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James Hansen has every reason to boast, for if anyone was ever in a position to say “I told you so,” it’s this NASA scientist who sounded the first alarm on global warming to Congress twenty years ago. Hansen’s return to Washington last week, to address the House Committee on Global Warming on the anniversary of his earlier speech, was trumpeted in the green blogosphere as a bittersweet triumph. No one, certainly not even Hansen, savors his earlier warning of climate change being vindicated. But as we’re well on our way to such a prospect, most eco-bloggers embraced Hansen’s 20th anniversary speech as the heroic missive of a reluctant prophet.
To mark this 20th anniversary with positive action, three high-profile, well-regarded blogs threw a five-day online symposium, dedicated to discussing “ideas the next president can adopt to take on climate change” (grist, UN Dispatch and On Day One). Dr. Hansen joined in on the last day, with his call for a moratorium on coal-fired power plants, and a carbon tax with a 100% dividend return. (To give an idea of his iconic stature in the green blogging community, grist labeled its coverage on the scientist’s appearance at the symposium “Tall, Dark and Hansen.”)
A grist blog by Kate Sheppard on Hansen’s anniversary House speech casts the scientist in a similarly dashing role, that of patriotic messenger. In “Paul Revere rides again,” she wryly recounts his first address, in 1988, when unseasonably warm 98 degree heat accompanied his testimony about “the probability of extreme events such as summer heat waves.” Sheppard then focuses on the radical solutions to climate change that Hansen proposed to the House last week, including the moratorium on coal-fired power plants and carbon tax. She concludes with an amusing quip by the House Committee Chair Ed Markey (D-Mass.), who also calls Hansen “a latter-day Paul Revere, warning of the dangers to our planet.” Markey jokingly observes, “When Al Gore wins a Nobel Prize and an Oscar for a slide show based on what Dr. Hansen has been saying for years, you know the debate is over.”
Two prominent bloggers on the NRDC’s blog “Switchboard” covered Hansen’s House speech as well, taking different tacks on his message—one historical, the other more pro-active:
Peter Lehner decries how “Hansen’s message has been ignored, and science distorted,” and offers what he calls “a little perspective.” He pinpoints the beginning of environmental crisis awareness to a President’s Science Advisory Panel statement back in 1965, and traces the sad pattern of denial and neglect through succeeding decades, including Congress’ lack of response to Hansen’s 1988 address.
In a more inflammatory vein, Phil Gutis weighs in on a controversial aspect of Hansen’s address to the House Committee—Hansen’s charge that “CEOs [of fossil energy companies] should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature,” for their self-interested dismissal of global warming. Gutis writes, “I’m not sure I’d go that far, but I do believe massive malfeasance is at work.” Unlike Hansen, Gutis sees signs of hope in corporate America, in organizations like the United States Climate Action Partnership, which brings together environmental groups like The Nature Conservancy and the NRDC, with big businesses like Mobile, Chrysler, Pepsi, and Alcoa. Gutis shifts the blame that Hansen puts on industry to “our political leaders,” whose crime against humanity and nature is their appalling failure to pass climate legislation this year. Gutis cites Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma with special contempt, for his “obstructionist roadblock” of that legislation. Forget the CEOs, Inhofe is saying—in the annals of American history, Inhofe and his “cabal” are “likely to be judged criminal in the broadest sense of the word.”
In his piece on Hansen’s House speech, blogger Tomgram of Canadian Dimension is critical of the entire lot of them—fossil energy CEOs, and politicians who thwart progressive environmental action: “…while (Hansen) was at it, he probably should have thrown in George W., Dick C., and crew. What they haven’t done (and what they’ve blocked from being done) over these last eight years may turn out to be their greatest crime of all.”
If James Hansen’s climate predictions were heeded twenty years ago, the earth would no doubt be in much better shape now; this time around, as these bloggers suggest, his warnings are being taken much more seriously.
If you want to be scared witless, read the speech on global warming that NASA climate scientist James Hensen made recently to a House committee. It’s available in my Yale RSS feed, e360.yale.edu, and made headlines in various newspapers around the world. Twenty years ago Hensen was the first high-profile scientist to sound the alarm against climate change, in an address to Congress that was eerily predictive of the critical state we’re in today; this week, on the anniversary of that groundbreaking speech, he returned with an update that raised hairs and concerns among his audience.
Basically, we must immediately move to carbon-free energy sources, or mass species extinction, rising sea levels, food shortages, and climate extremes are some of the consequences we can look forward to.
In this portrait of a dire future painted for the assembled House committee, Hensen makes an indictment that is breathtaking in its bravery and fury:
Special interests have blocked transition to our renewable energy future. Instead of moving heavily into renewable energies, fossil companies choose to spread doubt about global warming, as tobacco companies discredited the smoking-cancer link…
CEOs of fossil energy companies know what they are doing and are aware of the long-term consequences of continued business as usual. In my opinion, these CEOs should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature.
Sorry Mr. Hensen….as you’re well aware, our government is way too busy chasing down “eco-terrorists”—citizens who risk their lives protesting our environmental crisis—to go after these rapacious, self-serving corporate entities. But thank you, Mr. Hensen, for reminding the House committee—and the American public—who the real criminals in our doomsday scenario are.
MY PAGEFLAKE
RSS Feeds:
The RSS feeds I’ve chosen reflect the spectrum of eco-minded subjects and literary styles that one generally finds on environmental websites and blogs; there are chatty musings and formal essays, personal accounts and factual news bulletins, on feeds with different levels of expertise and radicalism. With the exception of UrbanConservative.com (whose staunchly right-wing posts dismiss global warming as liberal propaganda), these RSS feeds share a concern for the environmental crisis, and their posts are cast as agents for positive change.
On the lighter side of my RSS feeds is ecomoderate.com, whose posts are written by “Linda,” and mix personal asides with folksy advice. Typical posts debate the eco dilemmas of daily life: comparing the energy usage of microwaves versus conventional ovens, and the benefits of recycling your tennis shoes. This is a quirky but practical feed.
Surprisingly the RSS feed from the esteemed Natural Resources Defense Council features chatty, intimate blogs written in the first person, often by high-profile authors outside the eco sphere. Onearth.org addresses environmental issues with an emphasis on the writer’s personal perspective and experience.
An RSS feed of a more radical bent is Will Potter’s GreenIsTheNewRed.com. Will injects his unique brand of informed wit and indignation into his updates on the eco front, with special emphasis on the U.S. government’s ongoing harassment of eco activists. His pithy post “Garden Gnome Liberation Front” is a hilarious classic.
For straightforward news updates on the latest global environmental developments, I rely on two RSS feeds: The United Nations Environment Programme (unep.org) and environmentnews.it. Each of these feeds casts a wide net, with objective reporting on such diverse international subjects as hazardous waste in Nairobi, the impact of natural disasters on worldwide refugees, and the death rate from air pollution in Canada.
The Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies also addresses every aspect of the global environment in its scholarly but lively RSS feed, e360.yale.edu. It addresses heavyweight topics like water scarcity and the risks of nanotechnology with an unexpected boldness; its expert authors often suggest radical, provocative solutions to environmental crises.
Finally, for entertaining bits of eco-oriented material, there is the RSS feed of greendaily.com. A smattering of lightweight, topical issues, the feed often inadvertently borders on farce—as in its posts about the “Eco-tini” vodka cocktail promoting New York City’s parks, and the billboard of green lettuce that McDonald’s recently installed in Chicago. Consider it diverting eco-lite.
Active Searches:
As the focus of this blog is radical environmental activism, I limit my search terms for Universal News and Blog searches to the single word “ecoterrorism.” It brings up a wide enough range of material on the subject, running the gamut from straight news reports to colorful opinion pieces.
Zotero Bibliography:
Of the four books listed in the bibliography, two are anthologies of essays on a broad spectrum of environmental subjects; the other two books specifically address radical environmentalism, the subject of my blog, from negative points of view.
American Earth: Environmental Writing Since Thoreau is a comprehensive historical survey; its collection of over one hundred entries embraces environmental writing in its broadest sense—essays, letters, fiction and even song lyrics offer a valuable scholarly context for contemporary eco issues.
Conserving the Environment, part of the popular Opposing Viewpoints Series, juxtaposes pro and con essays on topics relating to environmental problems, with an emphasis on conservation and energy sources. The anthology’s format fosters critical thinking on environmental issues, and offers an objective view of both sides of heated eco debates.
In Eco-Terrorism: Radical Environmental and Animal Liberation Movements, Don Liddick cloaks his anti-environmental stance in facts and figures about the animal rights’ movement. In Environmental Mafia, Richard O’Leary argues that environmentalist activists would trample our liberties in the name of wildlife protection and land preservation.
Social Bookmarking Soulmate: Del.ic.ious flake: Newearthling
Newearthling’s bookmarks focus on a few core environmental issues, and the government and corporate policies that impact them; their main topics are energy conservation, food crises and carbon footprinting. Newearthling offers a valuable, select list of primary and secondary sources that are heavy on facts and light on editorializing.
It’s not coincidental that the two books I’m annotating are essay anthologies. The decision came about for two reasons. First, the concept of “the environment” is so broad that some of the best eco writing focuses on just a single aspect of it, often in essay format; second, “environmentalism” has so many contentious, hot-button issues, it’s useful to be familiar with a range of writings about them when formulating one’s own.
American Earth: Environmental Writing Since Thoreau (New York: Penguin Putnam, 2008) is a comprehensive historical survey, featuring over one hundred selections that fittingly begin and end with the first true American naturalist, Henry David Thoreau (in his own writings, and as interpreted by a contemporary essayist, Rebecca Solnit). With a foreword by Al Gore, this anthology is a fascinating, eclectic mix of essays, letters, fiction, and even song lyrics—an overview of environmental writing in its broadest sense. The editor, Bill McKibben, is a prolific author in his own right, a scholar in residence at Middlebury College, and a prominent peaceful eco-activist. McKibben’s approach is scholarly and objective; he precedes each entry with an informative description of the author, their work, their point of view, and a justification for their inclusion in the anthology.
Much current environmental writing is in the form of persuasion—arguments for conservation, government and corporate policies, radical activism, etc. One of the values of American Earth is that it provides a vibrant historical context for these concerns, with sources that can be drawn upon as precedents. Evidently the idea of environmental stewardship is a quintessentially American notion, originating as a response to the sublime beauty of Western wilderness in the nineteenth century, and then spreading like cast seeds across our rapidly developing nation. Thus the baton in American Earth passes from Thoreau’s transcendent solitude in Walden (1854), to John Muir’s passionate defenses of Yosemite (1867-1912), to the discourses of Appalachian Trail founder Benton MacKaye (1928), to the almanac essays of Aldo Leopold (1949), and on to the more contemporary writings of Wendell Berry, Edward Abbey, Alice Walker, and Michael Pollan, with dozens of other voices in between.
McKibben posits that “an argument can be made that environmental writing is America’s single most distinctive contribution to the world’s literature.” American Earth is a unique and indispensable resource for that contribution, documenting its origins and scope, and eloquently establishing it as an honorable, ongoing national tradition.
Conserving the Environment (Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2006) is an equally valuable but very different sort of anthology. As part of the popular Opposing Viewpoints Series, it juxtaposes pro and con essays on topics relating to environmental problems, like conservation, energy sources, and the roles of institutions and individuals in resolving these issues. The aim of this format is to encourage both open mindedness and critical judgment in the reader, leading him to informed opinion. The essays are written by a wide range of authors, from experts in the field to novice writers recounting a relevant personal experience.
A chapter preface introduces each topic and then outlines the issues at stake. For example, “Conserving the Environment,” has three issues for debate: whether the earth really faces an environmental crisis, whether global warming poses a serious threat, and whether deforestation threatens the environment. Each of these three issues has one pro and one con argument, excerpted from a book or magazine in which it was recently published. The authors’ contrasting backgrounds makes for lively juxtapositions: on the issue of deforestation, the argument that deforestation damages the environment is made by a forest preservationist and carpenter, while that which dismisses deforestation concerns is made by a Danish statistics professor. To further stimulate objective thinking, the editors preface each pro and con essay with questions for the reader to consider when formulating an opinion on the debate.
Opposing Viewpoints’ approach perfectly lends itself to the polemical nature of environmentalism; it articulates both sides of heated eco debates in an objective, thought-provoking context. For anyone building their case on a controversial environmental subject, this anthology offers useful counterpoints to be anticipated and refuted. Its essays may not alter your opinion on a particular issue, but they will offer powerful ammunition for your argument.
Newearthling’s bookmarks focus on a few core environmental issues, and the government and corporate policies that impact them; their main topics are energy conservation, food crises and carbon footprinting. As a whole, this collection is tightly focused and serious-minded; it offers a select list of primary and secondary sources that are heavy on facts and light on editorializing. As such, it is a useful tool for researching current eco topics and debates.
Dismissing Newearthling’s occasional forays into arts-related subjects, of the 54 bookmarks, five are food or agriculture references, four are energy conservation references, four are carbon footprinting references, and the rest are policy and statistics references on those subjects. Each of the bookmark categories has a balanced mix of practical tools, objective information and analytical reportage.
For example, on the subject of carbon footprinting, there is the “Life Cycle Assessment Calculator,” which calculates the carbon footprint of any product you plug into its formula; the “Terra Pass,” which allows you to purchase carbon offsets for the environmental impact of your daily activities; guidelines from a European industry consortium for designing eco-friendly products; something called “EXIOPOL,” which is a mathematical framework for environmental policy analysis; and, finally, an essay on Economist.com which analyzes why people avoid convenient energy savings. No speculative essays, no angry diatribes—just straightforward and relevant information for original, in-depth environmental research.
Despite the scholarly nature of Newearthling’s bookmarks, his bookmarking practices are casual and erratic. Less than half of the 54 bookmarks (23) are annotated, with brief comments—lifted from the source’s text—that give just an inkling of what lies within. There are over 100 pages of bookmarked text in Newearthling’s collection, so there is a wealth of material, but it requires laboriously opening and then skimming most of the links to determine their topic and gist.
The tag list for Newearthing’s sources is also surprisingly random and unhelpful. It cites over-generalized words like “development” and “quality,” and nonsensical words like “of” and “uncertainty.” Tagging is definitely not a priority for Newearthling, and the tag list should be ignored.
These procedural lapses aside, the strengths of Newearthling’s bookmarks are two-fold: they include a half-dozen primary sources for hard environmental data and statistical models, that can be drawn on to construct and support an eco-oriented argument; and they offer important corporate and government websites on environmental policy, that provide useful economic and legislative contexts for green issues. Clearly Newearthling is an admirably serious thinker, interested in the practical, social and political aspects of the environmental crisis, and the complex mathematical models which shape them.
POST ONE
Anyone who made it to the sixth grade probably remembers thrilling to the account of the Boston Tea Party in their history books. That night in 1773 when American colonists invaded a ship in Boston Harbor, and dumped 45 tons of tea to protest unfair taxes by the British, is revered as an example of social dissent and patriotism. This dramatic chapter in our past taught us that certain principles (in this case liberty and independence) are more precious than property and institutions.
This lesson in civic values seems newly relevant today, as our government takes an increasingly hard line on property sabotage by environmental activists. It seems what was admirable and patriotic about social protest in our colonial past no longer holds in the present.
Like those angry Bostonians who destroyed a boatload of British tea, today’s radical environmentalists target interests that have symbolic meaning for their struggle. Suburban sprawl, SUVs, the logging industry, and bioengineering labs are some of the iconic objects of their sabotage.
In the aftermath of 9/11 and the Patriot Act, the federal government has stepped up their offense on these eco-motivated acts of arson and vandalism. Playing on the public’s fear of random violence—and driven by a desperate need to capture “terrorists” of any stripe—it has cleverly demonized radical eco-activism as “domestic terrorism.”
This rabid persecution of radical environmentalism is playing out in the media and courtrooms with a shocking intensity and bias. Environmentalists refer to it as Green Scare, citing frightening parallels with the Communist-baiting, McCarthy-era Red Scare. They vehemently reject the government’s definition of crimes against property—with no loss of life—as “terrorism.” As Jeffrey St. Clair wryly notes, this draconian portrait of ecotage isn’t just about national security, it’s about defending corporate interests:
Even the feds can’t cite a single death resulting from an alleged act of eco-terrorism. But that doesn’t matter. After the horrors of New Orleans, it should be clear to all that it’s the protection of property, not people, that really gets the feds going.
What’s most appalling is that the court can apply a “terrorism enhancement” statute to crimes of vandalism committed as social protest, but defined as terrorism. This can multiply a prison sentence six-fold. As St. Clair laments,
Destruction of property in the name of a political cause is now deemed an act of terrorism that can carry with it prison terms equivalent to first degree murder…
There’s a cruel irony in the government’s punitive sentencing of environmental protest:
The same arson or sabotage that would get anyone else a mischief charge and a suspended sentence is considered domestic terrorism if committed by people who care about the environment. (Emerald City Scion)
No doubt in some cases the vandalism and arson committed by green activists is more extreme than good old-fashioned tea-dumping…and deserves to be punished by law. But a double-standard of justice that ups the penalties for environmentally-motivated protest is blatantly undemocratic. If a prankster only gets 6 months’ probation for spray painting “CLEAN ME” on your dirty SUV, why should a green activist get 5 years in prison for scrawling “POLLUTER” on it? Punishment based on ideology has no place in our Constitution’s guarantee of “equal justice for all.”
Having failed spectacularly at combating genuine political and religious terrorism, the government’s witch hunt of environmental activists comes off as a misplaced and desperate attempt to appear tough on “domestic terrorism.” But it’s a trumped up war it’s fighting. This blog examines some of the battles being waged in this war.
POST TWO
One of the most engaging and articulate bloggers on radical environmental activism is the journalist Will Potter. Based in Washington, D.C., where he is pursuing a master’s degree in writing at Johns Hopkins University, Will blogs weekly, often bi-weekly, about animal rights and topical green issues on his website, GreenIsTheNewRed.com. As a respected journalist whose work has appeared in mainstream textbooks and newspapers, and is referenced in non-partisan web news articles, Will manages the near-impossible: to wear his radical sympathies on his sleeve and remain a legitimate, respected voice in today’s heated environmental debates. His blog has an authority ranking of 73 on Technorati.
The dozens of essays featured on Will's website demonstrate his gift for synthesizing facts into insight, and tooling insight into powerful argument. A post from April, 2006 entitled, “The New War on Terror,” is probably one of his best known essays. It’s included in the popular Thomas Gale series Opposing Viewpoints, which pairs pro and con arguments on controversial topics; it also appeared in Z and Counterpunch. This essay analyzes the FBI’s pursuit of seven activists who shut down an animal testing lab through lobbying and grass roots demonstrations. Although the activists committed no violence or vandalism, the government indicted them as “terrorists.” Will brilliantly skewers the ludicrous logic behind this “terrorist” charge:
That’s like saying the Montgomery bus boycott, a catalyst of the civil rights movement, was terrorism because it aimed to "intentionally damage and cause the loss of property" of the bus company.
He concludes that the “War on Terror” is actually a front for corporate interests:
This is what the War on Terror has become: the Bush Administration can’t find real terrorists abroad, yet it spends law enforcement time and resources protecting corporations from political activists.
A recent post from March 2008, entitled “Before the Smoke Even Clears, Bringing Out the T-Word,” showcases Will’s rousing but cool-headed tack in the environmental debate. When four mansions in a model home development outside Seattle burned to the ground on March 3, investigators and the press rushed to judgment, claiming the fire was the work of “eco-terrorists.” Not surprised that the FBI would stoop to unfounded speculation, Will aims his sword instead at the press:
Nobody injured, nobody home. But before the smoke had even settled, before the ashes had even cooled, before the Feds had even sorted through the debris, a chant of “Terrorists! Terrorists! Terrorists!” had started rising from politicians, corporations and, most disturbingly, the press.
Will claims that the headlines of the L.A. Times, N.Y. Times and the London Telegraph rushed to scream “eco-terrorists!”—despite the fact that no incendiary devices were found at the scene. He condemns these newspapers for not raising the alternative possibility—that the homebuilders set the arson themselves, because the houses had been sitting on the market for months. By the end of his post, the astute Mr. Potter has indulged in some indicting of his own.
Obviously GreenIsTheNewRed.com is a touchstone for this writer, and will be a major source of information and inspiration for this blog. I expect I’ll be checking in with Will regularly, for his authoritative and trenchant take on breaking green news.
POST THREE
If she was a track star, Judith Lewis would compete in both the 26 mile marathon and the 50 yard dash. She’s a respected journalist who writes in-depth articles on complex environmental issues for the L.A. Weekly—and she’s also a witty, engaging blogger. Her blog AnotherGreenWorld is a forum for her personal, shorthand takes on green affairs. Judith began blogging four years ago and tackles an array of topics, from nuclear energy and alternative biofuels to eco-activism and environmental politics.
Judith’s posts are fact-based arguments, and as such they don’t take many poetic turns—but they do feature powerful, hard-hitting language and a blistering logic. There are a number of recurring literary devices: snazzy titles, conversational opening remarks, serial questions that construct her case, alliteration and word repetition for dramatic effect, and punchy concluding sentences.
A case in point is "Just When You Thought It Was Safe To Go Back In The Tap Water," from August 2007. In this essay Judith recounts her eco-minded switch from bottled water to tap water, and her subsequent appall over the government’s impending fluoridation plan.
True to form, the blog’s title is a wry allusion to an exasperating dilemma. And its opening lines set its withering tone:
That nutjob senator from Oklahoma had it wrong. It’s not climate change that’s the biggest hoax ever perpetrated on the American People. It’s bottled water.
Judith uses sarcasm to evoke the impossibly long journey of such so-called natural water, “transported from Australia/Fiji/England/France/Venus in plastic.” Then she repeats the word “plastic,” evoking a sense of its ubiquitous danger:
…after reading about plastic in the oceans, plastic in the landfills, the environmental cost…of plastic bottles…I’ve become a tap-water fascist.
Judith playfully admits, “I gently lecture everybody…,” and she proceeds to cloak a bunch of dry facts about bottled water in a first-person recitation. “I recite statistics about…,” “I remind them that,” etc. Casting boring information in friendly confidences, Judith makes her complex case against bottled water engaging …and easy to agree with.
The second phase of her argument begins with a metaphor:
But just as this movement (of drinking tap water) was gaining steam, along comes the Metropolitan Water District, hell-bent on going through with its four-year plan to fluoridate Southern California’s tap water.
The image of a steam engine stopped cold by the Metropolitan Water District effectively conjures the overpowering negative impact the fluoridation plan will have on tap water.
Judith then frames her position against fluoridation in a series of rhetorical questions:
Why?. . Does it matter if children…get little white spots on their enamel…called ‘enamel fluorosis’? Or if several studies have strongly suggested that fluoridated drinking water may disrupt thyroid function…?
The alliteration of the phrase “several studies have strongly suggested” adds to the prose's dramatic impact; this subtly underscores Judith’s argument, as does the use of repetition in her conclusion: "This is crazy. The more I read about it, the crazier it gets."
Judith posits that the American Dental Association is behind the fluoridation plan—because it will prevent low-income people from getting cavities, and thus free up dentists to perform expensive cosmetic procedures on their better-off patients. She tugs on her audience’s heartstrings by linking her charges against the ADA to two hot-button minorities—Indians and children:
Better that adults should come in to have their teeth capped…than that a dentist should have to fill another child’s cavity on an Indian reservation in Alaska.
It’s an effective, if clichéd, manipulation.
Another post, entitled "Enviros to Container Ships: Slow the Fuck Down," employs similar literary devices in its argument that sonar exercises by the Navy are the likely cause of whale disorientation and death along California’s coast. With its eye-catching obscenity, the post’s title is attention-grabbing to say the least. The column’s opening lines then set Judith's familiar conversational tone:
Okay, those aren’t exactly the words the Center for Biological Diversity used in its…press release today. But it’s the basic sentiment.
As in the previous post, Judith builds drama with devices like alliteration:
If you live in Southern California and pay any attention at all, you know that three blue whales…have turned up dead…
And with word repetition:
This exact sonar has killed other whales before…Three of those dead whales had bloodied eardrums, another had bleeding on the brain.
Just as she argued against the government's fluoridation plan with probing questions, so does Judith protest the Navy's sonar exercises:
What causes a deftly echolocating beast to collide with a speeding tanker that can be heard three days away?... How the hell are they plowing into ships…?
She dismisses alternative excuses for the whales’ problems, hammering away with still more questions: “Could it be that…? But has…? Or could it be that…?.” Her final query drips with sarcasm: “Or could it be that our brave Navy has been blasting noise into the ocean for three weeks…?”
Judith ends the post with her signature flourish, this time with the catchy brevity of a bumper-sticker:
Stop Navy sonar testing now, and in all whale migration seasons in the future. It’s insane.
The intelligence and passion behind Judith's blog posts make for an incisive and exciting voice in the often dim and dreary eco-blogosphere.
Judith Lewis is a respected journalist who writes in-depth articles about environmental issues for the L.A. Weekly. Her blog, AnotherGreenWorld, is a forum for her more personal, shorthand take on current green affairs.
Judith’s posts are fact-based arguments, and as such they don’t take many poetic turns—but they do feature powerful, hard-hitting language and a blistering logic. There are a number of recurring literary devices: a snazzy title, a conversational opening remark, the use of serial questions to construct her case, alliteration and word repetition for dramatic effect, and a punchy concluding sentence. All of this makes for an incisive and exciting voice in the often dim and dreary eco-blogosphere.
A case in point is Just When You Thought It Was Safe To Go Back In The Tap Water, from August 2007. In this essay Judith recounts her eco-minded switch from bottled water to tap water, and her subsequent appall over the government’s impending fluoridation plan.
True to form, the blog’s title is a wry allusion to an exasperating dilemma. And its opening lines set a withering tone: That nutjob senator from Oklahoma had it wrong, It’s not climate change that’s the biggest hoax ever perpetrated on the American People. It’s bottled water.
Judith uses sarcasm to evoke the impossibly long journey of such so-called natural water, “transported from Australia/Fiji/England/France/Venus in plastic.” Then she repeats the word “plastic,” evoking a sense of its ubiquitous danger: …after reading about plastic in the oceans, plastic in the landfills, the environmental cost…of plastic bottles…I’ve become a tap-water fascist.
Judith playfully admits “I gently lecture everybody…,” and she proceeds to cloak a bunch of dry facts about bottled water in a first-person recitation. “I recite statistics about…,” “I remind them that,” etc. By casting boring information in friendly confidences, Judith makes her complex case against bottled water a cinch to follow…and easy to agree with.
The second phase of her argument begins with a metaphor: But just as this movement (of drinking tap water) was gaining steam, along comes the Metropolitan Water District, hell-bent on going through with its four-year plan to fluoridate Southern California’s tap water.
The image of a steam engine stopped cold by the Metropolitan Water District effectively conjures the overpowering negative impact the fluoridation plan will have on tap water.
Judith then frames her position against fluoridation in a series of rhetorical questions: Why?. . Does it matter if children…get little white spots on their enamel…called ‘enamel fluorosis’? Or if several studies have strongly suggested that fluoridated drinking water may disrupt thyroid function…?
The alliteration of the phrase “several studies have strongly suggested” adds to the dramatic impact of the prose; this subtly underscores Judith’s argument, as does the use of repetition in her conclusion: This is crazy. The more I read about it, the crazier it gets.
Judith posits that the American Dental Association is behind the fluoridation plan—because it will prevent low-income people from getting cavities, and thus free up dentists to perform higher-yielding cosmetic procedures on their better-off patients. She cleverly tugs on her audience’s heartstrings by linking her charges against the ADA to two hot-button minorities—Indians and children: Better that adults should come in to have their teeth capped…than that a dentist should have to fill another child’s cavity on an Indian reservation in Alaska.
It’s an effective, if clichéd, manipulation.
Another post, entitled Enviros to Container Ships: Slow the Fuck Down, employs similar literary devices in its argument that sonar exercises by the Navy are the likely cause of whale disorientation and death along California’s coast. With its eye-catching obscenity, the post’s title is attention-grabbing, to say the least. The column’s opening lines then set Judith's familiar conversational tone: Okay, those aren’t exactly the words the Center for Biological Diversity used in its…press release today. But it’s the basic sentiment.
As in the previous post, Judith builds drama with devices like alliteration: If you live in Southern California and pay any attention at all, you know that three blue whales…have turned up dead…
And with word repetition: This exact sonar has killed other whales before…Three of those dead whales had bloodied eardrums, another had bleeding on the brain.
Just as she argued against the government's fluoridation plan with probing questions, so does Judith protest the Navy's sonar exercises: What causes a deftly echolocating beast to collide with a speeding tanker that can be heard three days away?... How the hell are they plowing into ships…?
She dismisses alternative excuses for the whales’ problems, hammering away with still more questions: “Could it be that…? But has…? Or could it be that…”, etc. Her final query drips with sarcasm: “Or could it be that our brave Navy has been blasting noise into the ocean for three weeks…?”
Judith ends the post with her customary flourish, this time with the force and brevity of a bumper-sticker; Stop Navy sonar testing now, and in all whale migration seasons in the future. It’s insane.
In these and her other blog posts, Judith Lewis proves that on the environmental front lines, the pen can be mightier than the sword.
