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Action by government on Transition issues with opportunities for advocates to engage the political system for positive change.

Republican renaissance through climate change

By May 8, 2013
Image: mariopiperni/Flickr.

The Republicans are a party in crisis. Having lost the election, they're now wracked with internal strife and prospects for a turnaround in the near term appear dim. The primary reasons for this decline are demographic: their values, platform, and policies are now dangerously out of sync with the mainstream, and diverging further every year. Exploring this divergence could fill an article of its own, but it's best summed up by the Republican party's recent "autopsy" of their 2012 election … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Climate, Politics Tagged With: , ,

Citing mystical vision, Obama rejects Keystone XL pipeline

By April 1, 2013
Barack Obama speaking

Cutting short a permit review process expected to conclude this summer at earliest, President Obama today announced that he has decided to block the Keystone XL pipeline planned to carry more than 700,000 barrels a day of Canadian tar-sands crude into the country. "After a careful process of deliberation, and a prophetic vision after Easter service on Sunday, I have determined that permitting construction [of the pipeline] would not serve the national interest of the United States," Mr. … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Energy, Politics Tagged With: , , , , ,

A new kind of Christmas story

By December 11, 2012
Dead Soldier Wreaths

'Tis the season for reaching out, connecting, and gifts, for good or for ill. One of the Christmas cards was unintentionally soaked in irony. I'll forgo the tempting rant about a religious holiday that has been co-opted to promote conspicuous consumption in an empire founded on secular ideals and skip straight to the card and its message. Filled with proud stories of the kids in the U.S. Army, it closed with, "We pray for peace." I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Never mind that the … [Read more...]

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If you’re not doing politics, you’re not doing enough. Review: Slow Democracy

By November 26, 2012
Fairfield City Council

"We live in an anti-political moment," wrote David Brooks last week in the New York Times, "when many people — young people especially — think politics is a low, nasty, corrupt and usually fruitless business. It’s much nobler to do community service or just avoid all that putrid noise." Brooks rightly suggests that seeing Steven Spielberg's new film Lincoln will show that politics, if done right, is more powerful than volunteerism, altering your personal lifestyle or any other strategy … [Read more...]

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Obama must make climate top priority

By November 8, 2012
Obama climate change poster

Normally we don't print news releases from environmental groups or anybody else verbatim. But this one from Friends of the Earth -- not your average DC Beltway green group -- is the best take we've seen so far on how the newly re-elected president of the world's biggest polluter can stop obstructing and start leading action on the world's biggest challenge. -- Ed. WASHINGTON, D.C. -- President Obama has been re-elected to his second term as president. Friends of the Earth President Erich Pica … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Climate, Politics Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Women, energy, and voting

By November 6, 2012
votepage1

It was a pretty disappointing presidential campaign by the two major parties given that neither talked about my key issues — peak oil and global warming — with any passion or consistency. Both major parties seem content to avoid what are essentially the two toughest challenges today and going into the future. The issue behind all issues Yes, there's been plenty of red meat from both sides on social issues such as abortion, contraception, gay marriage. And it's important for women to stand … [Read more...]

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Vote Romney-Ryan to hasten collapse

By November 2, 2012
Romneymobile in the final stretch

This election year, the total collapse of industrial civilization has gained a popularity not seen since the heyday of The Planet of the Apes franchise. All over the blogosphere, people who worry about climate change, peak oil, financial meltdown, debt slavery, species extinction, overpopulation and rampant commercialism along with the spread of military drones, techno-warfare and the surveillance state have given up on the electoral process. They say that voting for either one of two big … [Read more...]

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Double, double, toil and trouble

By October 30, 2012
Devil on Wall Street

Hey anons, goblins, ghouls, ghosts and hallowed party-goers, Looks like on the eve of the election there’s going to be one hell of a party on Wall Street, one on Capitol Hill and hundreds more in front of banks and other prime locations all over the land. “We all just need a good night off, to relax and have fun.” Invite your friends, invite your enemies and bring back the spirit of all Hallows’ Eve by honoring the dead and giving those on Wall Street, Capitol Hill and our … [Read more...]

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Peak oil and climate change: hold your nose and vote

By October 23, 2012
Obama at debate

At last night's third and final presidential debate, we heard about horses and bayonets, nukes and drones, Israel and Iran and whether we should just give up on Pakistan. But, for the first time since 1988, we didn't hear anything last night or in either of the two previous debates this year about climate change. As to energy, it came up much less in last night's foreign policy debate than in the previous week's debate on domestic issues, but anything said on energy was just as … [Read more...]

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Green Party’s Jill Stein: A missing voice in presidential debates

By October 22, 2012
Jill Stein at Occupy Wall Street anniversary rally

Transition Voice has re-posted the article below from YES! Magazine. -- Ed. Like many of us here at YES!, medical doctor Jill Stein has been frustrated by the narrowness of this year's campaign for president of the United States. Crucial issues such as climate change, poverty, and the cost of war are completely left out of the conversation. No one tackles this problem as directly as Stein, who is running for president on the Green Party ticket. On Tuesday, she and her running mate, Cheri … [Read more...]

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