The unsung history of Earth Day shows that public protest, more than public opinion, is what delivers real progress. I explain further in the lead piece for The Nation’s special Earth Day issue, which features wall-to-wall coverage of the climate challenge. See especially the pieces by Naomi Klein, Rebecca Solnit and Wen Stephenson. And as you ponder the climate crisis, remember: if you don’t like the news, go out and make some of your own!… Read more

I read the latest UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s report both as a journalist and as a father whose precious daughter just turned nine. The IPCC’s projections of what lies ahead for Chiara and the rest of Generation Hot left me feeling grief, fear, rage and frustration. But also a determination to resist, guided by Hope, always Hope…. Read more

US media finally sound the climate alarm after the latest IPCC report, detailing how severe, worldwide impacts have already begun and threaten to spin “out of control” without urgent counter-measures. Adaptation will in any case be necessary. Read more in my Nation article:… Read more

The Nation has just posted my article about Cove Point, the proposed liquid natural gas export facility that represents the next front in the escalating clash between President Obama’s “all of the above” energy strategy and the growing grassroots movement against fracking and climate change: http://www.thenation.com/article/178922/other-keystone/…. Read more

Why is President Obama finding it so hard to announce a decision on Keystone XL? Because, I argue in Bloomberg Businessweek, Mr. Obama presides over a petro-state, a country whose political economy has been dominated by oil so profoundly and for so long that it ranks as an OPEC nation in all but name. The only way Obama (or any US president) can successfully stand up to Big Oil is if he is pushed by a strong, insistent popular movement…. Read more

Someone had better warn Santa Claus. First it was polar bears who were threatened by global warming. Now it’s reindeer: their numbers have fallen by one-third since the 1990s, according to a British parliament report. It’s past time to ban oil drilling in the fast-melting Arctic, but the US, Russia, China and others have self-destructively different plans, as I report in this piece, which was a cover story in Newsweek Japan and appeared in English in The Daily Beast:… Read more