By SIMON ROMERO and JOHN M. BRODER Burdened by low expectations, snarled by endless traffic congestion and shunned by President Obama, the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development ended here as it began, under a shroud of withering criticism.
The antipoverty organization CARE called the...
One of the more bizarre aspects of the Obama Administration’s reactions to developments in the Middle East is its refusal to talk about human rights. For reasons that are obscure, it has developed the neologism “universal rights.”
The term “human rights” has a long and distinguished history and is ...
The U.S. government on Thursday delayed approval of a Canada-to-Texas oil pipeline until after the 2012 U.S. election, bowing to pressure from environmentalists and sparing President Barack Obama a damaging split with liberal voters he may need to win reelection.
The decision to explore a n...
It's been more than 40 years since the first Earth Day and the founding of the modern environmental movement -- an awakening to the notion that human beings can, and do, have a profound impact on the planet. If Republicans in Congress and on the presidential campaign trail have their way, the nation...
Campaigners disappointed as White House says 1,700-mile pipeline will not cause significant environmental damage
The proposed pipeline will carry oil from the tar sands of Alberta (above) to the Texas coast. Photograph: Jeff McIntosh/AP
The Obama administration has given an impor...
Over the next two weeks, representatives from 194 nations will meet in Bonn, Germany, to push forward a deal to stabilize the global climate and help poor countries address the inevitable changes that global warming brings.
Tornadoes, record-breaking heat waves, devastatin...
He promised to slow the ocean's rise, but Obama has opened the mine gates. Luckily, tough terrain is fighting back
In our globalised world, old-fashioned geography is not supposed to count for much: mountain ranges, deep-water ports, railroad grades – those seem so 19th century. The ...
"What the heck went wrong?" That, apparently, is the question roiling the environmental community as it realizes that the fight against climate change has fizzled.
As Brad Plumer writes in the New Republic, everything was looking great in 2008 for a sweeping effort to make good on candidate Barac...
Got hope and change?
Supply-sider David Stockman was full of it in 1981 when the Reagan Revolution swept the country. Stockman, a rising star in GOP politics, became Reagan’s Director of the Office of Management and Budget and quickly began looking for ways to curtail the dreaded “welfare state.”...
Congressional Republicans are vowing to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from using the Clean Air Act to control pollution that contributes to global warming, underscoring the threat with a proposed deep cut to the agency's budget.
Rep. Ed Whitfield, R-Ky., chair of a House subco...
The following editorial appeared in the Los Angeles Times on Sunday, Feb. 6: Conservatives have been attacking the Clean Air Act since its passage in 1970, continually claiming that federal efforts to fight air pollution would wreak economic ruin. As congressional Republicans prepare to...
By H. JOSEF HEBERT, Associated Press Writer H. Josef Hebert, Associated Press Writer Wed Nov 25
WASHINGTON – Putting his prestige on the line, President Barack Obama will personally commit the U.S. to a goal of substantially cutting greenhouse gases at next month's Copenhagen climate summit. He wil...
President Hu Jintao is making an unprecedented string of visits to United Nations summits as he leads a high-ranking Chinese delegation to the United States this week.
The president will be in New York for the UN Summit on Climate Change, the 64th annual UN General Assembly debate and a nuclear non...
President Obama delivered a speech to the United Nations today as 100 world leaders gathered for the highest-level summit yet on climate change. Obama said the United States is "determined to act" as the "threat from climate change is serious, it is urgent, and it is growing."
Here is the text of O...
THE WHITE HOUSE - Office of the Press Secretary April 22, 2009
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT ON CLEAN ENERGY
Trinity Structural Towers Manufacturing Plant, Newton, Iowa
I just had a terrific tour of the facility led by several of the workers and managers who operate this plant. It wasn't too long ago,...
By Jim Tankersley
Reporting from Washington -- The Obama administration put the brakes on a push to expand oil and gas drilling off America's coasts Tuesday and promised to speed development of offshore wind farms.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced he will extend public comments for six mon...
