It’s been almost a month since UK environmental writer Mark Lynas apologized for his prior anti-GMO activism. His speech, let’s recall, was an internet sensation. Many applauded Lynas’s change of heart (he is now firmly pro-GMO), plenty others jeered it, and more than a few rolled their eyes. And everyone has moved on except anti-GMO campaigners….Continue Reading…
Nearly two decades ago, an environmental historian published a scholarly essay that enraged the environmental community. William Cronon, author of the seminal Changes in the Land (a book that deeply influenced me and many others) and the brilliant (equally influential) Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West, began his provocative essay this way: The time has come…Continue Reading…
Senator John Kerry’s confirmation as Secretary of State has generated positive vibes in the environmental community and given climate campaigners a little hope. (Incidentally, does anybody else find it odd that Kerry, despite “his long record as one of the Senate’s strongest advocates for climate action,” as the Guardian noted, is just now divesting from…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…
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…
I’m such a piker that I always think it’s neat when 10 or 20 people retweet me. Occasionally, when the planets are aligned, several dozen will retweet a piece of mine or something interesting I may have said in 160 characters. I mean, it’s not like I’m Donald Trump, who has over 2 million followers….Continue Reading…
In his big speech earlier this week, President Obama put the American people on notice that he intends to make climate change a centerpiece of his second term. But is the nation with him on that? The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press reports: Dealing with global…Continue Reading…
One of the big reasons why evidence-based arguments so often fail to persuade is that people turn to their own trusted sources for information. For example, I know that Vandana Shiva is peddling a load of horseshit about Indian farmers committing suicide en masse supposedly because of Monsanto and GMOs. (There’s a part of me…Continue Reading…
Incredibly, that was the facile theme of Piers Morgan’s latest (ridiculous) foray into the climate debate. Can somebody at CNN please bring Morgan into the 21st century? We are no longer debating whether global warming is real or not. That train has left the station. And CNN having two activists on opposite ends of the…Continue Reading…
When is a conspiracy theory outright loony tunes and when is it borderline acceptable for rational discussion? Salon has an interesting measuring stick. Earlier this month, the site treated the vile Sandy Hook Truthers with proper WTF contempt. But perhaps in the interest of (false?) balance, Salon also suggests in a piece posted yesterday that 9/11 Truthers…Continue Reading…