Climate Politics

Two Enviros Walk Into a Bar …

Power Corrupts; Renewable Power Corrupts Renewably

Guantanamo military base to be powered partly by wind We’ve got good news and bad news. Bad news first? OK: The U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba is the alleged site of government-sanctioned torture, practiced on suspects whose guilt is at best uncertain, likely to leave a permanent moral scar on the nation’s […]

Clear Skies and Present Danger

Clean Air Act more effective than proposed Clear Skies bill, panel says A new report by the National Academy of Sciences suggests that the Bush administration’s proposed reform of current air-quality standards will effectively do less to reduce pollution than existing Clean Air Act regulations, much as critics, including John Kerry (remember him?), charged during […]

Christie Whitman’s forthcoming book assails GOP’s rightward lurch

When U.S. EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman left the agency in 2003, she said she wanted to “spend more time with her family.” If you believed that, Bernard Kerik‘s got a tax-free nanny he’d like to sell you. Those skeptical of Whitman’s resignation excuse may soon have their suspicions confirmed. It seems she quit because […]

A special series on the alleged “Death of Environmentalism”

Environmental leaders were rather dismayed late last year when upstarts began offering high-profile obituaries of their beloved movement. Is environmentalism dead? We are reminded of a scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail in which a wizened old man is offered to the collector of dead bodies in plague-ridden London. “I’m not dead,” the […]

An interview with authors of the controversial essay “The Death of Environmentalism”

Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus stirred up quite a fuss when they unveiled their essay “The Death of Environmentalism” last fall, declaring the environmental movement kaput and calling for a more visionary and inspiring progressive movement to take its place. In an interview with Grist, Shellenberger and Nordhaus talk about their ideas, the responses they’ve […]

Green leaders say rumors of environmentalism’s death are greatly exaggerated

The leadership of the U.S. environmental movement took quite a beating in Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus’s “The Death of Environmentalism.” We invited four mainstream green leaders to respond: Carl Pope of the Sierra Club Phil Clapp of National Environmental Trust Frances Beinecke of the Natural Resources Defense Council Dan Carol of the Apollo Alliance […]

What we talk about when we talk about the future of environmentalism

This is the first in a series of editorials Grist will publish over the coming months to address the issues raised by Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus’s essay “The Death of Environmentalism” and Adam Werbach’s speech “Is Environmentalism Dead?” Get the backstory here. Whatever the merits of their arguments, we think it all to the […]

The death of environmentalism: Global warming politics in a post-environmental world

This essay by Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus was released at an October 2004 meeting of the Environmental Grantmakers Association, and it’s been ruffling feathers ever since. Get the backstory here. Foreword By Peter Teague, Environment Program Director, Nathan Cummings Foundation As I write this, the fourth in a series of violent hurricanes has just […]

An in-depth response to “The Death of Environmentalism”

In December 2004, Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope distributed this response to the essay “The Death of Environmentalism.” Get the backstory here. There Is Something Different About Global Warming Dear Environmental Grant-Maker: You may have recently received a memorandum entitled “The Death of Environmentalism” by Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus. Carl Pope. I was […]