Barack Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper get dual climate fingers this week for a thoroughly disappointing meeting in Ottawa on Thursday. Rather than coming forward with fightin’ words on climate change, the two promised to talk about talking about global warming a “clean energy dialog” that commits senior officials from both countries to collaboration. Lame. To make matters worse, the two leaders spent most of their post-meeting press conference hyping up their desire to drop billions of dollars on technologies to make dirty energy sources like coal and tars sands “clean.”
We’re also shooting the climate bird to serious space cadet Harrison Schmitt, the former NASA astronaut now making a name for himself as a climate-change skeptic. You’d think he was funded by ExxonMobil or something … Oh wait, he is! Note to gullible media: walking on the moon does not make you a reputable source for climate science information.
A green thumb this week goes to Ashley Judd for looking marvelous rallying against moutaintop removal mining at the Kentucky state House. Judd, an eastern Kentucky native, spoke out in favor of a “stream-saver” bill now before the state legislature that would prevent dumping MTR waste in the state’s waterways. “Make no mistake about it: The coal companies are thriving. Even in this bleak economy, they are thriving,” said Judd. “What is dying is our mountains. And they are dying so fast, my friends, so shockingly fast.” (Judd also gets bonus points for bashing Sarah Palin’s anti-wolf crusade a few weeks ago.)
And finally, a giant green thumb to EPA administrator Lisa Jackson for putting the kibosh on the Bush administration’s last-ditch efforts to thwart action on global warming. Jackson’s move reopens the possibility of regulating carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants under the Clean Air Act, and essentially puts a freeze on the construction of as many as 100 new coal-fired power plants around the country. “EPA’s fundamental mission is to protect human health and the environment and we intend to do just that,” Jackson reminded the American citizenry, many of whom probably forget that at some point in the past eight years.
