Latest Articles

Debating the ‘new middle’

On Monday, NYT reporter Andy Revkin and I appeared on EcoTalk, an Air America radio show. The subject was Andy’s now-notorious piece on the "new middle" in the climate debate and the huge uproar it sparked. You can listen to the show by going here, or directly link to segments one, two, and three. I […]

A single-issue movement won’t cut it

David Roberts has been writing about environmental talking points. But I think that skips a step. We need to examine what kind of politics the talking points are intended to contribute to.

I don't think I have to persuade anyone reading this blog to forget about informed, competent insiders trying persuasion from the inside. Romm tried that with both government and business since the early '90s. Al Gore spent decades as a Senator and Vice President of the U.S. playing insider baseball on the issue. Amory Lovins has been pursuing the "appeal to rational business self-interest" strategy since 1976!

The only thing will make change is a bunch of ordinary people getting together and exercising their democratic rights as citizens. And it is not just us dirty hippies saying that. Non-hippie former VP Al Gore says:

It’s all happening

A nice little Reuters story emphasizes the implicit point of my two political posts this morning, as well as my Tom Paine two–parter: this is going to be a huge year for climate change. Consider: Tons of action in Congress. Scientists have moved the Doomsday Clock forward on the basis of climate change. The upcoming […]

Got the Urge for Knowing

Scientists and evangelical leaders form new climate alliance So a minister, a scientist, and a horse walk into a bar. The bartender says, “Why the long face?” The horse just chuckles, but the other two begin a thoughtful discussion about how humans are destroying the planet. Sound far-fetched? Not after yesterday, when a group of […]

A Speechwriter Behind Every Bush

Content of State of the Union speech remains a mystery — kind of Will President Bush crack down on climate change in his State of the Union address? The world may never know — until, of course, he gives the speech next Tuesday. Mutterings that the administration would embrace a cap-and-trade carbon-reduction scheme were flatly […]

It’s Africa

Imagine a place where women must average seven children in their lifetime while risking infection from a fatal sexually transmitted disease (passed to the human population by eating other primates) that has left almost seven percent of those children orphaned.

This place experiences extreme climate shifts, cyclically throwing vast numbers of people into chronic starvation.

This place has been ravaged by constant civil war, wherein rival religious factions like the Lord's Resistance Army enslave and rape the populace while others cajole them to stop using contraception.

This place is home to some of the last of the 380 wild mountain Gorillas, two of which were just eaten.

This place has a ruler who is about to turn over to developers nine more tropical forests to grow biofuel stock (sugarcane and palm oil) instead of food.

Welcome to Children of Men in real time.

Gloom and Doom With a Sense of Doomed-er

Doomsday Clock ticks to 11:55 p.m., thanks in part to climate change Cue ominous music: We’re edging closer to annihilation, according to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists’ famed Doomsday Clock — a symbolic measurement of how close civilization stands to ultra-mega-doom, or “midnight.” Yesterday, the group pushed its famed ticker two minutes forward to 11:55 […]

Is This What the Kids Call Progress?

A slew of new climate legislation heads to Congress What a difference an election makes. After years of see-no-evil, hear-no-evil, be-really-evil, Congress is abuzz with forward movement on climate change. No less than four bills on climate look poised to go before the Senate, with big names like Sens. McCain, Obama, Boxer, and Feinstein jostling […]

Pelosi snubs Dingell

I discussed the climate-change climate in the Senate — things are hopping. The House, of course, is a different and less friendly animal, where Dems are stepping more gingerly. One notable development is that Speaker Nancy Pelosi rather publicly stuck her thumb in the eye of Michigan Rep. John Dingell, announcing today the formation of […]

Senators put for broad array of climate legislation choices

This is a stellar piece of reporting from Felicity Barringer and Andy Revkin at the NYT. There’s a lot of background, context, and detail packed into a small space. What’s made clear by the piece, and by the graphic comparison of emissions scenarios, is that the nation has an astonishing array of climate legislation options […]