On January 1st, 2007, the Presidential Climate Action Plan (PCAP), a project of the University of Colorado, Wirth Chair in Environmental and Community Development Policy, was launched to produce a 100 day action plan on climate change for the next President of the United States.

PCAP's final report, due...

When the Center for Biological Diversity's 2006 request to have Alaska's beluga whales put on the endangered list came up for consideration last April, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin questioned the scientific evidence that the population was declining and lobbied for a six month delay to count the whales.

The answer...

John McCain missed the single greatest opportunity to address his most dangerous supporters directly and to repudiate their threats of violence after Senator Obama brought up the threats in the debate. McCain chose not to do so, calling them "fringe" while lauding ALL his supporters as "patriotic."

This came after...

An EU study has concluded the economic impact of world forest loss exceeds the current banking crisis. The study by economists, which quantified the vital services the worlds' forests provide (absorbing carbon dioxide, cleaning water) places the cost of the disappearing forests between $2 and $5 trillion per year.

There is a scene in Herman Wouk's book, War and Remembrance: a writer leaves a stockade following a beating to find the guards who'd brought him there engaged in an impromptu game of soccer.

The writer's epiphany comes in this assessment: "We're in the hands of adolescents."

I am not...

Have you thought about what America will be like two years into the next administration?

The following offers four scenarios:

First scenario -- McCain:

It is 2010. President McCain has fired the head of the SEC, FEC, FCC, SIPC (note spelling)... and has formed the M.F.I. Commission to study...

The disregard for the truth by the McCain campaign has produced lies so big that even those that support Senator McCain are hard-pressed to deny that they're lies.

So why the recent flood of such big lies?

While they may be meant to reach undecided voters (they'd be happy...

John McCain's attempted co-opt of the Obama campaign's change message avoids the fact that McCain has surrounded himself with a campaign staff of top Washington Republican lobbyists:

When McCain huddled with his closest advisers at his rustic Arizona cabin last weekend to map out his presidential campaign, virtually every...

In a polemic penned by George Bush's former speechwriter, Sarah Palin attempted to define Barack Obama as her equal and John McCain as above them both, while avoiding any subject of substance.

Sorry, Sarah, that husky don't hunt.

Palin's (Matthew Scully's) speech revealed a surprising parallel to George Bush --...

I was in a doctor's waiting room recently, listening to pundits on a big-screen TV, when a middle-aged man turned to me and stated:

"Too much spin."

His reaction was not what I'd expected, considering the gentleman had identified himself earlier as a Republican and the pundits he'd complained about...

A recent NYT article has detailed the dysfunction of the McCain campaign, in what the authors referred to as a "loose style" of "infighting" and "colliding centers of power," providing a picture of a McCain campaign divided by competing interests and unclear leadership.

Mr. McCain is called the White...

The AARP's Divided We Fail initiative released a survey today of swing voters in battleground states, those identified as older, lower income, mostly white women, who said their decision would be based, primarily, upon the economy. Not a surprise, considering the state of same, but one that bears...

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the agency charged with "ensuring the integrity of the futures & options market," has accused the trading firm, Optiver Holding, of manipulating the prices of crude oil, heating oil and gasoline futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the first complaint announced since their...

John McCain speaks of his ability to "win wars" using the "surge" as his example. This is surprising, as this was the strategy that was first implemented in 2005 by U.S. Army Colonel H.R. McMaster, in what he called "Clear, Hold and Build;" a strategy that may have reduced the...

The 2008 G8 Summit has ended with an agreement among the principals to endorse cutting greenhouse gas emissions fifty percent by 2050. Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, host of the meeting, added a request that countries reduce their mid-term greenhouse gas emissions prior to standards being set.

The G8...

On the eve the annual G8 Summit, where NASA's Dr. James Hansen announced that we've exceeded safe C02 levels (safe being maximum 350 ppm; we're now at 385 ppm), Hansen penned a comprehensive letter (PDF) to Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, host of the G8 Summit, requesting his leadership...

A new study by the National Snow and Ice Data Center and the National Center for Atmospheric Research has warned that the integrity of carbon and methane sequestering permafrost is threatened by the rapid retreat of Arctic Sea Ice. This comes at the same time as warnings that...

The House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming successfully subpoenaed documents that reveal EPA Administrator, Stephen Johnson, had sent regulatory recommendations to the White House last year in which he unequivocally stated that global warming was occurring and that vehicle emissions were a danger to public welfare.

President Bush has claimed executive privilege as his reason for denying Henry Waxman's House Oversight and Government Reform Committee access to documents that would prove whether he [President Bush] pressured the EPA to lower smog standards earlier this year:

President Bush has asserted executive privilege over thousands of...

In a report issued by the U.S. Climate Change Science Program, a joint effort of more than a dozen government agencies -- including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration -- the conclusion is that the extreme weather we've been experiencing will become more extreme and is due to climate...