A Couple of "Radical" Environmentalists

The following (fairly lengthy) article is about a couple of former "tree huggers" who are taking a more common sense look at Global Warming and the environment. In doing so, they are stirring up the environmental movement. It is a good read if you've got the time.

Two Environmentalists Anger Their Brethren

By Mark Horowitz 09.25.07 2:00 AM


For angry heretics on the run, Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger sure know how to enjoy themselves. Sitting in a cozy Berkeley restaurant just a few blocks from San Francisco Bay, exchanging tasting notes on the vermentino ("cold white wine is so good with fatty, fried food," Shellenberger says), they recount with perverse pleasure, in tones almost as dry as the wine, how they've been branded as infidels by fellow environmentalists. It started in 2004, when they published their first Tom Paine-style essay accusing the movement's leaders of failing to deal effectively with the global warming crisis. "We thought that someone was going to take a swing at us," Shellenberger says. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Sierra Club executive director Carl Pope published withering counterattacks, and the two men were dubbed "the bad boys of American environmentalism" by author Bill McKibben.

Nordhaus, 41, and Shellenberger, 36, didn't set out to infuriate their former colleagues. On the contrary, they were...(complete article here).

One sentence that particularly caught my eye in the article was, "Their vision cuts across traditional political divides: It's pro-growth, pro-technology, and pro-environment." I'm going to have to dig a little deeper into their thinking, but on the surface it seems to make sense.