Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008
A report was recently released by NASA’s inspector general dealing with the agency’s efforts in 2004 through 2006 to restrict the flow of information regarding climate change. The report concluded that the agency’s Office of Public Affairs was inappropriately influenced by politics and “reduced, marginalized or mischaracterized climate change science made available to the general public.” The report placed responsibility primarily on the Office of Public Affairs and did not identify higher members in the agency or other Bush Administration officials as being responsible for these actions.
Regardless of whether there were directions from higher ups in the administration to suppress climate change science, these actions seem in line with the administration’s general policies towards science, and climate change in particular. Fortunately NASA has dealt with these past problems, and Bush will soon be replaced by a leader more friendly towards science. Hopefully that leader will let the scientists do what they do best, without imposing a political agenda on top of their work.
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Posted in General, Governmental Behavior, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Politics | No Comments »
Thursday, February 14th, 2008
Business Week has a short article discussing the failure of our federal and many state governments to create a comprehensive green energy policy. The article notes that although venture capital firms put $2.6 billion into clean tech ventures in the first three quarters of 2007, for America to compete with other countries going forward, real government supported policy needs to be implemented. The article notes:
Despite condemning “America’s addiction to oil” and promoting the importance of alternative energies in his State of the Union addresses, President Bush has consistently failed to follow through on his promises to fund alternative energy research. He’s generous with the green rhetoric, just not with actual greenbacks.
(more…)
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Posted in Energy, General, Investments, Politics | No Comments »
Sunday, February 10th, 2008
Columnist Joel Connelly at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported on a speech Senator Obama gave regarding the environment during a recent visit to Seattle (aka “The Emerald City”).
In the speech Obama made some of the following key points:
- That America should be 20% more energy efficient by 2030.
- That we should achieve an 80% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2050.
- That “no business [should] be allowed to emit greenhouse gases for free [since] the polluters don’t own the sky. The public does.”
- That while every administration in the past 35 years, Republican and Democrat, have promised to materially reform our energy policy, “they all fall victim to the same Washington politics [and become] beholden to the same special interests.”
- That while atomic energy is currently “cost prohibitive” due to the expensive nature of disposing of and storing nuclear waste, that if this problem was solved, atomic energy could be an alternative to pursue because it does not emit greenhouse gases.
(more…)
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Thursday, February 7th, 2008
Just in time for the California primary, LAist.com posted a written interview with Hillary Clinton on Tuesday. Some of the highlights relating to Los Angeles and the traffic woes include Clinton’s assertion that she would increase investment by $1.5 billion in public transit and $1 billion in intercity rail systems (on a national level). While this sounds like a move in the right direction, these dollar amounts are on a national level and may not have a material impact on Southern California. Basically, this does not seem to be a game changing policy akin to Eisenhower’s federal highway program. Which, in fairness to Clinton, is not how it is being touted.
Additionally, it is clear that just throwing federal money at a problem is not going to solve it on its own, as seen by the decision to direct over $23 million in federal funds towards developing a bus lane on Wilshire Blvd. from Santa Monica to Downtown. For a frustrated yet insightful take on this plan check out this post at metroriderla.com.
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Posted in Los Angeles, Politics, Transportation | No Comments »
Thursday, January 31st, 2008
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger officially endorsed John McCain for the Arizona senator’s bid for the presidency today. Gov. Schwarzenegger is known for having differed with his Republican party in the past over the environment and it is assumed that this endorsement is related to McCain embracing a more pro-environment policy, which has not been entirely clear in the past.
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