Latest Articles

A ‘Maoist insurgency’ in a global information-technology hub?

Did you know that India, hub of the global information economy and destination of untold numbers of outsourced U.S. jobs, is in the grips of a Maoist insurgency? A recent Reuters article referred (a bit casually) to: the Maoist insurgency that has spread to about half of India’s 29 states and has been described by […]

Fun all around

Rep. Jay Inslee’s wife Trudi asked me to pass this along to you: America needs a clean energy revolution, and we need your stories! Are you, your company, or community building the clean energy economy today? We want to tell the world about it. We will share clean energy stories on the website apollosfire.net, and […]

Earth Firster urges a return to conservationism

Dave Foreman spills his guts on the difference between real conservationists and the rest of us, who are interested in saving the environment for utilitarian reasons here, urging a return to conservation's roots in the preservation of wildness for its own sake, and slamming utilitarian environmental approaches to conservation. I actually thought the movement had gotten past this debate; apparently I was wrong.

Key phrase:

... [N]ature conservationists who work to protect wilderness areas and wild species should be called conservationists, and ... resource conservationists, who wish to domesticate and manage lands and species for the benefit and use of humans, should be called resourcists.

When environmentalists turn their attention from the so-called "built environment" to nature, they can take either a conservationist or a resourcist pathway. I've named environmentalists who have a utilitarian resourcist view "enviro-resourcists."

And I've ruffled some feathers with this view.

I've ruffled even more feathers lately by warning that enviro-resourcists have been slowing gaining control of conservation groups, thereby undercutting and weakening our effectiveness, and that nature lovers need to take back the conservation family.

Green urban development, in just 12 years!

If you can ignore the egregious lede — did green building really come from hippies? — there’s much to celebrate in this article on Sonoma Mountain Village, “a community of about 2,000 homes and businesses, centered around a town square, using the latest principles of sustainability, green technology and new urbanism.” It’ll be about 175 […]

EcoTalking

As I mentioned, I was on EcoTalk radio the other day, talking about the Waxman hearings on political interference with climate science. I did two segments, which you can download as mp3s: part one (11 min.), part two (7 min.). I think it went fairly well.

Yellowstone grizzlies to be delisted, Harry Potter goes greener, and more

Read the articles mentioned at the end of the podcast: The Goracle Hogwarts and All You’ll Be Fine, Yogi You Mean Bombing Doesn’t Help? Not In My Back Yardarm Everything’s Up To Date in Kansas City Power & Light Read the articles mentioned at the end of the podcast: A Van With a Plan Whiz […]

Will he run?

A while back, certain … sources of mine in Tennessee (hi Amanda!) let me in on what was back then still a quiet rumor: a Republican savior is on the way. Soon to be riding to the rescue of downtrodden Republicans, burdened with a weak field of presidential candidates, is Fred Thompson, lawyer, actor, and […]

Inconvenient headlines

Tom Athanasiou (exec. director of EcoEquity) reminds us of two things. The first is that domestic programs for emission reductions just aren’t going to cut it. We have to find some equitable way to draw China and India into the fold. The second is something I’ve been meaning to propose: Let’s all of us pull […]

Good communication strategy

Witness: The United States should accelerate development of renewable energy sources because of increased risk from terrorist attacks that could cripple the economy, former national security adviser Robert McFarlane said Saturday. How do you think that compares, in terms of voter priorities, to saving “the earth” or saving polar bears or saving arctic ice? Save […]

Wherein we puzzle through the truthiness

I was recently made aware of the fact that the conservative National Review has a newish blog called Planet Gore. That’s right: the only conservative blog I know of on global warming is primarily focused on mocking Al Gore — who is, you’ll recall, a big Fatty Fatterstein. This pungent discovery got me pondering a […]