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Category: Climate change

Planet continues to warm to “new normal”

The 23rd annual State of the Climate report finds the earth continues to warm, with a record set last year on sea level rise and significant melting of the Arctic Ocean and Greenland ice sheet. Atmosphereic carbon dioxide levels reached 400 parts per million last May, and averaged 392.6 for 2012, the highest in 800,000  

Republicans: Obama climate plan is “anti-American” war on energy

  Leading Republicans were using phrases like “anti-American” and “war on American energy” to describe President Obama’s new plan to combat climate change, escalating the rhetoric even before the President’s Georgetown University speech outlining his program. “President Obama’s anti-American energy plan will increase the price of energy and hurt job creation,” Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn.,  

Obama climate plan ignites Washington

Environmentalists hailed President Obama’s plan to force existing power plants to reduce C02 emissions,as a long overdue, just-in-time action to stop global warming now expected to easily cross the 2 degree Celsius threshold that nations had agreed was dangerous. Obama is to speak on the issue at 1:30 EST at Georgetown University. Electric power plants  

Battle lines forming on carbon tax

For a political non-starter, a carbon tax is generating an awful lot of activity on Capitol Hill. On Wednesday, the conservative Republican Study Committee is holding a press conference to slam the idea, headlined by Texas Reps. Joe Barton and Jeb Hensarling and Louisiana chair Steve Scalise, with star billing to anti-tax activist Grover Norquist.  

Barbara Boxer pushes forward on “planetary emergency”

Sens. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., formally introduced their fee-and-dividend climate bill Thursday,as you learned here Wednesday. The press conference featured several environmental activists who were arrested at the White House Wednesday, part of a push for a big climate rally in Washington Sunday. Also on Thursday the Government Accountability Office added climate  

Sierra Club to engage in civil disobedience for first time

How hot is the controversial Keystone Pipeline controversy getting? The Sierra Club is — for the first time in its history — going to engage in civil disobedience on Feb. 17 in Washington, D.C., which is also a day that greenies predict will be “the largest climate rally in history.” With Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman […]

Barbara Boxer sees carbon tax in the mix

Sen. Barbara Boxer said she had a one word answer for why President Obama promised to act on climate change in his second inaugural address: “Sandy.” Boxer called Hurricane Sandy a turning point in public opinion on global warming, and said Washington will act to curb CO2 emissions not via legislation but through the Environmental […]

Solar chief argues for natural gas exports

With a huge fight heating up over whether to allow exports of U.S. natural gas, California solar executive Arno Harris argued that allowing exports would help the solar industry and reduce global carbon emissions. The U.S. shale-gas boom (fracking) has up-ended global energy markets, lowering energy costs in the U.S. and promising to make the […]

Henry Waxman shouts into wind on climate change

It’s another beautiful December day in Washington. And Rep. Henry Waxman, ranking Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, has sent his 21st letter requesting a hearing on climate change, this time on a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers that says we are on our way to a four degree centigrade world, and possibly six, instead […]

Big buzz on carbon taxes

The Washington policy machine is all atwitter with the idea that the carbon tax’s time has come. It is an elegant three-run homer that would tackle climate change, tax reform and the budget deficit in one fell swoop. It would meet the conservatives’ quest for consumption taxes, the liberals’ quest for new revenues and the […]