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…
When Greenpeace generates global headlines, it’s often for dramatic, gimmicky stunts, like scaling an oil rig or breaking into a nuclear power plant. This week, the environmental group is making news for a different kind of high stakes behavior: losing $5.1 million on a bad financial bet. It seems that a Greenpeace employee had been dabbling…Continue Reading…
This is notable: The dangers of nuclear power are real, but the accidents that have occurred, even Chernobyl, do not compare to the damage to the earth being inflicted by the burning of fossil fuels — coal, gas and oil. That’s from an editorial in today’s New York Times, which will make for uncomfortable reading…Continue Reading…
George Monbiot, Britain’s most popular environmental writer, has arrested himself. Four prominent climate scientists recently issued a pleading letter to greens to stop opposing nuclear power. And now an influential non-profit that for years has focused on climate change is all but begging that we not close down aging nuclear reactors. What the hell is going on? I…Continue Reading…
Paul Ehrlich and Ann Ehrlich, two long-time prominent voices in the environmental community, often speculate about the future of humanity. They recently shared this anecdote: A few years ago we had a disagreement with our friend Jim Brown, a leading ecologist. We told him we thought there was about a 10 percent chance of avoiding a…Continue Reading…
This April 22, Earth Day turns 44. The green movement is not aging well. Like today’s U.S. Republican Party, it has a diversity problem and speaks primarily to a narrow, graying demographic slice of the United States. In 2009, Francis Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) said to the New York Times: Our groups…Continue Reading…
A straightforward definition from Wikipedia: Green revolution refers to to a series of research, development, and technology transfer initiatives, occurring between the 1940s and the late 1960s, that increased agriculture production worldwide, particularly in the developing world, beginning most markedly in the late 1960s. The initiatives, led by Norman Borlaug, the “Father of the Green Revolution” credited with…Continue Reading…
The Environmental Working Group (EWG) describes itself as America’s “most effective environmental health research and advocacy organization.” Like many green groups (and health-conscious foodies), EWG has an organic fetish. Michael Specter has a great chapter on this syndrome in his 2009 book, Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet and Threatens Our Lives. The organic…Continue Reading…
The business journalist Marc Gunther has a really good article at the Guardian on yet another battle brewing on the GMO front. It’s about a food advocacy group’s campaign to stop McDonald’s from using new strains of a genetically modified potato, which as Gunther writes, are designed to deliver both environmental and health benefits. They…Continue Reading…
In 2012 Scientific American asked: Are Wind Turbines Getting More Bird and Bat-Friendly? In case you weren’t aware, wind energy has an ecological downside that’s hasn’t yet been smoothed out. As AP reporter Dina Cappiello wrote earlier this year, “the green industry is allowed to do not so green things”: It kills protected species with impunity and conceals the…Continue Reading…