environmental movement

Four emerging environmental leaders discuss the future of their field

To continue the conversation about the ostensible “death of environmentalism,” we invited four next-generation leaders to discuss the issue with one another via email. Herewith, in almost real time, we are publishing their thoughts in our pages. All the participants are fellows with the Environmental Leadership Program, which works with emerging activists and professionals to […]

If not dead, then illin’

Michael Milstein of the Portland Oregonian delves into the sickly state of the environmental movement, focusing in on the Beaver State. It's the Death of Environmentalism quandary distilled down to the state level -- and it's a bummer.

"The environmental community seems to be at a new low for the amount of influence it has," said Noah Greenwald, a biologist based in Portland for the Center for Biological Diversity.

Bill McKibben sends dispatches from a conference on winning the climate-change fight

Tuesday, 25 Jan 2005 MIDDLEBURY, Vt. A crisp, cold, blue-sky New England day, fresh snow on the ground, and everything right with the world. Except that last night, as I was preparing to attend a three-day conference on climate change here in Middlebury, Vt., yet another disturbing report on global warming drifted across the net. […]

An elevator pitch for environmentalism

Update [2005-3-14 9:31:34 by Dave Roberts]: The Elevator Pitch contest is over! (You can continue suggesting ideas, but they won't be entered in the contest.)

The American Prospect is running a contest: develop an "elevator pitch" for liberalism. An elevator pitch -- familiar to folks desperate to raise money (hi) -- refers to a short, pithy summary of the benefits of one's project. Conservatives, the Prospectors say, have a familiar elevator pitch (strong defense, lower taxes, fewer gay people, etc.), but people are constantly baffled as to what liberalism "stands for." (You can read a few Prospect readers' attempts here.)

"Hm," I thought. "What does environmentalism stand for? Aside from this or that piece of legislation, what is environmentalism's elevator pitch?"

So, with apologies/thanks to the Prospect, I'm ripping off their idea and starting a contest of my own.

Submit an elevator pitch for environmentalism in comments. It must be no more than 30 words. Pitches longer than that will be disqualified. Imagine yourself in an elevator with a skeptical but open-minded Average Citizen. You have seven floors to make your pitch. What does environmentalism offer them? What does it ask of them? What are its core values, its core vision?  Try to limit your comment to a pitch -- if you want to discourse on the larger issue of environmentalism's future, you can do so over on this post.

The winner -- as determined by the Contest Dictator, i.e., me -- will win a highly coveted, fashion-forward, limited-edition, organic-cotton, still-have-a-few-lying-around-the-office, Very First Official Grist T-shirt (VGOFT) (this is on the front; this is on the back).

I'll announce the winner in a couple of weeks. Go to it!

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 […]

Evangelicals and the earth

Grist, of course, ran the definitive story on the Christian right's relationship to environmentalism, but it wouldn't hurt to go gather additional insights from this piece by Alexander Zaitchik.  He asks, "If a slowly expanding majority of evangelical Christians in this country supports the regulation of industry to protect the environment, and if there is no clear Biblical injunction against doing so, why are the most vehement anti-environmentalists in American politics consistently found among the Christian Right?" If you guessed "close ties between the movement's national leadership and industry," well, give yourself a gold star.

Free the radicals

Dave's recent essay falsely equates being "radical" with being "violent." Violence and radicalism are not the same. Being a "radical" just means you want to see significant, fundamental changes to society -- say, a real, true shift to sustainability or an economy that actually values people and the environment over monetary profit. These are changes, I am willing to bet, that a large number of environmentalists would love to see. They are also radical. They would require a fundamental change to society. But does that shift have to include violence? Absolutely not.