The Most Anti-Environment House of Representatives in the History of Congress?
The year of the 112th Congress will always be remembered as a turbulent one: the bitter partisan battles and the debt ceiling standoff that nearly sunk the nation's economy have assured as much. But this was also the year of a historically anti-environmental Congress, thanks primarily to a House of Representatives newly stocked with Tea Party candidates eager to roll back environmental protections and support the fossil fuels industry.

In total, the House of Representatives registered a record-breaking 191 anti-environment votes--more than one vote against the environment for every day Congress was in session.

A new report, released yesterday by a cadre of Congress's (few) concerned environmental advocates, has analysed and indexed the carnage. The authors of the report, Rep. Henry A. Waxman, Rep. Edward J. Markey, and Rep. Howard L. Berman, pulled no punches in their conclusion: this was "the most anti-environment house in the history of Congress".

Here's a breakdown of the findings from the report:

• "The House of Representatives averaged more than one anti-environmental vote for every day the House was in session in 2011.
• More than one in five of the legislative roll call votes taken in 2011 – 22% – were votes to undermine environmental protections.
• On average, 228 Republican members of the House – 94% of the Republican members – voted for the anti-environment position during these roll call votes. On average, 164 Democratic members of the House – 86% of the Democratic members – voted for the pro-environment position."

A Public Policy Polling survey of likely Republican caucus-goers in the key state of Iowa released on Monday showed the former House speaker dropping to third place there from first in the space of a week.

His lead also has evaporated in national poll.

"Newt Gingrich's campaign is rapidly imploding and Gingrich has now seen a big drop in his Iowa standing two weeks in a row," Public Policy Polling, which is affiliated with the Democratic Party, said in a statement.

Gingrich earned just 14 percent in the latest Iowa poll compared to 22 percent a week ago and 27 percent two weeks ago.

Congressman Ron Paul took over the lead with 23 percent, a five point increase over the past weeks. Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, Gingrich's main national rival, was second with 20 percent.

The survey of almost 600 people, taken December 16-18, had a 4 percentage point margin of error.

Another poll, by CNN/ORC International, showed that Gingrich and Romney were tied on 28 percent of support nationally from Republicans and Republican-leaning independents.

An outpouring of television and radio commercials by Gingrich's opponents that paint him as unreliable and a Washington insider has taken a toll.

"It's tough not to feel the effects in millions of dollars in advertising spent against you with no comparable response," said Tim Albrecht, spokesman for Republican Iowa Governor Terry Branstad and a former Romney staffer during his first run for president in 2008.

Gingrich's personal favorability numbers also fell during the past fortnight from plus 31 to plus 12 to a minus 1 now among Iowa voters polled ahead of the January 3 Iowa caucus, the polling firm said.

STILL TIME FOR MORE SEESAW MOVES

Gingrich's front-runner status has prompted attacks from rivals who say he is an unreliable conservative and influence peddler, particularly because of fat fees he earned from Freddie Mac, a mortgage giant tied to the economic recession.

"(Gingrich) is taking an unprecedented beating ... I have just never seen so many negative, substantively negative ads aimed at one candidate from so many different angles," said Cary Covington, a professor of political science at the University of Iowa. "Ron Paul is just eviscerating Newt Gingrich in the ads."

Iowa political operatives cautioned that there was still plenty of time for more changes in the two weeks left before the nominating caucus, which is the first of the 2012 presidential campaign.

"Newt may have peaked at the right time or peaked just a little bit too early," said Will Rogers, one of the members of Gingrich's campaign team who resigned en masse in June amid frustration over how it was being run.

But Rogers, who has returned to support Gingrich as a volunteer and is heavily involved with the Republican Party, said polls only represented a snapshot in time and said it seemed that many Iowa voters still were undecided.

"You don't know where Iowans truly sit until January 3," Albrecht said. "There's an unprecedented level of uncertainty this late.

"Caucuses always surprise people at the end. One thing caucuses do is defy conventional wisdom. Someone always dramatically outperforms poll numbers and someone under performs."

Gingrich has run an unorthodox campaign, signing books at events and talking about topics ranging from the economy to brain research and lunar mining.

"His campaign has been one of speeches and ideas, not one as organized as the others. And it's been interesting to watch at public forums and speeches, that people have gravitated toward him and liked what he's had to say," said John Gilliland, of the Iowa Association of Business and Industry.

"But it's hard when you're trying to build infrastructure when you're behind the eight ball," he said.

Rogers said libertarian-leaning Paul was reaping the benefits of having a strong ground organization in Iowa - unlike Gingrich who has been scrambling to beef up his staff as he rose in the polls.

The COP17 climate talks in Durban have finally come to a close, some 36 hours later than they were scheduled to and, amazingly, making more progress than this author thought they would have. To the great tragedy of us all this progress still falls amazingly well short of what climate scientists say is needed. But at least this is officially acknowledged now.

The second paragraph of the COP17 document reads (emphasis in original):

Noting with grave concern the significant gap between the aggregate effect of Parties' mitigation pledges in terms of global annual emissions of greenhouse gases by 2020 and aggregate emission pathways consistent with having a likely chance of holding the increase in global average temperature below 2°C of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels,

And a few lines later launches into what to do about this: Keep negotiating towards a "protocol, legal instrument or legal outcome" with the work to be completed "as early as possible but no later than 2015" and to come into effect from 2020.

Negotiators also agreed to move forward with the Green Climate Fund, to help nations better adapt to the dangerous climate changes virtually assured by the lack of ambition shown in other parts of the negotiations. Eventually the Fund hopes to raise and distribute $100 billion per year.

Before moving on to the reaction from environmental groups, let's remember what the IEA recently said about the speed, or lack thereof, in which we are moving away from fossil fuels and the greenhouse gas emissions they create and what that means for the climate.

IEA chief economist Fatih Birol said that if we don't quickly and significantly move begin moving away from fossil fuels by 2017, "the door will be closed forever" on keeping temperature rise below 4°C.

And let's remember what happens above that degree of average temperature increase (also remembering that an average of 4°C means some places, like southern Europe and North Africa will increase by 8°C): Pretty much all hell breaks loose. We can assuredly kiss coral reefs goodbye, count on crop yield decreases of up to 40% in south, southeast, and east Asia, lock in meter-plus sea level rise by the end of this century, usher in widespread civil unrest resulting from resource shortages. And that's just the start of it, and the best of it, just the top-line stats-driven part of it. For the world's extreme poor, those people in Bangladesh, in low-lying island nations, in much of Africa, it's a death sentence.

Civilization itself might not end (as has been suggested without hint of hyperbole in recent days by commenters on the COP), but it certainly will look far far different, and for the more difficult, than anyone alive today has experienced before.

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In a campaign that has been chiefly shaped by debates, Newt Gingrich demonstrated Saturday night why he tops the polls — and why he won’t easily be dethroned.

Facing tough questions from his Republican rivals and debate moderators in Des Moines, Gingrich parried blow after blow without losing his cool or showing the much-discussed undisciplined side of his personality.

It was the former House speaker’s first debate as the undisputed frontrunner and not only did he stand up to the fresh scrutiny, he reminded Republican primary voters of his command of the issues, his intellectual dexterity and his self-assured, forceful arguments.

When Mitt Romney scolded Gingrich for his provocative claim that Palestinians are an “invented” people, the former Georgia congressman concisely captured why his brand of bombast is playing so well with a roiling GOP electorate.

“I think sometimes it is helpful to have a president of the United States with the courage to tell the truth, just as was Ronald Reagan who went around his entire national security apparatus to call the Soviet Union an ‘evil empire’ and who overruled his entire State Department in order to say, ‘Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall,’’ said Gingrich, calling himself a “Reaganite” and then adding a memorable kicker: “ I will tell the truth, even if it’s at the risk of causing some confusion sometimes with the timid.”

Romney suggested Gingrich is a “bomb-thrower,” but the applause Gingrich received in the Des Moines debate hall after his answer illustrated that Republican primary voters prefer pugnacity to sobriety at this moment.

What makes Gingrich so formidable in these debates, and in the larger nominating contest, is that he’s not only appealing to the Republican heart, but to its head. The former history professor offers the sort of articulate answers matched on stage only by Romney, while using language that channels the give-em-hell vibe of GOP voters girding for a confrontation with President Obama.

Romney’s strategy to portray Gingrich as too unsteady to nominate fails to translate when the former House speaker sands down the sharp edges and doesn’t come off as nasty or volatile. That’s especially the case when, as on Saturday night, it’s Romney who appears more flustered than Gingrich.

The former House speaker got a hand from his friend Rick Perry when the Texas governor lured Romney into a spat over healthcare. Perry’s hectoring prompted the former Massachusetts governor to offer a $10,000 wager that he was correct — a line that became fodder for Democrats and Romney’s GOP rivals looking to paint Romney as out of touch with average voters.

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We've long known that JP Morgan Chase is one of the world's foremost investors in coal. The giant bank has been roundly criticized for, among other things, funding immensely destructive mountaintop removal operations. So it should come as no surprise that the institution spends an estimated $22 billion annually on coal investments.

And that helped Chase earn the top slot in a recent BankTrack analysis of the financial institutions that invest most heavily in "climate-killing" coal. Indeed, the ethical banking organization has just unveiled a list of the Top 20 'Climate Killer' Banks, and there are few surprises. Here are the numbers:

As you can see, the runners up are also big American banks. Citi invests $18.27 billion annually, and Bank of America dumps $16.79 billion into the coal industry.

The report also explains the objective of revealing these numbers, noting that "Coal-fired power plants are not cheap to build. Typically, a 600 Megawatt plant will cost around US$ 2 billion. Power producers therefore rely heavily on banks to provide and mobilize the necessary capital for coal plants."

BankTrack also quotes Tristen Taylor of Earthlife Africa Johannesburg, with a startling observation: "Our figures clearly show that coal financing is on the rise. Between 2005 and 2010, coal financing almost doubled. If we don't take Banks to task now, coal financing will continue to grow." And more coal financing means more coal plants. And more coal plants means more greenhouse gas emissions. And more ... you get the picture.

The report showcases yet another way in which the 1% is exerting their influence at the expense of the 99% -- who, it should be noted, call for more investment in clean energy every year in clear majorities.

Iran paraded what its military described as a captured C.I.A. stealth drone on national television on Thursday and lodged an official diplomatic protest, portraying the visual images as an intelligence and propaganda windfall in its conflict with the West over its nuclear program.

American officials viewing the video declined to confirm or deny that the aircraft shown was the one that they have said was lost several days ago by controllers in neighboring Afghanistan.

The two-and-a-half-minute video clip of the remote-controlled surveillance aircraft was presented by Iran as the first visual evidence that it had had possession of the drone since Sunday, when Iran asserted that its military downed the aircraft 140 miles inside Iranian territory. American officials have said the drone was lost because of a malfunction.

The aircraft shown on Iranian television appeared to be in good condition, which would seem to be inconsistent with an uncontrolled landing, although a close inspection of the images appeared to show a fracture on part of the wing that had been taped.

The aircraft was displayed on a platform clearly constructed for propaganda purposes, with photographs of ayatollahs who led Iran’s revolution behind it and a desecrated version of the American flag. But the display did not show the undercarriage of the aircraft, which could have revealed possible damage.

At the Pentagon, senior officials would say only that the images from Iran were being analyzed by specialists both in the military and in other parts of the government, presumably intelligence agencies. A C.I.A. spokesman declined to comment.