Environmentalism

After a strike-related delay, the Environmental Media Association held its 33rd annual awards gala on Saturday, recognizing Hollywood productions for their sustainability efforts both onscreen and behind the scenes. Avatar: The Way of Water, Extrapolations, Unstable and documentary Common Ground were among the night’s winners, with Laura Dern also being recognized with the EMA Ongoing Commitment Award for her activism in the fight against climate change. At the event, held at Los Angeles’ Sunset Las…

Jane Fonda, Quinta Brunson and Daniels, aka Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, were among the stars who took part in the 2023 Hollywood Climate Summit on Thursday, leading conversations about environmentalism in their projects and the culture at large. Held at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills, the two-day conference kicked off with keynote conversation “We’re All In: Why You Should Be Excited About the Hollywood Climate Movement,” with Brunson, Kwan and Scheinert. Everything Everywhere All at…

Watch out, woke investors—Ron DeSantis is coming to get ya, even if it means screwing over his own constituents.Republicans Create Culture War Over… Stoves On Tuesday, DeSantis signed into law a bill that forbids state and local governments in Florida from investing public money into funds and entities that consider environmental, social, and governance factors—or ESG. House Bill 3 is a sweeping law with lots of implications for both money within the state as well as the GOP’s larger culture wars.The origins of bills like…

In case you missed it, conservatives deeply care about whales and the oceans now.The U.S. In For A Dry Winter | Extreme EarthAt least, that’s the message being sent by the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative think tank that in 2021 filed suit against an offshore wind project in New England. Despite taking a lot of money from the oil and gas interests, TPPF has waged a battle over the past year and a half claiming deep concern for the whales allegedly at risk from offshore wind turbines. (I don’t remember this…

Screenshot: InstagramWe’ll end on a surreal note. In 2020, carmaker Hyundai partnered with Korean pop sensation BTS for Earth Day. The brand encouraged fans to take a selfie with the lights off, then tag the Hyundai account on Instagram for a chance to win BTS-themed prizes.If you’re wondering what a selfie in the dark has to do with Earth Day, you’re not alone. I looked through a lot of the campaign materials, and there are scant mentions of Earth, nature, conservation, what have you. Heck, there’s barely anything having…

Calling all asset managers, mid-tier bank employees, and financial sustainability advocates: You’re in league with the Devil, according to Utah’s State Treasurer.Marlo Oaks, who was appointed to the Treasurer position in 2021 and reelected in 2022, told a crowd over the weekend that environmental social governance, or ESG—the practice of making investments using social and environmental principles—is an “outcomes-based” plan, like the biblical “war in Heaven.” The comments, which were first reported by the Salt Lake…

Greta Thunberg, center, is carried away by police outside the Ministry of Finance on March 1, 2023.Photo: Alf Simensen//NTB Scanpix (AP)Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg was arrested Wednesday with dozens of other activists during a protest in front of several Norwegian government ministry buildings, demanding that the government shut down a wind farm.If that line gave you whiplash, you’re not alone. At first glance, it’s strange thatThunberg, who took a solar-powered boat to visit North America in 2019 to avoid…

Photo: Drew Angerer (Getty Images)Several grassroots groups opposed to solar projects in local areas may have one thing in common: a Virginia-based group with powerful GOP connections advising them on strategy. National Public Radio and environmental news collective Floodlight published an expose Friday on a group called Citizens for Responsible Solar, a nonprofit founded in 2019, and its substantial influence in fighting renewable energy across the country—and connections to polluters and prominent climate deniers.The…

Years ago, Christopher Kyba was skeptical about astronomy data collected by citizen scientists—after all, it relies on people making naked-eye assessments of the night sky. But when a student wrote to him with a question about measuring the sky’s brightness, he thought of the Globe at Night citizen science project, which launched in 2006 to let students track the stars they could see. He downloaded and pored over the data. “I became a complete convert,” says Kyba, a scientist at the German Research Center for Geoscience…

DeKalb, Ga., and Atlanta SWAT members are pictured leaving the Gresham Park command post in Atlanta on Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2023. Photo: John Spink/Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AP)This story was originally published by Grist. You can subscribe to its weekly newsletter here.A burst of gunfire rang through a forest on the edge of Atlanta, Georgia, on the morning of January 18. Manuel Esteban Paez Terán, whose chosen name was Tortuguita (Spanish for “little turtle”), had been shot and killed by police officers, becoming the…