Articles by David Roberts
David Roberts was a staff writer for Grist. You can follow him on Twitter, if you're into that sort of thing.
All Articles
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Politics after disasters
Here's a fascinating piece by Peter Ford in Christian Science Monitor on the political effects of natural disasters throughout history, with some discussion of the possible political ramifications of the tsunami. Good to see someone going a little deeper than the "man clings to tree for two weeks" level.
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Paper or pla… oh, fer chrissake!
Can you ever have enough answers to the paper-or-plastic question? Of course not! Here's another, from Treehugger.
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Global warming consensus
A couple of things I missed over the holiday break: Via this interesting piece on climate change consensus on RealClimate I found this interesting piece on climate change consensus in the Washington Post. Read 'em -- we'll be talking about this more soon.
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Green quid pro quo for Liberia
William Powers has an intriguing editorial in the New York Times today arguing that Bush should help Liberia institute a sort of "Peace for Nature swap, based on the Debt for Nature model in which third world countries receive debt relief for conserving their natural heritage." The idea is that Liberia has something lots of folks want -- intact rain forest -- and they desperately need something we can help provide: stability. In exchange for setting its rain forest aside as a United Nations biosphere reserve, Liberia would receive U.N. peacekeeping, electricity and water, and training in new jobs based around ecotourism and limited logging. I think enviros should be skeptical about these schemes, vigilant against their historical tendency to value the rain forest over the long-term health and development of indigenous populations, but this sounds like an excellent plan to me, particularly given the grim alternatives Powers describes. An example of economic development driven by preservation of natural resources rather than exploitation thereof, sitting in the heart of Africa, would be, as Martha Stewart says, a good thing.
