Climate Change

Quick: Name one thing mainstream Republicans and Democrats agree on when it comes to energy policy. Other than that both sides would like it to be cheaper, you're probably drawing a blank. That's why there was something a little quixotic in President Obama's call last week, during his State of the Union address, urging Congress to get together and pursue "a bipartisan, market-based solution to climate change. " It's pretty far-fetched to imagine congressional Republicans pursuing a costly new program, market based or not, positing the solution to a climate problem many believe don't exist.

A leather bomber jacket worn by President John F. Kennedy fetched well more than 10 times the asking price at auction, an indication of the fascination the nation still has for the president who ushered in the upbeat era of Camelot after the political doldrums of the 1950s. The jacket, complete with a patch of the presidential seal, was worn by the president and others on Air Force One. It flew out the door Sunday at a price of $570,000 plus the buyer's premium, officials at John McInnis Auctioneers told reporters.

Climate activists descended on Washington, D.C., on Sunday in what organizers boasted was the largest climate-change rally in American history, claiming more than 35,000 attendees. The Forward on Climate rally, as it was billed by environmental groups Sierra Club and 350.org, called for President Obama to take immediate action on climate change, with many calling for the government to block the construction of the oil pipeline known as Keystone XL. Protestors marched through the streets bearing placards and massed on the National Mall, where speakers addressed the crowd.

The 10-ton meteor that streaked into Earth's atmosphere at 40,000 mph and exploded above the Russian city of Chelyabinsk was a reminder that the universe is not such a hospitable place. Still, though hundreds of people were injured and thousands of windows were shattered, no one died and repairs can be made. By comparison, the terrestrial havoc wrought by Hurricane Sandy in the northeastern United States was far more devastating.  In the movies, when humanity is faced with imminent doom, whether from a massive asteroid or an invasion of space monsters, the people of the world forget their differences, band together and save themselves.

WASHINGTON - President Obama is expected by environmental advocates to name Gina McCarthy, the controversial chief of the Environmental Protection Agency's air pollution arm, to head the agency. The nomination of McCarthy, 58, who has served as the head of the EPA's clean-air division since 2009, could come as early as next week, according to officials of three environmental groups. Her boss, Lisa Jackson, left the administrator's post Thursday. McCarthy's nomination is likely to draw fire from congressional Republicans.

Climate change: By Neela Banerjee WASHINGTON -- In his State of the Union address, President Obama articulated a subtle but noticeable shift away from his longstanding discussion of climate change in almost entirely economic terms to making a moral argument for the need to act. “For the sake of our children and our future,” he said, “we must do more to combat climate change.” “Yes, it's true that no single event makes a...

Al Gore hails from Tennessee, but when he comes to California next week, he'll be coming back to his spiritual home. In 2000, Californians gave him a double-digit lead - 1.3 million votes - over George W. Bush for president. His documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," won an Oscar. California's GOP governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, signed the nation's most groundbreaking greenhouse-gases law. Californians buy the Prius; the rest of the country buys Ford trucks. Gore arrives amid the hoo-hah over the half-billion-dollar sale of Current TV to Al Jazeera, and touting a hefty new book magisterially titled "The Future.

Citing shrinking mountain snowpacks as a result of climate change, federal wildlife officials are proposing to list wolverines as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. The animal, which resembles a small bear with a bushy tail, needs deep mountain snow to reproduce. Females give birth from mid-February through March in dens they excavate in alpine snow, typically using them until late April or early May. Global warming, which will diminish snowfall and cause earlier spring melt, could reduce wolverine habitat in the lower 48 states by 31% over the next three decades and by 63% over the next 75 years, according to the proposed listing by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Former Vice President Al Gore is used to taking pot shots from the right, and he's getting peppered with them lately following his decision to sell his unpopular Current TV network to Al Jazeera, the Middle Eastern news channel still vilified by many conservatives as the voice of the Taliban. Gore doesn't have much trouble dismissing that canard -- Al Jazeera's international coverage has in recent years become competitive with the best in the world -- but the grief he's getting from the left clearly makes him a lot more uncomfortable.

WASHINGTON - After President Obama finished his inaugural speech Monday, Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Beverly Hills) thanked him for mentioning climate change, a topic environmentalists said Obama had avoided during much of his first term. "I did more than mention climate change," the president told Waxman. In discussing the urgency of climate change before a national audience, the president elevated the issue into the top tier of second-term priorities that include fiscal reform, gun control and immigration reform.