Endorsing Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, two former EPA chiefs, both Republicans, are warning that Donald Trump’s energy policy “would set the world back decades.” William D. Ruckelshaus, head of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under Presidents Nixon and Reagan, and William K. Reilly, EPA Chief under George H. W. Bush, signed the joint
There’s a decent chance you’ve seen the ridiculous “young Republican” or “Republican hipster” commercials that came out on March 16. They’re so ridiculous that I think most of us thought they were parodies. Apparently, not. Of course, parodies have since been made. Below are the original commercials in case you missed them (first two), followed
Here’s a good book about how climate change denialism has evolved and continues to undermine the public interest. (from PlanetSave) For more of Joe’s cartoons check out his 5+ year cartoon archive. Got kids? Well then check out his kids book, ROBOT+BIKE=KITTEN. And. Twitter. Facebook.
To my friends, family, acquaintances, and readers who think that there isn’t enough of a difference between Democrats and Republicans to bother voting (i.e. for the Democrats), let me be absolutely 100% clear — actually, there are HUGE, HUGE differences between these two parties these days, and in nearly every situation I’m aware of, Democrats
OK, I’m not going to lie, the presidential election is important, but congressional and state elections may be equally or more important (I’d say “more important” with no hesitation). The sad thing is, we are so uninvolved and ill-informed in “smaller elections” that we often get what we are given rather than what we
You know what moral people do? They rig the game when they’re losing. Or they say the game isn’t over when they’re losing, but as soon as they’re winning, they say it is over. You know what else they do? When they find out that their holy grail economics policy (i.e. lowering taxes on
Ah, the priorities some of our top politicians have these days…. As you read the great post below by Michael Conathan (courtesy Climate Progress), recall that vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan and all but one other Senate Republican are against millionaires and billionaires paying their fair share in taxes. Here’s a video on that
Everyone loves solar. Well, ok, not everyone, but the HUGE majority of people. It’s been like this probably as long as the idea of solar power has been around. Thomas Edison was clearly a huge fan: Now, a new study conducted by Hart Research on behalf of the Solar Energy Industries Association, shows that Americans of
Below is a great short post from DailyKos that I’m reposting in full. Aside from this great debunking, you can also read more extensive debunkings specifically related to clean energy on some of our sister sites: Debunking Romney’s $90 Billion Lie Romney Gets the Energy Facts Wrong in Wednesday’s Debate Here’s the DailyKos
Tomorrow, the US House of Representatives will vote on H.R. 3409, the “Coal Miner Employment and Domestic Energy Infrastructure Protection Act.” The bill has been called the “single worst environmental law” proposed by the most virulently anti-environmental US legislators in history. The bill is aggressively anti-science and anti-public health. Its priority is made clear:
We here at Important Media have decided to put on a Women’s Rights & Celebrating Women Week to do our bit to combat the GOP’s apparent war on women. I’d just like to start out with one simple fact: men and women are different. Yep, certainly, we’re all the same deep down (underneath the veils
Former Imperial Fleet Supreme Commander Darth Vader, in his first public appearance in years, today announced his support for Mitt Romney for President. Vader’s endorsement, the subject of much backroom gossip in recent weeks, was secured after the selection of Paul Ryan as the Vice Presidential candidate, according to a Dark Star spokesman. “The
More on this subject: From Crooks and Liars: Bill Maher Hits Republicans for Voter ID Laws in New Rules Segment From HuffPo: Jon Stewart Slams Voter ID Laws That ‘Cockblock The Vote’ (VIDEO) From ProPublica: Two Dark Money Groups Outspending All Super PACs Combined From MotherJones: WTF, GOP? HuffPo again: Perhaps What America Really Needs
If you follow the Washington Post, or are a political junkie, perhaps you’ve already seen this story, but if you haven’t, it’s a must read. A couple of moderate, centrist, or even conservative political scientists recently tore into the extremist Republican leadership of today, spelling out the simple fact that Congress and our whole
Scientists across the United States today reacted with alarm at the discovery of the long-assumed, but previously undetected “Stupid Virus.” The discovery came after analyzing tissue samples from members of the official Texas Republican Party, who, earlier this week, released their 2012 statewide policy platform which declared “No More Teaching of ‘Critical Thinking Skills’
The thing about the Republican party today, Republican leaders at least, is that they say anything they want, even if it’s completely divorced from reality, to try to win over voters. Heck, they even make claims completely divorced from their own policies and votes. The latest (I think.., though, perhaps there’s an even more
A new Stanford-led survey has found that American support for governmental action to address global warming has dropped over the past two years, primarily amongst those who identify themselves as Republicans. A significant downward shift According to the report, political rhetoric and the fact that 2011 was tied for the coolest year on record
More on the President’s blackness: From We Are the Respectable Negroes: Fear of a Black President? Love of the Confederacy? Explaining the Tea Party GOP and the “Southern Religion” From MotherJones: 109 things President Obama currently is or recently has been engaged in a war against (according to conservative pundits, lazy headline writers, and
Remember the exciting announcements about a nationwide high-speed rail network that Obama made in 2010? And remember how several Tea Party governors killed high-speed rail in their states? Well, if it wasn’t painfully obvious before, Angie Schmitt of Streetsblog recently wrote a great post on the lies these Tea Party governors of FL, OH,
Santorum is officially out of the race for GOP presidential nominee. While he wasn’t the only one, he certainly ‘helped’ to push the political atmosphere towards one of extreme anti-science acceptance. Santorum was quite happy to point out on more than a few occasions that he believed in the conspiracy theory that global warming
As the corruption in our system continues unabated and the interminable Republican primary season continues its buffoonery of ‘solutions’ for our failing state, there is some highly unusual behavior taking place independent of either. It’s the behavior of the weather for most of the country, an unprecedented string of warm days even before Spring
This a great one on how Republican politicians try to respond to climate change evidence — enjoy:
This isn’t recent news, but it’s a great quote by Bill Maher that is as relevant today as ever. The quote, also above: “If you’re a working-class American who still votes Republican … you’re stupid.” More on that: “The moneyed elite in this country are dragging a bag filled with your future down the
Democrats Stand Up to House GOP Senate Democrats have stood up to the constant assault on the environment a bit and told the House GOP to “stop polluting [a] middle-class tax bill with poison pills,” as Brad Johnson of Think Progress writes. “Instead of finding commonsense solutions, the Republicans are talking about things that
You would think the Keystone XL oil pipeline discussion is over—Republican politicians tried to force Obama to push it through without any environmental review and Obama stood up to the nonsense and rejected the permit proposal. However, now, these Republican leaders are trying to push it through via completely unrelated bills, trying to skirt the
I wrote on the horrid transportation bill proposed by the House GOP at the end of last week, summarizing just how bad it was. Well, now, there are a couple of options for you to take action in opposing this bill, which the Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT) calls the “worst transportation bill in 30
Santorum, I thought, had absolutely no chance of moving forward as the Republican presidential nominee. Why? He’s off-the-wall crazy. Yet, somehow, he’s been winning primaries of late. That only seems to bolster his confidence in his insanity, though. In the video below, Santorum calls cap and trade a “charade” (odd, it’s been exceptionally effective at
1. Exxon Rakin’ in the Dough, Paying Super Low Taxes ExxonMobil’s end-of-year financial summary shows that it made a whopping $41.1 billion in 2011 (35% more than in 2010) but only paid a 17.6% tax rate. Who lets them get away with such robbery? Congress obviously does. But so do we, if we don’t hold
Oh my, they just can’t stop. The House GOP seems dead set on destroying the country and destroying the planet. Here’s the latest, via Climate Progress, on its push to develop the dirtiest fuel on the planet (you thought tar sands were bad?!): by Joe Romm Rep. Cantor (R-VA): In addition, Chairman Hastings will add provisions
The total loonies in the Republican branch of the House of Representatives have tossed a bill on the American public that basically attacks every form of transportation other than the automobile. It’s insane. Even some top Republicans have admonished it. Here’s some more info from Streesblog, the American Public Transportation Association (APTA), and others on
The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) published a horrid op-ed last week on the inane idea that global warming doesn’t pose any threat to us and we don’t need to do anything about it. Top sites Media Matters and Skeptical Science quickly counter-argued the nonsense put forth in the WSJ piece with some thoughtful pieces looking
Wowza, that’s some surprising news to come home to. Oscar-nominated and Emmy-winning director of Gasland, Josh Fox, was arrested today at Congress. Why? Well, he was trying to film a committee meeting about fracking. Hmm,… that’s illegal? Filming our publicly-elected Congresspeople at work is illegal? Yikes. “The House Science Committee had convened to discuss the
Wow, Gingrich’s latest promise, that he would establish a permanent American base on the moon by the end of his second (no assumptions there) term as president is… um,.. insane. The really funny part* is at the end, when Stewart notes that he’s probably come up with this plan because he has “realized that the Earth
Dr. Katharine Hayhoe is one of the more well-known climate scientists in the U.S. these days. One reason is that she’s not your typical scientist; she’s an evangelical Christian and Republican. Another key reason for her relative fame is that she’s a climate scientist (an atmospheric scientist) in Texas (at Texas Tech University) and has gone
I ran across this great photo and question on StumbleUpon recently (though, I’ve seen it before — maybe on StumbleUpon :D). Aside from being funny, that actually seems like a pretty darn good idea to me! Seriously, it would be convenient to us citizens (and much more useful than their phony TV ads, claims,
Jon Huntsman has hardly gotten any attention in the course of the freak show we can call the GOP primaries. However, that has changed a bit since yesterday, when he received a notable percentage of the New Hampshire primary votes (17%). We’ve actually written about Huntsman a number of times, as he’s the only candidate
Doomsday Clock indicates we’ve got few, precious minutes left to invent a time machine… sort of. The Doomsday Clock, which has been running since 1947, is a symbolic clock face that is supposed to indicate how close we are to global disaster. It is maintained by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists at the University of Chicago. But
Climate scientists and communicators got together to come up with a list of 2011’s biggest climate B.S.-spewers recently. B.S. standing for Bad Science, of course. Here’s the full list, via Climate Progress: by Peter Gleick The Earth’s climate continued to change during 2011 – a year in which unprecedented combinations of extreme weather events
Via DailyKos, here’s the “official meme of 2011“: Seems spot on to me. We certainly covered the Japan nuclear meltdowns, Arctic ice cap meltdown, and multiple (Republican-driven) Congressional meltdowns repeatedly here on Planetsave. Though, decided that the Charlie Sheen and other meltdowns were outside our jurisdiction, somewhat thankfully. What will 2012 bring?
While Republican voters may think that they are in the same boat as Republican politicians, they are not. One of the biggest differences between the two is that most Republican politicians are rich as heck, while,.. well, take a look at your income if you’re a Republican voter. You may think this doesn’t matter,
2011 was a big year for the environment, in some good ways and some bad ways. Here’s a quick run-down of the top 10 stories of the year, in my opinion: 1. Tremendously high levels of carbon emissions continue to warm Earth. Despite efforts to switch to clean energy, increase energy efficiency, and use more
We got the following comment (a great one) on a post the other day. I thought it was good enough for a quick post so more eyes could give it a look, so here it is (after the image): It appears that many right-wing politicians/pundits are on this bandwagon in recent times to debunk Global Warming
This is last week’s news, a bit, but it’s something I’ve been meaning to cover more and haven’t gotten to. So, here’s a quickie on it: The GOP, in the name of “freedom” tried to kill lightbulb standards established and signed into law under George W. Bush (somewhat sucessfully). The GOP framed it as
A new report notes that House Republicans voted a record 191 times against the environment in 2011. The report, logically, called this “the worst environmental record of any Congress in history.” “Out of the 770 legislative roll call votes taken in the House this year, ‘more than one out of every five’ were votes against the
Oh, the wonderful nature lovers of the Republican party…. Going right back to the ideology that caused the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, “House Republicans are trying to sideline the role of the Environmental Protection Agency in overseeing offshore oil drilling, after Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSA, RDSA.LN) complained about the
Below is an important email and action opportunity I just received earlier today from Bill McKibben and Tar Sands Action. First, though, a quick note from Dr Joe Romm of Climate Progress: Obama and the Dems caved to the GOP, agreeing to a decision in 60 days on Keystone in return for a 2-month
Believe it or not (and it would be hard not to believe it), extreme weather is increasing in the U.S., and around the world, due to global warming. And 2011 was a record year for extreme weather. Wet and dry extremes hit an all-time high, as you can see in the chart above. Unfortunately,
