Blue Olives

A quick tip: for the latest from Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus--authors of the infamous The Death of Environmentalism --check out their "Death Warmed Over" article in The American Prospect On-line . They develop their thesis further and don't seem to be repentant one iota for pissing off the environmental elite. There is something dangerous to writing poetically in essays about world problems, but there's nothing wrong with a bit of creative insight...

For a good blast of thoughtful (and in your face) history on how the U.S. has stumbled around in the Middle East, check out the current edition of www.getunderground.com and read The House of Cards , by Dan Benbow. Near the bottom of the features section GU is still running Part II of my long essay, The Green Emperor Gets Naked . Part III will be out in early November and will deal pointedly with government's role in the environmental community--particularly with respect to Global Warming (believe it or not, there are some good things happening out there as well as the many dumb things you read about and hear in the mainstream press...it is not time yet to give up the ship).

Without doubt, the best compendium of thoughtful criticism and analysis on environmentalism, global warming, the death of environmentalism, etc. may be found at the Moving Ideas.org "The Environment: Death & Rebirth" site. Specifically, this site provides links to articles from the October issue of The American Prospec t. Prepared in collaboration with the Nathan Cummings Foundation and the Wallace Global Fund, what is wonderful about this page is that not only are there links to American Prospect articles, but there are pointers to original source documentation and resource references that may be accessed online as well. For anyone interested in filling their head with intelligent thought on the subject of whether there will be a happy world by the year 2100, this is the place to start. Highly, highly recommended!

The science and technology are here. The general consensus of the population is that environmental and energy issues are important to them. Start with recycling and home energy conservation. Add the purchase of a hybrid vehicle (much more on that later). Use mass transit or ride a bike as much as possible--or walk. Buy organic food at Whole Foods. Buy organic from farmer's markets. Purchase your beer in returnable bottles (65% of the beverage bottles made in America are for beer). Explore solar electricity, composting, buying from a "green" utility. Look for a job with a company committed to sustainable development. Pay attention to what architects are doing these days. They are fully committed to "Green Design." They have done the research over the past 35 years. They understand daylighting, solar heat gain, fresh air exchangers, workstation climate controls, ergonomic furniture, low emission textiles, and the overall aesthetic allure of buildings. Green archi...

Anti-environmental groups are out in full force now in a second wave of the Hurricane Katrina disaster blame game (it's kind of sad that folks of any political persuasion feel the need to hold people responsible for chaos and disaster of this proportion). A tiny "article" was posted at the LibertyMatters web site on September 16, 2005. This group is a bit edgy, to say the least. The "article" refers to two different other “articles” from FrontPageMagazine.com which seems to be another rather edgy and interesting news source, but a bit right of Rush Limbaugh (don’t get me wrong, I’ve got nothing against the Right, I just don't understand where they're coming from). The National Review really got the ball rolling with their piece by John Berlau dated September 8, 2005. If it's true that the Justice Department is doing some Green head-hunting these day, then we may really have a problem. Who's watching the Justice Department and the FBI? The Homel...

Getunderground is publishing a six-part essay that I've written called, "The Green Emperor Gets Naked." Part I starts out with a discussion of the paper "The Death of Environmentalism" submitted by a couple of whipper snappers (Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus; see the video of a panel discussion they took part in at Yale University this year , it's down in the righthand side of their website) out of California to the Environmental Grantsmakers Association last fall. Obviously they were being rhetorical, and everyone's got an opinion about what they really mean (and whether the paper itself has any intellectual merit). But they've done two very important things: 1) they point out that Global Warming requires a much more focused effort by those in the movement; 2) they call into question the notion of what it means to be an environmentalist. The main case S & N make is that we need to integrate environmental issues with those of labor, civ...

The environmental movement is being openly attacked by numerous conservative forces in this country. You have to ask yourself if you're doing something right when people marshal themselves against you in a loud and somewhat orchestrated fashion. It is instructive to parse out the arguments and vitriol. They are bizarre at times but also vivid reflections of how environmentalists appear. I have read numerous anti-environmental essays where half-way through I realize the author is really mostly concerned with wilderness conservationists. I've also read pieces that talk about environmentalists as obstructionists and anti-business because of regulations they are trying to ram through state or federal government. Of course, one man's regulations are another man's opportunities. If, for instance, we passed a law that shut down all coal-fired power plants in the country over the next, say, ten years that didn't meet stringent emissions control requirements, you would be cr...