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Jonathan Isham

Jonathan Isham Jr. is Professor of Economics at Middlebury College, where he teaches classes in environmental economics, environmental policy, introductory microeconomics, social capital, and global climate change. Since early 2005, he has spoken widely throughout the nation about building the new climate movement.

 

Isham serves on advisory boards for Focus the Nation, Climate Counts, and the Vermont Governor’s Commission on Climate Change. He was the co-recipient, representing Middlebury College, of the 2005 Clean Air–Cool Planet Climate Champion Award for advancing campus solutions to global warming. In January of 2006, he was featured on National Public Radio’s Radio Open Source program “Global Warming Is Not an ‘Environmental Problem.’” In January of 2007, he was trained in Nashville, Tennessee, as a member of Al Gore’s Climate Project.

 

He has published articles in Economic Development and Cultural Change, Journal of African Economies, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Rural Sociology, Social Science Quarterly, Society and Natural Resources, Southern Economic Journal, Vermont Law Review, and World Bank Economic Review. He was the coeditor of Social Capital, Development, and the Environment (Edward Elgar, 2002) and has coauthored chapters in books published by Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, and New England University Press.

 

He holds an AB in social anthropology from Harvard University, an MA in international studies from Johns Hopkins University, and a PhD in economics from the University of Maryland.

4 Reads on Driving Environmental Change

Excerpts from four Island Press books highlight activists, organizations, and strategies from environmental movements in the past.
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The Battle Over the New Climate Bill

Today, hundreds of citizens are on the forefront of the climate movement; 20 years ago, in the summer of 1989, the fight against global warming had only two well-known spokespeople: Senator Al Gore and NASA Scientist Jim Hansen.  (Bill McKibben, now at the helm of the indispensable 350.org, joined this august roster with the publication of The End of Nature).  Recently, I was lucky enough to hear each of them share their strong opinions about American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES), the House’s energy and climate bill that
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Obama Needs Churchill 101

In times of great trial, the best politicians strive for Churchillian rhetoric – or better yet, simply quote Churchill.  And in tough times, no quote resounds more than Churchill’s memorable assessment, in late 1942, of the Battle of El Alamein, the first major British victory in WW II: “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”