McKIbben

“She took me half the way there…”

by Bryan Walker December 6, 2010

Bill McKibben has come up with a striking metaphor for the US stance in climate change negotiations. In a Huffington Post article he describes it as a tease – “it shows some leg, but it never ends up in your arms.” Twice before US negotiators have persuaded the world into a watered-down agreement – the [...]

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Anyone for 10/10/tennis?

by Gareth September 30, 2010

his is a guest post by the team at 350.org Aotearoa, describing some of the events planned in New Zealand for the 350 Aotearoa Global Climate Working Bee on 10/10/10 — part of the international 10/10/10 campaign. 350 Aotearoa is part of an international campaign and aims to mobilise New Zealanders to initiate actions to [...]

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McKibben’s long and winding road

by Bryan Walker September 8, 2010

“We will keep fighting” vowed Bill McKibben at the end of his book Eaarth. Today in an article on Yale Environment 360 he gives a promising account of what that might involve. He writes from a road trip to Washington, D.C., towing a solar hot water heating panel from the roof of the Carter White [...]

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The Environmental Politics of Sacrifice

by Bryan Walker September 6, 2010

Addressing climate change will require citizens of wealthy consumer societies to sacrifice. But that’s never going to happen. We’ve all heard statements like that, indeed we’ve probably muttered them to ourselves. Michael Maniates and John Meyer place the words at the beginning of their book The Environmental Politics of Sacrifice. They and their ten fellow-contributors [...]

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Eaarth

by Bryan Walker May 11, 2010

“The momentum of the heating, and the momentum of the economy that powers it, can’t be turned off quickly enough to prevent hideous damage. But we will keep fighting, in the hope that we can limit that damage.” Bill McKibben’s words occur on the final page of his newly published book Eaarth: Making a Life [...]

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Conference in Bolivia: who pays the price of change?

by Bryan Walker April 21, 2010

“We are very worried because we have no water. Half the people of this community have already left. Those who remain are struggling with the lack of water.”   Those are the words of a villager in a small Bolivian village called Khapi which is suffering from the effects of retreating glaciers in the Andes.  [...]

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Weekend reading: dealing with noise

by Gareth February 27, 2010

There’s no doubt that in the last few months the PR war against action on climate change has been fierce — and effective. Three articles I’ve read in the last couple of days throw some light on what’s been going on, and are well worth a few moments of anyone’s time. The first, and by [...]

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Gaia in turmoil

by Bryan Walker January 4, 2010

The title attracted my attention: Gaia in Turmoil: Climate Change, Biodepletion and Earth Ethics in an Age of Crisis. Plus the fact that it was a collection of writings, not another hammer blow from the father of Gaian science James Lovelock. The comforting name of Bill McKibben was there as writer of the foreword. I [...]

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After Copenhagen: new world disorder

by Gareth December 23, 2009

It’s a bit like reading the runes — trawling through reactions to the events of the last couple of weeks, trying to work out what the Copenhagen Accord means. I don’t mean a parsing of the words, though translating the language of diplomacy is never trivial, but what the various parties to the Accord, and [...]

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Nine ways to stuff up a planet

by Gareth October 6, 2009

How is humanity stuffing up the planet — shall we count the ways? There are nine, according to new work by a multidisciplinary team lead by Johan Rockström of the Stockholm Resilience Centre — full paper and supporting materials (with videos of authors explaining key points) here. The diagram above (from Nature’s coverage) shows the [...]

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