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TV’s the 800-pound gorilla
Here’s a short but insightful clip on Variety.com wherein Al Gore discusses the utterly central role television plays in public opinion. I think some of us — I’m guilty as well — get caught up in the excitement when we see blogs and newspapers buzzing with a story or adopting a view. It’s easy to […]
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Cleaner by the Dozen
Green group produces list of top 12 eco-friendly vehicles American autos are drowning their sorrows in foreign oil after not making the 2007 Green Book list of the top 12 eco-friendly vehicles, released yesterday by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy. Honda’s natural-gas-powered Civic GX (available only in California and New York) regained its […]
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School of Rocky
An interview with Salt Lake City mayor and green innovator Rocky Anderson In a decidedly red state, Rocky Anderson is a decidedly green mayor — and a popular one at that. His innovations have turned Salt Lake City into a sustainable hub with thriving public transportation, businesses clamoring for energy efficiency, and one of the […]
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Former vice president. Newly minted rock star.
By now, everyone's heard the news. Al Gore isn't the guy he was in 2000. He's the New Gore -- relaxed, charming, self-effacing, funny. Really funny. Who'd have thunk it?
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Game over? Hardly.
With the new IPCC report finally out in the world, climate activists can again focus on action. What do we do now?
I say, first let's cut through the defeatism that's posing as realism, as in this article in yesterday's L.A. Times, "Game over on global warming?":
Everybody in the United States could switch from cars to bicycles.
The Chinese could close all their factories.
Europe could give up electricity and return to the age of the lantern.
But all those steps together would not come close to stopping global warming.Really? I ran the numbers and came up with a 17-18% reduction in global CO2 emissions (4.3% from zapping U.S. cars, 7.7% for closing Chinese factories, 5.6% for converting European electricity to wind).
Hasn't the Times heard of harm reduction? Every percentage drop in emissions will translate into some mitigation in sea level rises, violent storms, and other harms from global warming.
No less vexing, for this writer, was Robert Reich's blog reaction to the IPCC report. The former Clinton Secretary of Labor hadn't even finished his lead paragraph when he threw in the towel: "You can forget a carbon tax any time soon."
C'mon, Bob. Don't mourn, organize. Surrendering just when a political critical mass is assembling to attack carbon emissions is, well, un-American. A carbon tax is essential, and the work of coaxing the public and pressuring policymakers has to start now. There's just no alternative.
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Canada needs help saving it
I don’t usually pass these things along, but this email caught my eye: —– With last week’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report concluding that humans are significantly increasing global warming, we’re all looking for some global warming news with a glimmer of hope and potential. To our North, Canada is on the brink of […]
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An Inconvenient Truth to show in U.K. schools
Despite getting a frosty reception in U.S. public schools, the (Oscar-nominated) film An Inconvenient Truth will be distributed to every secondary school in the U.K. Environment Secretary David Miliband and Education Secretary Alan Johnson made the announcement last week, citing the film’s ability to illustrate the enormity of the climate crisis without leaving viewers feeling […]
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And aiming to be green
Pop-rock quintet Barenaked Ladies is back on the road, touring through Canada after returning from their Ships and Dip cruise last month, and getting a bit of press about their efforts to be green(ish). Grist, of course, was all over that story last year. A few stats from the fall B.L.A.M. tour: Fans neutralized almost […]
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Just ’cause it’s fun
Apropos of Anna's fascinating post yesterday, I decided to do a little digging to find out if Canada's superior record of concern for the environment is translating into a better record for the planet.
So far, it's not. At least not when it comes to climate change, which I'd argue is the biggest environmental (and economic and social justice) challenge facing the world.
