Climate Change

A Quick Climate Cure: Stopping Super Pollutants

ROLL CALL 12/09/13 By Michael Shank and US Congressman Scott Peters With gridlock gripping Washington, D.C., and preventing action on even simple fronts, it’s hard to see how Congress and the president will agree on good climate action policy. But the need is clear. Examples of extreme weather occurrences seem […]

A New Look at Climate Change

REUTERS 12/09/13 By Michael Shank and US Congressman Michael Honda The annual United Nations climate change talks, which concluded last month in Warsaw, unfortunately found little common ground on carbon. The talks broke down over the world’s richest nations’ inability to agree with the poorest on how to address the […]

UN Climate Change Negotiations in Poland This Week

WASHINGTON TIMES 11/18/13 By Michael Shank and Matt Lichtash WASHINGTON, November 18, 2013 – With the United Nations meeting this week in Warsaw, Poland, for its annual conversation on climate change, one wonders if the international community can come together quickly enough to respond to this month’s warnings from the […]

Report: Food Insecurity Rising as Crop Production Falls

WASHINGTON TIMES 11/03/13 By Michael Shank WASHINGTON, November 3, 2013 — America’s food security is at immediate risk, according to a report leaked this month by the New York Times. Americans should expect crop production to fall by as much as 2 percent each decade for the rest of the […]

Climate Crisis and the Will to Act

THE HILL 10/22/13 By Michael Shank and US Rep. Matt Cartwright (D-Pa.) In the past month, the U.S. has faced two grave threats, one domestic and one international. Both pose serious consequences to the United States and the world at large, and no one knows how either will end. The […]

Five Steps America Must Take Now to Combat Climate Change

US NEWS & WORLD REPORT 10/15/13 By Michael Shank and Matt Lichtash The government shutdown, even after it ends, will slow much of the president’s second-term agenda items. Obamacare isn’t the only policy on the political chopping block.  Despite reports by U.N. scientists and Nature researchers this month that the […]

A Constituency to Combat Climate Change

US NEWS & WORLD REPORT 09/23/13 By Michael Shank and US Congressman Paul Tonko On Friday, the Obama Administration announced greenhouse gas emission limits on new power plants. We applaud this development and appreciate the meaningful step forward it provides. Much of the conversation about this progress concerns coal-fired power […]

Fed Up With Climate Change Apathy

US NEWS & WORLD REPORT 09/19/13 By Michael Shank This week, as U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy testified before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Power regarding the administration’s climate change policy, there was the palpable absence of constituent opinion. […]

Why Water is Key to Syria Conflict

CNN 09/17/13 By Michael Shank and Emily Wirzba Editor’s note: Michael Shank is director of foreign policy at the Friends Committee on National Legislation. Emily Wirzba is program assistant for Sustainable Energy and the Environment at FCNL. The views expressed are their own. The agreement forged by Russia and the […]