One of the best ways to stop a project that threatens to ruin your neighborhood is to prove it might harm some species of plant or animal threatened with extinction. After years of making these arguments, you learn the habits and idiosyncrasies of other species, sometimes rather obscure ones. Environmental advocacy is weaponizing biology to …
When we lived on the coast of Oregon, we had to constantly fertilize the poor, sandy soil to maintain a garden. Also, the area received very high rainfall—100 or more inches on the coast where we lived and 200 inches in the coastal mountains that began at the edge of town, so nutrients were continually …
Buckminster fuller often used the example of the behavior of chrome steel to demonstrate that complex systems are far more than the mere sum of their parts. Its constituents are chrome, nickel, and steel. No one of these metals is very strong and if one was to make half-inch rods of each and bundle them …
This guide will be useful to anyone who needs to stop a proposed timber sale; and interesting to those curious about the geological, silvicultural, biological and ecological problems that arise when you turn forests into 2x4s. These defects and issues are typical in timber sales on USFS and BLM land whenever the political process makes …
– Illustrated Guide to Finding Defects in Timber Sales Read More »
Vol. 3 is the last volume in the series Organize To Win. It makes an argument that by any metric such as number of speeches given, letters written, groups mobilized, meetings held, press releases issued, etc., today’s wilderness campaigns are waged with perhaps 1% or less of the vigor and intensity of grassroots campaigns before …
– Organize To Win Vol. 3 now available to download Read More »
Environmental activists must oppose bad environmental projects (like the Makah Indian tribe whale hunt approved by the U.S government) even when promoted by or designed to financially benefit minorities, or the oppressed and disenfranchised. Paradoxically, not opposing them can lead to worse ethical failings than racism, colonialism and the other “-isms.” What ethical issues arise …
– Indigenous Logging, Whaling and Other Activist Dilemmas Read More »
Since 1970, the purpose of Earth Day has changed from one day each year when corporate polluters were exposed (what corporations should do), to a celebration of the personal (what you can do). Today’s bland, uncontroversial event typically features everything from 5k runs to esoteric spiritualties, but almost always carefully avoids any discussion of local …
– How “Act Locally” Became “Shop Locally” | What Happened To Earth Day? Read More »
All active local environmental groups, urban or rural, encounter situations where they need to turn out large numbers of people for meetings. Creating a volunteer network of people, who have agreed to get involved and specifically have agreed to show up for meetings, can mean the difference between scurrying around to find a handful of …
– USING POLITICAL CAMPAIGN MANAGER’S TOOLS IN ENVIRONMENTAL CAMPAIGNS Read More »
Excerpted from the introduction to the newly published Pacific Northwest Timber Wars I led Kalmiopsis Audubon Society (KAS), a small volunteer environmental group headquartered in a small village on the remote Southwest Oregon coast during a period of great environmental conflict from 1989 to 2002. During this time, the environmental community brought to an end …
Email is a powerful tool with unique advantages over speech and other forms of writing, but can cause problems not found in those other forms of communication. Many hints and suggestions for email’s predictable yet avoidable problems including “flaming”. Getting others to read and respond to your posts. Email differs from other written communications like …
– PITFALLS 101: CAUTIONS FOR ACTIVISTS WHEN WRITING OR READING EMAIL Read More »