A member of Plane Stupid, an English group that advocates for less flying, tried to glue himself to PM Gordon Brown yesterday.  According to Plane Stupid’s web site, he was spectacularly successful in driving home his point about Brown’s aviation policies.

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Yesterday, congressional Republicans killed a Dem oil-drilling bill dead. Bush said earlier this week that he’d veto it if it came to his desk, so the Dems needed two-thirds of the vote and couldn’t get it. The bill would have made oil companies like the ultra-profitable Exxon explore for oil on land they’d already acquired before they started drilling on unexplored land.

The Republicans took an evil-looking position servicing their great donor, the energy industry. But they were able to get away with it in terms of PR fallout because all they had to do was say, “you really want to mess with where people can drill for oil when gas is at $4/gallon?” Democrats tried to get them with a “use it or lose it” motto. It’ll be interesting to see how each party tries to use the gas-prices issue to bludgeon the other this election year.

Image: flickr/Kanaka’s Paradise Life

Smog isn’t the only phenomenon slowly permeating the middle of the continent from its homeland in California. Our governor, a former actor noted for his understated performances, has expressed a desire to travel the land talking about the environment. Maybe even under an Obama presidency.

I think this is good. The nice thing about Schwarzenegger is that people think of him as a mute death-dealing golem on a motorcycle. This is the opposite of a self-aggrandizing sighing guy in a suit. If Arnold truly espouses policy solutions that break with those of the conservatives in his own party, directly criticizing his foot-dragging colleagues, as he has in the past, it will be that much harder for people to portray the green movement as a bunch of people with ponytails who cradle owls in their arms.

Image: flickr/provos@monkey

The G8 summit of the world’s richest nations plus Russia and some “developing” guests (India, China) just ended, and for the post-game show on what did and didn’t get accomplished, The Economist wins first prize. They agree with just about everybody else in saying the meetings didn’t produce anything faintly resembling a satisfying climate change solution—our leaders kept it vague—but they argue that Bush took a baby step forward.

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The Seattle Times has a good story about a mayoral proposal to impose fees on any business that distributes stuff in paper or plastic bags, and to ban Styrofoam containers. For every paper bag or plastic bag you put, say, groceries in, you get charged 20¢. Also, those plastic forks with which you enjoy your beef pho in front of Mad Men? Banned. Even that little plastic bucket of chili sauce is going to have to be replaced with something biodegradable.

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Last October, when a high-ranked Center for Disease Control official was writing her testimony for Congress on how climate change affects human health, some individual—still unnamed—from the Office of the Vice President called up and told her to cut six pages of it. Which, apparently, she did. At least that’s what an EPA official has written in a letter to California Senator Barbara Boxer.

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