Many people working in the global sustainability arena tend to be focused on one of two knotty issues: 1) climate change or 2) food security. The former is devilish because we have to figure out how to power the developing world while reducing our overall carbon footprint. The latter is also complex because we have…Continue Reading…
Several years ago, I wrote about about an insurrection in the environmental movement. A new group of greens–called eco-pragmatists–had taken on the old nature-centric guard, which still held sway but also had rendered environmentalism anachronistic and ill-equipped to address complex 21st century challenges, such as climate change. It was a battle between what I called…Continue Reading…
A joint NASA/Library of Congress symposium held today in Washington DC asked: Will human civilization on Earth be imperiled, or enhanced, by our own world-changing technologies? Will our technological abilities threaten our survival as a species, or even threaten the Earth as a whole, or will we come to live comfortably with these new powers?…Continue Reading…
A long time ago, in the pre-blog era, I watched a TV debate on CNN between a newly minted U.S. Vice President and a quirky Texas businessman who, at one point during his extended 15 minutes of fame, was considered a serious presidential candidate. In the span of 90 minutes, Al Gore sold wavering Americans on the…Continue Reading…
In the Fall, I walked with my son’s Kindergarten class and other parents to our local farmers market in Brooklyn. The kids had their list of items they had to find and identify (fruits, vegetables, flowers), I scored some delicious apple cider donuts, and a grand time was had by all on a blustery, sunny…Continue Reading…
Jeremy Grantham is a fascinating dude. He is a highly successful capitalist who blames capitalism for killing the planet. If you’re familiar with this “connoisseur of [market] bubbles,” as the New York Times referred to him in a profile, it’s probably due to his increasingly Malthusian outlook. In 2011, he warned that “accelerated demand” from developing countries was depleting the…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…
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…
It’s a shame that our public discussions of energy and environmental issues are so narrowly (and ideologically) framed by politicians, industry, and interest groups. For example, to listen to Republicans, you wouldn’t know there’s an energy drilling boom underway in the U.S. This ambitious NYT piece unwinds how that boom happened, and where it is…Continue Reading…
The Guardian has published an essay titled, “Once men abused slaves, now men abuse fossil fuels.” The author, Jean-François Mouhot, is a historian. The parallels between fossil fuels and slaves occurred to him in the mid-2000s, he recounts: I was reading a book on climate change which noted how today’s machinery ““ almost exclusively powered by fossil fuels like…Continue Reading…