The National Rifle Association is a case study for political success. According to Robert Walker, the former President of Handgun Control, Inc., climate change advocates could learn from the NRA’s tactics.
The economic arguments against subsidies include the one that government should not pick “losers” over “winners.” Fair argument. But the reality of Republican Whip Eric Cantor’s “You Cut” scheme: just about all the suggested programs are those that (surprise!) would be in the tea party’s crosshairs. What about Republican-supported programs?
Whatever side you take on the immigration issue, the fact is that migrant farm workers—50% of which are undocumented—work at about $12,000 a year to provide the food that ends up on our tables and in our restaurants.
California has an outdated and inefficient form of government: the County of Los Angeles is a textbook case. Perhaps its time to merge city and county government, which would be a step in streamlining the decision-making process.
The President punted tonight. He could have given a clarion call to push for a clean energy policy that would have been painful, but necessary. He could have given a “teachable moment” about the costs involved with our addiction to oil. But instead he gave us platitudes, boasted about his energy secretary’s Nobel Prize (why do we keep hearing that?), asked that we pray, and made no attempt to push Congress to pass any energy-related legislation.
Proposition 16 is a crass measure that would not level the playing field—it would devastate it. By requiring a two-thirds vote, the utility would almost guarantee that any municipality fed up with high utility rates—or the sources generating that power—would have no chance at starting its own electricity program.
One of LA Mayor’s Antonio Villaraigosa’s first initiatives was his 1,000,000 Tree Campaign for a greener Los Angeles. The project was ambitious. By having residents take an online test and then picking up trees at various locations for their yards, homeowners would plant these trees, providing shade and helping to heal LA’s dirty air. Other trees were given away at city events and street fairs. The program, sadly, was a failure. And a visit to Griffith Park taught me why.
In one of its clumsier PR campaigns, Greenpeace Argentina decided to place an ad in the Washington Post while Argentinean President Cristina Kirchner was in town. The advocacy group is livid over the plans to build a coal power plant in Patagonia.
Last week the World Bank voted to loan Eskom, a South African energy producer, US$3.75 billion to build a new coal power plant. Politicians in the UK and my beloved USA went ballistic. They howled that it was a tragedy for the World Bank to sabotage the work that has been done at ameliorating climate change.
Much of the conflict over climate change between developed and developing countries focuses on who should pay for the transition away from fossil-based fuels. Some in the West say that countries with less stringent environmental laws, such as India and China, should be subject to a carbon tariff, often referred to as a border adjustment tax.
April Fool!
Chances are that if you are reading this article, you have sympathies that draw the ire of Rush Limbaugh. We all know what he thinks of climate change, women with strong personalities (unless she’s a Palin), ObamaCare, and Haiti. But do not dismiss Mr. Limbaugh’s business acumen: he is the man who reinvented and [...]
What’s been said?