Skip to Content

Tag Archives: Environmental Politics

Climate change communication, energy politics, and journalism: Syllabus and schedule

September 1, 2016–In this advanced seminar, students apply research and best practices to communicating about and reporting on climate change and energy issues. Course work prepares students for careers in journalism, advocacy, government, and strategic communication. Students analyze major debates over the environment, climate change, and related technologies; assessing how they are portrayed by experts, advocates,  Continue Reading »

Don’t fear a Franken public: The surprising reasons why we should label genetically modified foods

May 1, 2016—In January 2016, Campbell Soup generated headlines by announcing that it would voluntarily label its products containing genetically modified (GM) corn, soy, beets, and other crops. Like most food industry leaders, about three quarters of Campbell Soup products contain such ingredients. The company’s announcement came in advance of a summer deadline set by  Continue Reading »

MIT rejects fossil fuel divestment but is still a leader on climate change

October 23, 2015 —The Massachusetts Institute of Technology announced this week a new climate change action plan that rejects calls from activists to divest its endowment from the fossil fuel industry. The best way for the university to tackle climate change, argued MIT senior leaders, is through active engagement of “fossil fuel giants that have mastered  Continue Reading »

A call for greater diversity of thought in Environmental Studies courses

May 15, 2015 —Even before Jacqueline Ho enrolled in her first environmental studies course at college, her thinking about climate change had been shaped during her years growing up in Singapore reading books by the environmental writer and activist Bill McKibben. At college, ideas first planted by McKibben were reinforced in courses where she read classics  Continue Reading »

Ecomodernists spark rhetorical heat as views clash over nature, technology, and progress

May 11, 2015 —For the first time in earth’s long history, human activities threaten not just local ecosystems but the global environment through climate change, ocean acidification, and other urgent problems. We have so much impact on the planet today that some scientists argue that we have crossed into a new geological period — the Anthropocene,  Continue Reading »

Republican Charlie Baker’s win in liberal Massachusetts offers path forward on climate change

November 4, 2014 —On an urgent mission to shift the political debate over climate change, environmental groups spent an unprecedented $85 million in the 2014 U.S. midterm elections, focusing their efforts on a handful of contested Senate seats. Following the failure in 2010 to pass a national climate bill, environmentalists believed that they were trumped by  Continue Reading »