They capture our imagination. They help frame public discourse on important issues. Just one problem: some of our most famous eco-metaphors have not held up to the test of time. At the Yale Forum on Climate Change & the Media, I suggest that some of the more popular ones stick around past their expiration date. Have…Continue Reading…
Henry David Thoreau famously wrote: In wildness is the preservation of the world. Since the late 1800s, the notion of wilderness as nature incarnate has been an animating force in American culture. A host of seminal, hugely influential environmental writers and activists, from John Muir and Aldo Leopold to David Brower and Edward Abbey, have…Continue Reading…
When I lived in the affluent, liberal, eco-friendly universe of Boulder, Colorado in 2007-2008, I noticed that bikes and SUV’s were ubiquitous. Similarly, here’s an observation from a reader who resides in another well-to-do community: I live in a very “˜eco friendly’ community just outside of Seattle. Styrofoam cups have been banned, various street signs…Continue Reading…
If you want to know why the old school, inflexible wing of environmentalism is rotting from within, look no further than this gem of a comment at Dot Earth: Keith Kloor, Mark Lynas, Steve Nordhaus, and Roger Pielke Jr. share several characteristics: rudimentary knowledge of climate change (absent any scientific discipline), a way with words,…Continue Reading…
Greenpeace continues its descent into anti-science oblivion. Last Thursday, the environmental group carried out a destructive anti-GMO stunt that has outraged scientists in Australia. Over at Sustainablog, agricultural scientist Steve Savage describes what happened: On July, 14, three Greenpeace activists dressed in hazmat suits scaled a fence, and used weed whips to destroy a GMO wheat experiment…Continue Reading…
Because Ed Abbey and David Foster Wallace are no longer around, I’m nominating Charles Bowden to attend this upcoming conference sponsored by the European Science Foundation: Eco-Chic: Connecting Ethical, Sustainable and Elite Consumption As anthropologist Adam Fish observes: Eco-chic, like many other socio-cultural manifestations of neoliberalism is rife with contradiction. The fundamental contradiction being that it…Continue Reading…
An intellectually bankrupt, marginalized social movement with an expired shelf life is at a crossroads. (Metaphor mix alert!) On Saturday, a Guardian article asked: Has the green movement lost its way? True, we have heard this tune before. This time, however, there is mounting evidence that more charter members of the club are at last recognizing that…Continue Reading…
Here’s a delightfully salty essay from a fellow Brooklynite (of course!) which you should chew on while pondering the collapse of civilization. Pay special heed to this: There is a good reason that the environmental movement in this country — and those tiny, blonde Northern countries — do not win the hearts and minds of most…Continue Reading…
A lament from Time magazine’s Bryan Walsh: Work in environmental journalism for very long and you can eventually become inured to catastrophe. Every ecosystem is on the brink of collapse; every endangered species is just a few steps from extinction; every government decision to authorize an oil well or a coal mine is the one…Continue Reading…
It drives my mother crazy that I won’t take a multi-vitamin. The woman raised me on a steady diet of Ring Dings and Yoo-hoos and now she knows what’s best for my health. I get the mantra every time she visits: “You’re run-down, you don’t get enough sleep, you need to take a multi-vitamin.” “Yeah,…Continue Reading…