Putin cracks down on environmental orgs

Russian President Vladimir Putin is taking an increasingly dim view of environmental NGO activity, whether from within Russia or from neighboring Baltic or Nordic neighbors. In rhetoric eerily similar to what we hear in this country, Putin rails against ecological objections holding up development projects. Going a step further, Putin's government is criminalizing more and more environmental data-gathering and harassing Russian NGO activists. Putin's latest warning "against the financing of political activity by any channel" is cited in an August 2 Agence France Presse story. AFP says "the warning came amid a hardening official stance in Moscow toward non-governmental organisations -- a policy, analysts say, that reflects Kremlin worry about the influence of foreign-funded organisations in the peaceful revolutions that shook Georgia in 2003 and Ukraine last year."

If you are interested in a good news-clipping listserv on Russian environmental issues, subscribe to the Russian Environmental Digest Files through the Transboundary Environmental Information Agency, which focuses on the Baltics and Russia.

Response to “Death”: Part III

Today comes Part III of Ken Ward's response to "The Death of Environmentalism," in which Ken argues that environmentalists should resist efforts to make environmental justice the core tenant of the movement and instead refocus on the most successful weapon in their arsenal: protest.

Don't forget to read Part I, Part II, Part IV, and Part V.

Bela-ruse

Poor Belarusians returning to areas contaminated by Chernobyl It’s been 18 years since the Chernobyl nuclear reactor in the Ukraine...

“The good, the bad, and the rusty”

Ever wonder what happened to the vibrant environmental protest movements that helped bring down the communist governments of Eastern Europe (and did you even know that green NGOs were critical to the fall of the Iron Curtain)?

For the history lesson, read Jane Dawson's book Eco-Nationalism: Anti-Nuclear Activism and National Identity in Russia, Lithuania, and Ukraine by Duke University Press.  

For tracking today's environmental movements and green journalism in Central and Eastern Europe, check out the Regional Environment Center for Central and Eastern Europe in Szentendre, Hungary, just outside Budapest.  The REC is the real node for green civil society in the region and their websites are terrific entry points for figuring out the what's what and who's who.  Their regional offices in each country mean they have their collective finger on the pulse and their practical training workshops of all types mean they are doers and not armchair types.  

Sign up for their new-look Green Horizon for aesthetically pleasing, bit-size updates and stories like "The Good, the Bad, and the Rusty," which I so gladly borrowed for the title of this posting.

The Methane Is the Message

Bush Unveils Methane Plan Yesterday, Bush administration officials unveiled a plan that would encourage the manufacture and export of technology...

Dispatches from an international dialogue on science and sustainability

Michael Levitin is a freelance journalist based in Barcelona. This week he is attending the World Forum of Cultures’ Dialogue...

Ignoble Chernobyl

It’s been 17 years since the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe — but a new disaster could be around the bend if...

And other words from readers

  Re: I’d Like My C, Under the Sea Dear Editor: The article implies that storing carbon in air pockets...

Andrew Katkin, National Environmental Trust

Andrew Katkin is the web manager for the National Environmental Trust. He is a member of NET’s team of staffers...