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Evangelical Christians call on Florida politicians to take climate action

by Christinef76 Posted on May 20, 2014

WWJD?

Evangelical Christians call on Florida politicians to take climate action

By

Paul Simpson

When it comes to using energy, what would Jesus do?

We’re guessing he wouldn’t use more than he needed, and he wouldn’t condemn generations to climate hell by burning fossil fuels when cleaner options were available.

Some Evangelical Christian leaders in Florida are making just that point, calling on Republican politicians in the state to take climate change seriously. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) recently went full-on climate denier, and Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) is a denier too.

Rev. Mich Hescox, president of the Evangelical Environmental Network, has started a petition drive calling on Scott to make climate change and “creation care” priorities. Here’s an excerpt:

We are failing to keep our air and water clean for our children, contributing to a changing climate that most hurts the world’s poor, and putting Floridians at risk as temperatures and sea levels continue to rise. To meet these challenges, we need leaders who understand our duty to God’s creation and future generations. That’s why we are calling on Gov. Rick Scott to create a plan to reduce carbon pollution and confront the impacts of a changing climate.

And the Tampa Bay Times reports that Hescox and prominent Evangelical pastor Joel Hunter are taking part in a panel discussion tonight titled “Climate Change: Should Christians Care?” From the Times article:

Evangelical leaders in Florida have taken on climate change as a cause and are trying to increase pressure on Gov. Rick Scott to take action, while criticizing Sen. Marco Rubio’s stance on the issue. …

Hunter, who is a spiritual advisor to President Obama, says he’s taken to urging congregants to do their part: Turning off lights that aren’t needed, setting air conditioning at a reasonable temperature, keeping car tires properly inflated.

He said he was neither panicked nor preoccupied with the issue. “But this is part of what I think is the moral responsibility of the church to lead in areas that can benefit and protect people.”

Should Christians care? The answer seems obvious to those who put their flocks before politics.


Source
Evangelicals in Florida turn to climate change and call on Gov. Scott to act, Tampa Bay Times

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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BP claims mission accomplished in Gulf cleanup; Coast Guard begs to differ

by MayeskiLatouf679 Posted on April 18, 2014

BP claims mission accomplished in Gulf cleanup; Coast Guard begs to differ

By

Katherine Welles / Shutterstock

BP this week metaphorically hung a “mission accomplished” banner over the Gulf of Mexico ecosystems that it wrecked when the Deepwater Horizon oil well blew up and spewed 200 million gallons of oil in 2010. Funny thing, though: BP isn’t the commander of the cleanup operation. The Coast Guard is. And it’s calling bullshit.

Here’s what BP said in a press statement on Tuesday, nearly four years after the blowout: “The U.S. Coast Guard today ended patrols and operations on the final three shoreline miles in Louisiana, bringing to a close the extensive four-year active cleanup of the Gulf Coast following the Deepwater Horizon accident. These operations ended in Florida, Alabama and Mississippi in June 2013.”

Helpful though it may have seemed for BP to speak on behalf of the federal government, the Coast Guard took some umbrage. From The Washington Post:

Coast Guard Capt. Thomas Sparks, the federal on-scene coordinator of the Deepwater Horizon response, sought to stress that the switch to what he called a “middle response” process “does not end cleanup operations.”

“Our response posture has evolved to target re-oiling events on coastline segments that were previously cleaned,” said Sparks. “But let me be absolutely clear: This response is not over — not by a long shot.”

The Gulf Restoration Network tried to explain the semantics behind BP’s deceptive statement. “When oil washes up on shore, BP is no longer automatically obliged to go out there and clean up the mess,” spokesperson Raleigh Hoke said. “Now the onus is on the public, and state and federal governments to find the oil and then call BP in.”

We get why BP would wish that the cleanup were over. The efforts have already cost $14 billion — a fraction of the $42 billion that the company expects to pay out in fines, compensation claims, and other costs related to the Deepwater Horizon disaster. It’s a nightmare that we all wish were over — but wishes and rhetoric do not remove poisons from an ecosystem.


Source
Active Shoreline Cleanup Operations from Deepwater Horizon Accident End, BP
Is gulf cleanup over or not? BP and Coast Guard differ, The Washington Post

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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NEW STUDY: 72 Percent of Fox News Climate Segments Are Misleading

by HassanJDVefvwac Posted on April 7, 2014

Mother Jones

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According to a Pew study released last year, 38 percent of US adults watch cable news. So if you want to know why so many Americans deny or doubt the established science of climate change, the content they’re receiving on cable news may well point the way.

According to a new study by the Union of Concerned Scientists, misinformation about climate science on cable news channels is pretty common. The study found that last year, 30 percent of CNN’s climate-related segments were misleading, compared with 72 percent for Fox News and just 8 percent for MSNBC. The study methodology was quite strict: segments that contained “any inaccurate or misleading representations of climate science” were classified as misleading.

By far the worst performer was Fox (this is hardly the first study to associate this channel with sowing reams of doubt about climate change). Notably, the UCS report found that “more than half” of the channel’s misleading content was due to The Five, a program where the hosts regularly argue against climate science. For instance, Greg Gutfeld, one of the show’s regular co-hosts, charged on September 30 that “experts pondered hiding the news that the earth hadn’t…warmed in 15 years, despite an increase in emissions. They concluded that the missing heat was trapped in the ocean. It’s like blaming gas on the dog if the ocean was your dog.” (To understand what is actually going on with the alleged global warming “pause,” and why the deep oceans may well explain part of the story, click here.)

You can watch Gutfeld’s comments here:

As Gutfeld’s statement suggests, one of the standard Fox practices was sowing doubt about scientists themselves. On February 13, 2013, for instance, Sean Hannity commented, “I don’t believe that this global warming nonsense is real,” and then went on to mention “phony emails” from climate scientists. (If you want to know what was actually up with those emails, read here.)

Fox’s two most accurate programs with respect to climate science were The O’Reilly Factor and Special Report with Bret Baier. As the UCS study put it, “O’Reilly and Baier’s programs, although also airing a number of segments containing inaccurate statements about climate science, were responsible for nearly all of the network’s accurate coverage.”

In contrast to Fox, the study found that MSNBC was overwhelmingly accurate in its coverage, and also devoted a great deal of attention to climate change. That was particularly the case for programs hosted by Chris Hayes, whose All In With Chris Hayes featured 30 segments about climate change. When MSNBC did err, the study found, it was because hosts or guests “overstated the effects of climate change, particularly the link between climate change and specific types of extreme weather, such as tornadoes.”

CNN provides the most interesting case in the analysis. In general, the network was usually accurate; when it erred, however, it tended to be because climate-denying guests had appeared in “debates” the network hosted over the reality of climate change. Take a January 23 debate on Out Front with Erin Burnett, for instance, in which Erick Erickson of RedState (then a CNN contributor) claimed that “the 1950s had more extreme weather than now.”

Overall, the UCS report calculated that if CNN had not hosted misleading science debates, it would have improved its accuracy rating to 86 percent. “The biggest step that CNN could take to increase the accuracy of the information it provides to its viewers,” the study concluded, “is to stop hosting debates about established climate science and instead host debates and discussions about whether and how to respond to climate change through climate policy.”

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NEW STUDY: 72 Percent of Fox News Climate Segments Are Misleading

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Want Better Broadband? Unbundle the Local Loop.

by XOCKellieqnkfp Posted on February 21, 2014

Mother Jones

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Felix Salmon says we have plenty of bandwidth in America. Contra Tyler Cowen, we don’t need to spend a bajillion dollars rolling out a new nationwide network based on new pipes or new technology:

What we do need, on the other hand, is the ability of different companies to provide broadband services to America’s households. And here’s where the real problem lies: the cable companies own the cable pipes, and the regulators refuse to force them to allow anybody else to provide services over those pipes. This is called local loop unbundling, it’s the main reason for low broadband prices in Europe, and of course it’s vehemently opposed by the cable companies.

Local loop unbundling, in the broadband space, would be vastly more effective than waiting for some hugely expensive new technology to be built, nationally, in parallel to the existing internet infrastructure. The problem with Cowen’s dream is precisely the monopoly rents that the cable companies are currently extracting. If and when any new competitor arrives, the local monopolist has more room to cut prices and drive the competitor out of business than the newcomer has.

Cable companies have a thousand ready-made technical incantations to explain why they can’t possibly open up their networks to competitors. To listen to them, you’d think this would be akin to letting a five-year-old mess around with your electric wiring. This is delicate stuff! You can’t just let anyone start sending bits around on it.

It’s all special pleading, of course, of the same type that Ma Bell engaged in when people wanted to start putting answering machines on their phone lines. But everyone understands there would be technical requirements they’d have to meet, just as answering machines had to meet reasonable technical requirements back in the day. Regulators would have to be involved to make sure everyone plays nice with each other, but that’s far from impossible.

No, this is all about money, as you already guessed. Allowing other companies to use their last-mile pipes would (a) take away some of their broadband rents, (b) force cable companies to genuinely compete on price and features, and (c) allow competitors onto their network who couldn’t care less about cannibalizing TV business. If I were a cable company, I’d fight that tooth and nail too.

But that doesn’t mean the rest of us have to take their arguments seriously. The rest of us should be in favor of competition, not the profit margins of local cable TV monopolies.

Taken from: 

Want Better Broadband? Unbundle the Local Loop.

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A Roger Ailes Movie Will Likely Happen—Here’s Who Should Play Him

by CeliaHdack Posted on January 31, 2014

Mother Jones

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Earlier this week, TheWrap published an interview with author and journalist Gabriel Sherman, about The Loudest Voice in the Room, his new, much-discussed unauthorized biography of Fox News president Roger Ailes. The biography has gained attention for its juicy content (such as a producer claiming that Ailes, then at NBC, offered her an extra $100 a week if she agreed to have sex with him whenever he asked), and for being the target of a campaign, by Fox News and others in conservative media, to discredit Sherman’s reporting.

At the end of the Wrap Q&A, reporter L.A. Ross asks Sherman if he has received any offers from studios or production companies about turning his book into a movie. “Well…it’s too early to talk about that, but I think Ailes is an incredibly cinematic character, and would find a natural home on the big screen,” Sherman replied. When pressed further, he simply said, “No comment.”

The idea of a Hollywood epic chronicling the saga of Ailes was intriguing, so I poked around a little: a source with knowledge of the situation says that folks in Hollywood have indeed expressed interest in developing Sherman’s book into a film. (This might go nicely with the Rush Limbaugh movie that John Cusack has supposedly been working on.)

I haven’t been able to get any other details yet, but the prospect of a feature film on the life and work of a figure as towering and powerful as the ultra-conservative Roger Ailes got me thinking. Which actor should play him?

Here are my top suggestions for casting the role of the Fox News chief. If you have better ones, please put them in the comments below.

1. John Goodman, who basically already portrayed an Ailes-type character on the third season of NBC’s Community.

David Shankbone/Wikimedia Commons

2. Paul Giamatti, who has played a cartoonish right-wing villain before.

Justin Hoch/Hudson Union Society

3. Jonathan Banks, the Breaking Bad star who’s done a Chuck Norris movie.

Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia Commons

4. Conleth Hill, who plays a eunuch overseeing a large network of informants on HBO’s Game of Thrones.

HBO

5. Anthony Hopkins, who was nominated for an Oscar for portraying President Richard Nixon (for whom Ailes was a paid consultant).

StreamingTrailer/YouTube

6. Rip Torn, who actually blames Ailes’ old boss Nixon for stalling his acting career in the 1970s.

Alec Michael/Globe Photos/ZUMA

7. Robert Duvall, whose politics line up reasonably well with Ailes’.

David Shankbone/Flickr

8. Douglas Urbanski, who played former Treasury secretary Larry Summers in David Fincher’s The Social Network.

DukeofConDao/YouTube

9. Daniel Day-Lewis…just because Daniel Day–Lewis can play anyone and anything.

Jaguar MENA/Flickr

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A Roger Ailes Movie Will Likely Happen—Here’s Who Should Play Him

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Disney radio will stop shilling for frackers

by AshleaMelina844 Posted on January 13, 2014

Disney radio will stop shilling for frackers

By

chuck holton

A Radio Disney station in Ohio recently teamed up with the state’s oil and gas industry on an “educational program” promoting resource extraction — from Never Land to Gasland, you might say. The partnership made many parents and environmentalists unhappy.

From Al Jazeera:

The program, called Rocking in Ohio, went on a 26-stop tour of elementary schools and science centers across the state last month. It involves interactive demonstrations of how oil and gas pipelines work, and is led by three staffers from Radio Disney’s Cleveland branch. It is entirely funded by the Ohio Oil and Gas Energy Education Program (OOGEEP), which gets its money from oil and gas companies.

The Wooster Daily Record described the tour’s stop at the Wayne County fairgrounds last year:

Radio Disney of Cleveland and its road crew promoted the Ohio Oil and Gas Energy Education Program, with games pitting all ages of children vs. their peers and even families vs. families and dads trying to beat other dads in a variety of challenges. All the challenges, except perhaps the dads’ dance competition, related back to the science behind oil and gas production and their value as natural resources. …

One of the challenges was “literally creating our own pipeline,” [said Jag, the Radio Disney master of ceremonies], using balls and tubing to demonstrate “how we get oil and gas to your home.”

As contestants shot balls through the “pipeline” to end up in colored pails at the other end, Jag encouraged the audience, “Cheer these guys on like crazy.”

“I don’t think it’s doing the children or the state of Ohio any good,” Robert Shields of the Sierra Club’s Ohio chapter told Al Jazeera. “Kids’ ability to reason is not yet quite established, so it feels to me that they’re getting some kind of propaganda.”

After concerned citizens started protesting and circulating petitions, Disney backed out. Here’s the latest from the Cleveland Plain Dealer:

The Cleveland-based Radio Disney station will no longer participate in an educational program sponsored by Ohio’s oil and gas industry, after protests by environmental activists snowballed in recent weeks.

The Rocking in Ohio program raised eyebrows and outrage among parents and environmental advocates who say the program activities constituted propaganda.

A Disney spokesman provided the following statement to Northeast Ohio Media Group: “The sole intent of the collaboration between Radio Disney and the nonprofit Rocking in Ohio educational initiative was to foster kids’ interest in science and technology. Having been inadvertently drawn into a debate that has no connection with this goal, Radio Disney has decided to withdraw from the few remaining installments of the program.”

But that’s not the end of the roadshow. Rhonda Reda, director of the Ohio Oil and Gas Energy Education Program, said the controversy was “blown out of proportion” and the program will continue without Radio Disney.


Source
Making education fun: Kids’ day at the Wayne County Fair features Radio Disney, Ohio Oil and Gas energy education program, The Daily Record
Network made 26 stops across Ohio with industry-funded group to promote oil and gas to students, Al Jazeera
Cleveland Radio Disney station ends partnership with oil and gas industry-funded kids’ program, The Plain Dealer

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Disney radio will stop shilling for frackers

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US Ranks 43rd on Climate Policy (and Canada is Even Worse)

by 2KeaheySchoeffler461 Posted on November 20, 2013

Mother Jones

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Recently, there’s been some good news when it comes to US greenhouse gas emissions: They’re actually going down. The bad news, though, is that despite this progress, we still only rank 43rd in the world for the overall effectiveness of our climate policies.

That’s the upshot of a new report by the Climate Action Network Europe and Germanwatch, a public policy think tank with offices in Bonn and Berlin. The two groups release an annual Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI) to assess how much individual countries are contributing to the global carbon problem, and how much they’re trying to do about it. The rankings include the globe’s 58 leading countries for greenhouse gas emissions—countries that, together, account for 90 percent of the globe’s carbon emissions from fossil energy use. Each country is assessed based its emissions trends, its energy efficiency, its progress on renewable energy, and its overall climate policies.

The US ranked 43rd last year and ranks 43rd this year as well, right between New Zealand and Croatia. We get particularly good marks for our 8-percent decrease in carbon emissions from energy sources in the last half decade, but we still fall well short of a stance that could be considered truly progressive or proactive on climate and energy. Still, if we want to gloat then it’s easy to compare ourselves to our northern neighbor, Canada, which was “the worst performer of all industrialised countries” and only fared better than Iran, Kazakhstan, and Saudi Arabia. (For more on Canada’s recent dismal climate performance see here.)

Here are the Climate Change Performance Index rankings for the top ten biggest emitters (most of which have declined in rank since last year):

CCPI ranking and data for the ten largest greenhouse gas emitting countries. CAN Europe/Germanwatch

Based on the new report, here are some other surprising and intriguing facts about the nations of the world and how they’re performing in the uphill battle to save the globe from humans and their energy habits:

* Europe is one of the best performing regions overall, but there’s wide variability, especially among countries hit hard by the Eurozone debt crisis. On the one hand, bailed-out Portugal ranks sixth in the world on the CCPI index, suggesting economic hardship does not necessarily entail regression on climate policy. But on the other hand, bailed-out Greece ranks 47th, having “almost totally abandoned all climate policies” in the wake of its economic crisis.

* Morocco is a surprising success story, ranking 15th overall thanks to its “national solar plan” as well as a “national action plan against global warming.”

* Industrialized countries in the Pacific region have a lot to answer for. Japan slipped to 50th overall from 44th last year. Korea dropped to 53rd from 50th. And Australia plummeted to 57th thanks to its recent change in government.

* Large developing nations (the BRICs) are also lagging. India declined to 30th and Brazil slipped to 36th. Perhaps most important for the planet, China climbed to 46th in the rankings, a turnaround due to the fact that its dramatic rate of emissions growth is slowing somewhat, even as renewable energy investment continues apace. The Russian Federation is the worst of the BRICs, coming in at 56th.

Overall, there isn’t a ton of good news around the world this year when it comes to climate policy. No wonder, then, that the CCPI doesn’t put any country in positions 1, 2, or 3 of its rankings, noting that “no country is doing enough to prevent dangerous climate change.”

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US Ranks 43rd on Climate Policy (and Canada is Even Worse)

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Walmart’s carbon emissions soar despite all that green talk

by bibw6a Posted on November 14, 2013

Walmart’s carbon emissions soar despite all that green talk

By

Heather Ingram

Walmart’s flagrant labor abuses have been well-documented, as have the effects of its sprawling big-box stores on town centers and small retailers. But less well-known is how much the mega-retailer is doing to wreak havoc with the world’s climate.

In greenwashing on an epic scale, the company has been making a lot of noise in the press over its pledges and occasional projects to reduce carbon emissions. The company’s chief executive proclaimed in 2005 that “every company has a responsibility to reduce greenhouse gases as quickly as it can.”

Which is nice rhetoric. But apparently Walmart doesn’t think it falls into the same bucket as “every company.”

Eight years into the retailer’s self-professed love affair with the environment, a new report [PDF] by the nonprofit Institute for Local Self-Reliance lays bare its hypocrisy: Walmart is significantly growing its carbon footprint, even as it claims to be reducing it.

“Walmart is failing on climate exactly like it is failing on worker’s rights,” Michael Marx, director of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Oil Campaign, said in a statement [PDF] that coincided with publication of the report. “The company’s carbon pollution is up 14 percent while it pours millions of dollars into a misleading PR campaign around sustainability and anti-environmental public officials who obstruct solutions to climate disruption.”

From the report:

Today Walmart ranks as one of the biggest and fastest growing climate polluters in the country. If it were included in the Greenhouse 100 Polluters Index, a list that is limited to heavy industrial firms, such as oil companies and power plants, Walmart would take the 33rd spot, just a hair behind Chevron, America’s second largest oil company. …

Since 2005, Walmart’s reported greenhouse gas emissions have risen 14 percent, reaching 21 million metric tons per year, according to data the company has filed with CDP, formerly known as the Carbon Disclosure Project. What’s more, this figure only accounts for a fraction of the company’s total emissions, as Walmart does not include large segments of its greenhouse gas pollution in these disclosures. …

Walmart reports emissions from its stores, distribution centers, and trucks, but does not report emissions from other sources, such as international shipping, land development, store construction, and manufacturing of store-brand products.

Here’s a chart from the report that compares Walmart’s use of renewable energy with that of other large retailers:

ILSRClick to embiggen.

That’s right — the company has been promising since 2005 to switch over to clean energy, but it still gets 96 percent of its electricity from dirty sources. Why? “It has sometimes been difficult to find and fund low-carbon technologies that meet our ROI [return-on-investment] requirements,” the company has stated. In other words: We will only go green if it’s cheaper than not going green.

And here’s another chart from the new report, showing how Walmart funds political candidates who block all things green and support all things polluting:

ISLRClick to embiggen.

Publication of the report coincided with an open letter sent to Walmart by environmental groups demanding that the company live up to its promises and quit with the whole destroying-the-planet thing. From the letter, which was signed by Friends of the Earth, the Sierra Club, Rainforest Action Network, and six other groups and coalitions:

We call on Walmart to implement a publicly verifiable, accurate tracking of all of their climate change emissions, commit to an overall 20% reduction in emissions by 2020, and end reliance on environmentally destructive energy sources and industries, including dirty coal, fracking and the tar sands. This reduction in emissions could be achieved by investing in a faster shift to renewable power and energy efficiency, phasing out construction of auto-oriented store formats built on greenfields, and shifting to more local and regional sourcing of goods. In addition, we call on Walmart to hold its suppliers and business partners to these same standards or sever its relationships with them.

The letter comes just days after 54 protesters were arrested in downtown Los Angeles during a march that coincided with strikes over low wages and working conditions at Walmart stores. Strikes and protests continue throughout the country over the retailer’s egregious treatment of its workers, and those actions are expected to culminate with shuttered stores on Black Friday when workers walk off the job.


Source
Walmart’s Assault on the Climate, Institute for Local Self-Reliance

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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“Bee-friendly” plants could be bee killers

by DougE92 Posted on August 14, 2013

“Bee-friendly” plants could be bee killers

By John Upton

Shutterstock

Be a friend to a bee and be wary of “bee-friendly” products.

Beware of buying “bee-friendly” plants — they might end up killing your friendly backyard bees.

As gardeners have been waking up to the pollinator crisis, many have been planting bee-friendly veggies and flowers and keeping neonicotinoid insecticides away from their plots. But some plants being marketed to these bee-loving gardeners could actually be harmful to pollinators, according to a new report.

Friends of the Earth and the Pesticide Research Institute bought 13 “bee-friendly” nursery plants from Home Depot, Lowe’s, and Orchard Supply Hardware in three American regions and found that seven of them were contaminated with neonic insecticides, which have been implicated in worldwide bee declines. Some plants contained two types of neonics. A sunflower plant purchased in Minnesota tested positive for three of them.

Such insecticides are so harmful to pollinators that they are being banned in Europe. Reps. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) and John Conyers (D-Mich.) introduced legislation last month that would impose a similar ban here — the Save America’s Pollinators Act [PDF] — but it won’t be going anywhere in the GOP-dominated House.

How did so many neonics end up in “bee-friendly” plants? “There are very few insecticide products containing multiple neonicotinoids as active ingredients and none containing three different neonicotinoids, so these plants were possibly treated multiple times during their short lifespan,” says the report. Indeed, the nursery industry is virtually swimming in pest-killing poisons. The report notes that such pesticides are used at higher volumes on nursery plants than on agricultural crops, and that they can persist from one season to another:

Nurseries commonly apply neonicotinoids as soil injections, granular or liquid soil treatments, foliar sprays (applied to leaves), and seed treatments. Water-soluble pesticides such as neonicotinoids are readily absorbed by plant roots and transported systemically in the plant’s vascular system to other portions of the plant, including roots, pollen, leaves, stems, and fruit. This systemic action results in the exposure of beneficial, non-target insects such as bees to potentially lethal doses of neonicotinoids.

Friends of the Earth, Pesticide Action Network, The Xerces Society, and other nonprofits are sending letters [PDF] and signed petitions to Lowe’s, Home Depot, Target, and other garden retailers asking them to stop selling neonics and plants that have been pre-treated with the pesticides.

So how can you protect your garden from neonics when even “bee-friendly” plants are loaded with them? Experts say get back to basics or go organic. “Gardeners should start their plants from seeds that have not been treated with chemicals, or choose organic plants for their gardens,” said Pesticide Action Network spokesman Paul Towers. Get more gardening tips from Honey Bee Haven.

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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“Bee-friendly” plants could be bee killers

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Maine guv freaks out after local media report on his corrupt environment chief

by irj972ys Posted on June 20, 2013

Maine guv freaks out after local media report on his corrupt environment chief

By Claire Thompson

Maine Department of Education

Foreground: Maine Gov. Paul R. LePage.

It’s almost surprising that Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R) has never run for national office. In the realm of GOP presidential aspirants, he could give Herman Cain and Michele Bachmann a run for their money when it comes to political ineptitude and pure crazy. He’s told the NAACP to “kiss my butt,” and he recently used a violent sodomy analogy to describe a state lawmaker at a public rally.

But alas, we could be hearing less from LePage in the future: His spokesperson announced on Tuesday that the governor’s office will no longer communicate with three leading Maine newspapers, because their parent company, MaineToday Media, “made it clear that it opposed this administration.”

Evidence of this alleged opposition came in the form of a seven-month investigation of Patricia Aho, commissioner of the state’s Department of Environmental Protection and a former corporate lobbyist, the results of which were published in the Portland Press Herald, the Kennebec Journal, and the Morning Sentinel. The papers reported that Aho “has scuttled programs and fought against laws that were opposed by many of her former clients in the chemical, drug, oil, and real estate development industries.” The commissioner stalled a 2008 law to keep dangerous chemicals out of children’s products, weakened enforcement of real-estate and development laws, rolled back recycling programs, and oversaw a purge of information from the DEP’s website and a restriction of its employees’ ability to communicate with lawmakers, the public, and each other.

Aho’s performance lines up with LePage’s well-established allegiance to corporations before citizens. Elected in a low-turnout, four-way 2010 contest with only 38 percent of the vote (a whopping 216,000 people), LePage started his term off with a bang by issuing a list of environmental safeguards he hoped to weaken or destroy, including a phaseout of BPA in children’s products (“the worst case is some women may have little beards,” he declared of the chemical’s safety risk). He went on to ban the use of LEED green-building standards for state buildings to keep Maine’s timber industry happy.

Cliff Schechtman, executive editor of the Portland Press Herald, said the newspaper wouldn’t be doing anything differently as a result of the governor’s new edict (aside, I assume, from not calling LePage or his spokesperson for a quote) and offered the Associated Press a simple assessment of the situation:

This is about probing journalism that examines how powerful forces affect the lives of ordinary citizens. That makes the powerful uncomfortable. That’s what this is about.

Indeed, LePage has never had what one would call a comfortable relationship with the press. Last month, he kicked reporters out of the ceremonial signing of a unanimously supported suicide-prevention bill — after complaining that the press wouldn’t want to cover the event. Even before this week’s gag order, the governor refused comment on a myriad of issues and funneled most media requests through his spokesperson, Adrienne Bennett. This is not atypical for a governor, but as the Press Herald reports, LePage’s mistrust of the media verges on the paranoid:

LePage has had a rocky relationship with the press since the 2010 gubernatorial campaign, storming out of a news conference amid questions about his paying property taxes in Maine.

LePage also said that he would like to punch a reporter from the Maine Public Broadcasting Network, during a taped interview with the network. …

In 2012, during a presentation at Waterville Junior High School, LePage told 150 eighth-graders that reading newspapers in Maine is “like paying somebody to tell you lies.”

In February, during a reading with schoolchildren at St. John Catholic School in Winslow, LePage said: “My greatest fear in the state of Maine: newspapers. I’m not a fan of newspapers.”

Bennett pointed out that the MaineToday newspapers can still use the state’s Freedom of Access Act to obtain information about the administration. (The best way to do research on a deadline, as any reporter knows.)

How ironic that the same camp accusing a media outlet of biased reporting has decided to make balanced newsgathering impossible by refusing to offer their point of view. It’s a back-asswards stubbornness that journalists run into frustratingly often, and that sources don’t seem to realize will backfire. When does “no comment” ever make you look good? (At a public hearing on proposed coal terminals in Washington state, for example, some of the few terminal supporters in attendance only talked to me after I pointed out that their refusal to be quoted would force me to write a more one-sided story.)

From the AP:

Kelly McBride, a media ethics specialist from the Poynter Institute, a Florida-based journalism think tank, said such storms between politicians and the media tend to blow over. But in the meantime, she said, the governor’s posture will serve only to make him appear petty and to increase readership of the newspaper series.

“Publishers and editors face belligerent sources all the time. As long as they continue to be loyal to their audience, rather than their sources,” she said, “it usually works out for the journalist.”

Claire Thompson is an editorial assistant at Grist.

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Maine guv freaks out after local media report on his corrupt environment chief

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