Articles by Ken Ward

A new path forward for climate change campaigners

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Our climate agenda is inadequate and may even be detrimental to the sort of effort U.S. environmentalists must now undertake. I'd like to offer for comment an alternative "bright lines" framework for climate action, and propose a shift in role and agenda for U.S. environmentalists that takes account of the circumstances in which we find ourselves and squarely faces the almost incomprehensible challenge before us.

Our goal, put starkly and simply, is to prevent the planned investment of $20 trillion over the next 25 years to increase fossil fuel supply, substituting in its place a crash global program -- capitalized at the same level -- to cut emissions, improve efficiencies, and develop renewables.

The choice should not be viewed, in the frequently invoked Robert Frost imagine, as " two roads diverged." The world is committed whole hog to fossil fuels, and there is no other road -- yet.

To create one will require restructuring the world's largest corporations, inventing appealing, low- or zero-carbon consumer products, and convincing the world's most powerful, nuclear-weapon-equipped nations to leave their reserves of oil, gas, and coal in the ground. We have less than a decade to do it.

Tectonic social change on such a scale is rapid, haphazard, and non-linear. It cannot be achieved in the time left to us by incremental, measured steps. The image of change we should carry in our minds is not Cape Wind or Toyota Prius, but the Berlin Wall crashing down.

Response to “Death”: Part V

Today is Part V of Ken Ward's response to "The Death of Environmentalism," in which he concludes by laying out concrete steps the movement could take to mount an appropriate response to the danger of global warming. It's a bold strategy -- curious to hear what readers think of it.

Don't forget to read Part I, Part II, Part III, and Part IV.

Response to “Death”: Part IV

Today comes Part IV of Ken Ward's response to "The Death of Environmentalism," in which he argues that some of The Reapers' ire -- nay, most of it -- should have been reserved for environmental funders. The narrow focus, political ineptitude, and technocratic fixes come not from the environmental advocacy groups, he says, but from the foundations that fund them.

Good stuff today. (An edited version of this installment appears today in Soapbox.)

Don't forget to read Part I, Part II, Part III, and Part V.

Environmental funders share blame for movement’s weak pulse

In responding to “The Death of Environmentalism,” activist Ken Ward writes, “If the future toward which we rush is folly, the solution proposed by Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus is […]