local politics
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A day with SLC Mayor Rocky Anderson, in photos
While down in the good state of Utah several weeks ago, I got to spend some time with Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson, featured subject of a Dave Roberts Q&A published yesterday. The good mayor had just days before given his state of the city address, the final of his two-term run as mayor […]
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The Salt Lake City mayor is doing amazing green things
I just got done with a long and interesting conversation with Salt Lake City’s hard-charging mayor, Rocky Anderson. If you haven’t been following the guy, check out this remarkable article in The Nation. Prepare to have your accustomed-to-bad-news socks knocked off. Since his election in 1999, he’s implemented a comprehensive plan to green the city […]
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Community forests help revitalize New England towns
Beyond a set of granite gates on a hillside in Rumford, Maine, a lost city sits amid silver maples and oaks, just across the river from a sprawling paper mill. It’s called Strathglass Park, and it’s a vestige of an experiment in corporate benevolence. Designed in 1904 by noted architect Cass Gilbert, who later designed […]
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Enviros plot to beat Pombo in November
Just a week into this election year and already environmental strategists are up to their elbows in plots to snatch Congress from the grip of anti-environment GOP leaders and turn it over to a conservation-minded majority. Leaders of green groups including the Sierra Club and Defenders of Wildlife are hatching plans to help political allies […]
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Sundance getaway converts mayors into climate activists
Salt Lake City played host to mayors getting up to speed on climate issues. City leaders from around the U.S. were treated to a rare bird’s-eye view of the environment earlier this week at the Sundance Summit, a three-day mayors’ retreat on climate change hosted by Robert Redford in Salt Lake City and at his […]
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Tackling climate change at the local level
Sister Evelyn Mattern had two goals in mind as she stood vigil recently with a Protestant colleague in a gas mask, singing, “This Air is My Air!” at the North Carolina statehouse. Her short-term aim was to lend support to stricter regulations for the state’s coal-fired power plants. Yet she also had a loftier, long-range […]
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Should locals be more involved in public lands decisions?
Roadless and fancy-free. Photo: U.S. Forest Service. As the Clinton administration rushes to complete its lands legacy agenda in the American West, two methods of resolving public land issues have clashed head-on. The first is embodied in President Clinton’s move earlier this month to protect 58.5 million acres of roadless national forest — a quick, […]
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Greens Mourn Brown
Americans have been transfixed these last few days by the passing of a dazzling cultural icon, son of one of the most compelling — and tragic — political figures of the 20th century. A Green Brown Far less remarked upon has been the death last week of California Rep. George Brown (D), one of the […]
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Sierra Club Leaping into Political Ring?
Latest buzz on the streets of San Francisco is the nascent mayoral candidacy of enviro wunderkind Adam Werbach, who at the ripe old age of 26 is already an ex-president of the Sierra Club. We tracked Werbach down at the production company he runs in the Bay Area to find out if he is serious […]