Climate Politics

A Nader-do-well

If the first presidential debate was a contest to see who could memorize more numbers and offer crisper rhetoric replete with well-rounded sentences and flawless syntax, then Al Gore won. If it was an audition for national nice guy, then George W. Bush strutted out of Boston riding high. But the truth is that neither […]

This is not what democracy looks like

I wish everyone would stop calling them “debates.” Even back when the League of Women Voters first televised confrontations between presidential candidates, they weren’t debates. At best they were stiff, unnatural political discussions. Now that the two major political parties run them, they are carefully controlled soundbite gotcha matches. Like most everything about our campaign […]

Reid It and Weep

The annual rider battle is in full swing, with a number of lawmakers in Washington., D.C, trying to attach pieces of anti-environmental legislation to large, must-pass government funding bills. Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has tacked a rider onto an Interior Department spending bill that would block federal agencies from adopting tough new rules governing hard-rock […]

How can we make environmental laws work better?

Now that I’ve suffered under one firsthand, I can understand why people hate environmental laws. On a map of our farm filed away at the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources is a fateful dot. It stands for an endangered Siberian Chive, observed by someone decades ago. This dot popped up when we applied under Vermont’s […]

Melbourne Place

Thousands of enviros and other anti-globalization activists took to the streets of Melbourne, Australia, yesterday, with the aim of shutting down, Seattle-style, a three-day World Economic Forum meeting of high-powered corporate leaders and policymakers, primarily from the Asia-Pacific region. “We have no vote on who these major world leaders are,” said Michael Gann, a protestor […]

Give Greenpeace a Chance

By now the trials and tribulations that have befallen Greenpeace USA in recent years are well-known. In the biggest blowup, the entire board resigned after bickering with Greenpeace International-backed Executive Director Kristen Engberg over the direction and organization of the redoubtable environmental group. Current and former staffers ranted about Engberg’s leadership style, which they described […]

Reality Bites

Linda Harrar is an independent filmmaker, based in Boston but usually traveling the world producing documentaries for NOVA and other PBS programs. Through the lens of the camera, she sees a lot. In the editing room she sees it over and over. It sinks in deep. So she had a strong reaction to the CBS […]

The Bureau of Land Management is due for a shake-up

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) controls more land than any other agency in the world. Its 265 million acres in the American West cover an area greater in size than the entire National Forest system plus the state of Wyoming. You too should care about the […]

How Many Licks Does It Take to Get to the Center of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge?

Honorable Mention

LOS ANGELES, Calif.    With much fanfare and an excess of recyclable confetti, Democrats sent Al Gore forth last night into what will be a grueling three-month campaign stretch. The vice president must convince skeptical voters that he has what it takes to lead and that electing him over Texas Gov. George W. Bush will make […]