Articles by David Roberts
David Roberts was a staff writer for Grist. You can follow him on Twitter, if you're into that sort of thing.
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Hope springs delusional
On Monday we wrote about Oregon voters' rather ... what's the word? ... shortsighted approval of Measure 37, which many folks felt would eviscerate the state's largely successful (if slightly bloated and overly complex) land-use planning rules. Today, Ore. Gov. Ted Kulongoski said that voters didn't actually mean to eviscerate the program, and that he would pay out Measure 37 claims to landowners rather than abandon the rules.
Good luck with that, Ted.
David Hunnicutt, head of the property-rights group that pushed the measure, promptly replied: "Ninety-nine out of a hundred people who've had their rights taken from them don't want a check. They just want the ability to use their land the way they could when they purchased it." Why, it's almost like he did want to eviscerate the rules!
Not wanting to commit political suicide, Kulongoski rushed to assure voters that he wouldn't do anything crazy, like raising taxes. Instead, he'd pay out the claims by taking money from other programs -- say, "health programs, programs for senior citizens, and help for low-income children and families." Lovely.
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Arnold. Dude.
Arnold Schwarzenegger (I can't believe I know how to spell that name from memory now) continues to cause cognitive dissonance in the enviro mind, coming out in support of Bush's plan to gut the Roadless Rule.
UPDATE: Wyoming Gov. Dave Freduenthal (D), however, thinks the plan sucks. But then, he doesn't think much of Clinton's original Roadless Rule either.
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Isn’t it ironic
Mark W. Anderson reflects on the irony that global warming may soon melt the arctic enough to allow for additional oil and gas exploration there.
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Whither the environmental movement? III
(Part I is here; part II is here.)
I was going to do a policy post next, but an insightful comment from reader Sandy M got me thinking again about framing.
The second piece of unsolicited-with-good-reason advice I'd give the environmental movement, with apologies to Apple computer, is: Talk different.
It's time for enviros to think in a more careful and calculated way about the way they frame their issues. Progressives are forever wedded to the idea that the unvarnished truth is all we need: Give the people the facts and they'll draw the right conclusions. "That," says UC Berkeley professor and newly minted pundit George Lakoff, "has been a disaster."