Interesting headline by Grist. Once upon a time, radical greens might have been called monkey-wrenchers, bombers, arsonists, whale defenders, even tree-sitters. Today, if you belong to a green group that is agitating against the congressional climate bill, because you think it’s not strong enough to curb global warming, you might as well be a traitor…Continue Reading…
I’m starting to feel bad for No Impact Man. He’s not getting much respect lately from NY media elites. Several weeks ago, Elizabeth Kolbert dissed him in The New Yorker, prompting his eloquent and polite rejoinder here. Today, with the release of the movie that chronicles his widely publicized environmental stunt, (he must hate that…Continue Reading…
Who knew (or remembers) that George Kennan, the father of U.S. containment policy, once argued for a world environmental organization? Will Rogers over at Natural Security has a nice retrospective post on Kennan’s 1970s clarion call, which appeared in the pages of Foreign Policy. As Rogers summarizes, Kennan notably advanced the international environmental governance debate…Continue Reading…
There’s no doubt that I live a “greener” life in Brooklyn than I did while living in crunchy granola Boulder the previous year. Of course, I already miss Colorado’s vistas, the fox bounding past our spacious abode in the glorious foothills, and most of all, the house’s washer/dryer. But the one thing I don’t miss…Continue Reading…
UPDATE: [[I should have been more familiar with No Impact Man’s blog–and the scope of his activism– before being so dismissive of him. Thanks to the reader below for providing a larger and fairer context.]] I’m not above stunts myself, especially if it scores me a long feature assignment. The last one I undertook in…Continue Reading…
This manifesto published recently at Grist seeks to rewrite the climate activist playbook. Why do I feel it’s the prelude to a larger internecine struggle within the environmental movement? Because there’s this growing belief among environmentalists that reversing the buildup of greenhouse gases is beyond our collective political, policy, and technical means. Forget about re-framing…Continue Reading…
This story by Elisabeth Rosenthal in Saturday’s New York Times unintentionally highlights an issue that receives scant attention in the media. Which is the bigger, more immediate problem: land use (such as deforestation) or climate change? If you want to make things even more complicated, throw in natural climatic events, such as drought. Rosenthal tries…Continue Reading…
Michael Tobis obviously sees himself as a thinker of big, serious thoughts. And it is obvious that on matters of climate change and sustainability, Tobis would like his voice to have greater reach. So because he works hard to be serious and thoughtful, where others are hyperbolic and calculating, I can’t understand why he belittles…Continue Reading…
Environmentalism, for all its success, is still largely shaped by its elitist roots. It also remains a movement made up of upper-middle class whites, something leaders of established environmental groups had cause to lament after Obama was elected president. In recent years, scholars and journalists have written books on how this lack of racial and…Continue Reading…
A few years back, these two guys audaciously pronounced the death of environmentalism. That didn’t go over too well with established greens. Since then, they’ve published a sequel and opened up a storefront to sell a new brand of environmentalism. All this has triggered an odd turf war, including drive-by blasts from the likes of…Continue Reading…