If you can tolerate pointless (though free) web registration and downloading a PDF, this piece on agricultural biotechnology (uh, PDF) in the latest World Watch Magazine is good reading.

I find myself tempted to link to just about every post on Joel Makower's blog, and this list of the ten biggest stories in green business in 2004 is no exception. As he says: The bottom line: amid steady declines in ecosystem indicators and devastating rollbacks by the Bush Administration in environmental laws and enforcement, there's some good news to report. Companies seem to be stepping up to the plate -- or are being forced to do so by shareholders, activists, or competitors. Glass half full and all that ... UPDATE: If you'd like to get involved in green investing …

I don't want to get into the habit of flagging every piece of writing by a climate change skeptic -- it's a mug's game. But this column by Debra Saunders goes beyond the usual selective emphasis and obfuscation and crosses the line into, well, stupidity. She starts by pointing out that no enviro has blamed global warming for the recent tsunamis. Right. That would be dumb. But, it seems, some have pointed out that rising sea levels -- which are attributable to global warming -- are likely to increase the damage done by future tsunamis. Saunders calls this "capitalizing on …

Our hearts go out to all those affected by the massive earthquake and subsequent tsunamis in South Asia. For more info, visit Wikipedia. For links to firsthand accounts, visit WorldChanging. For ways to help, visit this blog.

As alert readers know, every year around this time, Grist takes a two-week publishing break, while we staffers try to get used to being away from a keyboard for a while. The finger-twitching usually dies down right about the time we have to come back. The break starts Monday, and consequently posting will be very light, possibly (one can hope!) absent entirely. We'll be back on Jan. 3, with some exciting developments for Gristmill. Stay tuned.

Some tips over at About.com on greening your high-tech purchases.

Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai, in Oslo, Norway, on Dec. 10, 2004: Your Majesties; Your Royal Highnesses; Honorable Members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee; Excellencies; Ladies and Gentlemen: I stand before you and the world humbled by this recognition and uplifted by the honor of being the 2004 Nobel Peace Laureate. As the first African woman to receive this prize, I accept it on behalf of the people of Kenya and Africa, and indeed the world. I am especially mindful of women and the girl child. I hope it will encourage them to raise their voices and take more …

Noted hack John Stossel has found a true brother-in-hackery.  On Dec. 10's 20/20, Stossel effusively praised Crichton's new book State of Fear (more on that here, and more to come), which purports to expose global warming as a media scare story perpetrated by Hollywood liberals and, oh, you know, all the usual winger suspects. He offered no countervailing view (from, say, a scientist), instead interviewing a woman ready to pee her pants in fear after seeing The Day After Tomorrow -- presumably representative of the hysteria on the issue. The rest of the segment was devoted to lionizing the "brave" …

Grist, of course, ran the definitive story on the Christian right's relationship to environmentalism, but it wouldn't hurt to go gather additional insights from this piece by Alexander Zaitchik.  He asks, "If a slowly expanding majority of evangelical Christians in this country supports the regulation of industry to protect the environment, and if there is no clear Biblical injunction against doing so, why are the most vehement anti-environmentalists in American politics consistently found among the Christian Right?" If you guessed "close ties between the movement's national leadership and industry," well, give yourself a gold star.

"Leapfrogging" is the notion of developing countries adopting modern, sustainable technologies, without following the path the developed world took through the intervening (and highly polluting) steps of industrialization. It's a meme that's catching on, and WorldChanging has a kind of leapfrogging primer up to familiarize you with the basics.