Grist | Topics | 24 Results

RESULTS		Results 1 – 24 of 24
Headline	Author	Published	Section
Flock Together New climate campaign aimed at U.S. consumers		05 Jun 2008	News
Posted at 3:30 PM on 05 Jun 2008 A European campaign to raise consumer awareness of climate change has made its U.S. debut. The Together campaign -- not to be confused with the similarly named-and-agendaed "we" campaign -- was initiated by the nonprofit Climate Group and kicked off in the U.S. by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon. Var ...
Topics: Arnold Schwarzenegger, climate, consumerism, environmental movement, green living, messaging, news (all these topics)

E.O. Wilson on Bill Moyers Journal this week Check it out	Kate Sheppard	05 Jul 2007	Gristmill
On Friday, Bill Moyers profiles E.O. Wilson on the latest edition of 'Bill Moyers Journal.' (The show is his new spot on PBS that started airing in late April, and happens to have the same name as his old show that stopped running in 1981.) Moyers talks to Wilson about subjects ranging from his work cataloging every living creature on earth to religion to his vision for facing climate change. Check out a preview: The show also includes an update on the work of th ...
Topics: biodiversity, environmental justice, environmental movement, green living, messaging, religion and spirituality, TV (all these topics)

If a website pats itself on the back in the forest and there's nobody there to hear it, does it make a sound? Grist in NYT	Kate Sheppard	04 Jul 2007	Gristmill
How did we neglect to shamelessly self-promote mention that Grist honcho Chuck Gilla got some props in Sunday's New York Times?
Topics: environmental movement, green living, messaging, shameless self-promotion (all these topics)

Face your bag The paper vs. plastic question must die	Clark Williams-Derry	21 May 2007	Gristmill
Ok, I'm whining. But the obsession with paper vs. plastic shopping bags just plain bugs me. As The Oregonian's Michael Milstein correctly points out: both paper and plastic have their pros and cons. Plastic has some surprising environmental advantages (more here), but also some unexpected drawbacks, including gumming up recycling equipment -- which makes it hard to figure out which option is actually worse in practice. But quite clearly, reusing bags you alr ...
Topics: environmental movement, green living, messaging, shopping (all these topics)

The alternative to fear is not lack of emotion How best to pitch the climate change message?	David Roberts	15 May 2007	Gristmill
Mike Hulme of the UK's Tyndall Centre says -- yet again -- that the language of "catastrophe" and "disaster" used by climate-change scientists and advocates is having the opposite of its intended effect: it's making people numb and apathetic. I more or less buy this -- I did, after all, write a five-part series arguing that fear is no friend of greens. But the conclusion Tim Haab draws from it is so spectacularly, diametrically wrong I can only sh ...
Topics: climate, environmental movement, green living, messaging, politics (all these topics)

Save the charismatic megafauna! What's true in one area is often true in another	JMG	10 May 2007	Gristmill
Nicholas Kristof has a great piece in today's NYT (behind the damn paywall) about why it's so hard to galvanize attention onto mass suffering. It could be quickly converted into a piece explaining why pictures of cute polar bears -- especially cute baby polar bears -- work so much better at getting people to pay attention to environmental problems than anything that actually shows their real scope. Hmmm, I'm going to have to stop talking about the problems inherent in jet ...
Topics: environmental movement, green living, messaging (all these topics)

Robert Wright at TED	David Roberts	07 May 2007	Gristmill
I love Robert Wright's thinking and his work, particularly NonZero. It's not explicitly green, so I won't get into it -- here's a good rundown -- but I will encourage everyone to watch this short talk Wright gave at TED last year:
Topics: environmental movement, green living, messaging, politics (all these topics)

It does to this one Is the starfish story really just bunk?	JMG	01 May 2007	Gristmill
The estimable biodiversivist wrote, in another thread, that 'What we do as individuals is insignificant compared to changes in carbon neutral energy generation and transportation infrastructure.' Which is both true and not true, I think. It reminds me of the story about the little tyke throwing starfish stranded on the beach back into the water, and being told by the parent that it didn't matter, leading the child to say, 'It does to this one.' Cute story, all chicken-soup ...
Topics: ecological footprint, environmental movement, green living, messaging (all these topics)

Green so light it barely leaves an impression From pop star John Mayer	David Roberts	30 Apr 2007	Gristmill
John Mayer. Photo: sushla via flickr Congratulations to pop star dreamboat John Mayer for penning what can only be termed a reductio ad absurdum of the light-green, change-your-lightbulbs, ten-things-you-can-do, don't-sweat-it-too-much, caring-a-little-is-OK but caring-too-much-is-square environmentalism. I was going to pick excerpts, but really you gotta read the whole post to get the full impact. Ladies and gentlemen, John Mayer: (Preface: Don't get tur ...
Topics: celebrity, environmental movement, funnies, green living, messaging, music (all these topics)

The Travel to exotic lands ...	JMG	26 Apr 2007	Gristmill
During Vietnam we used to say that 'fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity' (OK, not exactly, but you get the point). I had a flashback of that today here at Gristmill.A new ad in rotation here from some outfit called the National Outdoor Leadership School invites you to 'Traverse a glacier -- before they melt.' In other words, NOLS has decided that there's no point in trying to be part of the solution, and it's better to make a buck making the problem worse, encou ...
Topics: environmental movement, green living, messaging (all these topics)

Screw Earth Day It's descended completely into 'small steps'	David Roberts	20 Apr 2007	Gristmill
When I read stuff like this ... A USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds that more Americans than ever -- 60%, up from 48% a decade ago -- believe that global warming has begun to affect the climate. A slightly larger percentage think it will cause major or extreme changes in climate and weather during the next 50 years. ... Even so, most people are wary of any government effort to protect the environment by imposing restrictions on how they live, work or get around. A m ...
Topics: environmental movement, green living, messaging, politics (all these topics)

Converts and heretics Time to start welcoming rather than bashing eco-newcomers	David Roberts	19 Apr 2007	Gristmill
Arnold Schwarzenegger is being offered up as an eco-hero, so naturally some folks in the green movement rush to point out that it's all a big fraud. Why they do that -- why progressives eat their allies -- I'll never understand. Let's approach this through a semi-related phenomenon. I had the privilege of meeting Andrew Dessler in person the other day (how'd your talk go, Andrew?), and we discussed, among other things, how several climate change skeptics start ...
Topics: Arnold Schwarzenegger, celebrity, environmental movement, green living, messaging, politics (all these topics)

Green issue drives onto Main Street NYT Magazine story: One nation united under green	Andrew Sharpless	18 Apr 2007	Gristmill
Tom Friedman, in last Sunday's New York Times Magazine, makes the point that green is the color that can unite the red and blue states. At Oceana we have found that conservation issues can and do cross party lines. For example, the Bush administration (yes, the Bush administration!) recently -- after working closely with our organization and other groups -- submitted a proposal in the ongoing World Trade Organization talks that would significantly cut fisheries ...
Topics: environmental movement, green living, messaging, politics (all these topics)

The Mustache: Green is good Good framing from Friedman	David Roberts	17 Apr 2007	Gristmill
I suppose I'm obligated to say something about the much-ballyhooed cover story in the current New York Times Magazine by the Mighty Mustache of Understanding. I can't really see what all the fuss is about. It's basically the Mustache's last four or five columns, stitched together. There's nothing to say about this that wasn't said about them. Naturally, Jim Kunstler will heap scorn on Friedman for stubbornly refusing to acknowledge that everything's going completel ...
Topics: environmental movement, green living, messaging (all these topics)

No sweat solutions to global warming: a series A reintroduction	Gar Lipow	16 Apr 2007	Gristmill
I'm restarting my series on solutions to global warming, both on how to phase out fossil fuels and the best means to sequester carbon, because I consider the topic a critical one. The carbon lobby has mostly (not entirely) given up disputing that global warming is occurring. They know that they won't be able to confuse the public on its human-caused nature much longer. But a final stalling tactic is open to deniers -- to pretend that nothing can be done, or at lea ...
Topics: climate, climate change mitigation, environmental movement, green living, messaging, politics (all these topics)

Scientists and social power They've got it, they shouldn't be ashamed of using it	David Roberts	13 Apr 2007	Gristmill
In a previous post, I argued that the public doesn't particularly need a sophisticated scientific understanding of climate change (or evolution, or stem cells) in order to make the right basic policy decisions. A rudimentary understanding, deliverable and understandable by a layman, is perfectly sufficient. We're warming the climate? It's gonna hurt us? Let's stop. Bada-bing, bada-boom. Given this, and given the fact that such rudimentary explanations of the science ...
Topics: climate, climate science, environmental movement, green living, messaging, politics (all these topics)

Population Quit talking about it already	David Roberts	11 Apr 2007	Gristmill
We're constantly getting yelled at here at Grist for not discussing population, which according to the yellers is the ultimate problem of all problems, such that addressing any other problem without addressing it first is to demonstrate one's total subjugation to The Man and False Consciousness. The issue came up in this thread, so I thought I'd say for the record why I never bother to discuss population. It's obviously relevant to the ecological health of the plane ...
Topics: environmental movement, green living, messaging, politics, population (all these topics)

My therapist says all this thinking about the environment isn't good for me Somehow, I don't feel that bad for you	Kate Sheppard	10 Apr 2007	Gristmill
The latest impact of climate change: eco-anxiety. Symptoms: Generalized discomfort and stress related to the future of the world and possibly your personal role in said future. Ways to fight it: Blame 'the media.' Blame the IPCC. Spend lots of money on an 'eco-therapist.' Carry around minerals. Buy greener stuff to make yourself feel better. From the Columbia News Service: [A] growing number of people have literally worried themselves sick ov ...
Topics: environmental movement, green living, IPCC, messaging (all these topics)

Good new blog on climate science and communication	David Roberts	05 Apr 2007	Gristmill
Climate scientist Michael Tobis has started a blog, not so much about climate science itself as about the challenges of communicating about it and the bizarre notions about it that remain puzzlingly persistent. Off to a good start.
Topics: climate science, environmental movement, green living, messaging, politics (all these topics)

'Climate change': too big and too little It's the wrong lever for creating social change	David Roberts	03 Apr 2007	Gristmill
On Saturday night, I was on a panel at the Hazel Wolf Environmental Film Festival on the subject of "communicating about climate change." My co-panelists were KC Golden of Climate Solutions, LeeAnne Beres of Earth Ministry, and Sean Schmidt of the Sustainable Style Foundation. The moderator was Steve Scher of local public radio station KUOW. It was fun. Most of what I said had to do with the following mini-revelation that came to me as I was walking to the ...
Topics: climate, environmental movement, green living, messaging, politics (all these topics)

TIME's survival guide to global warming Lots o' good stuff therein	David Roberts	02 Apr 2007	Gristmill
This week's TIME has a big package of stories on global warming. Upping the ante on the de rigueur '10 things you can do,' the magazine offers a whopping 51, an odd mix of large structural reforms and consumer tips like drying your clothes on a clothesline. Coming in at No. 1? Ethanol. Oy. Then again, a carbon tax comes in at No. 5, so all is not lost. Also earning the DR thumbs up: geothermal heat, urban living, cutting down on meat, supporting farmers markets, and ...
Topics: climate, environmental movement, green living, messaging (all these topics)

This is what I'm talking about Good communication strategy	David Roberts	26 Mar 2007	Gristmill
Witness: The United States should accelerate development of renewable energy sources because of increased risk from terrorist attacks that could cripple the economy, former national security adviser Robert McFarlane said Saturday. How do you think that compares, in terms of voter priorities, to saving 'the earth' or saving polar bears or saving arctic ice? Save your own ass. Now that's a sticky message.
Topics: energy, environmental movement, green living, messaging, renewable energy (all these topics)

Sticky Notes An interview with author Chip Heath about making environmental messages sticky	David Roberts	12 Mar 2007	Main Dish
Quick, what's the last political campaign slogan you remember? Is it the Democrats' recent zinger, "Together, we can do better"? Probably not. You probably forgot that one before they got to "better." Chip Heath and Dan Heath. Photo: Amy Surdacki In an age of instant media, ubiquitous advertising, and partisan politics, everyone wants to grab the public eye ...
Topics: books, environmental movement, green living, interview, messaging (all these topics)

What a green wants: An index-card manifesto (first draft) A positive environmental program that can (almost) fit on an index card	David Roberts	17 Feb 2006	Gristmill
Without further ado, here's the first draft of my index-card manifesto. It turned out to be two index-card manifestos, with five points each: one for stuff I consider immediately urgent, and a second for what I consider longer-term goals. Feedback is welcome -- nay, requested. (I'll discuss the whole project more in a subsequent post.) WHAT A GREEN WANTS: IMMEDIATE PRIORITIES Energy efficiency: Proven techniques can get the same amount of work with 50% of the oil. ...
Topics: agriculture, cars, electricity grid, energy, environmental movement, green living, messaging, placemaking, renewable energy, urban planning (all these topics)

Stories About: environmental movement AND green living AND messaging