Jacob from the blog Force Change tells us that Sarah Palin supports mining in Bristol Bay, which could threaten salmon, bears, and caribou. He lists three other major anti-green policies from Sarah Palin and comes to the conclusion that her “overall position towards the environment is quite poor.”

Gristmill also has a lengthy post about Sarah Palin and her record on issues related to energy and the environment. For example they list Sarah Palin’s support to build a natural-gas pipeline from Alaska’s North Slope and her suggestion to eliminate Alaska’s gas tax.

Gristmill also lists several quotes from Sarah Palin and from people who have reacted to her nomination. Such as this one from Gene Karpinski, the President of the League of Conservation Voters:

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Last week the Republican presidential contender John McCain announced his choice for running mate and Vice President. John McCain selected a rather unknown 44 year-old women named Sarah Palin from Alaska.

The pro-lifer Sarah Palin, a lifetime member of the NRA, was the former mayor of a town of 9,000 for nearly two years. She wants to teach creationism in schools and is “a firm believer in free market capitalism.” She is also in the centre of the “TrooperGate” scandal currently being unfolded in Alaska. During an interview with Larry Kudlow from CNBC’s “Kudlow & Co” Sarah Palin said that someone needed to explain for her “what is it exactly that the VP does every day?” According to Cindy McCain, “Palin has national security experience because Alaska is close to Russia.”

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The US Climate Change Science Program was created by the climate change denying Bush administration back in late 2002 “to review the validity of climate-change science before making policy decisions.” The science program was criticized by environmentalists for being used so that Bush could continue doing absolutely nothing to curb climate change.

But now the Climate Change Science Program has released their results and they clearly show that “human activity was responsible for the rapid warming of the 20th century.”

“The evidence is pretty convincing that the models give a good simulation of climate,” lead author David Bader of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California told reporters last week. He concedes that the report did not examine predictions of future climate change. Nor did it address policy issues, which will be left to the next administration.

Via New Scientist

According to a newly released report by the IUCN Primate Specialist Group says that “almost 50 percent of the world’s primates are in danger of extinction.” The report points out that habitat destruction and hunting are the two main threats.

“We’ve raised concerns for years about primates being in peril, but now we have solid data to show the situation is far more severe than we imagined,” said Russell A. Mittermeier, president of Conservation International (CI) and the longtime chairman of the IUCN Species Survival Commission’s Primate Specialist Group. “Tropical forest destruction has always been the main cause, but now it appears that hunting is just as serious a threat in some areas, even where the habitat is still quite intact. In many places, primates are quite literally being eaten to extinction.”

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There have been a lot of discussions about the high gas prices in USA the past months and what exactly should be done to curb this trend. Some politicians, like McCain, Bush, and Gingrich, are taking advantage of the situation and tries to push for the ending of a 27-year moratorium on offshore drilling along the coastlines of USA.

But offshore drilling is not a “quick fix” and it won’t help to lower the gas prices. The only ones that will profit from this are Bush and McCain’s friends in the oil industry. While people are suffering from the high gas prices the oil companies are reporting record profits after record profits.

Greenpeace has listed a bunch of reasons why offshore drilling is not the answer to high gas prices at the pump:

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Daniel Mittler, political advisor to Greenpeace International, said this when he was about to leave the G8 Summit in Toyako, Japan:

There are a lot empty water bottles and even more coffee cups lying around the International Media Centre at the G8. The rooms are slowly emptying out and the faces of those remaining are drained and tired. As I am sure is mine. The last three days were wasted days for addressing the global crises we face. But at least we managed to counter the predictable, positive spin leaders put on the pathetic statements they put out here. For one (of gladly many) good media stories on the united NGO reaction against the G8 climate deal click here. Our Home, the Planet needs action. All it got here, was 8 leaders’ signatures who failed to do what is needed…

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According to a secret World Bank report obtained by the Guardian biofuels have increased global food prices by up to 75%. The report dismisses the idea that droughts in Australia and rising demand from India and China has caused the rising food costs. The report instead claims that “the EU and US drive for biofuels has had by far the biggest impact on food supply and prices”.

“Political leaders seem intent on suppressing and ignoring the strong evidence that biofuels are a major factor in recent food price rises,” said Robert Bailey, policy adviser at Oxfam. “It is imperative that we have the full picture. While politicians concentrate on keeping industry lobbies happy, people in poor countries cannot afford enough to eat.”

Rising food prices have pushed 100m people worldwide below the poverty line, estimates the World Bank, and have sparked riots from Bangladesh to Egypt. Government ministers here have described higher food and fuel prices as “the first real economic crisis of globalisation”.

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Australia is having an “Australia 2020 Summit” in which1,000 chosen delegates will gather in Canberra for 2 days to discuss ideas for a better Australia (http://australia2020.gov.au) . Australians had the opportunity of submitted ideas on 10 topics and these have now been placed on the Web (http://australia2020.gov.au). Topic #3 is Sustainability and Climate Change - population, sustainability, climate change and water.

I did my duty as a citizen of Australia and of Planet Earth and sent them 255 Ideas (see: http://australia2020ideas.blogspot.com/…/) which I then edited back to about 200 in the formal submission (see: http://australia2020ideas.blogspot.com/…/).

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Yesterday George Bush had his final State of the Union as the president of the United States of America. If you are interested, the Washington Post has fact checked key statements in the speech.

This video is not from that speech. And it is completely not unrelated: (more…)