Latest Articles

Campus Progress

Via The American Prospect, I found CampusProgress.org, a new initiative from the Center for American Progress. It's an attempt to foster progressive action among college students, and as far as I can tell from browsing around, it's not the sort of painfully faux-hip thing you usually see from an effort like this. There are some great articles up, including a basic primer on global warming, a story on student efforts to move their schools over to clean energy, and -- best of all -- a reprint of the very funny Larry David essay on how he became an environmentalist. Here's hoping this reaches somebody other than the earnest middle-aged lefties that conceived it.

Are You Listening, Oldsmobile?

Pension fund pressures companies to be more responsible on climate The California Public Employees’ Retirement System — the largest public pension fund in the U.S., an economic powerhouse with some $182.9 billion in assets — voted Monday to use its significant clout to help fight global warming. Specifically, CalPERS is asking companies in the Financial […]

Easterschtick

Gregg Easterbrook writes in the NYT today that Bush's Clear Skies legislation is peachy, and darn it, Dems should get behind it. As my boss Chip aptly wondered, why do they keep letting this guy write the same column over and over again?

Hot wind

Frequent Grist contributor Bill McKibben has a column in today's NYT saying that environmentalists should get behind wind energy. He is sympathetic to some enviros' objections and rather gentle toward them.

I fully agree with McKibben, but I can't say I share his sympathy.

Oil and gas exploration is ravaging the American West. The nuclear industry is resurgent. And oh yeah, the globe is frying.

If environmentalists take global warming seriously, and expect others to take it seriously, maybe they shouldn't become bitchy provincialists the minute you want to build a wind turbine that impedes the scenic view off the back porches of their vacation homes.

So Ted Kennedy? Shut up.

(Speaking of wind, there's breaking news on the hotly contested Cape Cod wind farm. Looks like the NIMBYs may win after all.)

As Kyoto goes live, U.S. green groups offer tepid response

It’s an action-packed week on the climate front: The Kyoto Protocol finally goes into effect today throughout the vast majority of the industrialized world (the U.S. conspicuously not included), and Capitol Hill is awash in climate-related assaults and initiatives. As Kyoto and climate bills heat up, greens’ response is tepid. Congress is facing a double […]

Photos of Tuvalu show global warming in action

Since 1999, photographer Gary Braasch has worked to document global warming around the world. His images bring home a concept that’s often hard to visualize. Today, as the Kyoto Protocol goes into effect, Braasch sends a dispatch and photos from Tuvalu, a Pacific island nation whose fate already hangs in the balance. Photos: © Gary […]

Join a people’s campaign to ratify the Kyoto Protocol

The much-discussed Kyoto Protocol takes effect today, Feb. 16. In the face of the United States’ continuing refusal to ratify the international agreement, a group of progressive activists is launching a drive to gather millions of signatures from U.S. citizens for a “People’s Ratification of the Kyoto Global Warming Treaty.” Ross Gelbspan, a Grist contributor […]

Kids say the darnedest … wait a minute …

Who knows where they found them, but yesterday the BBC talked to eight well-spoken young people from around the world about environmental issues. Besides filling your heart with oodles of warmth and light, these teens -- who hail from Japan, India, Ecuador, Kenya, the U.K., and the U.S. -- will probably also make you feel kind of lazy and dumb. They talk about poverty and free trade and sustainability, and describe starting a recycling program, serving as a representative for the U.N. Environment Program, and running a project for street children. Even the kid from the U.S., a country not known for molding the keenest minds, sounds like he knows what he's talking about. Although, curiously, he does use the word "advert."

The new economic powerhouse

This book review of China, Inc. scares me. While green design and social responsibility have taken firm root in Europe and are penetrating the American consciousness, China, as this book review makes clear, is a ruthless economic machine devoted to one thing only: undercutting everybody else's prices. (I wouldn't want to be the one introducing CSR in sweatshops staffed by desperate ex-peasants churning out plastic bunnies, way cheaper than anyone else can make plastic bunnies.)

Gallons and gallons of Kyoto

Kyoto goes into effect tomorrow. You kind of think you generally know what it's about, but you're not really clear on the details. I feel your pain. Luckily, Bruce Sterling's latest Viridian Note -- "Ten Gallons of Kyoto" -- tells you everything you need to know. And I mean everything, all ten gallons of it. I must quote his intro:

Let's face it: it's a big deal that Kyoto has come into force in February 2005. People who are genuinely serious about the Greenhouse issue need some kind of nodding acquaintanceship with the ins and outs of this multilateral national agreement. The following analysis and history was written by Canadian enviros, so at least it seems to be factual and objective, and it lacks the contemptuous, fraudulent bullying and panic-stricken, handwringing qualities typical of every mention of Kyoto in contemporary American media. Therefore I've dumped the thing here in its entirety.

By the way, Sterling is cool, and Veridian is cool, and I don't know why I don't link over there more often. I'm gonna start.