its monia and i think we NEED to save our environment because some of us what too and others dont so GET OUT there and recyle NOWW!!!

Some of them are wild claims that need proof. I don't believe everything I read on blogs and neither should anyone else. Claims such as Clinton destroyed thousands of trees need to be sourced. I don't believe it without proof from a good source.

Bees are being saved by Republicans? That's a joke, right?

Climate change should not be a political issue at all. This should be a scientific issue that the world acts on as quickly as possible. It should have nothing to do with politics or idealogy. Climate change is real, it's happening, and it has to be acted upon. So say the scientists, not the politicians. We should not be listening to what the "left" or the "right" says, we should be listening to what science says. Our other option is to leave it in the hands of partisans who think this is a political issue, and find ourselves going extinct in 50 years. It won't take long if we pass the point of no return when the feedback loop has started. The problem with this issue is that there really IS a point where it can't be stopped if its let go too long. The stakes are too high for that to happen. It's not just animals who will be threatened, it's US.

1. You write: "One look at it [Red Green and Blue] and it was clear that you suffer from the misconception that only liberals care about greenness therefore, we won’t mind your obvious political bias and childish slaps at people like me…"

2. Cherry-picking instances of positive Republican action on the environment and negative Democratic actions doesn't do much for advancing the discussion. There will always be outliers and to say that "liberals" are this and "conservatives" are that, will usually be over-generalizations.

It is just in the US that the Republican party is so aligned with and so much more heavily funded by Big Oil.

That is the problem with Gore's hypocrisy and with most environmentalists that have the bully pulpit of celebrity or whatever: they have no REAL cost to themselves personally and so there is only a financial cost that is easily paid and therefore consumption is not restrained. My Dad used to yell and pound on the walls after the shower was on for 4 minutes and until we turned it off. That is a REAL cost!

It is somewhat like an editorial I read in the late '80's while living in upstate NY on the Amish and the nuclear threat. Basically the editorial started out with bit about the real cost of eating a head of lettuce in upstate NY in the middle of winter. We don't understand the REAL cost of eating a head of lettuce anytime like the Amish do, since few of us grow lettuce. When you add to that the fact that in winter, the tractor on the farm in California, fuel it consumes, the plane or train to carry it to New York and fuel they consume etc on through the supply chain have to be added into the equation, you can begin to fathom why a head of lettuce at $1.00 is significantly underpriced. The REAL cost is not factored in at all at that price.

As to Eric's comments on the culture war and divisive politics, remember that Obama's rhetoric is all we have to go on since his record is decidedly partisan. I am willing to take a wait-and-see approach and am watching with anticipation the choices he will make for cabinet positions and other appointments.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – As the U.S. presidential candidates sprint toward the finish line, the Bush administration is also sprinting to enact environmental policy changes before leaving power.

Whether it’s getting wolves off the Endangered Species List, allowing power plants to operate near national parks, loosening regulations for factory farm waste or making it easier for mountaintop coal-mining operations, these proposed changes have found little favor with environmental groups.

The one change most environmentalists want, a mandatory program to cut climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions, is not among these so-called “midnight regulations.”

Bureaucratic calendars make it virtually impossible that any U.S. across-the-board action will be taken to curb global warming in this administration, though both Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama have promised to address it if they win Tuesday’s U.S. presidential election.

Even some free-market organizations have joined conservation groups to urge a moratorium on last-minute rules proposed by the Interior Department and the Environmental Protection Agency, among others.

“The Bush administration has had eight years in office and has issued more regulations than any administration in history,” said Eli Lehrer of the Competitive Enterprise Institute. “At this point, in the current economic climate, it would be especially harmful to push through ill-considered regulations in the final days of the administration.”

John Kostyack of the National Wildlife Federation, which joined Lehrer’s group to call for a ban on these last-minute rules, said citizens are cut out of the process, allowing changes in U.S. law that the public opposes, such as rolling back protections under the Endangered Species Act.

WHAT’S THE RUSH?

The Bush team has urged that these regulations be issued no later than Saturday, so they can be put in effect by the time President George W. Bush leaves office on January 20.

If they are in effect then, it will be hard for the next administration to undo them, and in any case, this may not be the top priority for a new president, said Matt Madia of OMB Watch, which monitors the White House Office of Management and Budget, through which these proposed regulations must pass.

“This is typical,” Madia said of the administration’s welter of eleventh-hour rules. “It’s a natural reaction to knowing that you’re almost out of power.”

Industry is likely to benefit if Bush’s rules on the environment become effective, Madia said.

“Whether it’s the electricity industry or the mining industry or the agriculture industry, this is going to remove government restrictions on their activity and in turn they’re going to be allowed to pollute more and that ends up harming the public,” Madia said in a telephone interview.

What is unusual is the speedy trip some of these environmental measures are taking through the process.

For example, one Interior Department rule that would erode protections for endangered species in favor of mining interests drew more than 300,000 comments from the public, which officials said they planned to review in a week, a pace that Madia called “pretty ludicrous.”

Why the rush? Because rules only go into effect 30 to 60 days after they are finalized, and if they are not in effect when the next president takes office, that chief executive can decline to put them into practice — as Bush did with many rules finalized at the end of the Clinton administration.

White House spokesman Tony Fratto denied the Bush team was cramming these regulations through in a hasty push.

Fratto discounted reports “that we’re trying to weaken regulations that have a business interest,” telling White House reporters last week the goal was to avoid the flood of last-minute rules left over from the Clinton team.

There is at least one Bush administration environmental proposal that conservation groups welcome: a plan to create what would be the world’s largest marine wildlife sanctuary in the Pacific Ocean. That could go into effect January 20.

(Editing by Alan Elsner)

Governor Crist of Florida and Schwartznegger of California truly get it.

But the reason that Republicans are seen as the obstruction is that — in congress: they are.

For instance, the Republicans have nearly all voted against clean energy all 50 times that it has come up for a vote since 1993.

The few who voted with the Democrats were Smith (OR) Coleman(MN) Snowe and Collins of Maine. These 4 Republicans and all 51 Democrats have not been able to bypass the 60 vote filibuster by the other Republicans on clean energy. (And sometimes Landrieau (D-LA) has voted dirty with the Republicans)

James Inhofe said "global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetuated on mankind", and McCain voted 42 of 44 times with Inhofe against clean energy. As did all the Republicans.

Except for those 4. Now that is one terrible record.

Here is the full list:

McCain's 50 Votes Against Clean Energy
http://www.matternetwork.com/2008/9/mccains-50-vo…

(if you click on the rollcall vote links you can see that the Republicans were obstructing all the votes.)