‘Despite the scientific consensus that climate change is occurring, there remain sharp political disagreements both here in the United States and around the world about how policymakers should respond. Nowhere is this gap more profound than between developed and developing countries,’ Richard G. Lugar and Henry M. Paulson Jr. write. (more…)

Hidden from public view by a media that prefers to blame oil companies for the rapid increase in oil and gas prices is another cause — Democrats’ purist environmental policies. George Will highlights this in an excellent summary today in the Wall Street Journal. (more…)

The main reason that California’s fires are such a problem is because of the proximity of housing enclaves to the repeat burn zones.  Firefighters do extraordinary work saving homes each and every year in California.  But should they have to?

It might be time to decide.  Fire season seems to be starting early in the Los Angeles area this year.  When/if it does, we’ll all be getting a hefty bill to pay for the damage. 

(more…)

Sununu for Veep?

Via Maria, Obama’s biggest general election liability: His bitter half

On the stump, she warmed up (or rather, berated) supporters by complaining about how her husband is an underdog even after he keeps winning primary and caucus after primary and caucus. With a scowl etched on her face, she bellyached that “the bar is constantly changing for this man.” Call the waambulance, stat.

Reminds me of Teresa’s shifting bar.

Embedding with the enemy

But in fact my religious beliefs are entirely separate from my political beliefs: the only connection is that I’m willing to buck the trend in both arenas.

Two posts on Israel at 60:
Via the Astute Bloggers, Israel at 60: The Hope,
After 60 Years, The ‘Lamp Unto The Nations’ Flourishes

Two suspicious Seattle ferry riders were “just businessmen”

Vote for Mamacita.

Japan has no kids

From the Terror Finance Blog-A PDF of the Comprehensive Survey of U.S. Efforts Against Threat Financing-MUST READ

Franco had better things to do with his time.

“The threat of a new ice age must now stand alongside nuclear war as a likely source of wholesale death and misery for mankind”

Platypus genetic code unravelled, which reminds me of Ogden Nash

I like the duck-billed platypus
Because it is anomalous.
I like the way it raises its family
Partly birdly, partly mammaly.
I like its independent attitude.
Let no one call it a duck-billed platitude.

Cross-posted at Fausta’s blog

Hillary Clinton has talked about what making the Green Corps a central part of her environmental initiatives. (more…)

The German newspaper the Spiegel reports that “[a] new United Nations study has found that glaciers across the globe are shrinking faster than ever before. The UN says the consequences could be grim for billions of people who depend on glacial melt and urges global leaders to act swiftly on climate change.” (more…)

Paul Krugman points us to this Bloomberg article that makes the case against the Bush administrations ethanol mandate fairly well. Some highlights:

• About 33 percent of U.S. corn will be used for fuel during the next decade, up from 11 percent in 2002
• Farmers will have to increase planting of corn for ethanol by 43 percent to 30 million acres by 2015 to meet the government’s requirements
• Corn [prices] doubled in the past two years, touching a record $5.29 a bushel today in Chicago.

(more…)

Ezra Klein gets his response to this article by Alex Steffen about as wrong as he possibly could.

the amount of density the study’s authors call for is extremely modest. They encourage building new projects at a density of 13 homes per acre, raising the average national density from 7.6 units per acre to 9 an acre. (more…)

This is Jimmie’s first post for PoliGazette. Welcome Jimmie!

Good God, how is this happening in our own back yard?

It was lunchtime in one of Haiti’s worst slums, and Charlene Dumas was eating mud. With food prices rising, Haiti’s poorest can’t afford even a daily plate of rice, and some take desperate measures to fill their bellies. Charlene, 16 with a 1-month-old son, has come to rely on a traditional Haitian remedy for hunger pangs: cookies made of dried yellow dirt from the country’s central plateau. (more…)

This is exactly the sort of thing I’ve been fearing - and expecting - from the Democratic party - the foolish idea that western nations should throttle back on economic and technological development to fight the will-o’-the-wisp of climate change:

Former President Bill Clinton was in Denver, Colorado, stumping for his wife yesterday. (more…)

I’ve long been an opponent of ethanol as a viable source of alternative energy for America. At best it’s a short sighted and inefficient attempt at energy independence at worst its just another way to subsidize corn. Over at Scientific American the recently published an article showing the results of a five year study on switchgrass and found that acre per acre it produces over twenty one times more energy than ethanol. (more…)

Global warming again. “Denver breaks record for snowfall on Christmas day.”

Yesterday (my apologies, this was put on the timer for yesterday but, for some reason, didn’t get published) former Vice President Al Gore accepted the Nobel Peace Prize. To watch his acceptance speech, click here (entire text follows below). One of the main points he made:

One hundred and nineteen years ago, a wealthy inventor read his own obituary, mistakenly published years before his death. Wrongly believing the inventor had just died, a newspaper printed a harsh judgment of his life’s work, unfairly labeling him “The Merchant of Death” because of his invention — dynamite. Shaken by this condemnation, the inventor made a fateful choice to serve the cause of peace. Seven years later, Alfred Nobel created this prize and the others that bear his name. (more…)

“15,000 politicians, bureaucrats, lobbyists, activists, journalists and other assorted celebrities, hangers-on and others have descended on Nusa Dua, Bali in Indonesia to discuss global warming.

“Over the course of the eleven-day meeting, these people will discuss how to limit carbon emissions. These same people will generate an estimated 100,000 tons of carbon dioxide in travel to and from the conference and lord knows how much energy and consumables while they are there.”

Read more at Blue Crab Boulevard.