-headed? Stubborn? Incorrigible? Mulish? Headstrong? Dogged? Intractable, Recalcitrant, Rigid? Willful? Indeed, all those adjectives apply to the outgoing (not soon enough) Bush administration, particularly with respect to its environmental activities. A handful of illustrations. A year ago, the Supreme Court ruled that greenhouse-gas emissions…
Read MoreBut It's a Dry Heat!
Global warming, by definition, impacts the entire planet. But warming will likely have differing impacts on different areas. What does that mean for the climate of the American West? A report prepared by the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization and the Natural Resources Defense Council last month boiled the answer down to three words: hotter and…
Read MoreA Grande-Sized Oil Play on Colorado Forest Land
In 1996, the Forest Service described the 1.8 million acre Rio Grande National Forest, which rings the San Luis Valley in southern Colorado, as "large … and … essentially undeveloped." The agency expected things to stay that way, at least as far as petroleum extraction was concerned. An analysis of the management plan the Forest…
Read MoreExclusive—You Read It Here First!
The Bush administration, highly placed sources have revealed exclusively to Tom’s Turn, is putting the final touches on one last, sweeping reorganization of the federal environmental bureaucracy. Elements of the plan include: Selling the national parks in order to reduce the national debt and prop up the investment banking system and hedge fund operators. Existing…
Read MoreThe Importance of the Number 350
Bill McKibben is on a crusade. He wants to pound the number 350 into the heads of everyone on the planet, including yours. Three fifty is the amount of carbon in parts per million that the atmosphere can handle safely without warming up and melting glaciers, raising the sea level, bringing on killer storms, destroying…
Read MoreAmid Rebellion and Chaos, EPA Chief Must Resign
Six years after the head of the Environmental Protection Agency resigned because of political interference, almost every EPA employee is begging the current administrator to quit—as in, quit letting politics drive agency decisions. The 10,000 employees publicly accused Administrator Stephen L. Johnson of ignoring their advice as well as scientific principles in his eagerness to…
Read MoreHow About a Green Stimulus Campaign?
Writing this on St. Pat’s Day, the holiday that turns thoughts to subjects green. And isn’t green all the rage! My friend and colleague Terry Winckler just sent around an email that allows you to order your TV viewing habits by green content, should that be appealing. On a slightly related note, I just received…
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