Green Options

With the spotlight shining on clean energy, the stage has been set for the U.S. to rid itself of a harmful addiction to foreign oil. The stars are aligned and the cards have been dealt. Soon we’ll have kicked the dirty habit, right?

Am I the only one who noticed that Sarah Palin has pulled a huge switchover when it comes to her take on energy policy?

Because it’s dramatic, and may presage the switch that I have been hoping for for a while: the divorce of the idea that a Conservative Environmentalist in politics is an oxymoron.

The argument that global warming is natural can be compared to other types of junk-science claims in recent U.S. history.

Looks like the road to the White House for Governor Sarah Palin may be a pipeline that doesn’t exist…yet.

While 58 wolves have already been killed since Saturday, there’s hope that Alaska’s Department of Fish & Game will not reach their enormous quota. Defenders of Wildlife has taken legal action that could stop the hunt immediately.

“The Board of Game did not authorize the use of helicopters by state agency personnel as part of the Upper Yukon/Tanana wolf killing program,” said Wade Willis, Alaska Representative for Defenders of Wildlife. “What they are doing in that region right now is illegal.”

Alaska abruptly resumed shooting wolves from helicopters this weekend in hopes that shooting the wolves will increase the population of caribou for hunters to kill. The state plans to kill up to 328 wolves, sparing under 100 in the Yukon area.

Not everyone in Alaska is gung-ho about the plan. The National Park Service has been collaring wolves for a two-decade-long study tracking predator-prey relationships, and now many of those wolves are bound to turn up dead.

>>UPDATE: Defenders of Wildlife has taken legal action to stop the hunt.

ZapRoot gives two nods to Red, Green, and Blue this week with their usual brand of critical eco-snark.

The debate over the aerial killing of wildlife in Alaska rages on with Ashley Judd and Defenders of Wildlife president Rodger Schlickeisen appearing on CNN’s Larry King Live last night.

Judd discusses why she so vehemently opposes aerial hunting (and later name-drops Van Jones and the Green Collar Economy) while Schlickeisen responds to Palin’s labeling of Defenders of Wildlife as a “fringe group.”

You can find part 2 after the break.

We wrote this week about the Defenders of Wildlife’s new campaign (and TV spot) against Sarah Palin and her plan to legalize aerial hunting of wolves from helicopters. Palin’s PR team was quick to the punch and issued this strongly-worded (yet weak on facts) response:

It is reprehensible and hypocritical that the Defenders of Wildlife would use Alaska and my administration as a fundraising tool to deceive Americans into parting with their hard-earned money.

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin released an energy plan for Alaska that looks a lot more like an abdication of state responsibilities’ than it does a document of executive leadership.

Alaska’s governor Sarah Palin has announced that the state of Alaska plans to sue the federal government over its decision to place beluga whales from Anchorage’s Cook Inlet on the Endangered Species List.

Palin is said to be against the decision because of the effects it may have on oil and gas developments and the expansion of the city’s port. (The area happens to be a mature oil-producing basin.)