Irrelevance: The New Relevance

How did the environment play in the election? Funny you should ask ...

Remember all that earnest debate about whether environmental issues would play a significant role in the presidential election? Well, as it turns out ... not so much. And in the Senate races we'd been keeping an eye on, one would also be hard-pressed (that is to say, wrong) to say that green issues had much impact. The not-so-green candidate won in four of the six Senate contests where enviros had speculated that the environment might help tip the balance: Lisa Murkowski (R) successfully defended her Alaskan Senate seat, Arlen Specter (R) did the same in Pennsylvania, Mel Martinez (R) won in Florida, and Richard Burr (R) won in North Carolina. Enviros might take heart that Ken Salazar (D) will be heading to the Senate to represent Colorado, and, of course, Barack Obama (D) won in Illinois. All in all, you could say the environment got the shaft yesterday. Still, there is some encouraging news on the state level. Really. Keep reading ...