On Demand
Nouveau Environmentalism
Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordaus wrote the 2004 essay "The Death of Environmentalism” that was a Brian Lehrer Show reading project. They follow up with a call for a new approach to environmental politics in the book, Break Through: From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility (Houghton Mifflin, 2007).
Break Through is available for purchase at Amazon.com.
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Unfortunately, it doesn't appear "the environment" will ever becoming a prominent political issue until it becomes a "pocket book" issue (i.e. something all Americans can feel financially-such as health care, higher education costs, increased taxes, etc). This was told to me by the former Deputy Assistant to President Clinton on Enviornmental Initiatives, who I interned for in the Spring of 2000.
Although we are already actually feeling enviornmental costs economically (higher gas prices, etc) these costs are unfortunately not framed this way, but are instead considered part of "the high American consumption lifestyle." Thus a disconnect exists between these costs and their actual sources & effects. Perhaps if the Amercian public became aware of the enviornmental costs/effects of our lifestyle, we would understand the enviornmental implications and then care about politicians' stances on such issues?
It's disturbing that Fresh Direct has implemented a business model to feed on the laziness of upper middle class people who can't walk a couple of blocks to the supermarket. This company has a horrible model that exploits worker who have to work long odd hours in order to accomodate the lazy customers. In addition this increases congestion and pollution as you see these trucks at all time of day and every day of the week with motors running and blocking traffic on the UWS. - This is an inefficient way to do retail distribution of food. Removing the license for this company to operate would help with pollution and congestion in those neighborhoods that want to impose a tax on goods and services on the rest of the people.
What we need is a government who is going to STEP UP and have this country show some selfless leadership when it comes to making environmental changes. Enough of the "We'll go last" attitude.
Why was Solar Power development put to an end? I remember back in the seventies there was Solar Technology advanced enough to power all the necessaties of a typical suburban home - back in the seventies! I believe big energy and oil companies stopped the development, just as they did with Tuckers low fuel use automobile.
Oh come on! Low cost energy is quite beautiful!!!
Let me add my vote to that of the caller who finds the new wind turbines a beautiful, and I would say rather graceful, addition to the landscape.
Windmills may be pretty to look at but they are noisy and they kill many birds...
Hey - these super tall powerful windmills ruin currents that birds fly in, no? The older windmills hugged the ground.
Re Atlantic proj. in Bklyn., Do you have to be so drastic in increasing density? Also concentrated in highrises are water use, sewage and garbage
Density means walgreens at the street level, not hardware stores or greengrocers...
What methods, if any, do the guests believe can be used to make the American public more aware of current enviornment problems?
Why is population control such a 'don't go there' issue? So many of our environmental problems can be traced to the fact that we're approaching, if we haven't already passed the human carrying capacity of the planet. Too many people consuming too much. But god forbid anyone suggest that maybe we should be thinking about limiting our population growth!
What's that big radar array out in the desert somewhere? SETI? How about slapping a solar panel on each one of those damn dishes and making them do something useful for THIS planet?
Make Nina a regular caller!!! Thanks for having her on - she has tons of great info for everybody.
YAAAAAAYYYYYY!
Let me add my 2-cents on Windmills. I was in the Nordic countries this summer and we landed in Copenhagen. They have a row of windmills right off the coast/ port and they are just magestic as the plane is landing.
We also ran into a lot of windmills - sets of 2 or 5 as we drove in Sweden. Again, they are quiet and they are just impressive when you see them in the distance.
Though they may not replace oil, they can make a significant dent in the generation of electricity and along the discussion from your guests - they can be used in the Caribbean to help the poorer islands to generate electricity and reduce the costs of importing oil. The islands are very windy throughout the year and could help reforestation by generating energy that can take over for firewood. We need NGOs and governments to help out in investing on these development/ environmental projectds
Nina - here's a recipe - when you see those gorgeous tomatoes, just roast them and puree them - they can be frozen and all year you have fresh tomatoes - roasting concentrates the flavor. you can add garlic and onions if you want too - SO EASY, so fresh.
OMG that last segment on the weather was SO BORING. Root vegetables, making soup, it's still hot, boo hoo. . .PLEASE, there must be someone more dynamic than Errol lewis. . .he didn't even know about the marathon related death from the heat??? I'm sure he's a great journalist and nice guy but UGH. . .Brain where ARE you?????
just fyi: the essay is available here:
http://www.thebreakthrough.org/writing.shtml
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