DCourage

Virginia is for Coal Lovers

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 11:00:02 -0500

Under heavy pressure from lobbyists for Dominion coal, Virginia announced yesterday that it's going to permit the construction of a new coal-fired power plant, even though doing so clearly violates the law. Just days after NASA's James Hansen testified that avoiding climate catastrophe will require immediately stopping construction of new coal fired power plants around the world (and shutting down old ones), and just months after the Supreme Court ruled that carbon dioxide is a pollutant under the Clean Air Act, Virginia decided that what the state and the world really need is another coal fired power plant with no controls on release of carbon dioxide -- and gave Dominion power the go ahead to build their "Hybrid Energy Center" in Wise County in Appalachia (hybrid because it will burn two different types of dirty coal). Read More

"I'm Not From Here But I Got HereJust as Soon as I Could"

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 11:03:34 -0500

As I reported last week, I'm in Appalachia, Virginia to attend a hearing by the Virginia Air Resources Board about whether or not Virginia will permit Dominion Power to build a dirty, coal-fired power plant. It's Eden in the Mountains here - miles and miles of green, forested mountains in every direction. Inside, the forests it's even better. My wife and I went on a hike through old growth hemlock groves (and did a trail cleaning service project in the nearby Jefferson National Forest) with naturalist and activist Anna Hess of the Clinch Coalition and learned that this region is the most bio-diverse in the mainland United States, with different little endangered salamanders creeping around the top of every mountain and old growth hemlock groves around many corners.

In Obama's America, Path to Power No Longer Runs Through Law Firms

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 09:50:41 -0500

There's a massive silver lining to the Obama and McCain campaigns' escalating war to rid each other of staffers and advisors with ties to lobbyists and corporate America: suddenly, slaving away at a big law firm no longer seems like a path to power, but an express off-ramp. When men as well connected as former Obama VP search committee head Jim Johnson and former McCain advisor (and lobbyist for Burma's military junta) Doug Goodyear can be ousted for their lobbying work on behalf of sketchy companies, it sends a powerful message to current law students (and recent college graduates): the revolving door between the corridors of power and the corridors of greed is rapidly closing. Now, lawyers will have to choose: spend your career serving your country, or spend it serving your corporation. Read More

Calamity Kaine

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 11:06:17 -0500

Virginia governor Tim Kaine set a new standard for politician mealy-mouthedness with a letter to his Virginia Air Board (tip of the hat to Raising Kaine for digging this one up). Although he asserts that his letter isn't about any particular decision, everyone outside the governor's office knows that the letter is about one big decision: the proposed massive coal-fired power plant being planned for Wise County, Virginia. His bureaucratic opacity (PDF) is sure to be taught in government schools around the world about how to say nothing through the written word: Read More

McCain as Peacenik

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 00:05:58 -0500

In his speech tonight, John McCain adopted the brilliant strategy of presenting himself as the candidate of responsible peace:

I disagreed strongly with the Bush administration's mismanagement of the war in Iraq. I called for the change in strategy that is now, at last, succeeding where the previous strategy had failed miserably. I was criticized for doing so by Republicans. I was criticized by Democrats. I

Leafy Laws: Climate Bills Could Save the World's Forests

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 00:09:02 -0500

More money for forests and wildlife conservation than have ever been available in history. The re-growth of many of the world's forests. Massive quantities of greenhouse gases sucked out of the air. Those are a few of the benefits of the newest versions of the climate legislation now being considered in the House and Senate. Both the Boxer-Lieberman-Warner (pdf) bill and Congressman Ed Markey's latest draft (pdf) include massive financing for forest and land conservation that could save these planetary lungs. Both bills are based on a fundamental recognition that trees suck up vast quantities of carbon dioxide and convert it into oxygen - and that standing pristine forests and grasslands (especially tropical forests) are a tremendous storehouse of carbon that we've got to keep safely locked up in forests. Indeed, deforestation for agriculture and logging is already driving 20 percent of greenhouse gas emissions and is the biggest single source in the developing world. Read More

McCain on the Plane

Fri, 30 May 2008 12:28:32 -0500

When the Senate is about to vote on a provision affecting the oil companies, John McCain has a certain favorite place he loves to be: his wife's private jet. McCain has been "on the plane" for vote after vote that would have shifted billions in taxpayer subsidies from oil companies towards the clean energy and efficiency technologies that could free us from the grip of $4 a gallon gas and a climate in crisis. Check out what Sierra Club president Carl Pope's account of one of McCain's many missed votes. Read More

Orangutans in My Hair

Fri, 30 May 2008 12:25:57 -0500

While doing the research for a Los Angeles Times op-ed about the dangers and prevalence of palm oil, I came across a great new website from the Rainforest Action Network that lists hundreds of products that contain this orangutan-killer (in case you haven't been following palm oil coverage on Grist and elsewhere, rainforests - the homes of the orangutans and many other rare creatures - are being destroyed at the fastest rate in history in Indonesia and Malaysia to make way for palm oil plantations, accounting for between four and eight percent of annual global greenhouse gas emissions). Read More

1995 Obama Speaks

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 18:48:00 -0500

In a just-unearthed 1995 interview, Barack Obama describes America as "a land of strangers" where, despite all the rhetoric about the "browning of America," the melting pot remains a far-off dream for most -- with different communities as foreign to one another as distant countries. He discusses how white executives and inner-city residents alike must take more responsibility for themselves and each other. But the truly amazing moment comes when Obama discusses his belief that his own personal salvation is inseparable from the redemption of the whole nation. You can hear Obama already fusing the personal and political into a spiritual mission like no other in modern politics. He's a man on fire. The prolific veteran journalist Bill Thompson of Eye on Books has given my readers the first chance to hear this extraordinary interview. Listen here. Read More

Bill McCamley (NM-02) Donates $47.50 to Himself

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 18:43:54 -0500

New Mexico congressional candidate Bill McCamley (who's running for Steve Pearce's seat), just came up with a very creative idea for taking the rug out from under self-financing candidates, in this case his oil executive primary opponent Harry Teague (who's hardly a loyal Democrat, having donated $1000 to Pearce's race in 2004). Other grassroots challengers should repeat it. From the AP:

A Democratic candidate for New Mexico's 2nd Congressional District has written a $47.50 check to has campaign. Bill McCamley of Las Cruces staged today's event to contrast his opponent's campaign loans worth $475,000.

A Friend For Mr. Square Pants

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 18:40:26 -0500

Greenpeace recently announced the discovery of a new species of sponge, Aaptos kanuux, as a result of its deep explorations of the Bering Sea last summer. Here's a video of the sponge from Greenpeace, and more info from my fellow Green Corps alum, Greenpeace Oceans Campaigner John Hocevar:

Bush's "Bread Man"

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 09:27:47 -0500

Last week, The New York Times's David Streitfeld told the story of one JR Paterakis, a Baltimore "baker" who opposes the Conservation Reserve Program which provides incentives to farmers to set aside their land for wildlife, clean water, and (incidentally) massive carbon sequestration. Seemed like an opportunity to deploy my rye wit. The program has been a huge success - protecting 35 million acres of land and partially restoring the "duck factory" of the Upper Midwest that fills the skies of North America with quacks and hunting opportunities - so why has Mr. Paterakis put this great environmental success story in his sights? Read More

Tommy Lee Jones on the Border Wall and Leprechauns

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 15:32:38 -0500

Actor Tommy Lee Jones, who frequently portrays law enforcement personnel on the big screen and starred in the border movie The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, shared his opinion about the border wall with 02138 magazine:

The idea of a fence between El Paso and Brownsville bears all the credibility and seriousness of flying saucers from Mars or leprechauns. Or any manner of malicious, paranoid superstition. In other words, it's bullshit.... It's a predatory approach to democracy by those who would instill fear and then propose themselves as a solution. It's very destructive. Very, very destructive. And it's the perfectly wrong thing to do.

Actually, Obama Just Might be the Next Paul Wellstone

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 20:15:52 -0500

I was initially skeptical a few months ago when Barack Obama was heard in the heat of the Iowa campaign comparing himself to Paul Wellstone. But Obama's latest stroke of political genius, the "Obama Organizing Fellows" program, has helped me realize that Obama is actually taking Wellstone's movement-building focus to a truly presidential level. The fellows program will train people how to become organizers; in other words, it will train people how to reach their full potential and build for themselves the kind of lasting progressive movement we'll need to both beat John McCain and achieve the kind of powerful progressive movement we need to achieve lasting change. Read More

Of Legal Eagles and Ocelots

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 22:48:00 -0500

Sierra Club and Defenders of Wildlife have filed an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court challenging elements of the REAL ID act, which gives Secretary of Homeland Security the power to waive any environmental laws that would get in the way of the 700 mile long double layered concrete wall Congress authorized for the U.S.-Mexico border. Read More