toddgitlin’s Recent Comments

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  More on Kristof

  Cheerfully agree with Dave Roberts.  I sent the following letter to the Times.  For space reasons (I believe this), I agreed to lop off the first paragraph.  Here's the whole thing:

  To the Editor:

  Nicholas Kristof devotes most of his column to trashing environmentalists on the ground that some environmentalists issued some extravagant warnings 30 years ago and more.  Then he proceeds to warn against "irreversible changes" that would be caused by "the Bush administration's plans to drill in the Arctic wildlife refuge, to allow roads in virgin wilderness and to do essentially nothing on global warming."  This is like haranguing the abolitionists for over-the-top rhetoric and then adding, Oh, by the way, slavery is dead wrong.

  The "credible, nuanced, highly respected environmental movement" he wants is blocked chiefly by an oil-hungry industry and its political allies in Washington--nothing credible or nuanced about them.  The problem is not alarmism as such; the problem is that the alarm is going unheeded because powerful interests benefit from the conflagration that is sounding the alarm.

  Todd Gitlin

  (Member, Greenpeace USA Board of Directors)
  On An open letter to Nicholas Kristof posted 4 years, 8 months ago 19 Responses