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Questioning Official Environmentalism

This article orignially appeared in Z Magazine, April 1997. Seven years ago in these pages, we launched an in-depth investigation of the mainstream environmental movement. The occasion was the widely publicized 20th anniversary of the original Earth Day, an event which in many ways helped institutionalize the widespread corporate co-optation of environmental themes. The year […]

The Nader for President Fiasco

This article originally appeared in Z Magazine, November 1996. During the spring and summer of 1996, I spent considerable time following and supporting the Green Party’s effort to run Ralph Nader for President. I got involved in all this extremely reluctantly, as a person who has long insisted that the Greens should in principle abstain […]

Campaigning Against Dioxin

This article originally appeared in Z Magazine, May 1996, and reprinted in Garbage and Waste: Current Controversies, San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1997. In even the briefest of visits, it is clear that Louisiana is a land of extremes. It is a shorter trip than many people realize from the uninhibited multicultural melting pot of downtown […]

Trading away the Earth: Pollution Credits and the Perils of “Free Market Environmentalism”

This article originally appeared in Dollars and Sense, March/April 1996, and was reprinted in Theodore Goldfarb, ed., Taking Sides: Clashing Views on Controversial Issues, Eighth Edition, Dushkin/McGraw Hill, 1999. The Republican takeover of Congress has unleashed an unprecedented assault on all forms of environmental regulation. From the Endangered Species Act to the Clean Water Act […]

Biotechnology: Consumer Beware

This article originally appeared in Food & Water Journal, Spring 1996, and reprinted in Third World Resurgence (Penang, Malaysia), Number 79, March 1997. The floodgates are opening this year for the widespread commercial sale of genetically engineered foods. After nearly a decade of research in laboratories and experimental farm plots across the country, U.S. government […]

Biotechnology vs. Biodiversity

This article was originally published in Wild Earth, spring 1996. Recent campaigns by food safety activists have raised a new level of public awareness about the risks of biotechnology. Products like genetically engineered Bovine Growth Hormone for dairy cows, tomatoes engineered for longer shelf life and virus resistant squash have inspired more widespread debate and […]

Biotechnology

This article originally appeared in Z Magazine, June 1995, and reprinted in Third World Resurgence, Number 63, November 1995. For many years, public debates around biotechnology and genetic engineering were mostly the domain of scientists, ex-scientists and anti-scientists. Now, those days are clearly past, as products of biotechnology have begun to transform the nature of […]

Grassroots Victories, Lobbyist Gridlock

This article originally appeared in Z Magazine, February 1995. On an unusually balmy November morning, eco-activists in the northeast awoke to some long-awaited but entirely unexpected news. In the immediate aftermath of the 1994 elections, any good news would be unexpected, but this one would be an occasion for celebration in any season. The new […]

The Clinton Forest Plan

This article orignially appeared in Z Magazine, April 1994. After nearly a year of back room deals, political arm-twisting and viciously polarized debate, the Clinton administration has released the final details of its long-awaited plan for the ancient forests of the Pacific Northwest. In early April, a federal judge is expected to decide whether the […]

The Enemy of Nature: The End of Capitalism or the End of the World? Reviewed by Brian Tokar

This book review was published in Tikkun Magazine, Jan.-Feb. 2003. This past August, civil society representatives, public officials and heads of state from around the world converged on Johannesburg for the tenth anniversary of the landmark 1992 United Nations “Earth Summit” in Rio de Janeiro. While the U.S. media focused largely on symbolic issues such […]