Another Green Monday

When DTE thinks of Sarah Palin, H.L. Mencken on William Jennings Bryan comes to mind: “This talk of sincerity, I confess, fatigues me. If the fellow was sincere, then so was P.T. Barnum. The word is disgraced and degraded by such uses. He was, in fact, a charlatan, a mountebank, a zany without any shame or dignity. What animated him from end to end of his grotesque career was simply ambition—-the ambition of a common man to get his hand upon the collar of his superiors, or, failing that, to get his thumb into their eyes. He was born with a roaring voice, and it had the trick of inflaming half-wits against their betters, that he himself might shine.”

Insert she for he from the above quote, and the roaring voice for an “authentic” chirping folksiness and the comparison is apt. But the artificially cute shell quickly dissipates revealing a Green Goblin. Both have the ability to tap into innate instincts and exploit them for personal gain. Her book tour is a payola freakshow, stopping off in small towns with money. The key is Palin’s stance on climate change is eerily similar to Bryan’s imbecility on evolution. Like the good birther she is, she is impervious to fact. And this morning, we can’t understand how she can perpetrate these horrors. The Washington Post gave her space in an editorial that would’ve been funny if it wasn’t attempting to be sincere. She called for Obama to boycott the climate talks and send a message: We don’t need no stinkin’ science using those pesky University emails as a justification. It was Onion caliber. And the editorial was a bit more refined than her, ahem, facebook post a few days before about “snake oil” science.

She is a farce. She is a beacon in the smog of everything that is absurd about criticizing Copenhagen and believing humans do not impact climate change. Please, do our country a favor and just go away. Pretty please, with all-natural carbon offset sugar on top?

After the jump are some stories you might’ve missed, and we’ll continue with the latest Copenhagen news.

It wouldn’t be a week recapping environmental news without this one. Though we try to keep it local in this section, this story is too huge to leave out.  And really, greenhouse gas emissions are about as local as it gets.  On Monday, the Environmental Protection Agency announced that climate changing pollution threatens the public health and the environment - thus reinvigorating the discussion about regulating greenhouse gases.  The announcement came on the opening day of the Climate Changes in Copenhagen, furthering speculation that a binding agreement just might be made here in the last week.  Read more HERE.

Of course it’s in Portland . Spreading traditional holiday cheer - and doing so on two wheels.  That’s the idea behind TreesByBikes.com .  “What started as an innovative way to bring a Christmas tree home without a car has become a full-fledged seasonal business,” says the Oregonian in a recent profile of the business.  If you’re in the Portland area and looking to ease your conscious for wanting a Christmas tree, check out TreesByBikes.com , and read more about them HERE.

To keep ourselves healthy, we first need to keep our animals healthy. That’s the message fellow Down To Earth blogger Craig Goodwin at Year of Plenty reiterated last week following a report in TIME magazine that summarized what the connection between swine flu and overall public heath AND factory farming of pigs and other animals.  Craig goes on to say that, “It just makes sense that human health is integrally linked with the health of our environment.”  Read more of her perspective HERE.