For the better part of the past decade, The New York Times and The Environmental Protection Agency have been frequent punching bags of the right wing. Conservatives allege that The Grey Lady has an open liberal bias and that the EPA is run by tree huggers who care more about owls than jobs. But this week on Sea Change Radio, we speak to Joe Romm of Climate Progress, who is angered by what he believes is a front page hit piece on the EPA by that bastion of liberal journalism, The New York Times. We delve into the details of the piece itself and explore the history of the conservative war against the EPA.
If you watched last weekend’s 60 Minutes piece on the so called “Cleantech Crash,” you might have taken a moment to check the channel and make sure you weren’t watching Fox News. The story focuses almost exclusively on failed companies that have received government support with no coverage of clean technology successes, no information on the success/failure ratio of other venture capital investments, and no mention of all the taxpayer money that goes to support traditional, polluting energy technology. Instead the venture is depicted as an unmitigated fiasco and an embarrassing folly on the part of President Obama.
This most recent episode of the popular CBS news show has been widely criticized as having a Fox News-y flavor. It’s not entirely surprising when you consider that the current president of CBS News, David Rhodes, spent about 15 years at Fox News. Host Alex Wise‘s guests today on Sea Change Radio are Joe Romm of Climate Progress and formerly of the US Dept. of Energy, and Katie Fehrenbacher a senior writer at GigaOM. Each of them wrote a response to the 60 Minutes show, and today they offer their takes on how the news giant got it wrong, from interviewing the wrong people, to providing no actual data, to pulling out that old, rusty lightning-rod, Solyndra.
How will our current climate policies and actions be viewed by future generations? Our first guest this week on Sea Change Radio is pretty sure our descendants will be, “stunned by our obliviousness.”
Host Alex Wise talks with Joe Romm, whose influential blog, Climate Progress, has been instrumental in shaping the climate debate in this country. After that, we hear from someone who’s working to leave less for future generations to lament. Wendell Simonson is the Marketing Director for Eco-Products, a relatively small manufacturer of compostable and biodegradable products that’s beginning to make a significant dent in a rapidly growing industry.
The Waxman-Markey Climate Bill is making its way through Congress, and stirring up controversy within the environmental movement between those who support it as a necessary first step, and those who think it’s fatally flawed. Sea Change Radio talks with both sides. Joe Romm, editor of the ClimateProgress.org blog and a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, favors passing the Bill. Carroll Muffett of Greenpeace says the bill fails to address key issues in solving the climate crisis.
[amazon-product align=”right”]1877762067[/amazon-product]Today, Dada Maheshvarananda meditates on the alternative economic model of Progressive Utilization Theory, or PROUT. Joe Romm of Climate Progress analyzes the climate resolve of the Obama Administration. Lisa Woll of the Social Investment Forumproposes an Office for Innovation in Corporate Social Responsibility to the Obama Administration. And auto and environment expert Jim Motavalli comments on the significance of President Obama’s executive order directing the EPA to reconsider its refusal to grant California a waiver allowing it to regulate greenhouse gases from autos.
[amazon-product align=”right”]006117212X[/amazon-product]In his first week in office, President Obama seemed to hit the ground running on climate change policy and support for a greener economy. But some say that while his efforts are a good first step, they’ll have to be followed up with much stronger measures to really do the job. We caught up with Joe Romm of the blog Climate Progress for some perspective on Obama’s first week. In addition to giving an overview, Romm also talked about an important–and frightening–new study from the NOAA that underscores the urgency of Obama’s moves.
Joe Romm worked on environmental policy under the Clinton Administration and is the author of [amazon-product text=”HELL AND HIGH WATER: Global Warming, the Solution and the Politics” type=”text”]006117212X[/amazon-product]. His blog Climate Progess is a project of the Center for American Progress.
What’s behind the rise in Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s? Lifetime exposure to toxic chemicals in the environment such as fossil fuel pollution, as it turns out. This according to a new report from the Science and Environmental Health Network and Greater Boston Physicians for Social Responsibility. Today, CWR co-host Francesca Rheannon speaks with the report’s lead author, Jill Stein, who heads the Massachusetts Coalition for Healthy Communities. Dr. Stein also ran for governor of the commonwealth in 2002 on the Green-Rainbow ticket, as well as Secretary of State in 2006.
We reported last week that Barack Obama will regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant under the Clean Air Act if elected. Not so for John McCain. Today writer and scientist Joseph Romm wrote on his blog Climate Progess, that a McCain-Palin administration would use a voluntary or incentive-based approach, one that “has never worked in any country to restrain emissions growth.” Today, we talk to Joe Romm about how Barack Obama and John McCain differ on their approaches to the climate crisis and alternative energy. Romm is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, where he maintains its blog, Climate Progress. It was named one of the top 15 green websites by Time Magazine. Romm is also the author of the 2006 book Hell and High Water: Global Warming–the Solution and the Politics–and What We Should Do. He was Acting Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy during the Clinton Administration.
For the better part of the past decade, The New York Times and The Environmental Protection Agency have been frequent punching bags of the right wing. Conservatives allege that The Grey Lady has an open liberal bias and that the EPA is run by tree huggers who care more about owls than jobs. But this week on Sea Change Radio, we speak to Joe Romm of Climate Progress, who is angered by what he believes is a front page hit piece on the EPA by that bastion of liberal journalism, The New York Times. We delve into the details of the piece itself and explore the history of the conservative war against the EPA.
