Grist | Topics | 22 Results

RESULTS		Results 1 – 22 of 22
Headline	Author	Published	Section
The power of voluntary actions Social scientists respond to Mike Tidwell	David Roberts	11 Sep 2007	Gristmill
The following is a guest essay in response to Mike Tidwell's recent piece on Grist, "Consider using the N-word less." It is signed by a collection of social scientists, mostly psychologists. Their names are listed at the bottom. ---- We agree that institutional and policy changes are needed in addition to personal behavior changes, and that some pro-environmental behaviors being promoted aren't the ones that have the most impact. Unfortunately, Tidwe ...
Topics: environmental movement, green living, politics (all these topics)

Kunstler nails it Taking on the belief that technotoys will allow the status quo to continue	JMG	28 May 2007	Gristmill
James Howard Kunstler, dyspeptic critic and peak oil Paul Revere, nails the people whose approach to the twin calamities of global heating and peak oil is to spend all their time trying to cobble together the McGyver solution that saves the day, rather than trying to adapt to the new, low-energy imperative. My belief is that the more time we spend trying to find the McGuyvers, the more likely we are to respond poorly when we find that no amount of McGuyvers are going to allow us ...
Topics: climate, environmental movement, green living, politics (all these topics)

Vanity Fair: The unbearable whiteness of green Where are low-income and minority greens in the media?	Van Jones	20 May 2007	Gristmill
Once again this year, the spring season brought a flood of green-themed magazines to super-market checkout stands and airport news racks all across the country. And once again, the faces of non-white and non-affluent Americans were almost entirely missing. Our new environmental movement is rapidly gaining visibility and momentum. That is very good news. Life-or-death ecological issues finally are starting to get the attention they so urgently deserve. And we can all ...
Topics: celebrity, environmental justice, environmental movement, green living, politics, Van Jones (all these topics)

Paul Hawken and Blessed Unrest What would you like to ask him?	David Roberts	15 May 2007	Gristmill
Tomorrow, I'm sitting down for a chat with Paul Hawken, author, entrepreneur, and environmental legend. We'll be discussing, among other things, his new book Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming. (If you're in Seattle tomorrow, you can see Hawken at a Grist-sponsored event at Town Hall.) If you've got questions you'd like me to ask Hawken, let me know in comments. In the meantime, here's the introductio ...
Topics: environmental movement, green living, politics, Seattle, shameless self-promotion (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)

Chip on NOW PBS interviews them some Grist	David Roberts	14 May 2007	Gristmill
Here's Grist Supreme Leader Chip Giller on PBS' Now:
Topics: politics, environmental movement, shameless self-promotion, green living (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)

Two kinds of environmentalism Technoscientific and ... not	David Roberts	03 May 2007	Gristmill
I've been musing a bit on two different sorts of environmentalism, and I've recently come across two good exemplars. First, in Orion, Curtis White argues that environmentalists are involved in a futile enterprise as long as they fight from within the system -- as long as they use technoscientific, rationalist, bureaucratic language to fight problems that technoscientific, rationalist bureaucracies have wrought. We shouldn't blame big bad corporations. We are the pr ...
Topics: climate, climate change mitigation, environmental movement, green living, politics (all these topics)

Grassroots good Paul Hawken on the remaking of the world	Erik Hoffner	03 May 2007	Gristmill
Paul Hawken's new book Blessed Unrest is a much-needed analysis of the movement that's poised to change the world as we know it. It's a must read, (excerpted here in Orion magazine) even if you're not a self-described grassroots activist. In it, he states that 'the movement to restore people and planet is now composed of over one million organizations' working toward ecological sustainability and social justice. Maybe two million. And that: By conventional definition ...
Topics: environmental movement, grassroots activism, green living, politics (all these topics)

'Four percent cited the coming end of the world or biblical prophecy, and 2 percent blamed space junk.' Poll results!	David Roberts	27 Apr 2007	Gristmill
The NYT has a bucketload of important poll results. Here's the full poll; here's the summary: Americans in large bipartisan numbers say the heating of the earth's atmosphere is having serious effects on the environment now or will soon and think that it is necessary to take immediate steps to reduce its effects, the latest New York Times/CBS News poll finds. Beyond that is a whole series of juicy tidbits. I hardly know where to dip in. Some quotes: Ninety perc ...
Topics: biofuels, cars, energy, environmental movement, green living, politics (all these topics)

Eating Crow Notes from the road	Kate Sheppard	23 Apr 2007	Gristmill
Just as the whole Karl Rove v. Sheryl Crow thing was blowing up in the news, I was arriving in Washington, D.C. to cover ... Sheryl Crow. Taking on climate change. You can read about Crow's big arrival over on my blog, but a few quick thoughts on the Rove encounter before I head for the airport to come home. When I mentioned this story yesterday morning, I had no idea this would become the story-of-the-moment on all the major mainstream media outlets. But Sheryl Cro ...
Topics: celebrity, environmental movement, green living, politics (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)

A convenient truth In nearby Bothell	Clark Williams-Derry	17 Apr 2007	Gristmill
The Seattle Times is reporting on a Bothell family -- the Fraleys -- who are attempting to cut their family's greenhouse-gas emissions by 15 percent in May. Bully for them, and best of luck! Still, there's something about the Times account of their experiment that rankles, just a bit. It leaves a casual reader with the impression that reducing carbon emissions is a total pain in the behind. To wit: [The Fraleys] will try to reduce the household's greenhou ...
Topics: climate, climate change mitigation, environmental movement, green living, greenhouse-gas emissions, politics, Seattle (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)

Greening geopolitics Friedman in the NYT Magazine	Maywa Montenegro	15 Apr 2007	Gristmill
What's red white and blue, and green all over? The cover of this week's New York Times Sunday Magazine. In 'The Greening of Geopolitics,' Thomas Friedman applies his trademark econo-politico-historical analysis to the state of the global environment, and he is nothing if not comprehensive. From China, Schwarzenegger, and Wal-Mart, to Islamic fundamentalism and oil prices, Friedman traces the connections. Enviros won't learn much about global warming they didn't al ...
Topics: business, energy, environmental movement, green living, greening biz operations, national security, 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)

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)

A great piece by Andrew Dobson on the politics of climate chaos It's the society, stupid	Gar Lipow	30 Mar 2007	Gristmill
Andrew Dobson posted a thoughtful and useful piece in yesterday's issue of OpenDemocracy.org:... the rhetoric of 'consumer sovereignty' and 'hands-off' governance is inaccurate and unhelpful. ... [C]onsumption decisions take place within a cultural and institutional context which constitute the rules of the game, and which part determine the consumer decisions that people make. ... [P]olicies based on information and price signals have had only limited suc ...
Topics: environmental movement, green living, politics (all these topics)

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