by Nathan Wyeth

Posted 1 year, 7 months ago A few more thoughts on the 4,000 MW coal plant in India recently approved for international aid financing, which David and Joe have noted. I think this deserves attention because it's at the center of the biggest climate question out there: how to meet tens of thousands of megawatt hours of unmet and projected power demand in India and China without huge coal plants like this Tata Mundra "Ultra-Mega" plant. It's not simple. But following the logic for this project involves going down a "There Is No Alternative" rabbit hole.

To people in India facing daily brown-outs or… Read More

Posted 1 year, 7 months ago Almost two years ago, I had the chance to meet students in China working hard to raise environmental and energy issues on local campuses. Since then, I've tried to stay in touch and keep up with the progress of student organizations there.

Since my Mandarin is a little rusty, I've done this in part by keeping in touch with a number of young Americans who are there working on various endeavors after graduating from college -- my future bosses, I am sure, by virtue of the language skills they're developing. One particularly cool project that's getting started is a… Read More

Posted 1 year, 8 months ago Commitments to start social-change initiatives and spirited discussions of global issues -- these aren't typical results of 700 college students heading to New Orleans during spring break season. But last weekend, students from a diverse group of colleges, several dozen university presidents, and prominent social change agents -- not to mention Bill Clinton -- spent a day and a half on Tulane University's campus for Clinton Global Initiative University (with a cameo by Brad Pitt).

Trying to live-blog an event while you're also trying to finish… Read More

Posted 1 year, 8 months ago I'm not sure this falls under my "campus news" beat for Grist, but I heard it at a seminar at a college campus, and it's compelling enough that I'm going to say that because it falls within academia, it counts. Michael Ross is a political scientist at UCLA who was published in the February 2008 American Political Science Review with the assertion (PDF) that much of the gender inequality in the Middle East relative to the rest of the world can be explained not by traditional Islam, but by the presence of oil.

Posted 1 year, 10 months ago At some point in the 1980s or 1990s, environmental issues became hopelessly and depressingly politicized. By "politicized," I mean it stopped being acceptable to talk about environmental issues in, for instance, a high-school setting, in the same way that evolution was made into a controversial subject to talk about in many school settings. I'm not sure when I would pinpoint that this politicization really sunk in, but I'd be interested in what those who were around at that point might have to say. By the Republican revolution of 1994 -- around the time I first became aware of something called… Read More

Posted 2 years ago We already knew that right-wing commentator Mark Steyn of the National Review enjoys belittling children's health problems and that right-wing bloggers attacked Graeme Frost's family when he spoke up for children's health insurance. But it seems that being mean to kids is becoming a kind of bizarre hobby of the right-wing media.

This weekend, 5,500 students from across the nation came to the nation's capitol for Powershift 2007, the first national youth summit on climate change -- and the solutions to it. Yesterday, upwards of 3,000 people packed into the offices of members of Congress to press… Read More

Posted 2 years ago You know how some days you just get so wrapped up with those new Facebook apps that you barely notice when columnists in the nation's newspaper of note are talking shit about you behind your back? Earlier this month, Tom Friedman wrote:

America needs a jolt of the idealism, activism and outrage ... of Generation Q [for "Quiet"]. That's what twentysomethings are for -- to light a fire under the country. But they can't email it in, and an online petition or a mouse click for carbon neutrality won't cut it ...

Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy didn't… Read More

Posted 2 years, 2 months ago As an undergrad at Brown University and a veteran organizer with the Sierra Student Coalition, Nathan Wyeth has his ear to the ground on campus sustainability issues. In this occasional column for Grist, Wyeth will report on what's afoot at the campus grassroots level and how he and his fellow students are making their voices heard.

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A debate has been swirling on Gristmill for the past few weeks over the role of voluntary actions versus government policy in solving climate change specifically, and environmental problems generally. I'd like to stir this pot further and add… Read More