Youth Activism in the Age of Social Media
Social media is revolutionizing how youth-led activism gains momentum. Young adults, once in the shadow of their parents, possess a powerful voice, constantly active through mobile technology. The power of that voice was evident around the world, when four million young people—many under the age of twenty-five—protested across 150 countries in September to demand urgent […]
Corn (Not Coal) is Destroying the Environment
As the Iowa caucus steadily approaches, Democratic primary candidates are eager to demonstrate their support for rural America, promising to bolster industries that have yet to shift jobs overseas. In Iowa, the largest of these industries is ethanol, a biofuel made from the closest thing Iowa has to gold: corn. Ethanol is a biofuel made […]
Green for Green: How Carbon Pricing Could Make Northeastern Carbon-Neutral
Within the next few decades, rising sea levels will displace millions of people. Extreme weather events, including increased flooding and drought, will kill millions; already, climate change causes more than 400,000 deaths per year. Government policies and social change are necessary to limit the worst effects of climate change. However, especially given the anti-climate policies […]
1.5 to Stay Alive: IPCC Report Recommends Lower Limit on Global Temperature Rise
The 2015 UN Paris Climate Change Conference named a global temperature rise of 2 degrees celsius as the ultimate boundary that humanity should not cross in its battle against climate change.[1] However, at the time, many scientists, activists, and small island nation representatives argued that 2 degrees of warming was a dangerously inadequate benchmark.[2] According […]
What Can We Learn from Cape Town’s Dance with Day Zero?
Flying into Cape Town, the city’s water crisis becomes apparent even before the plane’s wheels touch down. As the sprawling coastal hub comes into view below, framed by craggy mountains on one side and the Indian and Atlantic oceans on the other, the pilot’s voice crackles over the intercom to welcome passengers to “the Mother […]
Fossil Fuel Divestment: Our Path to a Livable Future
As the climate crisis worsens, it is becoming clear that action must be taken to prevent further deterioration of our environment. As a society, sustainable living needs to become a priority to preserve the Earth and save resources for future generations. One of the major problems we are currently facing is our reliance on fossil […]
The Media Versus the Environmental Movement: The Unseen Battle
The environmental movement in the United States faces many challenges from varied social, political, and economic pressures. Economic growth and the free market often take priority over all other issues, regardless of the implications of those values. As such, attempts at regulation or environmental protection are viewed as restrictive and infringing upon the rights of […]
The Carbon Crunch
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg may be remembered as one of the few politicians to extend term limits in office, but pragmatism will be his ultimate legacy. If Mayor Bloomberg is the ideal pragmatist in politics then meet Dieter Helm, his counterpart in the climate change arena. Like Bloomberg who’s known to champion social […]
The Importance of Environmental Policy
There is an overwhelming amount of news coverage related to the state of the economy, international politics, and various domestic programs. The environment and environmental policy on the other hand, are being ignored. When environmental policy is discussed many citizens and representatives champion the need for substantial policy reform. However, when actual policies are introduced, […]
UK Energy Policy, Nuclear Optimism, and the Future
The prospect and pursuit of long-term sustainable energy security has caused progressive anxiety among fossil fuel dependent countries as they come to grips with dwindling supplies and an unstable Middle East. Increases in the cost of uranium and fossil fuels, expanding populations, finite energy supplies, and the globally swelling demand for energy factor into a […]