When Environmentalism Overdoses on America

Perhaps the environmental movement has just bitten off more than it can chew. Perhaps The Green Emperor is a bit overtaxed confronting all the "externalities" created by the American way of life.

Perhaps.

Perhaps, as my latest essay at GetUnderground.com discusses, the sustainable development and environmental justice components of the environmental "mission" should be set free. If you take sustainability and environmental justice and mix them with the organizing principle of the need to attack global warming and greenhouse gas reductions, you might well see a bit more movement on all fronts. Environmentalism can return to doing what it does best--protecting nature and fighting pollution; and the more social and economic issues of sustainability and environmental justice can be used to address the social change requirements for combatting global warming.

I would like to note here that I am highly aware of the fact that in my essay at GetUnderground, I do not offer any specifics on how this change might come about and who would lead a new movement and how we would go about educating the media that the environmental movement no longer really concerns itself with issues beyond conservation and public health. These specifics need to be worked out. I plan to provide some thoughts on these matters shortly, but I'm hoping that my essay will piss off and/or excite enough people that the failings and implications of my recommendations will get others to put their two quarters in for consideration. As I write in my essay: "Do we want to address global climate change or not? Who’s got balls here and who’s just lazy and/or greedy?"

Comments

Short-Sighted Buffoonery: Send me in coach!

I'm getting ready to re-enter the fray. I recently agreed to take on a job in the City of Philadelphia that I can't provide details on, but it's not soon enough apparently. Leaders in Washington and state governments all over the country are doing their best to turn solving the climate change problem into another example of oafish, mercenary, short-sighted, buffoonery. Check out the rather direct posting at the Center for American Progress today, "Facing Reality." I'm fighting mad. You should be too. Personally, I've been on the sidelines way too long and I'm itching to get back in the game. Yesterday, I listened to the news that President Obama is authorizing $54 billion in loan guarantees for the nuclear power

Bashing Recycling for Confusion and Profit

The following essay is a work in progress. I invite all readers to give me criticism and direction. --------------------------------------------------------------- Recently, the ABC show, Good Morning America , ran a segment interviewing columnist and author Stephen Dubner (co-author of the book Freakonomics ) on whether recycling works. You can watch it by clicking here . While Dubner's basic argument about recycling turns on the idea of market economics (which is sensible), he also says some really weird things that drew me back into the good old early 1990s when bashing recycling was the sport of kings. In particular, Dubner says that plastic water bottle recycling doesn't make sense because it costs more to recycle water bottles (they aren't as valuable as aluminum cans) than it does to make new ones. He also says that old newspapers have such a low value that cities often simply landfill them after they go to the recycling center. He doesn't really provide us with...

MIT Future of Solar Energy Study Launch Event

This is a one-hour-plus presentation of what is probably the most important energy document to come our way since the 2007 Stern Review climate study. Never forget that job one as an American is building the future of the world. The more you know, the stronger we are as a nation and the more likely it is we will be coming through this 50-year nightmare of global conflict over oil into a better, stronger world. The Future of Solar Energy Study Launch Event Related articles Paris climate summit: Carbon pledges to fall short of warming goal, Stern warns Divesting in Trustee Wussyness: College Campuses and Climate Change Action What is the Role for Business in Addressing Climate Change? Take the time. Watch the launch event and download the PDF for summer reading.

Blue Olives

Search This Blog