Grist | Topics | 21 Results

RESULTS		Results 1 – 21 of 21
Headline	Author	Published	Section
Cost-benefit environmentalism: an oxymoron Lisa Heinzerling responds to Richard Revesz on cost-benefit analysis	Guest author	14 May 2008	Gristmill
This is a guest essay from Lisa Heinzerling, Professor of Law at Georgetown University and author, with Frank Ackerman, of Priceless: On Knowing the Price of Everything and the Value of Nothing, published in 2004 by The New Press. ----- The efficient wasteland In his essay, Richard Revesz argues in favor of a 'cost-benefit environmentalism' that embraces economic analysis and "uses both reason and compassion to justify strong environmental rules." It is wo ...
Topics: economy, environmental movement, health, messaging, politics (all these topics)

Urgency and solvability: The "we" campaign Gore's Alliance for Climate Protection unveils ambitious $300 million ad campaign	David Roberts	31 Mar 2008	Gristmill
If you read Juliet Eilperin's great rundown in the Washington Post, you know that today marks the launch of a massive PR effort from Al Gore's Alliance for Climate Protection. Gore has concluded that U.S. politicians will continue to be timid on climate change until the public demands otherwise. "The simple algorithm is this: It's important to change the light bulbs, but it's much more important to change the laws," he said. "The options available to ...
Topics: Al Gore, business, celebrity, climate, environmental movement, messaging, politics, TV (all these topics)

Nothing to fear ... Fear of death leads to authoritarianism, not sustainability	David Roberts	27 Aug 2007	Gristmill
It's tempting to think that if you scare the shit out of people -- really convince them, down to their bones, that hurricanes, diseases, and starving refugees are hiding just around the corner -- that mass mobilization against global warming will at long last ensue. There's good reason to doubt it. Fear causes fairly predictable reactions, which do not include international cooperation, equitable distribution of resources, cost-benefit analysis on a multidecadal sc ...
Topics: environmental movement, messaging, politics (all these topics)

Can enviros learn to tell stories? Learning from masters in other fields: What a concept!	JMG	09 Aug 2007	Gristmill
David Mamet (author of The Verdict and Glengarry Glen Ross, among other fine things) writes this in his new book Bambi vs. Godzilla: On the Nature, Purpose, and Practice of the Movie Business (a great book just loaded with great snark:As we enter the cinema, we relax our guard. We do so necessarily, because to resist, to insist on reality in the drama, is to rob ourselves of joy. For who would sit through he cartoon thinking constantly, 'Wait a second, elephants can't fly!' ...
Topics: books, environmental movement, messaging, politics (all these topics)

Women Are From Earth, Men Are From Terra Firma Is the environmental movement losing touch with its feminine side?	Kira Gould, Lance Hosey	31 Jul 2007	Soapbox
By Kira Gould and Lance Hosey 31 Jul 2007 This year, Rachel Carson would have turned 100. Had she lived, the "mother of the environmental movement" might have been pleased with how popular environmental causes have become. On the other hand, she might not have liked current shades of green. Don't lose sight of the forest. Photo: iStockphoto The great lesson of Silent Spring ...
Topics: environmental movement, messaging, politics (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)

Newt Gingrich's 'green conservatism' It's not an alternative, it's a subset	David Roberts	10 May 2007	Gristmill
Newt Gingrich has a new book out called A Contract with the Earth, which purports to outline a "green conservatism." For a summary, you can check out this brief op-ed in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. I approached it with an open mind -- eagerly, even. There's nothing I would like more than for a vibrant green conservatism to join the debate over the best way to accomplish green goals. That would be an enormous step forward from the current situation. ...
Topics: climate, climate change mitigation, environmental movement, messaging, Newt Gingrich, politics (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)

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)

Sensenbrenner: protecting the children from <del Oy	David Roberts	19 Apr 2007	Gristmill
A panel of retired generals thinks global warming is an urgent national security threat. The U.N. Security Council thinks global warming is an urgent national security threat. But wait! We forgot to ask Wisconsin Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R)! Sensenbrenner questioned "why global warming has suddenly become an issue of national defense" and afterward accused politicians and pundits of stoking children's fears. Think of the children.
Topics: climate, climate change impacts, Congress, environmental movement, insanity, 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)

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)

Walking backwards from cataclysm: A strategic planning methodology The basic approach of the Bright Lines project	Ken Ward	16 Apr 2007	Gristmill
((brightlines_include)) After a decade of brutal political trench warfare, the surreal debate in the U.S. on the reality of climate change is over. A Democratic Congress looking to put climate in play in 2008, serious buy-in for federal regulation from a band of corporate heavyweights, and a rash of climate conversions from the likes of Pat Robertson and Frank Luntz (author of the infamous strategy memo advising Bush administration operatives how to muddle the clima ...
Topics: climate, climate change mitigation, environmental movement, 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)

Scientists and framing The public doesn't really need all that much science	David Roberts	12 Apr 2007	Gristmill
While I was on vacation, science journalist Chris Mooney and social scientist Matthew Nisbet came out with a short commentary in Science. Their thesis was that scientists should pay attention to how they frame their public communication, so as to most effectively reach their target audience. To me this is obvious to the point of banality. Nonetheless, it sparked a enormous blog storm. Nisbet rounds most of the reactions up here. The paper got lots of support, but a ...
Topics: climate, climate science, environmental movement, 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)

Van Jones Read the interview!	David Roberts	20 Mar 2007	Gristmill
I hope that everyone will take some time and head over to read my interview with Van Jones, civil rights lawyer, founder and director of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, and rising star of progressive activism. His message is that largely white, affluent "eco-elites" need to broaden their coalition by reaching out to low-income and minority youth, promising them training and jobs in the new clean energy economy. As he says: "For people with a bu ...
Topics: environmental justice, environmental movement, messaging, politics (all these topics)

The death of enviroliberalism (part 2) Environmentalism and liberalism shouldn't be joined at the hip.	Jeremy Carl	13 Jun 2005	Gristmill
A couple of quick prefatory remarks -- several readers interpreted my earlier posting as an attack on liberalism. That was not my intent at all: While I am not a liberal, as the saying goes, 'Some/most of my best friends are liberals.' The only goal of the previous posting, and the one that follows, is to suggest the harm that comes from automatically coupling liberalism with environmentalism. In my previous post, I discussed our movement's international problems. But ...
Topics: endangered species, energy, environmental movement, Kyoto Protocol, messaging, politics (all these topics)

Stories About: environmental movement AND messaging AND politics