As someone who tracks environmental discourse in real time, I find it valuable to step back on occasion and look at how public attitudes are shaped. For that, I depend on the work of scholars. One book from 2008 that I’ve only just read explores how several major contemporary environmental themes have been expressed culturally,…Continue Reading…
As a child of the suburbs, my first real contact with raw nature was in 5th grade, when a friend and I built a treehouse in the woods behind the apartment complex we lived in. (This was a two-year pit stop after my parent’s divorce.) No adults helped us. It was pretty awesome. I used…Continue Reading…
Bill Moyers has asked an array of luminaries to play speechwriter for tonight’s State of the Union Address. Everybody has their own pet cause or issue, of course. So here’s what Indian environmentalist Vandana Shiva wishes President Obama might say (my emphasis): For the sake of the Earth, our family farms and our children’s health, we must…Continue Reading…
It’s not often that an aging social movement gets a chance to redefine and reinvigorate itself. Environmentalism has that opportunity now, with the Anthropocene, which National Geographic has dubbed, The Age of Man. What does that mean? As I recently wrote in Slate, the Anthropocene represents a growing scientific consensus that the contemporary human footprint—our cities, suburban…Continue Reading…
One of the biggest challenges in the sustainability arena is finding a balance between economic development and environmental protection. There is a good argument to be made that we are today paralyzed by two legacies: 1) the unfettered development legacy that helped build the bridges, dams, highways, cities and suburbs of the United States and,…Continue Reading…
In the aftermath of President Obama’s reelection, there was much media discussion of the GOP’s ever-shrinking demographic base. As the Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza pointed out, with the aid of an astonishing chart: That only 11 percent of Republicans’ total vote came from non-whites tells you everything you need to know about the large-scale demographic…Continue Reading…
George Monbiot is a terrific green Scrooge. Last week, the UK’s most popular and widely read environmental writer penned a cheery new column titled, “The Kiss of Death.” (The headline in the Guardian version is not quite so black.) In it, he rails against the culture of consumerism and advises people to stop buying (for…Continue Reading…
Last week, my Slate piece on environmentalism was read by many people who care (and write) about green issues. Some (okay, many of them) didn’t particularly like what I wrote. I felt the rumblings on Twitter and elsewhere. And I had planned on responding, but then the horrific tragedy on Friday happened, and I just…Continue Reading…
In a perfect world, people would not let their ideology warp their thinking. In a perfect world, people would not use screechy hyperbole to fulminate against those who don’t share their position on a given issue. In a perfect world, James Delingpole, the flammable blogger for the UK’s Telegraph, would only be permitted to shriek about which…Continue Reading…
Discover magazine readers familiar with my byline know that I tackle science-related issues that are often controversial and that sometimes my take hits a nerve. For example, in recent months I’ve written a few pieces for Slate on genetically modified foods (see here and here) that got a fair amount of play (at least in…Continue Reading…