UPDATE: [[I should have been more familiar with No Impact Man’s blog–and the scope of his activism– before being so dismissive of him. Thanks to the reader below for providing a larger and fairer context.]] I’m not above stunts myself, especially if it scores me a long feature assignment. The last one I undertook in…Continue Reading…
This manifesto published recently at Grist seeks to rewrite the climate activist playbook. Why do I feel it’s the prelude to a larger internecine struggle within the environmental movement? Because there’s this growing belief among environmentalists that reversing the buildup of greenhouse gases is beyond our collective political, policy, and technical means. Forget about re-framing…Continue Reading…
This story by Elisabeth Rosenthal in Saturday’s New York Times unintentionally highlights an issue that receives scant attention in the media. Which is the bigger, more immediate problem: land use (such as deforestation) or climate change? If you want to make things even more complicated, throw in natural climatic events, such as drought. Rosenthal tries…Continue Reading…
Michael Tobis obviously sees himself as a thinker of big, serious thoughts. And it is obvious that on matters of climate change and sustainability, Tobis would like his voice to have greater reach. So because he works hard to be serious and thoughtful, where others are hyperbolic and calculating, I can’t understand why he belittles…Continue Reading…
Environmentalism, for all its success, is still largely shaped by its elitist roots. It also remains a movement made up of upper-middle class whites, something leaders of established environmental groups had cause to lament after Obama was elected president. In recent years, scholars and journalists have written books on how this lack of racial and…Continue Reading…
A few years back, these two guys audaciously pronounced the death of environmentalism. That didn’t go over too well with established greens. Since then, they’ve published a sequel and opened up a storefront to sell a new brand of environmentalism. All this has triggered an odd turf war, including drive-by blasts from the likes of…Continue Reading…