Environmental journalism, by and large, reflects not just news of the day (and an underlying theme) but also the zeitgeist. For example, when I made ecology my beat in the late 1990s, stories about the biodiversity crisis were prevalent in mainstream media and in environmental magazines–one of which I worked at through most of the…Continue Reading…
In a brilliant essay (PDF), the American geographer D. W. Meinig writes: “Any landscape is composed not only of what lies before our eyes but what lies within our heads.” Meinig’s piece is in a classic 1979 book of essays called, “The Interpretation of Ordinary Landscapes.” This collection features scholars whose work touches on the human/environment relationship….Continue Reading…
Before climate change took center stage, the most hotly contested environmental debate was over how many species there were in the world and how fast they were going extinct. A new review paper in the journal Science returns us to the subject. How this study has been filtered and interpreted in the media is interesting. Before…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 her recent Mother Jones story, Julia Whitty mentions that “destruction of nature” has become a “dominant meme” in environmental discourse and politics. Her excellent piece does not follow this familiar script. Rather it chronicles the extraordinary conservation successes of a few unsung individuals. Anyone who follows environmental writing knows that Whitty’s article bucks a…Continue Reading…
In the not so distant past, before there was a “collective fixation on global warming as the mother of all environmental problems,” as Jon Foley lamented in 2009, biodiversity was the poster child for environmental crises. It was an issue that captivated journalists, scientists and greens alike–much as climate change does today. Indeed, concern over the loss…Continue Reading…
Some time ago, a mischievous person who works in the environmental/science communication sphere brought something to my attention: Laurie David, the producer of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth documentary, apparently became bored with global warming activism and moved on to a new cause. Nobody says that green activists should remain tethered to one particular issue….Continue Reading…
In the run-up to next month’s Rio Earth Summit, we’re going to see a steady stream of bad news about the global environment. When that happens, let’s hope that some of our respectable media do more than regurgitate NGO press releases and talking points. Alas, the Guardian shows us what not to do in this…Continue Reading…
Is Mark Lynas, the author of Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet, downgrading global warming in his hiearchy of environmental concerns? In a recent post, he writes that biodiversity may well qualify as a more important planetary boundary even than climate change itself. By way of reminder, the “planetary boundary” concept was laid…Continue Reading…
The issue of human-manufactured biodiversity is controversial. After all, if humans are overrunning nature and degrading the vital ecosystem services that we depend on, isn’t it rather beside the point if we also inadvertently boost biodiversity on some landscapes? I don’t think so. More environmentalists need to realize that the boundaries between pristine nature and…Continue Reading…