As longtime readers know, we here at Grist are fascinated/horrified/baffled/whatevered by the environmental implications of China's explosive economic growth. On that score, two reading recommendations. First, Lester Brown at the Earth Policy Institute writes that China simply can't develop the same way the U.S. did. Not a moral can't, but a brute physical can't -- there just aren't enough resources. On oil, coal, steel, and paper, the story is the same: If China consumed at U.S. per capita levels, it would consume more than the world currently produces. That takes a while to sink in, but it's pretty incredible to …

When we write about China's massive growth and the apocalyptic environmental consequences thereof, we are: not saying that China should refrain from developing, or that the Chinese should stay poor; not excusing the extravagant per capita level of consumption and waste in the U.S. Instead, we are advocating that China move quickly and decisively to develop sustainable technologies, industries, and sources of power, and that the U.S. green movement support China in that quest however it can. Thanks for listening.

Conservatives say that environmentalists only oppose Clear Skies because they hate Bush. My impression is that they only support Clear Skies because they hate environmentalists. But of course I would think that. If you want to hear what conservative bloggers have to say about Clear Skies -- much of which draws on a recent Washington Monthly article -- you can start here and then try here, here (good discussion in comments), and here. Feel free to leave additional links in comments, if you have them. The fact is that Clear Skies is classic Bush. There's plenty of perfectly sensible stuff …

Presidential science advisor John Marburger has been making some unusually strong and unambiguous statements lately about global warming. Here are my three theories about what could be going on: He's off the reservation, sick of being bashed by the scientific community, and we're soon going to see the phrase "more time with his family" near his name. It's pure greenwashing, an attempt to demonstrate that, despite appearances, the Bush administration takes global warming seriously. Bush has decided that intransigence on warming is becoming a political liability, he's going to make some splashy policy moves soon, and this is an attempt …

The study showing that buying local food is better than buying organic got covered all over the blogosphere, but Treehugger has a particularly helpful pair of posts up on what to do about it.

I think this is a bit cuckoo-for-cocoa-puffs, but if you're into that kind of thing, you'll be into it. (via Sustainablog)

Senate majority leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) has introduced a bill that would make access to clean water and proper sanitation an explicit objective of U.S. foreign aid. I haven't seen this covered anywhere but Joel Makower's blog, but really, what else do you need? We'll write more on this in coming weeks.

The monkey, people. The monkey. The right to name an unidentified species of titi monkey in Bolivia has been sold for $650,000. No word yet on what the name is, but it has to conform to the rules of the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature. Presumably that rules out titi jokes. Sigh.

Insects dislike the smell of garlic as much as human beings do, according to a Bangladeshi scientist who has used it to develop an environment-friendly alternative to pesticide. Um, what human beings are we talking about here?

If I posted about every cool widget that popped up on Treehugger I'd end up doing nothing else, but this particular widget for some reason caught my fancy. It makes clean water! Out of air! In five years this thing will be the size of a coffee mug. The Future: Live It!