ThinkProgress Logo

Climate Progress

The Politics Of Wired: Saucy, Ignorant Contrarianism

Our guest blogger is journalist and author Paulina Borsook.

Wired Magazine 16:06The June 2008 issue of Wired magazine, which counsels “rethinking everything you ever learned about being green” (with an implicit message of “don’t listen to the pieties of the left”), and has a forward by Wired co-founder Louis Rossetto, harkens back to the bad old days of its libertarian anti-progressive politics.

When Wired magazine first hit the scene fifteen years ago in June 1993, part of its gestalt was a kind of world-turned-upside-down saucy contrarianism. Information technology is sexy! And more indirectly, pious humorless liberals are repressive and not on the side of change! I should know, as I was in its early days the magazine’s in-house critic/loyal opposition.

And rather like a Rockette brought out of retirement to kick up her heels at the senior center follies, I’ll weigh in once again on the politics of Wired. It would be too tedious to argue with all ten of Wired’s inconvenient mistruths, so let me take on a typical example, “Screw Organic“:

The path to virtue, we all know, begins with organics. Meat, milk, fruit, veggies — organic products are good for our bodies and good for the planet. Except when they’re not good for the planet.

Even accepting the claim that only “cutting carbon” matters in dealing with global warming, the Wired author’s argument is nonsensical: Read more

Obama: Climate bill is “good first step” but “not perfect”

Sen. Obama thinks the bill can be improved, with tougher targets and more money back to taxpayers:

CHICAGO , IL — Today, Sen. Barack Obama released the following statement on the Climate Change Bill:

“As this week’s debate on climate change has unfolded, the American people and those watching us around the world had every reason to hope that we would act. Every credible scientist and expert believes action is necessary. This is critical and long overdue legislation that represents a good first step in addressing one of the most serious problems facing our generation.

Like many of my Senate colleagues, I believe the legislation could have been made even better. Had there been a substantive Senate debate about some of the concerns with this bill, I believe the outcome could have generated broad support. It certainly would have received my support.

Unfortunately, the Republican leadership in the Senate has chosen to block progress, rather than work in a good faith manner to address this challenge. This is a failure of our politics and a failure of leadership — a President who for years denied the problem, and a Republican nominee, John McCain, who claims leadership on the issue but opposes this bipartisan bill.

Read more

Switch to Mobile
ThinkProgress Signup Overlay Skip and Continue to ThinkProgress Skip and Continue to ThinkProgress

Sign Up