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James Lovelock’s terror masks the same old industrial-era thinking

In the new issue of Rolling Stone, Jeff Goodell has a profile of James Lovelock, father of the Gaia Hypothesis and foremost representative of the OMFG we’re all totally f*cked!!1! school of green thinking: In Lovelock’s view, the scale of the catastrophe that awaits us will soon become obvious. By 2020, droughts and other extreme […]

Envisioning possible green futures helps create a greener future

Peter Madden, chief executive of Forum for the Future, writes a monthly column for Gristmill on sustainability in the U.K. and Europe.

There has been much discussion lately of the need to turn the green agenda from a negative to a positive one. I think that an important part of this is developing some more positive visions of what living in a sustainable future might be like. My organization, Forum for the Future, has set itself this task. Partly because we think the green movement needs more credible and aspirational stories of the future if we are to take people with us. And partly because we become the future that we imagine -- it is to an extent a self-fulfilling prophecy.

So, we are trying to take different parts of the future and imagine what they might look like. We now have a series of projects looking at different aspects of future living.

Our recent report, "Low Carbon Living 2022," asks how might our lives be better if we get the response to climate change right. A low-carbon Britain doesn't have to mean cutbacks and sacrifice. Low Carbon Living 2022 looks forward 15 years and shows ways in which a low-carbon future could deliver: stronger communities, a cleaner local environment, more money, better transport, a healthier lifestyle, and a thriving economy.

Soviet-induced water crises push Eastern European nations to consider solutions

The following is a guest essay from Eric Pallant, professor of environmental science at Allegheny College in Meadville, Pa., and codirector of the NATO Advanced Study Institute on Integrated Water Resources Management. He is reporting from the National Disasters and Water Security conference in Yerevan, Armenia.

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October 19, 2007

I have to hand it to NATO for dishing out money to sponsor Advanced Research Workshops on environmental security. And I must congratulate Armenia for organizing Natural Disasters and Water Security: Risk Assessment, Emergency Response, and Environmental Management. It shows recognition on the part of both parties that security involves more than advanced weaponry. Conference Director Dr. Trahel Vardanian, in a wide-wale pinstripe suit, does not speak English -- but he must have realized how valuable it would be to host this international meeting. Armenia is a country in transition.

At street level, it seems as if half the city is torn asunder by cranes and bulldozers busily replacing the old Soviet cement-block architecture with sparkling new parks, scalloped stone boulevards, broad-windowed import shops, and new Armenian cement-block high-rises. I see 30-year-old Soviet Ladas and glossy new Nissans side-by-side. Young women in tight jeans and heels, gossiping in Armenian, skitter past old women in babushkas and heavy grey sweaters. Their grandmothers are still selling sunflower seeds on the sidewalk.

Yerevan woman selling bread on the street. (Photo: Eric Pallant)

Time compiles list of environmental heroes

Time Magazine has compiled a long list of environmental heroes, including widely recognizable names (Mikhail Gorbachev, Prince Charles, Robert Redford, Al Gore) eco-recognizable names (Angela Merkel, Tim Flannery, Wangari Maathai, James Hansen, Amory Lovins, David Suzuki, Richard Branson), less-well-known folk (anti-poaching advocate Hammer Simwinga, water-purifying savant Abul Hussam, Russian activist Olga Tsepilova), and none other […]

With the Katrina-anniversary media gone, the hard work continues

A version of this piece originally appeared on the Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors website. FEMA trailer camp, Plaquemines Parish, La. Photo: Marni Rosen The many communities of color along the Gulf Coast, be they African American, Creole, Native American, or Vietnamese American, have much in common — and not just because they’re still struggling to get […]

Granted, it’s early yet

Just met with Laura Carstens, planning services manager for Dubuque. The money quote: “For years, we turned our back on the river. Now we’re making it our front door.” Later today, Sarah and I will get out on the river for the first time. The tourist riverboat stopped running this weekend because the weather turned, […]

… or Kansas, for that matter

Here’s what the sign says on the back of the bathroom door in our hotel: Hotel Laws of Iowa Fixing, Limiting, and Determining the Liability of Keepers of Hotels, Inns, Eating-Houses, and Steamboat Owners to Inmates Thereof. Sorry, was that … steamboat owners? Holy crap.

Chertoff waives environmental laws to continue border-fence construction

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff waived several environmental laws on Monday in order to continue construction of nearly seven miles of the sprawling fence along the U.S.-Mexico border. Work on the section that crosses the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area near Naco, Ariz., had been halted due to a ruling two weeks ago that […]

Atmospheric CO2 rises more than expected since 2000

The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is increasing more than expected due to less-efficient use of fossil fuels, and carbon sinks that are absorbing less carbon, according to research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Overall, “atmospheric carbon dioxide growth has increased 35 percent faster than expected since 2000,” […]

A two-part CNN documentary begins tonight

(Images: CNN Worldwide — All Rights Reserved 2007 ©) Beginning tonight at 9 p.m. ET/PT, CNN will air a two-part documentary that takes viewers to the front lines of environmental change. Hosted by CNN anchor Anderson Cooper (above), chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta, and Animal Planet host/wildlife biologist Jeff Corwin, Planet in Peril will […]