Thanks to those of you who submitted nominations. The four top candidates in each category have been selected from those you nominated. Please help select the winners by voting for the nominee who you think has most affected the environment for good or ill. If you will, please post a reason for your vote and a suggestion for suitable gifts for your favorite candidate. The most interesting and humorous gift suggestions will be acknowledged.
Voting will close and the winners announced on March 30, 2016. Please put your choice in each category as a comment below or you may vote in a poll at this site.
Hall of Fame Nominees
1. Bill Nye, the science guy, and Neil deGrasse Tyson for their efforts at educating the public. Hearing them together on Tyson’s Star Talk radio show makes me think that they should have a prime time TV show. They are a riot together and certainly help people understand global warming.
Prize : A prime time TV show together.
2. Representative Chris Gibson (R-NY) for introducing H. Res. 424, a Republican Climate Resolution to address mitigating global warming. He, along with 12 Republican cosponsors, support H. Res. 424 which states, “It is a conservative principle to protect, conserve, and be good stewards of our environment.” This is a very hopeful sign of progress along the road to bipartisan climate action.
Suggested Prize: Enough support to ward off Americans for Prosperity and other climate change deniers.
3. President Barack Obama, both for managing to thread the needle in Paris and for postponing the decision on Keystone XL until it was uneconomical and too late for anybody in Congress to want to do anything in a presidential election year. Pres. Obama managed to tie the US Paris agreement to a previous treaty to avoid a possible defeat in Congress if it needed their approval.
Prize : An political chess set.
4. California Governor Jerry Brown for his tireless efforts and laws to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to protect the residents of CA and the surrounding states from the worst impacts of global warming. He has signed pacts to combat the planet’s warming with leaders from 13 countries including Mexico, China, North America, Japan, Israel and Peru.
Hoped for Reward: More support from the U.S. Congress.
Hall of Shame Nominees
1. The dishonorable Governor Rick Snyder of Michigan and his sycophants for not only allowing the poisoning of Flint Michigan children but also insisting that the healthcare professionals who brought this to their attention be dismissed and demeaned by Michigan Environmental officials. To save money, the state switched Flint’s water supply to that of the corrosive water of Flint River, which leached lead out of the city’s water pipes, affecting the resident’s health and causing lead poisoning in thousands of Flint’s children.
Award: Please suggest a suitable nonviolent award.
2. The 114th Congress of the United States. Reason: For their repeated acts and statements and actions against climate science, scientist, and new clean energy technologies, and for being out of step with the American public who by a majority in both parties support efforts to reduce CO2. An example would be Lamar Smith (R -TX) for trying to dictate the science findings at NOAA.
Suggested Award: A huge dearth of votes in the next election for them all.
3. Exxon/Mobil for their continued climate denial and for sowing doubt about CO2’s role in global warming even though their own scientists knew in 1980 that CO2 from fossil fuels was the cause. Though their lying to the public is apparently not against the law, lying to their stockholders is , and several states are moving to sue them for damages.
Prize: Judgments against Exxon/Mobil like those against tobacco companies.
4. North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory and the NC lawmakers who tacked on a 61-page “business-friendly” measure to a 1-page technical bill – then rammed through the law without public input. It:
- Gave polluters immunity from certain fines & penalties
- Allows polluters to avoid full cleanup of soil and groundwater contamination
- Permits polluters to self-report without enforcement or fines
- Rolls back clean water and air protections
- Rejects science on sea level rise
Suggested Award: Nickname North Carolina the “Polluters Paradise”.
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This poll was conducted on four internet sites. The poll will close on March 30, 2015.
Please put your choice in each category as a comment below or you may vote in a poll at this site.
(C) 2016 J.C. Moore
Note: Senator James Inhofe, the chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, has been nominated so many times that he is now being awarded a Lifetime Membership in the Environmental Hall of Shame to give others a chance. He claims “climate change is the biggest hoax in history” and wrote a book about it (reviewed here). He is famous for comparing the EPA to a Gestapo bureaucracy, appearing at climate conferences as if he spoke for the US, and bringing snowballs onto the senate floor as if they proved climate change is a hoax. The person who nominated him for a Lifetime Award thought he should be barraged with snowballs for as long as it snows in Washington D.C..