On Wednesday and Thursday, the Grist editorial team will be at a retreat in our top-secret mountaintop redoubt, plotting world domination. As a result, there will be no Daily Grist and blogging will be light.
We're discussing the next steps for this little web magazine of ours, which is growing so fast and has so much potential.
So, what would you like to see for Grist? Or more particularly, for my own selfish purposes, what would you like to see for Gristmill?
Where do you want Gristmill to go? What do you want from it? More posts? Fewer? More guest authors? Fewer? Different subject matter? (Less energy, more wilderness? Less global warming, more population?) More avenues for reader participation? More avenues for activism and organizing? An email subscription option? A print-this-post option? Anonymous commenting? A pony?
Think big. Think small. Just think, and let me know what Gristmill would become if you were emperor.
Comments
View as Flat
caniscandida Posted 7:55 pm
13 Jun 2006
On the one hand, I am very happy that so much has been posted on those subjects. It is not at all my desire that those posts be reduced in number. For one thing, David Roberts is clearly knowledgeable and engaged, as are those Contributors who have written on those subjects. For another, there is obviously a good number of readers who are themselves knowledgeable and engaged in those subjects, and who take pleasure in discussing them. And I have gratefully learned a great deal from their discussions. So it would clearly not be good to reduce the number of those posts; nor would it be good to ask David to turn away and pay attention to subjects that may interest him less.
On the other hand, there are indeed good, solid environmental subjects that tend to get overlooked, relatively. My greatest interest, for example (though by no means my only one), is biodiversity. Animal matters rarely have come up strictly by virtue of their own interest: e.g., there was the ivory-billed woodpecker story; the Canadian slaughter of juvenile harp seals was barely taken seriously.
More often there is some hook, so to speak. In connexion with World Ocean Day, recently, there were a few fascinating pieces from Sarah van Schagen and Andrew Sharpless, including a dismaying report on albatrosses falling victim to fishers' long lines.
But most often, there is some connexion to global warming. E.g., there was something a while ago about a rise in water temperatures and its negative effect on coral populations, and there was an InterActivist who had more on that subject; a story was reported a few days ago, on how some populations of small animals are adapting to earlier Springs; and most recently, there is this horrific story about large male polar bears killing and eating smaller bears. (The last is just an example of how Grist/Gristmill relies on MainStream News for a lot of material. And that is fine, because there is even a lot of MSN stuff that might slip by. But in fact, the effect of melting Arctic ice on certain animals has already been noted, e.g. on the black guillemot, Cepphus grylle, up there off-shore in the Beaufort Sea near the cannibal polar bears. And, more famously, on the caribou in the Porcupine herd.)
So I would recommend that you establish departments, more or less formally, and make sure that there be a certain number of contributions in each one, over a certain period. Far be it from me to tell you how many "departments" there should be, or how they should be labeled.
Your series on the environmental concerns of underprivileged city-dwellers was remarkably good, and seems to have recommended you to the Journalism mavens here at Columbia. And so it makes sense, for all sorts of reasons, that as you go forth you should include wealth/poverty issues as a dedicated on-going "department."
And since that series was so successful as a series, and as a way to bring in good and interesting writers, here are just three suggestions for other series, which combine both environmental and sociological/poverty-related issues:
Petroleum in the Arctic: the effects of the exploration for petroleum, its extraction and its transportation on the Native Peoples, the New-Comers, and the animals and plants of Alaska;
The Devastation of Brazil: the effects of the timber industry and other extraction industries on the people and animals and plants of the Amazon basin;
War and Famine in Africa: displaced populations, roving armies, and the effects of their movements on the environment.
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amazingdrx Posted 8:21 pm
13 Jun 2006
Wind, solar, wave power, pligon gtbrids, energy and organic gardening coops,electric cars, and so forth.
For instance short interviews with neighbors of windfarms, homeowners with solar and wind, do-it-yourselfers like otherpower.com.
Also interviews with scientists who invent new solar cells and batteries, that frequently seem to take years longer (if ever)than necessary to mass produce.
Fill in all the gaps with traditional web content, bloggerel, links, stories, pics.
You'll need a special editor for this stuff of course. (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) Hehey.
Follow in the tracks of "Rocketboom" or perish!
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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amazingdrx Posted 8:35 pm
13 Jun 2006
Mix with the great unwashed (and un-spell checked), you won't get any cooties on you, it's only virtual reality.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Bart Anderson Posted 8:39 pm
13 Jun 2006
Grist/Gristmill has a distinctive personality: lively, informal, not-stuffy. The approach to environmentalism is refreshingly different from other environmental publications:
Scientifically aware, without being academic.
Concerned, without being apocalyptic.
Politically aware, without being dogmatic.
I think you have a winning combination, which will become more and more popular with time.
I like the "energy-heavy, global-warming-heavy content" -- these are the key, defining issues for our era. Do something about them and you are doing vital work for biodiversity, pollution, etc. CC's suggestion of tying issues in with one another is a good one.
My one suggestion might be to add more intellectual heft to the content. Already I see an attempt to give some historical-intellectual-scientific background to various stories. It's a balancing act, because you don't want to get too heavy.
I confess that I read Gristmill much more than Grist. The links are excellent and timely - many items I haven't seen anywhere else. The discussions are much better than most online forums. For me personally, the size of Gristmill is about right. I like seeing familiar names -- gives a chance to develop relationships. I'll bet it would be possible to expand Gristmill, though I'm not sure that would be desirable.
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Daniel Collins Posted 9:47 pm
13 Jun 2006
It's more nuanced and harder to communicate, but climate change is more than just GHGs. Land use change plays a significant role, changing heat and moisture transfer between land and atmosphere.
Impacts of climate change also include land use change (eg. rising sea-level causing wetland loss). However, the potential impact of climate change in driving land use change does not always dwarf, and is often dwarfed itself by, land use changes society brings about directly (eg. destruction of wetlands).
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Stentor Posted 10:43 pm
13 Jun 2006
I also think that more philosophical/theoretical writing would be welcome (we've had tastes of it, eg in Dave Roberts' posts a while back on anthropocentrism). Looking at the deeper structural and ideological roots of issues in a sophisticated way.
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mihan Posted 12:03 am
14 Jun 2006
[copy all three points from Bart's post]
(overwhelmingly) respectful, thoughtful dialog (unlike most blogs)
brief (unlike most blogs)
funny (unlike most blogs)
I disagree with folks that the focus needs to be shifted towards or away from anything. I think the focus is just right; as long as there are people with diverse interests and expertise writing, I feel like we're in good hands.
While I would like to see more of an avenue for activism, would that jeopardize Grist's 401(c)3 status?
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sunflower Posted 1:03 am
14 Jun 2006
Educators are using Grist. I have learned so much from Grist and Gristmill.
I also agree with Bart and Mihan. Please do not change. The stability is nice.
Coming from the heart, thanks!
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ask Posted 2:51 am
14 Jun 2006
As they say, water will be the oil of the 21st century...
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LegumeSam Posted 4:14 am
14 Jun 2006
"Alternative energy" is all too often promoted, everywhere, as an attempt to duplicate the global system's 85-million-barrel-a-day oil consumption habit using some other sort of energy, usually without comment as to how the real-life world-system is going to manage this changeover, and often accompanied by reports of glowing business-expectations for said form of energy. Meanwhile half the world still lives on two bucks a day, barely benefitting from the system whose energy crisis has gotten the shorts of the well-off in such a knot. How about some good, class-conscious articles that start with the suggestion that it will be necessary to change the world-system from the bottom up in order to deal with future world energy problems?
The proposed "solution" to environmental problems is all-too-often a matter of "start a for-profit business" or "create a regulatory market" (see "Kyoto Protocol") or "regulate the polluters" (although this is no longer in vogue). The assumption behind these "solutions," however, is that the "free market" under neoliberal conditions (or its protector nations) will "save us." But save us from what? It seems, then, that we are always being saved by the organizations that are in fact threatening us: the "free market," and the nation-states that protect it. We need to be on the lookout, then, for alternative forms of agency, agencies that do not reduce themselves to "appeals to the emperor." Anyone for community power? A renewal of citizenship? Global solidarity?
If we really want to change the current world-system, instead of merely complaining about its polluting epiphenomena while basking in the middle-class privileges it has granted us, then we need to talk about how to achieve change. And if we are going to talk about change, we need to talk about power, real power, in a world where two trillion dollars are exchanged every day on currency markets. I would like to see more discussions about power on this blog, how it operates in our world, and how it can be found in the most disaffected of peoples and, lo and behold, even in the natural world itself.
http://ecosocialism.blogspot.com/
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MikeCapone Posted 4:21 am
14 Jun 2006
--
SUVs are squared-out minivans.
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claxton6 Posted 8:18 am
14 Jun 2006
Also, full text, formatted RSS.
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melissabarton Posted 1:20 pm
14 Jun 2006
*Ecology
*Biodiversity issues
*Tourism and the environment (especially "ecotourism," good and bad)
*Habitat encroachment/destruction
*Natural resource management (the NPS is in trouble right now, for example)
*Environmental education
(I have my biases, but of course there are other less-covered environmental topics out there.)
I like the idea of having departments and trying for an approximate (but not rigid) balance between topics.
I also agree with others that the tone as it is works great. I'm all for guest bloggers, but I don't think more would be vital to the success of the Gristmill.
http://rosettastone.wordpress.com
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amazingdrx Posted 10:49 pm
14 Jun 2006
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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caniscandida Posted 3:55 am
15 Jun 2006
I hope I made it clear that I appreciate the great interest, both of Grist's writers and of its readers -- and indeed I had in mind such good contributors as Bart, Mihan, Sunflower, Amazing, Biodiv, Kaela and others -- , in energy issues and global-warming issues. And I am not at all asking for any reduction in the amount of writing on those subjects.
And now, if I may co-opt Mihan's term, I would add that those issues are so highly important that they deserve to be regarded as Grist's "focus." By that I mean that I pretty much accept Mihan's conservative approach: Whatever changes on the part of Grist's editors are in the works, it should remain clear that they think -- and they think their readers should think -- that energy issues and global-warming issues are of the chiefest importance.
I also entirely agree with Mihan's recommendation of Grist's qualities (respectful, brief, funny). And I am happy to observe that many Grist readers seem to be on board.
That said, I continue to believe that there is room for more content on other subjects of environmental interest. These most certainly deserve to be covered, in a blog that refers to itself as "the environmental news blog." Melissa's list of suggested topics is wonderful, and would definitely be a good foundation on which to build. I had been using "biodiversity" rather extensively, and in fact had in mind a number of Melissa's topics.
I have no idea what this would mean, personnel-wise and work-wise, for Grist's team of reporters, researchers and Web-trackers. Grist has been very successful at eliciting good contributions from guest writers, though, and I am confident they will continue to be able to do so.
Legume Sam has proposed an emphasis of a different sort. I personally find it fascinating, and am very sympathetic to it. In fact it somewhat overlaps what I was recommending regarding poverty-related issues. Nevertheless, it will probably seem vague, not to say a bit weird, to most readers at this point. But precisely because it is very important, I hope LSam will be able to make clearer what he/she has in mind by presenting some more specific recommendations.
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LegumeSam Posted 12:39 am
16 Jun 2006
I'd like to see articles that question what we mean by "poverty," in a way that does not encourage people to accumulate the "wealth" that impoverishes so much of the world. What does it mean to be "poor," for instance? My point about energy crises and that half of the world that lives on two bucks a day, for instance. What is "wealth"? Is "wealth" the ability to burn off the world's oil reserves for the sake of a high-consumption lifestyle? Something like this, for instance.
"Power" in our culture is all-too-often regarded as either of two things: either the power of the government to regulate, or the power of the individual to make consumer choices. Neither of these powers is going to save the world from capitalism's ecological crisis.
Government, under the conditions of bourgeois democracy, is itself a guarantor of the capitalist economy under the conditions of "manufactured consent" set by the media. Our political elites are simply not going to bite the hand that feeds them. In the current phase of capitalist predation, our (US) government has handed the keys to George W. Bush so he can enrich his corporate buddies while enlarging the national debt, now at more than eight trillion dollars. The corporate elites stand solidly behind him on this matter. Their mass media bail him out whenever he rigs an election or says or does something potentially embarrassing like outing Valerie Plame or lying about weapons of mass destruction. He has their full support, regardless of what sort of impotent complaints are aired about him. Voting for Democrats will do nothing to change that -- which is why blogs such as DailyKos are such a total waste of time.
The individual's consumer choices occur within a consumer environment where the terms are set by the economy-as-a-whole, not the good intentions of the most ethical buyers. All we do when we sell eco-friendly products, besides participating in the market ourselves, is to cater to a marginal economy. Economic expediency, not eco-friendliness, will govern consumer choice for the vast majority of buyers, who must watch their wallets. If eco-friendly were cheaper, there would be no need for a Grist to promote it; we would all just buy it at our local Wal-Mart. But it isn't.
So my request is this: Grist needs to talk about different types of power. Community power, citizen power, third (electoral) party power. Actually there are two requests: a) Talk about different types of power, and b) talk about different types of economy. Grist needs to be in the business of promoting and discussing economic alternatives to the capitalist development which is dismantling the globe's ecosystems.
3) Let me just add my endorsement to those who have requested articles on philosophy. The common notion of "the environment" is that of some form of nonhuman "nature" which must be preserved from the "human" (i.e. capitalist) impulse to use nature as an emptying-ground for pollution or trash, as well as a resource-sink for predation. The common philosophy, in other words, is possessive individualism, the philosophy responsible for the tragedy of the commons. We need to be talking about alternatives, such as permaculture and agroecology. We also need to be talking about ecofeminism...
http://ecosocialism.blogspot.com/
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caniscandida Posted 5:25 am
16 Jun 2006
The "tragedy of the commons" piece, from the keenest-thinking period of the Vietnam War, is magnificent; not quite a complete picture of human nature, or of understanding human beings as zoa politika, but a fine start.
More easily followed, and more encouraging, is the story about Hillary Clinton in Bangladesh, etc., in the introduction to their book by Veronika Bennholdt-Thomsen and Maria Mies. If that is ecofeminism, then clearly we all have a lot to learn from it.
Now, as for Grist: It is true that there can never be enough philosophy in the world, at least of the non-professional kind, and it would be great to encourage that, and to provide a good occasion for good discussion. But in that case, I think you would be impatient waiting for the Grist editors to come up with satisfactory subjects on their own, not that they are not intelligent, clever, resourceful and ever helpful, but just because they are not necessarily that interested. I think you are toying with an idea that is probably in the minds of a number of Grist readers: an open forum in which member-readers can post subjects and start threads on their own.
In principle, that is very attractive. In a way, the logic of the bloglist more or less requires such a forum. But practically, I suspect controlling such a forum would be a huge burden for our friends in Seattle. It would be, potentially, a "tragedy of the commons" phenomenon; mutually agreed-upon coercion can make things work well, for the common good, but such an effort would be costly.
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Backcut Posted 1:36 pm
16 Jun 2006
My government digital camera goes with me everywhere out in the woods. My personal digital camera often waits in the wings.
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LegumeSam Posted 5:40 am
18 Jun 2006
Bringing a global sustainable society to Earth will perhaps require a worldwide social transformation, the specifics of which we have not yet imagined. What's more, in creating a global sustainable society, we may have to let go of certain things which are important to today's society: a rich professional class which causes a huge ecological footprint, or a burgeoning SUV industry, or a fishing industry that drains the seas of life perhaps. A global sustainable society will doubtless be less glamorous than a society that produces exciting wars or stunningly-rich businesspeople or celebrities. It would, however, bequeath to our children and grandchildren a securely livable world, something they would otherwise do without.
One alternative to this approach, perhaps favored by many of its readers, is to use Grist as a promotional vehicle for "100 things you can do to save the world," a philosophy which imagines global ecosystemic integrity as a hobby of sorts amidst the everyday business of eco-destruction. This involves saving the world by taking mass transit a bit more often, or by more conscientiously separating trash from recycles. The difference is that this approach offers us immediate satisfaction with the feeling that we are (individually) "taking action," with no understanding as to whether or not we as a group will in fact "save the world." An example will reinforce my point. Not driving a car to work, for instance, is a good thing, at least if you are trying to do 100 things to save the world. But if a few of us abstain from driving cars, while the "developing nations" add thousands of drivers every year, is that really going to make a dent in global society's sum total of "carbon emissions"? To use a medical metaphor: if the world is suffering from a possibly fatal disease, does it benefit us to adopt a Band-aid approach? To come back to eco-philosophy: we do eco-philosophy in order to make the ecology a priority, from within a world-society whose norms make ecology an occasional concern of nature-lovers or recyclers.
Now here is where I make my big pitch: eco-philosophy is not a matter of diversity. There really aren't 31 flavors of philosophy, and it will do us little good to order two scoops of Deep Ecology or "Wise Use movement" on a hard cone at our local metaphysical Baskin-Robbins. Eco-philosophy is a practical matter. John Lennon sung the first question of eco-philosophy on the Imagine album with the lyrics "how can I go forward when I don't know which way I'm facing?"
How secure are we in our understanding that the ecology is "just one concern" among many? Modern world-society regards Planet Earth as a collection of "natural resources," and the natural thing to be done with them (in this narrow phase of history) is to use them in manufacturing, to produce consumer products to fill the stores, which, when consumed, will leave behind a great residue of trash. How does modern world-society really make ecology into any concern at all, when it is so busy making the Earth into trash? This society has three main uses for environmentalism: 1) cute, tidy nature preserves that tourists can go visit, 2) less pollution from those nasty smokestacks, and 3) general concerns of sanitation. It tends to look at "ecological problems" narrowly. We claim "agency" for aspects of the natural world, so that politicized stories, stripped of context, can be told about nature. Spotted owls halt the construction of dams; smog chokes our lungs; national parks make tourists happy. We don't, in short, look at the world (nature, including ourselves) with anything like a wholistic approach. Philosophy, anyone?
http://ecosocialism.blogspot.com/
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David Roberts Posted 10:00 am
18 Jun 2006
Not sure exactly when, but this is definitely coming at some point.
www.grist.org
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caniscandida Posted 2:24 am
19 Jun 2006
But I am afraid I must make clear that I am not using the noun "philosophy" as you seem to be using it. That is, you seem to be understanding it as one or another discrete, consistent, systematic doctrine, such as Platonism, or Hegelianism, or existentialism, which might be taught, and even preached. Sorry, that does not sound hugely interesting. And if I am right to detect a hint of authoritarianism, it is actually a little frightening.
The way I prefer to use the word is to mean the intelligent asking of questions, and the intelligent attempt to answer them, on subjects of fundamental importance. Whether any two questioners end up agreeing with each other, and whether any questioner ends up following a particular course of action on the basis of an answer that he/she finds persuasive, may or may not be good things. But in any case, those are not the primary goals of philosophy.
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LegumeSam Posted 4:06 am
19 Jun 2006
I am, basically, suggesting a different priority for global human society. The rest is up to my audience. How global human society wants to achieve the goal I've suggested is an open question, not a question determined by any "consistent, systematic doctrine." I personally would recommend doing whatever works.
And if I am right to detect a hint of authoritarianism, it is actually a little frightening. Today, you are free to demand lower wages under the neoliberal economy of your choice (even George McGovern says so) and, indeed, you are free to vote for the neoliberal politician of your choice regardless of party affiliation. (The French seem to have set the record on this one -- they elected both a "Socialist" (Francois Mitterand) and a "Left-Green coalition" (under Lionel Jospin), and got neoliberalism both times.) I am suggesting that the human race has an even further choice beyond its current trajectory of murder-suicide via capitalist eco-destruction. I am also suggesting that this further choice is not a consumer (or electoral) choice but something bigger and more profound. How is that in any way authoritarian?
http://ecosocialism.blogspot.com/
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caniscandida Posted 7:45 am
19 Jun 2006
In the case you describe, Legume Sam, you certainly come across as presenting a "philosophy" that is coherent, committed, focused, systematic and doctrinaire. Whether you have published books on it, identifying it by a name ending in "-ism," is unknown to me. Nor is that necessary. Inasmuch as you have a thoughtful agenda (a praiseworthy one!; I want to get in on the ground floor!!), involving a radical, fundamental questioning and re-ordering of social, political, economic and ecological priorities, it is highly likely to receive a name ending in "-ism." How about "Legumism"?
As for your "different priority for global society," please understand that, content-wise, I am entirely on your side, and fervently want you to keep sending us more of this sort of thing. It is extraordinarily important. When I wrote "authoritarian" earlier, I was referring to format, not content. Big big difference! You are absolutely right, it is the apparently unbreakable Status Quo who are the true authoritarians. And so, in light of that, your use of "suggest" several times in your latter paragraph did much to reassure me.
Be of good cheer, we stand shoulder to shoulder.
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LegumeSam Posted 11:59 am
19 Jun 2006
My aversion to capitalism is not "doctrinaire," but rather a basic concern for those who can't pay, who aren't interested in spending a lifetime playing the money game (that's me), or who just can't adapt to the cutthroat world of commerce (that's a huge chunk of the biosphere). The fact that I do rather stick with my aversion to capitalism rather than being mushy like a Democrat might, indeed, make me look "doctrinaire."
There are nevertheless significant differences between ecosocialists, and I'm still not quite sure where I stand on them. You have Derek Wall, whose blog is here, and Joel Kovel, and Walt Sheasby, you have Maria Mies and her husband Saral Sarkar... of course there's John Bellamy Foster... I would pretty much place myself with the crowd that writes for Capitalism Nature Socialism...
http://ecosocialism.blogspot.com/
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caniscandida Posted 6:12 pm
19 Jun 2006
Sorry about "doctrinaire." I did not know there was freight that that word had to bear. I am just a naive little Latinist, and assumed all it referred to was anyone or anything supporting a "doctrina," i.e. a teaching. Boy am I redfaced. (Not politically!; I have no connexion whatsoever with the Soviet Union.)
Thanks for all those references. I shall look into them by and by.
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LegumeSam Posted 5:07 am
20 Jun 2006
http://ecosocialism.blogspot.com/
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