Environment Forum

from Tales from the Trail:

Boycott Copenhagen, Palin urges Obama

 If Sarah Palin had her way, President Barack Obama would be staying away from this month's global climate change talks in Copenhagen and "sending a message that the United States will not be a party to fraudulent scientific practices."

The summit will hear from scientists like those from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, where recently revealed e-mails showed information that raised questions about climate change was suppressed, writes Palin.

"Without trustworthy science and with so much at stake, Americans should be wary about what comes out of this politicized conference. The president should boycott Copenhagen," she wrote in an op-ed in the Washington Post.

"He plans to fly in at the climax of the conference in hopes of sealing a 'deal.' Whatever deal he gets, it will be no deal for the American people," said the 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate.

The biggest U.N. climate talks in history are aimed at working out a new pact to curb global warming, replacing the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.  Obama said last week the United States will aim to reduce its carbon emissions by around 17 percent by 2020, from 2005 levels.

Meeting Obama's stated targets will require cap and trade legislation that would result in job losses and higher energy costs, wrote Palin.

The view from the Arctic: on Sarah Palin and caribou soup

While the world gets ready for December’s climate meeting in Copenhagen, a group of native Arctic women traveled to Washington this week to talk about what climate change is doing right now in places like Arctic Village, Alaska, and Whitehorse, in Canada’s Yukon.******Five of the women talked emotionally about how much harder it is to hunt for traditional game animals like caribou in a time of global warming, and how important these traditional foods are to their culture and health. They also took aim at some of Sarah Palin’s statements, especially her push for oil and gas exploration in the Arctic.******Watch below as Norma Kassi, a member of the Gwich’in nation — sometimes translated as “People of the Caribou” — talks about her practices as a hunter, and her take on Palin and her “drill baby drill” strategy. (It’s a fairly long video; her comments on Palin start about halfway through):************Now watch Sarah James, of Arctic Village, talk about the plain fact that “Western” fare like pizza, meatloaf and fast food simply can’t satisfy her son like a soothing caribou soup:************Kassi, James and other members of the Arctic delegation are telling their story on Capitol Hill and to members of the Obama administration. Some are planning to attend the Copenhagen conference, despite dampening hopes of a major agreement from that gathering.******They have an invitation for President Barack Obama: they’d like him to visit the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge next year, the 50th anniversary of this far-north protected area where caribou herds have their calves and where some energy companies have hoped to drill.******Video credits: REUTERS/Deborah Zabarenko (Washington, November 11, 2009) ******Photo credit: REUTERS/Nathaniel Wilder (Sarah Palin outside the Mocha Moose Espresso after voting in Wasilla, Alaska, November 4, 2008)

from FaithWorld:

Huckabee wins round one in 2012 Republican race

Former Arkanas Governor and Republican presidential contender Mike Huckabee has won the first informal round in what will no doubt be a long race to head the party's White House ticket in 2012.

The affable Baptist preacher, who won the hearts and minds of conservative evangelicals during his failed 2008 bid for the Republican presidential nomination, topped other possible Republican presidential contenders in a straw poll at a summit of Christian conservative voters in Washington.

Out of a field of nine, Huckabee garnered the most votes or 28.5 percent. Delegates to the convention were asked: "Thinking ahead to the 2012 presidential election and assuming the nomination of Barack Obama as Democtats' choice for president, who would you vote for as the Republicans nominee for president?"

Surprisingly, former Alaska Governor and Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, who lit up the party's conservative Christian base last year, came in fourth with 12 percent. Her relatively poor performance could have been linked to her failure to attend the summit -- Huckabee delivered a rousing speech on Friday.

Huckabee's arch rival in the 2008 race, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, was the runner-up with 12.4 percent.  He also gave a well-received speech that stuck mostly to economic and foreign policy themes.

Like any straw poll, this one counts for nothing. But it does give an idea of what this key Republican base is looking for as the party tries to chart a path back to power in Congress and the White House.

Sarah Palin’s new focus

Admit it: we all wondered just what Sarah Palin would turn her time and talents to after she announced her resignation from the Alaska governor’s job, and now she’s given what looks like an answer. In an op-ed column in The Washington Post, Palin took a swipe at Washington insiders and the mainstream media for ignoring the economy, and then tipped her hand.

“Unfortunately, many in the national media would rather focus on the personality-driven political gossip of the day than on the gravity of these challenges,” she wrote. “So, at risk of disappointing the chattering class, let me make clear what is foremost on my mind and where my focus will be: I am deeply concerned about President Obama’s cap-and-trade energy plan, and I believe it is an enormous threat to our economy. It would undermine our recovery over the short term and would inflict permanent damage.”

In a brief story about this, we noted that Palin’s plans for spurring the U.S. economy include offshore drilling, drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and exploring the possibility of nuclear power in every state.

We’re not the only ones who noticed Palin’s opening salvo. Daniel Weiss of the Center for American Progress Action Fund saw her column as “the first stop on Gov. Palin’s comeback tour.” In his opinion, Palin is definitely mulling a presidential run.

“She wants to make sure that she’s still seen as serious and relevant,” Weiss said. “Her policies, though, isolate her in the corner with big oil and big coal and Rush Limbaugh … It would not surprise me if she shows up in Iowa talking about ethanol or New Hampshire talking about nuclear power or in Louisiana talking about oil. That would appeal to primary or caucus-going voters on those states.”

Weiss told me he can’t wait for the Palin campaign, but others weren’t so enthusiastic. Sen. Barbara Boxer, the California Democrat who heads the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee that will take up U.S. carbon-capping legislation in September, took time out from a hearing to pour cold water on Palin’s contention that tackling the causes of climate change would send the U.S. economy into a tailspin.

“Sarah Palin wrote this naysaying op-ed piece on why we shouldn’t move forward …” Boxer said. “So I would just tell the American people to take a look at history. Every single time we’ve gone forward to go after pollution, the naysayers have been wrong about the predictions, wrong about the gloom and doom and we have in fact led the world.”

Have Defenders of Wildlife lost key fund raiser: Gov. Palin?

Sarah Palin’s looming departure from the governor’s office in Alaska may deprive at least one animal welfare group of a key source of green.

The moose-hunting and ultra-conservative hockey mom shot to national prominence last year as John McCain’s vice presidential running mate on the losing Republican ticket. Palin, who in a surprise move said on Friday that she would step down this month as Alaskan governor, remains a political lighting rod who is loved and loathed in equal measure.

 This polarizing profile has made her a major fund raising force for the Republican Party. It has also made her a focal point for groups staunchly opposed to her politics and policies.

Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund has been using Palin’s support of the aerial hunting of wolves in Alaska as a peg to bring attention to the issue – and also it seems to drum up some donations amid the recessionary crunch.

The home page on its web site says: “Help Stop Palin’s Wolf Slaughter: DONATE NOW”.

The seven press releases it has issued so far this year on its online newsroom have one main topic: Palin and wolf hunting.

Palin strikes back on wolf allegations

Sarah Palin has struck back at Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund, which is running a video accusing the Alaska governor of planning to expand the aerial hunting of wolves in her state.

The graphic video, part of the group’s “Eye on Palin” campaign, is narrated by Hollywood star Ashley Judd and has generated a lot of media attention this week.

Here is the full text of Palin’s brief statement, which was released late on Tuesday:

“It is reprehensible and hypocritical that the Defenders of Wildlife would use Alaska and my administration as a fundraising tool to deceive Americans into parting with their hard-earned money.”

“The ad campaign by this extreme fringe group, as Alaskans have witnessed over the last several years, distorts the facts about Alaska’s wildlife management programs. Alaskans depend on wildlife for food and cultural practices which can’t be sustained when predators are allowed to decimate moose and caribou populations. Our predator control programs are scientific and successful at protecting vulnerable wildlife. These audacious fundraising attempts misrepresent what goes on in Alaska, and I encourage people to learn the facts about Alaska’s positive record of managing wildlife for abundance.”

“Shame on the Defenders of Wildlife for twisting the truth in an effort to raise funds from innocent and hard-pressed Americans struggling with these rough economic times.”

Judd versus Palin on wolves

Sarah Palin still has environmentalists howling.

The Alaska governor and former Republican vice presidential hopeful is the target of a campaign by the Washington-based Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund which claims she is pushing for an expanded program for the shooting of wolves from the sky.

In a graphic video narrated by Hollywood star Ashley Judd, the group claims Palin even offered a $150 bounty for the left foreleg of each dead wolf collected. You can view the video here.

“When Sarah Palin came on the national scene last summer, few knew that she promotes the brutal aerial killing of wolves. Now, back in Alaska, Palin is again casting aside science and championing the slaughter of wildlife,” Judd says in the video, which features footage of a wolf howling in pain after apparently being shot from the sky.

(Photo: Palin works a crowd, Dec 1, 2008. REUTERS/Tami Chappell, USA)

On its web site, the group said in a statement that: “Governor Palin is expected shortly to introduce state legislation that would dramatically expand the aerial killing program by removing the few remaining scientific requirements from the program. ” Palin’s office was contacted by Reuters and was not immediately available for comment.

Sarah Palin makes few friends among U.N. climate experts

 U.S. Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin is making few friends among U.N. climate experts with her view that natural swings, along with human activities, may explain global warming.

Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the U.N. Climate Panel, says that evidence is mounting that human activities are the main cause of warming. The panel reported last year that it was at least 90 percent certain that human activities, led by burning fossil fuels, were heating the planet.

He predicted in a telephone interview that Palin’s influence would be limited on climate change if Republican John McCain won the presidency.

“In the ultimate analysis I don’t think the vice president of the United States really matters in these subjects. I wouldn’t really worry too much about her,” he said.

 (…even so, former U.S. Vice President Al Gore won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, with Pachauri’s panel. Or did Gore only become a guru for greens after he left office?)

Achim Steiner, head of the U.N. Environment Programme, also said when asked about Palin’s views that: “We have the science. The debate over the science is over.”

Many delegates at an International Union for Conservation of Nature congress I am attending in Barcelona also say they worry that Palin’s views make it sound as if the science of global warming is far less certain than it is.

Palin asks Schwarzenegger to terminate shipping fees

California environmentalists are in tizzy this week, accusing Republican Vice Presidential candidate and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin of telling their governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, how to do his job.

At issue is a letter Palin sent to Schwarzenegger last month, asking him to veto a bill that would raise shipping container fees to pay for pollution-reduction programs at three major California ports.

The letter, which Palin sent to Schwarzenegger a day before she was announced as John McCain’s running mate, began circling on the Web on Thursday.

In it, Palin argues that the fees would hurt Alaskans, who rely heavily on marine cargo to receive goods.

“Shipping costs have increased significantly with the rising price of fuel and these higher costs are quickly passed on to Alaskans,” Palin wrote. “This tax makes the situation worse.”

Palin also argued that the $30 fee per 20-foot container would “harm California by driving port business away.”

California’s three biggest ports — Long Beach, Los Angeles, and Oakland — are responsible for nearly half of the nation’s imports.

Sarah Palin: glaciers, wolves and global warming

A 1917 sign in Kenai Fjords National Park in Alaska shows where the end of the Exit Glacier used to be — a mile from the current edge of a receding wall of ice.

Read my colleague Ed Stoddard’s fascinating tale from the park about the U.S. ‘environmental wars’ since Republican presidential candidate John McCain picked Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate.

Would a Vice President Palin sway a President McCain away from his long-standing drive for tougher action on climate change if the Republican pair win November’s election?

Palin favours expanded drilling for oil, opposes a Bush administration decision to list polar bears as threatened and doubts that human activities cause climate change, which is warming the Arctic twice as fast as the rest of the globe. The aptly named Exit glacier, like almost all glaciers around the world, is shrinking.   

And Palin’s environmental views aren’t just about the climate – Ed writes that she has also clashed with environmentalists by favouring shooting wolves from helicopters.

McCain was, among other things, the author of the “Climate Stewardship Act” with Sen. Joe Lieberman in 2003. The Act, which would have capped U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, was defeated in the Senate by 55-43 votes.

So will Palin’s views — here is a link to her Alaska policy – swing McCain away from toughening U.S. climate policies, which have been slammed by many U.S. allies around the world as too weak?