Five years ago today–and damn, does that seem like a lifetime ago–New York magazine writer Jonathan Chait declared that President Obama wasn’t getting enough credit from climate activists for his leadership on reducing emissions. Back then, Chait observed: The assumption that Obama’s climate-change record is essentially one of failure is mainly an artifact of environmentalists’ […]
An Inconvenient Truth
Posted inPolitical Animal
Hot Takes: The Top Climate Stories of 2017
1. Puerto Rico: Donald Trump’s malignant neglect of the American territory in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria’s devastation is nothing short of a human-rights atrocity, and one of the most significant climate stories of the decade. 2. Paris pullout: Trump’s announcement of his plans to abandon the 2015 Paris climate agreement sparked an international backlash–and […]
Posted inPolitical Animal
Al Gore Gets Ripped Off Again
He should have demanded a recount. A botched strategy by Paramount Pictures effectively sabotaged the nationwide release of the Al Gore documentary An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power, which finished in 15th place in US theatres this weekend. This was not supposed to happen–and it would not have happened if Paramount had stuck with its […]
Posted inPolitical Animal
The New Fall Season: Will Gore Prompt More Green Programming?
Five years ago today, in an appearance on CNN, Bill Nye observed: I appreciate that we want to show two sides of the story — there’s a tradition in journalism that goes back quite a ways, I guess — but the two sides aren’t equal here. You have tens of thousands of scientists who are […]
Posted inPolitical Animal
The Camera Never Denies
Good on Mark Phillips of CBS News for his series this past week on the impact that human-caused climate change is having on our world. After years of US broadcast and cable entities downplaying and dismissing the importance of this issue, it was quite impressive to see Phillips and CBS report on the climate crisis […]
