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If you were the union rep, would you let 1,100 workers lose their jobs when the city cuts bus and train routes? Or would you spread the pain across your membership by reopening hard-fought contracts, letting politicians whittle away your security/their overhead?

There ought to be a better choice, and maybe there is: let people who drive cars in Chicago subsidize its buses and trains. continue »

Barack Obama in Copenhagen.

Fifty-five nations have attached formal emissions targets to the Copenhagen Accord, the United Nations reported today. But most nations, including the U.S., are hedging their pledges:

“In the range of 17 percent,” reads the U.S. commitment now attached to the Copenhagen Accord, “in conformity with anticipated U.S. energy and climate legislation, recognizing that the final target will be reported to the Secretariat in light of enacted legislation.”

The nations that submitted pledges by yesterday’s deadline represent 78 percent of global emissions of greenhouse gases. Only ten bodies, including the  27-nation European Union, submitted hard targets, what the UN calls “quantified economy-wide emissions targets.” Many of them also hedged on their 2020 commitments: continue »

White House photo 2/9/09 by Pete Souza

In his State of the Union address Wednesday night, President Obama tied prospects for a climate bill to concessions some environmentalists will find difficult to swallow: new oil derricks off of American coastlines and new nuclear power plants.

These concessions closely parallel those included in the framework for a new climate bill announced in December by Senators John Kerry (D-Mass), Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), and Lindsey Graham (R-SC). Graham has been the weak link in that tri-partisan chain since passage of the health care bill, when he warned health care might cost the Democrats any Republican support for even a deeply weakened climate bill.

With Obama billing clean energy as domestic energy, and therefore as independence from foreign oil, it’s difficult for the Administration to cut nuclear energy and domestic oil production from its argument. But should those sources be developed in return for a carbon cap and trade program, burning the oil would help fund a carbon market.

The president’s remarks on climate: continue »

Click the map for a larger pdf version.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. And in this case, that’s a good thing. In spite of shifting rhetoric, in spite of the changing hues on the shimmering surface of politics, Obama’s first initiative after his 2010 State of the Union Address will show he’s the same Obama who took office a year ago.

Tonight’s State of the Union address is expected to feature a new emphasis on deficit reduction, along with a not-so new emphasis on job creation.

But the first initiative of his second year is an $8 billion high-speed rail initiative, which he bills not only as an effort to bring American transportation into the 20^th Century (yes, I do mean 20^th), but also as a jobs creation program. continue »

Scott Brown

With Scott Brown’s election to the Senate yesterday, hope has dimmed that the United States will cap its greenhouse gas emissions in the coming year, and on that hope rests the greater hope that the rest of the warming world can do the same.

But the world has no intention of letting the United States off the hook, one of its more patient spokesmen warned this morning. continue »