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An NYT profile of climate modeler Gavin Schmidt

The New York Times makes climate modeling the very essence of urban chic in a glowing profile of Gavin Schmidt, founder of RealClimate. Don't hate him because he's beautiful, people.

Not a helpful turn in the global warming conversation

The "Death of Environmentalism" boys are at it again. In an op-ed piece in the April 1, 2006 New York Times, Nordhaus and Shellenberger argue that we should stop arguing about the causes of global warming and start talking about adaptation.

Environmentalists and their opponents have spent far too much time debating whether global warming is caused by humans, and whether the transition to cleaner energy sources will be good or bad for the economy. Whatever the causes, warming is a genuine risk.

If the earth's temperatures continue to rise, we can expect to face melting glaciers and rising sea levels, warmer ocean temperatures and more intense hurricanes, more frequent droughts and other extreme weather. Is the government ready?

No. Which is why we need a Global Warming Preparedness Act.

My first reaction? It reads remarkably like White House talking points circa 2002, when the U.S. Kyoto delegation tried to shift the conversation from prevention to adaption. You remember how it went: Why squabble over who's to blame? What we should really be doing is looking at how to adapt.

But perhaps -- and this is just supposition here -- the real purpose was a kind of media judo. You know, co-opt your opponent's momentum and use it against them. Under this theory, once people have to go through the scenarios of how to deal with global warming's effects, they'll take it more seriously. If that's the reasoning behind this framing I think it falls down on several points:

• Once you start talking about adaption, you implicitly concede the battle of prevention. It's very hard to go back.
• Who's to say the adaptation scenarios will scare? I guarantee you that should their "Global Warming Preparedness Act" be enacted, we'll see a raft of reports about the benefits of increased temperatures to American agriculture, the boon to the economy from the uptick in the flip-flop and airconditioner industries, etc.

For people still interested in working on prevention, this is an unproductive way to take the conversation.

Our Poverty & the Environment series comes to an end, but our concern doesn’t

The sun sets on our poverty series. Photo: Clipart. There’s something a little odd about ending a series on the subject of poverty — as we at Grist are officially doing today — when the issue itself will stubbornly continue to exist. That might seem, at first, like a laughable sentence. Of course poverty will […]

A virtual walking tour through an L.A. neighborhood with activists from Pacoima Beautiful

The tiny community of Pacoima, at the north end of Los Angeles, suffers from nearly every imaginable obstacle to a healthy urban environment. That means, for starters, lead paint, freeway traffic, airports, landfills, diesel trucks, chemical manufacturing, power plants, heavy industry, and overcrowding. It also means the linguistic and cultural differences that have historically defined […]

Defending the author from an unfair review

Sorry for the egregious lack of blogging this week -- a bit swamped with other stuff. Once I get that clone in the mail next week things should pick up around here.

I thought twice about whether to post on this -- I don't make a practice of kvetching about our own content -- but I must say I found Naomi Schalit's review of Richard Louv's new book rather uncharitable. Crabby, even. Lamentable.

Of course the idea that it's good to get kids out into nature isn't going to come as a revelation to a committed environmentalist. The book isn't written for them. But I'd wager even plenty of parents who self-identify as environmentalists find themselves, and their kids, stuck inside way more than they'd like. They face the same problems other parents do: restrictive neighborhood covenants, sterile suburban development, litigiousness, TV and video game ubiquity, and media-driven fear of the danger kids face if left unsupervised. The structure of modern life exerts a pull indoors.

To parents just trying to get by -- not "environmentalists" -- it's not a simple thing to take a step back and question something fundamental about the way life is structured. When you're in the trenches, those kinds of things are invisible, taken for granted. Sometimes it takes somebody digging up that instinct, that intuition, and validating it: Yes, you're right, it really is bad that your kids never interact with nature. More importantly: Here's what you can do.

Activists lead a virtual walking tour of their L.A. neighborhood

Pacoima, Calif., a largely Latino community on the north end of Los Angeles, is laden with freeways, airports, power plants, chemical manufacturers, and landfills. But residents intent on making their neighborhood a cleaner, safer place to live have teamed up through the nonprofit Pacoima Beautiful. They're working to prevent lead poisoning, clean up trash, repair heavily polluting cars, and turn an asphalt recycling plant into a park. Marlene Grossman and other community activists lead a walking tour of the neighborhood.

Rural solar advocate Jason Edens answers readers’ questions

As he's built up his Minnesota nonprofit that installs solar systems for low-income households, Jason Edens, this week's InterActivist, has gone from solar activist to solar expert. And it's a good thing: readers this week barraged him with questions about all things solar. He shines a light on topics ranging from DIY solar-system installation to solar ovens -- and he's got the scoop on web resources and other tools that can help you calculate your solar-power potential as well as costs, savings, emissions reductions, and more.

A final word on our Poverty & the Environment series

On this, the final day of our seven-week Poverty & the Environment series, Grist editor at large Kathryn Schulz steps back to take a big-picture look at the challenges we've been covering and the path toward meaningful social change. She also picks her highlights from the series, and invites you to do the same.

Media Shower: Fair trade, and not so fair trade

Last weekend I attended the Hazel Wolf Environmental Film festival in Leavenworth, WA, where 50 films were screened. As a board member and workshop presenter, I didn't get to see all the films I would have liked, but I was fortunate enough to see two of the headliners.

Slippery When Wet

Bush admin declares that wet lands are wetlands, says acreage is way up Yesterday, betraying no hint of irony, the Bush administration announced that even though the U.S. lost a net total of 523,500 acres of natural swamps and tidal marshes between 1998 and 2004, the country actually gained 715,300 acres of wetlands — if […]