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The Latest by Tom Turner

Author & Historian

June 30, 2009

Brown Republicans

By Tom Turner

A good case could be made that the most important U.S. federal environmental laws are the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, and the National Environmental Policy Act. And what do they have in common? They were enacted (amended since in some cases) in the early 1970s and signed into …

June 29, 2009

A Communist Plot

By Tom Turner

Remember the John Birch Society? The virulent right-wing McCarthyist outfit born in Indianapolis in 1958? I hadn’t heard of it for years, would have guessed it had passed quietly back into the fourteenth century, but low and behold it’s still alive, kicking, screaming, and denying the fact of global warming and climate change. A quick …

June 26, 2009

Bedfellows

By Tom Turner

The Alabama-based environmental law firm Wildlaw has just announced the hiring of Mark Rey as a part-time lobbyist to work on national forest restoration projects in the Southeast and to help with land acquisition efforts. Here’s a little backstory. Wildlaw is headed by an attorney named Ray Vaughan, and it has done much good work …

June 25, 2009

Supreme Indifference

By Tom Turner  /  Headquarters Office

Two long and thoughtful pieces today, one from the Daily Journal, the other from Greenwire, discuss in painful detail the thumping environmental cases suffered at the hands of the Supreme Court this term. In each case, the court overturned a pro-environment ruling from a court of appeals. The first case involved whether the Navy must …

June 23, 2009

Sacrificial Waters

By Tom Turner

High court clears way for mining company to destroy Alaskan lake

June 22, 2009

Gaseous Journalism

By Tom Turner

The other day I happened to tune in to the Diane Rehm show on NPR to hear John Holdren, the president’s science advisor, talk about the new climate change report that made stark headlines last week, reporting that warming is here, is having serious negative effects already, and is largely caused by human activity. There …

June 16, 2009

Tongass Roads

By Tom Turner

America's special rainforest remains in a state of regulatory limbo

June 12, 2009

Doublespeak in the Woods

By Tom Turner

Remember "Healthy Forests"? This was one of the euphonious program names hatched by Karl Rove or another of the Bush wordsmiths to mask a real purpose. There was also the Clear Skies Initiative, which actually aimed to weaken the Clean Air Act. Healthy Forests argued that the best way to control wildlfire and protect rural …

June 9, 2009

Big Blue, Big Green?

By Tom Turner

Biking in to work the other day I heard an underwriting pitch from IBM, touting its new campaign, or slogan, or website, call it what you will, for "A Smarter Planet." Oh boy. Now we’re going to teach the planet new tricks, show it where evolution has fallen short. Don’t you guys get it? It’s …

June 8, 2009

Chevron Drills Empty Op-Ed

By Tom Turner

The San Francisco Chronicle carried an extensive package of opinion this weekend (Sunday, June 7) on energy and global warming and the economy that’s worth a look-see. They led with the head of Chevron, possibly because he was outnumbered, out-argued, and out flanked by what followed. His piece (read it for yourselves) was empty, vapid, …