Articles by David Roberts

Whither the environmental movement?

This post, and this one, and this discussion are part of a larger conversation going on among left-leaning types about how to react to the recent electoral ass-whooping we received.  Initially, a lot of the talk focused on the "moral values" voters who came out to prevent the cosmic apocalypse that is gay marriage.  Least that's what the exit polls seemed to show. However, this article, and several like it, cast substantial doubt on that theory.  In fact, there doesn't seem to be much of a rational pattern.  Bush gained among Hispanics and women, actually went down among rural voters and up among urban voters, lost among self-described moderates, increased the turnout of rich people, won on terrorism despite majorities who said he was screwing Iraq up ... in short, there doesn't seem to be a silver bullet theory to explain the loss (more on all this here). It was a hotly fought ground war, a game of inches, and Bush's team got lots of things right, pardon the pun.

Nonetheless, the question of where the environmental movement goes from here is still relevant.  I think we can all agree that, regardless of this election, environmentalism is not where it should be. Nobody, after all, cites the environment as a reason that any candidate won or lost.  Nobody much cites it at all as a player in electoral politics, aside from a few extremely narrow issues like Yucca Mountain, which is more of a "don't dump radioactive crap in my back yard" issue than a strictly environmental one.

So, I've got some thoughts on the matter.  I'll do my best to get them down in a series of posts, starting with the next one. I hope it sparks some pragmatic discussion, because I gotta tell you, whatever this is, most of it isn't particularly pragmatic.

Save the Roadless Rule

Monday (Nov. 15) is the last day to comment on the Bush administration's unbelievably awful proposal to overturn the Roadless Area Conservation Rule. You can send comments directly to the feds here. Or, you can submit a comment through the Wilderness Society, who will cc your governor, here.  If you're not yet convinced that scrapping the Roadless Rule is a manifestly bad idea, the Wilderness Society has the top ten reasons. They've also got a fact sheet on roadless areas in various states. They've also got a handy chronology of the rule's history.  Come to think of it, the Wilderness Society is all over it. You should be too.

Rhymes with “ditty” too

The radio program "Living On Earth" had some hack from the Wall Street Journal editorial page on, along with Grist contributor Bill McKibben, to discuss what Bush's victory means for the environment.  It's interesting (and like Shalini, what I mean by interesting is "makes me reach for a noose").  You can read the transcript here.

War and Environment Day … yesterday

Gristmill contributor Geoff Dabelko, who's having a little trouble with the posting widget, sent this to me, and I'm passing it along to you.  Enjoy:

A couple years back the U.N. General Assembly declared today [ed.: yesterday], November 6, to be International Day for Preventing the Exploitation of the Environment in War and Armed Conflict.  

In resolution 56/4 [PDF], the U.N. called attention to the often long-lasting damage done to the natural environment done in times of conflict.

Having a special day for an issue is great, but what is the U.N. really doing about environmental security links on the ground?