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The Latest by Tom Turner

Author & Historian

March 12, 2013

Film: "A Fierce Green Fire" Opens

By Tom Turner

A stunning, inspiring new documentary film, A Fierce Green Fire, The Battle for a Living Planet, had its theatrical premiere in New York on March 1, and was scheduled for screenings across the country in following weeks. (View the full schedule.) The film is in five acts, each narrated by a different person. Robert Redford …

September 11, 2012

'Remembering David Brower'

By Tom Turner

David Brower was the most prominent, influential and controversial environmental leader of the second half of the 20th century. He was a visionary, a brilliant publicist, and also prickly and demanding. This and much more comes through clearly in a new book published by Heyday of Berkeley to celebrate Brower’s 100th birthday. Alas, he isn’t …

July 24, 2012

The New Math

By Tom Turner

Bill McKibben,  who first alerted the non-scientific world to global climate change two decades ago with The End of Nature  has a new piece in Rolling Stone that he says is the most important thing he’s written in the past 20 years, and he’s written hundreds of articles and books during that period. It’s titled “Global …

June 15, 2012

Arctic Drilling Fleet Poised To Sail

By Tom Turner  /  Alaska Office

As I write this, ships are being prepared to steam northward from several ports to begin poking holes in the floor of the Beaufort and Chukchi seas in search of oil. Thanks to legal action by Earthjustice over the last few years, and thanks also to a one-year time-out called in the wake of the …

February 9, 2012

Think the Weather's Getting Crazier? You're Right

By Tom Turner

I’m going to stand back and just give you a taste of a report from the Earth Policy Institute. Scary. I recommend you read the whole thing and send it around. There are still people who should know better denying climate change. They are welcome to believe whatever they like, but they shouldn’t be playing …

February 8, 2012

Times Columnist Spouts Keystone Nonsense

By Tom Turner

The New York Times describes Joe Nocera as a business columnist, but a quick scan of recent columns is very heavy on pieces about the woes of the NCAA, the National Collegiate Athletic Association. If today’s column is any indication, we’d all be better off if he stuck with sports. His thesis is that rejecting …

December 6, 2011

Which Page of the Times Do You Read?

By Tom Turner  /  International Program

Last Sunday, Dec. 4, the weekly review/opinion section of The New York Times carried a sober and sobering piece by Robert Semple, a Times editorial writer who seldom gets to sign his pieces. He wrote of the climate meetings taking place this week in Durban, South Africa, where no one seems to think much progress will …

November 8, 2011

"How Wall Street Occupied America"

By Tom Turner

“Wall Street owns the country…. Money rules…. Our laws are the output of a system which clothes rascals in robes and honesty in rags. The [political] parties lie to us and the political speakers mislead us.” So sayeth the pupulist firebrand Mary Elizabeth Lease in 1890. “She should see us now,” comments Bill Moyers in …

October 21, 2011

Major Victory — Court Reinstates Roadless Rule

By Tom Turner  /  Alaska Office, Northern Rockies Office & Rocky Mountain Office

Toward the end of the Clinton administration, the Forest Service declared that most logging and road building no longer would be permitted on nearly 60 million acres of wild, unprotected national forest lands. The so-called Roadless Area Conservation Rule was immediately challenged in nine separate lawsuits filed by states (Idaho, Wyoming, Alaska, Utah, North Dakota), a few …

September 6, 2011

Adapting to a Wounded Climate

By Tom Turner

There’s an interesting piece in the latest Earth Island Journal titled “Ready or Not: Climate Change is Coming; Time to Adapt.” The author, Maureen Nandini Mitra, argues that, whether we like or not, the climate is already on the way to significant changes and we have no choice but to figure out how to adapt—as …