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Civil-rights, suffrage activists didn’t give up, and neither should environmentalists 

This piece is adapted from a speech given before the Alliance for Global Sustainability last month at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass. The full speech — “Reflections on Sustainability and Universities and Whether Environmentalism Has Died” — can be found here. Are the reapers quitting too soon? The environmental community is in […]

Backchat from Earth First! and ExxonMobil, and a response from Riki Ott

  Re: Climb Every Mountain. Then Remove It. Dear Editor: Thanks for runnin’ a blurb on Mountain Justice Summer on your fine website. The only thing is that the groups involved with Mountain Justice Summer, which include Katuah Earth First! and Coal River Mountain Watch, have specifically said we will not be engaging in property […]

Head and shoulders above the rest

As I was waiting for the bus this morning, I glimpsed this headline: 'Is that Dandruff in Your Air Pollution'? It's such an unsurprising concept -- that particulate matter in the air includes stuff like dandruff and fur -- that it hardly seems newsworthy. And yet. The image of all of us wading through a haze of skin chunks is somehow tough to, er, swallow. I can't help but think of all those salmon swimming through each other's lice -- and how I had the temerity, when we reported that the other day, to think it was strange.

Ecosystem services

Don't miss Joel Makower's long and informative post on recent developments around ecosystem services:

...the $33 trillion worth of "free" deliverables provided to us by a healthy planet, including fertile soil, fresh water, breathable air, pollination, habitat, soil formation, pest control, a livable climate, and a bunch of other things we generally take for granted.

He touches on the Millenium Ecosystem Assessment and a number of emerging attempts to assign economic value to ecosystem services, thereby making "externalities" into market "internalities." A great read.

Je Syracuse

Onondaga Nation sues for land rights in New York state The Onondaga Nation earlier this month filed a lawsuit claiming ownership of some 3,100 square miles of New York state, including Onondaga Lake in northwest Syracuse — a large body of water to which the community claims to have ancestral connection. That lake also happens […]

Undermined

Ruling halts proposed mine under wilderness area, for now Plans to build a massive copper and silver mine beneath Montana’s Cabinet Mountain Wilderness was successfully halted (again) yesterday when a federal judge ruled that U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials put the area’s bull trout and grizzly bears at risk by approving the mine. The […]

Today a Report, Tomorrow … Well, We’ll See

Ford acknowledges global warming, but makes no big promises Pressure from shareholder activists is producing effects at large companies — if not yet concrete proposals to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, at least notable signals that they’re starting to take global warming seriously. The latest to hop on the bandwagon is Ford Motor Co., expected to announce […]

Bycatcher in the Eye

Iconic Galapagos Islands threatened by longline fishing, other stuff The Galapagos Islands are iconic for biologists and conservationists, home to a dizzying array of rare and endangered species that inspired Charles Darwin’s seminal work on evolution. Today, the entire marine ecosystem surrounding the islands may be in jeopardy. The militant fishing unions that hold sway […]

Umbra on conserving water

Dear Umbra, Twenty years ago, I lived off the grid and learned how to conserve water. That lesson stayed with me, and it’s agonizing for me to witness the cavalier, wasteful treatment of precious freshwater. My elderly mother moved in with me two years ago, and all is lovely and fine, except that she wastes […]

Fossil Foolishness

As we report in Daily Grist today, Ford Motor Co. is the latest in a string of major companies looking into this whole climate-change dealio. The company is expected to announce today that they will begin researching how global warming will affect them -- or rather, how pending and future regulations will affect company business. But they won't be making any promises, said one spokesflack, about actual changes that would, oh I don't know, alter their lowest-fuel-efficiency-among-all-automakers title: "To commit to that at this point is to probably create some expectations that we might not be able to meet." Indeed.

Interestingly enough, however, is the timing of this announcement and "pledge," as tomorrow, April 1 (the Day of Fools!), is shaping up to be a major Ford-bashing day. Energy Action, a coalition of youth working toward clean energy, is organizing their second annual Fossil Fools Day. The group hopes to have thousands of participants from all over the U.S., Canada, and the U.K. involved in actions to demand clean and renewable energy.

More on the suggested actions below the fold: