Turf war

As further evidence that my slow posting here is a direct result of being really, really busy, here's a behind the scenes look at the advocacy war over climate change legislation.

When writer and climate activist Bill McKibben took to the pages of The Washington Post late last month to demand that legislators and activists back the most ambitious climate-change bill in the U.S. Senate, it was more than a call to action -- it was a public salvo in a contentious behind-the-scenes battle.

While senators are shaping and debating the merits of various global-warming bills, the really impassioned wrangling over climate legislation is going on not in the halls of Congress but within the environmental community itself. McKibben (who serves on Grist's board of directors) and activist-oriented groups like Friends of the Earth are calling for no "half-measures" or compromises, while more establishmentarian groups like Environmental Defense are embracing moderate legislation on the grounds that it might actually pass. Other green groups are staking out their ground in between, praising bipartisan progress while stressing that moderate legislation needs to be strengthened.

Give it a read.