Articles by David Roberts

Komanoff on wind

Don't miss an excellent piece in Orion on the fevered debate over wind power. It's by Charles Komanoff, who you know as a periodic Gristmill contributor.

Fear and environmentalism: still more

(Third in a series; first part here, second part here.)

Fear and anger can be invigorating, even intoxicating. It's worth thinking about why.

For all too many men -- and let's face it, the vast majority of violence, personal and political, originates with men -- the strong, stoic, squinty ideal of masculinity means that whole ranges of emotional experience simply go unacknowledged, unnamed, and unprocessed.

Some boys are purposefully taught to be ashamed of any hint of vulnerability. They're taught that empathy is a sign of weakness. Their affect is actively suppressed. This comes from repressed, repressive fathers who themselves had repressed, repressive fathers, and so on back through a genealogy of domination and displacement.

More commonly, though, boys simply aren't taught or encouraged to discuss their feelings. Even well-meaning parents can buy into the myth that boys aren't as "sensitive" as girls, and of course this myth is encouraged in a thousand ways by our culture. (When I found out I was having a boy, I read a ton of material on this stuff. See, e.g., Real Boys by William Pollack.)

By commission or omission, the result is the same: emotional illiteracy.

Random thought of the day

There have been several debates here on Gristmill lately about capitalism, consumerism, communalism, corporatism, and, you know ... The System. It's worth remembering some crucial context.

Somewhere in the early 1800s, the number of human beings on earth reached a billion. In the 1920s, it reached two billion. In 1960, three billion. Four billion in 1974. Five billion in 1987. Six billion in 1999.

By around 2045, there will be nine billion people on the planet.

Tell me something

What is the thought process that leads someone to think that, at this particular moment in history, the most important thing to devote one's energy to is policing the environmental community to make sure they don't exaggerate or shade facts or use unnecessarily shrill language?

I mean, I can see calling that stuff out when you come across it. But making it your shtick?

It's as though Hitler were invading France and someone spent their time publishing pamphlets scolding Allied soldiers for their bad posture.