Category Archives: Conservatives

Part 2: Three Reasons Donald Trump Could Be Good News for the Climate

This entry was posted in Conservatives, International Climate Agreements, Legislation, Obama, Pure Cap-and-Dividend, Trump on by .

In my last post, I asserted that despite Donald Trump’s already atrocious environmental and climate policy, his election could ultimately turn out to bring good news for the climate. That post looked at the first of three reasons for hope: that Trump’s win forces progressives to rethink climate policy. With Trump now apparently on the verge of pulling the United States out of the Paris Agreement, let’s look at two additional reasons for hope during this trying time.

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The New Party of No? No Thanks

This entry was posted in Bipartisanship, Conservatives, Legislation on by .

Three Reasons Democrats Need a Positive Vision In a recent NYT Magazine article, “The New Party of No,” Charles Homans describes the rise of the Trump resistance and its impact on the Democratic Party.  Like the Tea Party and Occupy, the grassroots resistance movement has no formal hierarchy.  As Homans describes things, however, it has […]

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Global Warming Sure Can Be Cold: Cold Snaps and Climate Reversals

This entry was posted in Conservatives, Science on by .

Record cold weather on the East Coast this winter emboldened a few climate change skeptics to make some pretty interesting remarks.  Rush Limbaugh went on a rant, complaining that the media “just created” the concept of the polar vortex to explain the recent cold snap.  (Never mind that the concept has been around for over […]

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The Snickers Effect: Addressing a Conservative’s Doubts About the Human Contribution to Climate Change

This entry was posted in Conservatives, Pure Cap-and-Dividend, Science on by .

After seeing my most recent update on LinkedIn, my conservative friend Michael Perullo responded to express some doubts about Pure Cap-and-Dividend, my proposal to cap greenhouse gas emissions.  Mike wrote: “We must dramatically reduce OUR greenhouse gas emissions to combat climate change? No matter the incentives, how could man ever MATERIALLY impact atmospheric CO2? There […]

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What’s So Great About Bipartisanship?

This entry was posted in Bipartisanship, Conservatives, Pure Cap-and-Dividend on by .

What’s so great about bipartisanship?  As a thing unto itself, perhaps nothing.  We hardly need agreement for agreement’s sake.  Though the Founding Fathers may not have envisioned the two-party system we have today, our political system has long accommodated rival ideas – even thrived on them.  (The Civil War being an exception to prove the […]

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10th Anniversary of Whitman’s Departure from EPA, Anti-Environmentalist Takeover of GOP

This entry was posted in Conservatives, Obama on by .

Today marks the tenth anniversary of Christine Todd Whitman’s last day as head of the Environmental Protection Agency.  The anniversary is especially poignant coming just two days after President Obama announced aggressive executive branch action to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants.  After all, President Obama is fulfilling a campaign pledge – a campaign […]

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With Bachmann Out, Is Science Back In? (Part I)

This entry was posted in Conservatives, Science on by .

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) announced last week that she will not run for reelection in 2014.  Her departure is good news for anyone who believes policymakers should embrace science.  Consider the comments Bachmann made about climate change on the House floor in 2009: “We’re told the crux of this problem is human activity. It’s human […]

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Environmental Faceoff: The Obama Campaign v. Obama?

This entry was posted in Conservatives, Keystone, Obama on by .

With no candidate to reelect, Obama for America has morphed into Organizing for Action, an issues advocacy group.  OFA will, to quote its website, “support President Obama in achieving enactment of the national agenda Americans voted for on Election Day 2012.” There’s just one problem: What if President Obama backs away from the very agenda […]

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A Free Pass for Climate Change Skeptics?

This entry was posted in Conservatives, Pure Cap-and-Dividend on by .

Scientific evidence of global climate change continues to mount, a rising sea of data.  Last week, scientists released new estimates of global temperatures over the last 11,300 years, a time period covering most of the current geological epoch, the Holocene.  (We live in the Holocene Epoch of the Quarternary Period of the Cenozoic Era of […]

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