This means that he had access to officials involved in the Climate Orbiter debacle, as well as to those involved in more triumphant projects, like the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity, or MER-1, which, in January, 2004, landed at a site near the planet's equator that probably once held liquid water.
Governments proved themselves time and again to be failures at addressing the growing crises engulfing the world, whether the eurozone debacle, climate change, or budget politics in the US and Europe.
Mexico is about to host the next conference on climate change, after the debacle in Copenhagen.
A senior member of the Chinese negotiating team at Copenhagen has been shifted from his post, prompting speculation that he has been punished for the debacle of the climate talks.
My favorite label on this sad debacle is simply: "Climate Denier Gate" to refocus on the "gate" part illegally obtained private and privileged materials being used as evidence of climatologists' malfeasance, rather than hackers and blogsters use of purloined privacy.
Tony Abbot's effort to paint it as a crushing new tax increase has been successful and the government popularity now abysmal (though this is partly from other debacles unrelated to climate).
The debate over climate change has been an intellectual debacle for the political right.
The EC has a chance on Friday to claw back some of the climate change leadership it has lost since the debacle in Copenhagen.
Peter Lösche, emeritus professor of politics at the University of Göttingen, said, "Of course, their plans are messed up by the Ulla Schmidt debacle, which politically is not important, but for the climate of the campaign is very important".
Feel like we're living in a summer of hopeless environmental disasters and faltering energy policy leadership -- the spewing BP oil debacle, the Upper Big Branch coal mining tragedy, and the floundering climate and clean energy bill?
