Latest Articles

Plenty

Everybody else is talking about it so, being joiners, we shall as well: Check out Plenty, a new glossy mag that dares to assert that "if we make the right choices, we can have a world of Plenty." I have not seen the magazine, but I agree with the sentiment. Check it out on your local newsstand.

(An aside to the folks responsible for the Plenty website: Splash screens are bad. And useless. FYI.)

Two Enviros Walk Into a Bar …

Betsy Rosenberg, green radio-show host, answers questions

Betsy Rosenberg. What work do you do? I’ve gone from 20 years of general news reporting and anchoring for the CBS Radio network to creating an environmental radio minute to hosting and producing a one-hour nationally syndicated eco-awareness program called EcoTalk. I transitioned from journalist to activist a few years ago when, in the wake […]

Umbra on the outcome of the last pollutocrat contest

Dear Umbra, So, what were the results of the “pollutocrat” contest? I recall seeing several web postings by editors to “watch out” for this term, as if the rest of a letter’s content was somehow invalid if it was written as part of a contest. Sad. Did someone win or not? KevinParma, Ohio Dearest Kevin, […]

RFK Jr. eyeing NY attorney general spot

Crusading environmental lawyer and Bush-basher Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is considering a run for state attorney general of New York, insiders say. He'd be a fitting successor to Eliot Spitzer, who's gone after pollution-spewing utilities with as much as gusto as he's gone after corporate malefactors on Wall Street.

Veneman to head UNICEF

Outgoing U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman (never beloved by enviros) has been tapped to head UNICEF. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan announced her nomination yesterday; she was reportedly the Bush admin's top pick for the post. Here's hoping she does a better job of protecting the world's children than she did of protecting America's forests!

MLK Jr.

Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day (despite Dick Cheney's objections), and while Grist is taking the day off, it's worth remembering both the incredible progress the U.S. has made on civil rights in a relatively brief time (Matt Yglesias has some good stuff on this subject) and one area where justice continues to lag, namely, the environment.

The low profile of the environmental justice movement within the larger green movement is a scandal, and one of the issues we'll be discussing more in our ongoing series on the (alleged) "Death of Environmentalism."

For more on environmental justice, check out this EPA page, the Environmental Justice Foundation, and the Environmental Justice Resource Center at Clark University, where we find the principles of environmental justice and this bit of history:

Just three decades ago, the concept of environmental justice had not registered on the radar screens of environmental, civil rights, or social justice groups. Nevertheless, it should not be forgotten that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. went to Memphis in 1968 on an environmental and economic justice mission for the striking black garbage workers. The strikers were demanding equal pay and better work conditions. Of course, Dr. King was assassinated before he could complete his mission.

Of all the many quotes from perhaps the most quotable man of the last century, on this day environmentalists should above all heed this one: "In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."

Plastic, now with fresh, fruity scent!

Of the nasty things about plastic -- a subject upon which our own Umbra is prolific -- perhaps the worst is its origins in petroleum. What if the many wondrous benefits of plastic could be had without the petroleum inputs? That would be cool.

Along come researchers at Cornell University, who have apparently discovered how to make plastic from citrus fruits and carbon dioxide. Use less oil; use more CO2 (rather than pumping it into the atmosphere). Nifty.

(via BoingBoing)

Try a little togetherness

Speaking of how and to what extent progressives should band together (a key theme in our ongoing "Is environmentalism dead" discussion), anti-tax zealot and right-wing power broker Grover Norquist provides yet another example of how the right is kicking the left's ass on the unity thing.  A New York Times Magazine article on Bush's plans to trash the tax code starts off like this:

One afternoon late last month, I paid a visit to the offices of Americans for Tax Reform, the conservative lobbying outfit headed by Grover Norquist. ... Each Wednesday morning, more than a hundred leading conservative activists, policy pundits, talk-show producers and journalists, joined by assorted Hill staff members and White House aides, gather in Americans for Tax Reform's conference room to discuss the issues of the day, from prescription drugs to school choice. Within Republican circles, Norquist's job is to organize other organizations, making sure the different branches of conservatism are moving in the same direction, at the same time, to the greatest extent possible. His particular genius is for persuading one organization to reach beyond its own agenda to help out another -- for getting, say, the cultural traditionalists at the Eagle Forum to join the business libertarians at the Competitive Enterprise Institute in opposing fuel-economy standards for automobiles by convincing the traditionalists that, as Norquist once explained to me, "it's backdoor family planning. You can't have nine kids in the little teeny cars. And what are you going to do when you go on a family vacation?"

John Podesta is quoted in the article moaning about how the right's tax plans will screw the little guy. Righto, but tell me: Who meets at his Center for American Progress every Wednesday morning to hatch and hone a cohesive battle plan for the left? When will we see a progressive answer to Norquist's war room?

Top green products

organicARCHITECT, a green architecture firm and research think-tank, today announced the recipients of its 2004 organicAWARDS. This first annual award recognizes the most exciting products introduced in the past year that promote both design innovation and environmental responsibility.

Check it out. (I'm particularly fond of the stapleless stapler.)