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All along the watch tower, opposition to wind is growing

I'm seeing more and more evidence of a nascent anti-wind movement. And, naturally enough, an anti-anti-wind backlash.

The savory challenges of being a sustainable chef in Big Ag country

Fifteen years ago, I left a great job teaching at a prestigious northeast culinary school to move back to Iowa and be an executive chef at a Holiday Inn. It was difficult to find people, in Vermont or Iowa, who did not think I was certifiably insane. Those who thought they knew Iowa claimed, “There’s […]

Level of GHG emissions may be much higher than predicted

There are those who argue that it's irresponsible or alarmist to argue that there will be any climate change effects beyond those cited by the IPCC. I wonder what they'll make of this:

Judge delays work on border fence per insufficient environmental report

The Bush administration tried to “ram” through an insufficient environmental report and must temporarily cease work on a 1.5-mile-long section of fence on the Arizona-Mexico border, a federal judge ruled yesterday. Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle agreed with the Defenders of Wildlife and the Sierra Club that federal agencies’ three-week-long environmental assessment seemed unnecessarily hurried, but […]

Edwards would auction 100 percent of pollution permits; welcomes Obama to the auction fold

Earlier this week, when Barack Obama released his excellent new energy plan, I said this: … with his promise to auction 100% of cap-and-trade credits, Obama has put himself out ahead of all the other frontrunners. He deserves the praise he’ll get for it. John Edwards. Photo: kk+ via flickr Afterwards, the John Edwards campaign […]

Right whales get safe haven off east coast of Canada, baby orcas high in PBDEs

The International Maritime Organization has approved a proposal to designate a 695-square-mile zone off the coast of Nova Scotia, Canada, an official Area to Be Avoided, hoping to lower the risk of ship collisions with endangered right whales that tend to congregate there from June through December. However, avoiding the zone is voluntary so ship […]

Stabilizing climate means embracing technology, public investment, and global economic development

The following is a guest essay by Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger, the latest in the ongoing conversation about their new book Break Through: From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility. —– This week saw a watershed moment for those of us committed to moving environmentalism from a politics of limits to […]

The Republican candidates acknowledge climate change, but they don’t much care about it

All the action and excitement around climate change policy seems to have lulled Chris Mooney into a false sense of security about the current crop of Republican presidential candidates. This, however, is no time to go soft, and no time to give points for showing up. Bare acknowledgement of the reality of climate change is […]

AEP settlement exempts company from enforcement for 10 years

Earlier this week brought news of a settlement agreement between utility giant American Electric Power and the U.S. EPA in which the company agreed to install some $4.6 billion in pollution controls at some of its power plants and pay over $70 million in penalties and cleanup costs. Today, The Washington Post reported that the […]

How should the environmental movement spend its money?

Tonight will witness the biggest social event of the D.C. environmental calendar: the Green Corps 15th anniversary bash. All the green glitterati will be there to honor Rep. Ed Markey and John Lewis with awards -- and more importantly, to raise money to support training organizers for the environmental movement.

I've been helping out with the event for the last few months and I'm excited about it. It's made me reflect on how much the environmental movement has changed since I graduated from the year-long Green Corps organizing fellowship in 2002 -- and think anew about the relative importance of organizing to other methods of achieving social change.

For those who don't know, Green Corps is the field school for environmental organizing. It generally takes 20-35 recent college graduates (out of more than 800 who apply!) and trains them in all the basic skills that go into running and winning an environmental (or really any social change or political) campaign. Then you get sent out somewhere in America to lead an environmental campaign yourself, working under the banner of a local, state, or national environmental group. My first campaign, for instance, was to work with Greenpeace to secure $5 billion in financing from the California government for clean energy financing. It's a lot more responsibility than most people think they'll have right out of college, and when you win, as you often do, it's hard not to embrace organizing for the long run, as most Green Corps organizers do. As a result, they've gone on to do amazing work with everyone from the Sierra Club to Move On and the Gulf Restoration Network.

During my Green Corps year from 2001 to 2002, though, organizing was almost all we had. It was difficult for national environmental groups to get big-time media coverage of any environmental issue, much less the climate crisis, which seemed to be going nowhere as long as President Bush was in office. Now, since An Inconvenient Truth hit movie screens, it seems like everything is media: whether you read Women's Wear Daily, watch NBC or Fox, or read your local paper, the planet is hot, hot, hot!

That change has had a huge impact, altering the spectrum of what's possible: we no longer have to beg for crumbs or think up cartoonish stunts to get attention (though no one should estimate the power of a cartoonish stunt to get attention). Suddenly, even Republican presidential candidates are forced to address the climate crisis and Democrats in Congress are actually considering fairly ambitious climate legislation. People across the country are making small changes to their own lives that might add up to something. More importantly, politicians at every level are more willing to give pro-environment legislation time on the agenda.

Here's why I keep coming back to organizing -- and think the environmental movement needs to continue to focus on building its long-term organizing capacity rather than becoming overly enthralled with a pure media approach: