Ben Hale, a philosopher who teaches environmental ethics at the University of Colorado, in Boulder, is “disheartened” by Joe Romm’s body slam of a fellow environmental ethicist. Presumably Hale is well acquainted with Romm’s rhetorical style so I’m not sure why he seems so taken aback. In fact, Hale seems utterly puzzled that Romm can’t…Continue Reading…
Jonathan Chait at TNR smartly dissects the two main arguments against action on climate change. Be sure to read it all the way through for a bonus take-down of the skeptics’ most prominent spear carrier. And then read this equally smart rejoinder (comment #2) to Chait, which basically asks why he’s wasting his time fighting…Continue Reading…
Following the logic of that Grist article I cited in my last post, this commentary on the congressional climate bill strikes me as pretty “radical,” coming from a well-respected, mainstream greenie like Bill McKibben: If you pass half a health care bill, you can always come back in a decade. People will suffer in the…Continue Reading…
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…
Our fearless climate hero is doing double duty as a reporter now. Determined to ice discussion of possible short-term temperature stabilization trends, Scoop Romm touts an “exclusive interview” he scored with Mojib Latif, a Germany-based climate scientist whose work and quotes have become blogosphere fodder for the contrarian crowd, in part because of these two…Continue Reading…
While mulling the 6-year disappearance of the possibly extinct Chinese paddlefish, Andy Revkin reminds us of the enduring problem with our own approach to species protection: we have an Endangered Species Act intended to save species on the brink, but not a Thriving Ecosystems Act that tries to monitor and sustain diverse communities of species…Continue Reading…