A look at Rudy Giuliani’s environmental platform and record

Rudy Giuliani. Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani, who served as mayor of New York City from 1994 to 2001, talks...

Adam Werbach calls for a new movement of a billion consumers

On April 10, Adam Werbach gave a speech in San Francisco calling for a new "blue" movement of consumers pushing for sustainability (previewed in this post). Here's the full text of the speech for your reading pleasure. (Watch video here.)

The Birth of Blue: A speech to the Commonwealth Club by Adam Werbach

In 2004 I came here to the Commonwealth Club and performed a eulogy for environmentalism. Eulogies by their nature are the last word on the subject. But I made a promise on that cold December day to come back in the spring and share a set of solutions. It took me a few more years than I thought, and the world has changed a fair bit since that time, but I'm back.

Let me quote from that speech:

A reasonable case [could] be made that environmentalism needed to package seal pups, redwoods, clean air, Yosemite, clean water, and toxic waste under the brand of "environmentalism" in order to pass a raft of environmental laws in the 1970s. But for at least 20 years and maybe longer, the basic categorical assumptions that underlie environmentalism have inhibited the environmental movement's ability to consider opportunities outside environmental boundaries.

It is at moments like these that we need to take a hard look in the mirror.

We must not trade our fear of what will come next for our affection for environmentalism.

I remember shaking as I spoke, knowing full well that the reaction would be swift and harsh. No one likes to be called dead when they perceive themselves to be alive.

Umbra on carbon offsets

Dear Umbra, I’ve been reading the whole back-and-forth about carbon offsets, and it seems strange to me that most (all?)...

Wal-Mart’s eco-initiatives turning Arkansas into sustainability hotspot

Attention shoppers: we bring you news of the latest sustainability hotspot, none other than Fayetteville, Ark. Green start-ups are flocking...

Snappy comebacks for the climate do-nothing set who’s using China as an excuse

On a hot day this summer, Chinese President Hu Jintao and a group of state leaders appeared at a public function wearing short-sleeved shirts, rather than their normal business suits. According to the state press, the casual attire wasn't just a new fashion statement: China's top brass were leading by example, encouraging Chinese workers to dress in light clothing in order to reduce the use of air conditioners in office buildings.

Fashions do change. Outright denial of global warming is out of vogue. Instead, the climate change do-nothing set is sporting this season's new line: "Why should we bother trying to fight climate change when China won't do anything to reduce its emissions?" (Conservative communications consultant Frank Luntz even insists that the "'international fairness' issue is an emotional home run." Emotional home run? One might ask what a win looks like in his game?)

How to counter this flawed logic? Hu Jintao's climate-fighting wardrobe choices aside, here are three ways:

New poll shows Americans believe in global warming, want to do something about it

Another day, another poll. This one’s a Yale University / Gallup / ClearVision poll run by Anthony Leiserowitz, who I’ve...

The problem with 150 amendments

The Senate convened today at noon, and Republicans raised a stink about it. Why so late? Important business to attend to!

It had to do with the 150 amendments that EPW committee Republicans brought with them to the markup hearing. The long and short of it is that, by Senate rules, any senator can object to the continuance of any committee meetings that continue beyond the first four hours that the Senate is in session.

If the committee meeting and the floor session had, as usual, started close to the same time, the markup might have ended at 1 pm. This buys them two-and-a-half additional hours at least -- a helpful gesture from the Senate leader in the face of this sort of obstructionism. His floor statement and an unofficial transcript of this morning's proceedings are reprinted below the fold:

Is it only OK to talk about limiting population after it’s too late?

Sam Smith, inimitable editor of The Progressive Review, perhaps the world's first progressive blog (if you count its days as a print publication), reports that even he finds it difficult to bring up discussions of population.

I have experienced something like what Smith talks about, where even mentioning Bartlett (who has been campaigning against exponential population growth for decades) is enough to get you called nasty names by liberals and "anti-life" by church members.

Here's today's series of looks at the issue, with Smith's preface first:

The ongoing humiliations of the tattered ‘climate skeptic’ movement

These last few years have not been kind to the climate flat-earthers. Their patron political party got drubbed in the...