Bishop Gene Robinson in a CAP repost.

Earth Day 2011 is also Good Friday.  In the midst of budget cut proposals, compromises on services to the poor and needy, and a rush to preserve the wealth of America’s top-earning 1 percent, it is not surprising that the environment is all but forgotten.

Ignoring environmental issues will cost us, too, however.

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Operator suspends fracking in state

As a natural gas well in Bradford County continued to leak super-salty flow-back water after a blowout Wednesday, well operator Chesapeake Energy suspended all hydraulic fracturing operations in Pennsylvania on Thursday.

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Fifty senators — 46 Republicans and four Democrats — recently voted to deny the science of global warming and permanently ban limits on the carbon pollution that threatens the health of children and seniors. Not surprisingly, the Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity group lent its voice in support of Sen. Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) dirty-energy amendment.

A ThinkProgress analysis finds that the senators voting for McConnell’s amendment raked in $1.8 million dollars from Koch Industries over the course of their careers. Not only did these senators ignore the will of 71 percent of voters who support the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to restrict emissions, but they put the 15 million people with asthma in their states at risk by voting to stop the EPA from limiting carbon pollution. The head caucus of Koch allies — the top ten recipients of Koch cash in the U.S. Senate — received nearly half of all of the contributions from the Koch petrochemical conglomerate, and have over 4.6 million people with asthma in their states:

Koch Industries, the private company of the billionaire Koch brothers, is one of the primary sources of carbon pollution in the United States, and in the 2010 election cycle, even instructed their employees who to vote for.

Senator Pat Roberts has received $152,000 over the course of his congressional career from Koch Industries. Climate Denier in Chief James Inhofe pulled in $128,650 throughout his career, Jerry Moran raked in $104,850, and Roy Blunt $96,700. Over one-third of Koch donations to Inhofe came in the 2008 election cycle. All four Senators signed the Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity’s “No Climate Tax” pledge in the 2010 election cycle. These Koch all-stars are climate-change deniers, and leaders of the fight against the EPA.

Our guest blogger is Kiley Kroh, Associate Director for Ocean Communications at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

The Department of Justice announced Thursday that oil giant BP has agreed to commit $1 billion toward early restoration projects in the Gulf of Mexico. The $1 billion comes from a $20 billion fund that BP set up last year to pay for natural resource damages and to compensate victims of the spill, and is considered a “first step toward fulfilling BP’s obligation to fund the complete restoration of injured public resources.”

Such a down payment on Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) liability was a central component of the Center for American Progress recommendations for immediate action on the part of BP and other responsible parties to prove their commitment to the long-term rehabilitation of the Gulf. The agreement will accelerate the restoration process, but, as The Times-Picayune reports, is also “a way for BP to limit its ultimate liability“:

The advance payment plan was first proposed by Louisiana state officials last year as a way to reduce the wetlands damage they expected the spill to cause, and as a way for BP to limit its ultimate liability under the federal Oil Pollution Act, which requires companies responsible for oil spills to be liable for damages caused by spills from the time they occur until all of their effects have been mitigated.

The funds will be divided into projects selected by each of the five affected states and the federal agencies — National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Department of Interior — that make up the Natural Resource Trustees. Possible projects include rebuilding coastal marshes, replenishment of damaged beaches, conservation of sensitive areas for ocean habitat for injured wildlife, and restoration of barrier islands and wetlands.

Determining liability through the NRDA process is a long, bureaucratic procedure that will likely take several years to resolve. Clearly, devastated communities and sensitive environmental areas in the Gulf can’t wait any longer than they already have for remediation to begin — so today’s announcement is certainly a move in the right direction. However, it is just the first step. Full recovery of the Gulf Coast region will require a comprehensive and open scientific assessment of damage caused by the largest oil spill in U.S. history, as well as an enforceable commitment by BP to truly “make this right.”

Affection for our planet is misdirected and unrequited. We need to focus on saving ourselves.

An “Unprecedented drought” drives “never-before-seen wildfire situation in Texas.”  What to do? “Today, Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) came up with an innovative solution “” prayer,” as ThinkProgress reports in this repost.

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Chris Mooney, author of the bestselling “The Republican War on Science,” was one of my big inspirations to become a blogger.  He also spent a lot of time giving joint talks with Matthew Nisbet, author of the anti-peer-reviewed “Climate Shift” report.   Now Mooney has shown how Nisbet falls victim to the very false balance he says doesn’t exist, by embracing a post-modernist view where the truth doesn’t actually seem to matter.

Media Matters debunked Nisbet’s media analysis.  I debunked the financial misanalysis, using Nisbet’s own data to show that contrary to his claims, “opponents of the climate bill far outspent environmentalists.”  I’ll debunk the polling analysis next week.   The Nieman journalism “watchdog” at Harvard reposted my first critique, explaining how I was “Killing a false narrative before it takes hold.”

But there are many other false narratives in Nisbet’s analysis, including a bizarre smear of scientists.  As Mooney concludes his piece, “The bigger point is that without any evaluation of the substance of what happened, Nisbet nevertheless seems confident enough to claim that scientists’ partisanship and liberal biases led them to believe “¦ the truth.”  Mooney’s entire piece is repost below:

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The contrast between what News Corp.’s chairman says and what its employees actually do is a stark illustration of the company’s attempt to play both sides of the climate issue.

I have previously written about how Jack Bauer became first-ever carbon-neutral torturer as Rupert Murdoch says “Climate change poses clear, catastrophic threat.” Sarah Pavlus has more in a Media Matters repost.

Part two in our series from guest blogger Bill Becker, Executive Director, the Presidential Climate Action Project.

Even renewable energy hawks – most of us anyway — will concede that the United States cannot go cold turkey from oil tomorrow, or shut down all coal-fired power plants this week, or flip the off-switch tonight on nuclear power.

What we should not concede, however, is the need for the most aggressive possible push to get renewable energy on line. It should be our top national energy priority for many reasons, ranging from environmental protection to national security, and from economic vitality to social equity.

President Obama’s recent “Blueprint for a Secure Energy Future” is as close as he’s come so far to issuing a comprehensive national plan for the transition to clean energy.  I credit the President for understanding that energy efficiency and renewable energy are a practical, vital and near-term part of our national energy mix.

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