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A guest essay by Melanie Griffin

We present a guest essay from Melanie Griffin, director of Sierra Club's Partnerships Program.

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I've been a "professional environmentalist" for 25 years now. While the right wing paints a picture of environmentalists as negative obstructionists and prophets of doom and gloom, I don't fit that description and neither do most of my environmentally inclined friends. It's true we are forced to spend a lot of our time "stopping" things -- hazardous waste dumping, irresponsible development, oil drilling in America's Wildlife Refuges and the like. And if you're paying any attention at all to the current trends and predictions about global warming, or to the Bush Administration's unraveling of decades of basic environmental safeguards, you probably wonder how a career conservationist ever gets out of bed in the morning.

But let's face it, to dedicate your life to protecting the planet from basic human behaviors like greed and power and selfishness, you've got to be an optimist at heart. You have to believe that you can make a difference with your life -- that there is hope.

The Great Warming pops up in Moyers’ special

It may only have been a couple of establishing shots, but when America's great documentarian gives you the nod, baby, that's legit. This brief brush with fame came during the PBS Moyers on America special Is God Green?, when "Courtesy of The Great Warming" flashed across the screen -- twice! I dropped my fork and called the folks.

Tips to save energy

I wish I'd written this: an energy economist's seven-point prescription for using energy more efficiently.

It begins

Read the last item of today's Daily Grist. Then read this post (by me) a while back.

I'm just saying.

More navel-gazing!

Now that the wingnuts have moved on to their latest outrage of the day, let's take a closer look at the notorious Nuremberg analogy. On reflection, I've come to think that it's inappropriate -- and not because it gave Matt Drudge and Rush Limbaugh (and Brit Hume!) one of their patented umbrage woodies. Three reasons:

First off, never violate Godwin's Law. It's a law for a reason.

Two, the Nuremberg trials resulted in executions. I'm opposed to state-sanctioned execution in all cases, but would certainly never advocate it merely for the crime of being a lying scumbag.

Third -- and more to the point -- Nuremberg was primarily about prosecution and punishment. I'm not a particularly vindictive person, and I'm not that interested in retribution. What I'm interested in is the truth: that the truth be aired; that those who have lied own up to it and be held accountable; that those who suffered as a result of the lies be allowed to tell their stories.

For these reasons, a far better analogy for what I had in mind would have been South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, or perhaps what the Germans call Vergangenheitsbewältigung:

Biofuels are wiping out rainforests

Almuth Ernsting over at Biofuel Watch has been working hard to get the word out on a small problem: a billion tons of carbon going into the air annually, with the potential of about fifty billion more on the way. People are deliberately setting Southeast Asia's rainforests and peatlands on fire to convert the land into something they can sell to countries striving to meet their Kyoto obligations -- palm oil. To put this into perspective, there are about 8 billion metric tons of carbon being dumped into the atmosphere by people annually, 6.5 billion tons from fossil fuels and 1.5 billion from deforestation. This is much worse than just dumping carbon from a tailpipe because it also simultaneously destroys entire ecosystems. You get two disasters for the price of one.

America’s Coast Wanted

Katrina and Rita destroyed 217 square miles of Louisiana coastline Hurricanes Katrina and Rita drowned 217 square miles of Louisiana’s fragile coastline, turning wetlands, undeveloped dry land, and farmland into open water, says a new study by the U.S. Geological Survey. The research underscores the urgent need for a storm buffer of plants, soils, and […]

Incentives in modern-day punditry

My brother called this evening to tell me that I was mentioned by name on the Rush Limbaugh radio show today. He was amused and delighted about it, on the theory that "any publicity is good publicity."

I'm more ambivalent. I won't say I don't enjoy the prospect of being more widely read -- any writer who says otherwise is blowing smoke up your ass -- but I can't say I'm entirely pleased that my renown will come from using an unnecessarily inflammatory analogy that did little but nurture the right wing's permanent persecution complex. I do a lot of work on Grist, at least some of which I like to flatter myself is thoughtful, occasionally insightful. But to thousands of people, I'm now and forever the guy who wants to execute global warming skeptics.

A few choice bits from the hate mail that’s come today

A while back, I wrote this post. Senate Environment Committee attack dog Marc Morano highlighted it in a press release. Then it ended up on the front page of the Drudge Report.

Here are some excerpts from the emails I've received today (warning: explicit language):

Speaking of Inhofe …

... he was profiled in the San Francisco Chronicle yesterday.