Two years ago, the California Legislature enacted the first major state initiative targeting global warming. We urged Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to veto the bill – AB 32 – on the grounds that it was an extraordinarily complex measure that had not been vetted for possible unintended consequences, and because reducing the greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming was best dealt with through a coordinated national and international response.

Ater jettisoning a 1994 nuclear deal with North Korea, the Bush administration spent four years talking tough and applying economic pressure in the form of sanctions. President Bush famously labeled North Korea, along with Iraq and Iran, a part of the “Axis of Evil.”

During that time, the North Koreans were likely able to add to their stock of plutonium, test a nuclear weapon and probably aid Syria in a nuclear program.

Tuesday is a big day in the long but increasingly successful effort to save the California condor, the largest – but still one of the most endangered – of any bird in North America.