Tag: Environment

Oil Slick.

Here’s Dubya’s head-in-the-sand environmental policy in a nutshell: The NYT discovers the White House has Philip Cooney, a former oil industry hack, rewriting climate reports to cast doubt on global warming. “Before going to the White House in 2001, he was the ‘climate team leader’ and a lobbyist at the American Petroleum Institute, the largest trade group representing the interests of the oil industry. A lawyer with a bachelor’s degree in economics, he has no scientific training.”

Aigh!! Books!!!

By way of a colleague in the program, conservative rag Human Events lists their choices for the Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th & 20th Centuries (because remember, folks — reading & thinking are dangerous.) The usual rogues’ gallery — Marx, Hitler, Mao — are up front, as you might expect, but then things get kooky. Including Darwin is medieval enough, but Betty Friedan and Rachel Carson? You must be joking. (Well, at least it’s good to see the right-wing fringe still running scared from progressives like John Dewey and Herbert Croly.)

Endorian Extinction.

“What happens when you detonate a spherical metal honeycomb over five hundred miles wide just above the atmosphere of a habitable world? Regardless of specifics, the world won’t remain habitable for long.” Also found last night while perusing Star Wars sites, this technical commentary delves into the unwitting and horrifying environmental disaster precipitated by the Rebel Alliance upon the forest moon of Endor, as a result of the events depicted in Return of the Jedi (Another SW movie, as it turns out, that I went in massively spoiled for — I was living in Belgium at the time, and it didn’t open there until well after the US release.)

A Line in the Sand.

While the GOP may have bent the rules to facilitate passage of the ANWR drilling bill (set for a vote today), it appears they face a Senate shutdown by the Dems if they keep pressing on Dubya’s wacko judicial appointees. And why not? Dubya has revealed he’s not going to relent on Social Security PSAs, despite their unpopularity, and he continues to appoint controversial right-wing neocons like Paul Wolfowitz to top positions (in this case, the World Bank.) If Dubya and the Right don’t want to compromise, then we Dems shouldn’t play ball. It’s 1993 all over again. (That being said, it’s probably wise of Reid to keep legislation “supporting our troops” out of the boycott…FOX News would have a field day with that one.) Update: By a 51-49 vote, the Senate opens ANWR to drilling, with Dems Daniel Akaka, (D-HI), Daniel Inouye (D-HI), and Mary Landrieu (D-LA) putting the GOP over the top.

Update 2: Slate‘s Fred Kaplan has more on the Wolfowitz pick.

Update 3: Conservative George Will warns against GOP tampering with the filibuster rule.

ANWR, my lord, is ready to fall.

The old world will burn in the fires of industry…At Dubya’s behest and through a “backdoor maneuver,” Republicans on the Senate Budget Committee pave the way anew for oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (namely, by forbidding Democratic filibusters on the issue.) Give ’em credit, I guess…the GOP’s pro-industry stooges seem to be pushing forward on every lousy idea of theirs that failed during Dubya’s first term. Well, at least “Clear Skies” went down and the Dubya tax cuts are being rethought.

Hard Times.

With the Dubya deficit looming over the second term agenda (and it’s not going anywhere anytime soon) and the proposed Social Insecurity PSAs now costing trillions (per Vice-President Cheney), the administration releases a $2.57 trillion budget which “eliminates dozens of politically sensitive domestic programs, including funding for education, environmental protection and business development” and doubles the prescription drug copay for veterans. (America’s children and Armed Forces — our nation’s richest 1% thank you again for your sacrifice.)

The Mythical Maverick.

Content to play the iconoclast again now that election 2004 is over, John McCain calls out the Bush administration on global warming. Too little, too late, Mr. Senator…given the water you carried for the Bushies this last cycle, your free-fall on the Murphometer at this point looks permanent.

How the West Was Lost.

“The last sanctuary of the West Douglas wild horse herd is a desolate, forbidding place, which is just how the horses like it…Now, even this refuge may soon be lost. The U.S. Interior Department, which has leased 93 percent of the horses’ preserve to energy companies, recently unveiled plans for evicting the entire herd. Under the proposal, the animals will be rounded up using nets and tranquilizer darts and then hauled away for adoption. The reason cited: Wild horses are incompatible with the region’s intensive gas production.” As seen in the NYT ten days ago, the Post checks out Dubya’s terrible environmental record, with specific attention to the West, which is being cut, drained, mined, and refined away in order to secure extra energy profits for Dubya’s corporate cronies. The party of TR? Not bloody likely.

Isengard Unleashed.

“I expect the Bush administration will go down in history as the greatest disaster for public health and the environment in the history of the United States.” Senator James Jeffords (I-VT) — and the NY Times — review Dubya’s dismal environmental record. This piece bends over backwards to be charitable to the Dubya EPA, yet even here it’s hard not to notice that George W. Bush’s America increasingly has a sickly, charred smell to it.