Blue Olives

There is an excellent primer-type article profiling 28 "warriors and heroes" fighting global warming in today's Salon.com. The article, titled, "Climate Warriors and Heroes" also contains a link to a special essay written by Al Gore on the importance of facing up to facts and getting down to business. If you aren't a subscriber, you can still get in by sitting through an Infiniti commercial to obtain a site pass. It's worth it just to pause for a moment and consider the notion that an automobile company is backing a global warming article. There are many warriors and heroes left out of this piece, of course. Go to the comments section and make your voice heard. Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus were omitted, which seems a bit strange. Would have made it a perfect 30. There are also no pioneers of waste reduction and/or recycling gurus listed in this crew. This may be a function of the diffused, regional nature of this field, but I would vote for e...

The third part of the essay " The Green Emperor Gets Naked " is posted at GetUnderground.com. It takes a look at how government is failing and succeeding to deal with global climate change. Not a boring article. Also, to find out about the wildly exciting efforts of RecycleBank, the latest and greatest innovation in the recycling world, see my article in BioCycle, Reinventing Recycling In America . An even better version of this article was published in the most recent edition of In Business , but you can only get that if you subscribe to the magazine.

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...