But Tesla proved just too cool to fail. In May, German automaker Daimler injected $50 million in the “we’re this close to profitability we promise” EV maker for a 10 percent stake and a deal for Tesla to supply the batteries for the test series of Daimler’s smart electric drive. And then in June, Uncle Sam followed suit with $465 million in Department of Energy loans to Tesla to produce and manufacture the new Model S sedan. The loans will also finance the construction of a LEED-certified assembly plant in California, which will manufacture components for the Model S as well as the smart ed.

Rolling in cash and brimming with plans, Tesla turned this newfound financial confidence into a string of retail stores — don’t call them dealerships — that have more in common with Prada boutiques than your local used-car lots. The red Tesla marquee graces exposed brick in New York, Los Angeles, Menlo Park, London, and Seattle with stores coming soon to Chicago, Miami, D.C., Toronto, Munich, and Monaco.

And as the Washington wine flowed and trays of tiny hors d’oeuvres were passed among the Polo-clad attendants at the Seattle opening, I couldn’t help but ask, Seattle? Really?

“Good question,” laughed Colette Niazmand, senior manager of marketing at Tesla. “Seattle is certainly not a traditional sports-car market, but when we were marketing the Roadster a couple of years ago, we saw a high concentration of reservations for the vehicle in the Seattle area. There are a lot of early adopters and entrepreneurs in Seattle who understand tech and saw the appeal of the Roadster.”

Apparently that’s an understatement. With more than 30 of the $101,500 Roadsters zooming around Lake Washington and more on the way, the Seattle area boasts one of the highest concentrations of Roadsters outside California. Though it may be untraditional, Seattle has provided a burgeoning market for luxury EVs.

However, the Roadster’s clean lines and flashy colors can’t take all the credit for the spread of EVs in the Seattle area. Effective July 26 (coincidentally the public opening of the Seattle Tesla store), Washington state now joins New Jersey, Connecticut, and Arizona in waiving 100 percent of sales, luxury, and use taxes on EVs as well as on infrastructure to support electric vehicles like home charging stations [PDF]. Including the federal tax incentive of $7,500 on electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles, Tesla hastens to point out that for Washington buyers, the purchase of a Roadster represents a significant savings over an internal combustion vehicle with a similar sticker price.

For those in the market now for a $100,000 “car with a conscience,” Tesla is literally the only game in town. Rivals Fisker and Dodge have announced plans to launch the Karma and the Circuit as early as 2010, but neither has a production model on the road. However, Tesla’s presence in Seattle doesn’t mean that prospective buyers can stop by the showroom on Westlake Ave. and drive out with their very own Roadster: “The wait-list is four months,” said Niazmand.

Want a peek at driving in a Roadster? Check out Grist’s video: “Three minutes in a Tesla.” The car boasts acceleration of 0-60 in 3.9 seconds, torque of over 13,000 rpms, and minimum charging time of 3.5 hours plugged into a 220 V/70 amp outlet. Tesla also claims that the car can go 244 miles per charge, but owners have reported distances of closer to 200 miles between charges.

The Seattle Tesla store is open by appointment only; check the website for details.

Need to know which species of fish on the menu were caught sustainably? There’s an app for that.

Long to plant a tree with every swish of your PhoneSaber? There’s not an app for that … yet. But check out the apps that plant trees — digital and otherwise — that are already available.

Contrary to the rest of the going-green retail world, iTunes doesn’t have a “green” category in its app store (For better? For worse? Can’t decide….). And search for “green” in the iTunes store and the first app that appears is “BreakMeter — the Golf Green Reader.” Hmmm … that’s not quite what I meant.

Fear not this categorical inconvenience, dear Grist reader, we have examined the 50+ carbon calculators, shopping guides, mileage trackers, and more of the green iPhone world and offer some recommendations on where to best spend your App store dollars.

How our guide to green iPhone apps works:

• The categories: Shopping, Food, Transportation, Energy Monitoring, Recycling, Business and Activism, Entertainment, News, and Green Living Tips.
• The ratings: The number of “stars” is the average of all the ratings submitted for a specific app by iTunes customers.
• Did we miss one? Tell us about it in the comments section.

Shopping

3rdWhale Mobile: This app uses GPS to find green restaurants, stores, and travel destinations in 100 cities in the U.S. and Canada, and displays results on a map with directions.   No iPhone? 3rd whale is working on Android and Blackberry phones. Free 2 stars iTunes

GoodGuide: Use this app to find out what’s in 75,000 common household products. No iPhone? Check out goodguide.com. Free 2.5 stars iTunes

Go Organic!: This app finds organic grocery stores and Earth Day events near you. Free 1.5 stars iTunes

Gorgeously Green Survival Guide: Want to know the dirt on your makeup before you buy it? This app suggests chemicals to avoid in makeup and sunscreens and gives tips on food and product labels. $0.99 5 stars iTunes

Greenopia: This Los Angeles-specific app boasts 1,000+ searchable and map-able listings of green businesses, restaurants and services. More U.S. cities to come later in 2009. Free 4 stars iTunes

Greenpeace Tissue Guide: Research brands of consumer paper products to find the greenest tissues, paper towels, and toilet paper. Free 3.5 stars iTunes

shopgreen: This app is more than just a shopping tool. Enter information about your green habits and the app will connect that information with promotions from local businesses. No iPhone? shopgreen is available on other mobile platforms. $0.99 2.5 stars iTunes

If you can only download one: Get the GoodGuide.  Reviewers praise the level of detail in the GoodGuide database as well as its ease of use.

Shopping, Food, Transportation, Energy Monitoring, Recycling, Business and Activism, Entertainment, News, and Green Living Tips.

Union of Concerned Scientists

In what proves to be an appropriate opening to Thoreau’s Legacy, a new anthology of first-person accounts of global warming, Nijhuis writes that spring flowers on the shores of Walden now bloom about seven-days earlier than they did during Henry David Thoreau’s time.  Even the landscape that spurred 150 years of environmental writing is not immune to the forces of climate change.

A joint project by Union for Concerned Scientists and Penguin Classics, Thoreau’s Legacy explores the subtle and overt ways that global warming is changing the United States. The anthology consists of a foreword by novelist Barbara Kingsolver and 67 stories and images from writers, photographers, activists, scientists, and students on the personal impacts of climate change.

“It’s been very satisfying for us to have been able to help generate public participation in this project,” said Elda Rotor, editorial director at Penguin Classics. “We hope their voices will be heard; particularly as Congress debates legislation to reduce the pollution that contributes to global warming.” 

Thoreau’s Legacy is available online as an interactive book. The publishers said hardcover and e-book editions will be available soon.

For more information, visit the Thoreau’s Legacy website.

Ohio media sources are reporting that Piketon, a small town 60-miles south of Columbus, could be in line to get a new nuclear power plant. Gov. Ted Strickland (D), Sen. George Voinovich (R), Rep. Jean Schmidt (R) and officials from Duke Energy and French nuclear company Areva were in Piketon Thursday to announce plans for the plant.

Piketon, the former site of a uranium enrichment facility, is considered highly desirable for a nuclear facility because of its high capacity transmission lines and water resources, reported the Columbus Dispatch. According to the energy companies, the plant would create 4,000 “clean energy” jobs in Piketon — impressive for a town of 2,000.

But not so fast. Though some coverage incorrectly suggested that the Piketon plant is a done deal, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission would beg to differ.

“We have not received an application for the plant,” said Scott Burnell of the NRC Office of Public Affairs.

According to Burnell, the process for acquiring NRC’s approval could take up to five years: first an 18-24 month period for the energy companies to collect the information for the NRC permit application, and then a 2.5-year period for the NRC to review the application. “It could very likely go longer than that,” said Burnell.

If the Piketon initiative, led by Duke Energy, is successful, it would be the first nuclear plant to be constructed in the U.S. since construction began on the River Bend plant in Louisiana in 1977.

Farmer Joel Salatin of Polyface Farm in Virginia.Photo: Food, Inc.

Do you eat food?

1. Yes, three-square meals a day. Add 1 million points.
2. No, I’m not into that right now. Subtract 50 points.

Have you read The Ominvore’s Dilemma?

1. Yes, I loved it.  I own a signed first edition, and I have a poster of Michael Pollan in my bedroom. I can probably recite the text of the 2008 Farm Bill from memory.  Do you want me to try? Subtract 50 points.
2. Well, I started it.  I read the bit about corn, and the crazy farmer in Virginia who slaughters his own chickens, but the chapter about Big Organic went on and on, and yeah, I decided to read The Devil Wears Prada instead. Add 1 million points.
3. No.  I work for Monsanto.  I’m reading this to track “organic” propaganda. You enviros are all wussies. Add 50 points. 

Where does meat come from?

1. Industrial CAFOS that poison our food system, pollute toxic waste, emit greenhouse gasses, depend on fossil fuels, exploit our livestock, and damage local economies.  Subtract 50 points.
2. The store! Right? Maybe the farm? Add 1 million points.
3. A thriving agricultural system that supports our farmers, contributes to the economy, and feeds the world. Now, I’ve copied this URL into my database, and BTW, we’re scanning IP addresses too. Expect to hear from our lawyers. Add 50 points.

Total your score …

Over 1 million points: Should you see Food, Inc.? Yes.  Right now.  Run. Run out to the movie theater and buy a ticket for you and anyone around you. Let’s face it, you’re interested in food issues, a little afraid of E. coli, and against your better judgment, you’re never going to pick up that copy of the OD ever again. That’s why Food, Inc. is here; it’s essentially the movie version of OD, with a little bit of Fast Food Nation thrown in for good measure (Eric Schlosser is a producer of the film).

Besides the politics, Food, Inc. is a riveting documentary.  Fast-paced and chock full of detail, the film does not shy from shocking, rarely-seen footage.  Want a glimpse of a modern-day chicken coop? What about the meat filler in your hamburger? Ever seen someone slit a chicken’s neck? Welcome to our food system.  This is where your lunch came from.

Between zero and 1 million points: Chances are this movie wasn’t really made with you in mind*.  You know more about food politics than the filmmakers do, and Food, Inc. is an awaken-the-masses-with-bright-colors-and-scary-footage documentary.  Much like what “Who Killed the Electric Car?” did for electric vehicles, the film’s aim is surely to bring the food debate to the mainstream.

Even if you effectively have a PhD in biological pest management, there is still something to be gained from seeing Food, Inc. When I saw the film, I was surprised to learn that batteries contain corn products, and that within 12 years the amount of Roundup Ready soy grown in this U.S. spiked from 2 to 90 percent of all U.S. soy beans. (For the record, Monsanto was very displeased with how it was characterized in the film and has since published a counter website) Plus, you can take your non-foodie friends and watch their jaws drop when they see a CAFO on the big screen.

* Exception! Do you utter Michael Pollan’s name in the same breath as “communist” or “arugula”? Do your paychecks come from the globe’s dominant GMO seed purveyor? Did you consider “3″ at all? If so, you should make it a priority to see the inside of a CAFO or hear farmers speak frankly about your company’s products. Even if you shudder at the word “organic,” you should see Food, Inc. to flesh out your understanding of the food system.

Under 0 points: I urge you to reconsider some life choices. But what the hell? Yes, you too should see Food, Inc.

Watch it: Food, Inc. opened in theaters in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco on June 12. The film opens in Seattle and other cities across the country Jun 19.  Check the film website to find a screening.

Can’t wait until 2010 for the Chevy Volt (or Coda or Fisker Karma or Chrysler Circuit)? Check out these electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles that are either on the market now or will be by the end of 2009.

In slideshow order:

• Aptera 2e
• Th!nk City
• Subaru Stella
• Toyota Prius extended-range hybrid
• Mitsubishi i-MiEV
• smart fortwo electric drive
• BYD Auto F3DM
• MINI E
• Tesla Roadster

The End of the Line isn’t going to make you feel so good about hitting the neighborhood sushi bar.In fact, if I had any money to invest in a seafood venture, Carl Safina’s suggestion to “consider the jellyfishburger” may be the best advice. By mid-century, jellyfish may be the only “fish” left to catch.

Though it lacks the starpower of a certain former vice president, The End of the Line does for the fish what Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth did for the climate: scare the pants off the viewer. The documentary deftly makes the case that industrial exploitation of the world’s fish stocks will result in the end of seafood by 2048, if not sooner, and that some species may already be in collapse.

Accompanied by many graphs, interviews with prominent marine scientists, and scenes of gruesome fishing practices, Charles Clover, a British journalist and narrator of this film, says that he first became aware of the dangers of overfishing when he mistakenly stepped into a meeting at The Hague in the early 1990s. “They said that trawling is like plowing a field seven times a year,” he said. “As a farmer’s son, I know that you can’t possibly plow a field that often and expect it to produce.”

The film particularly highlights the plight of the Atlantic bluefin tuna, whose breeding population may have already collapsed in 2007. Because high-end restaurants like Nobu fetch high prices for bluefin, some in the fishing industry have regularly ignored international quotas for the endangered bluefin, and the quotas themselves tend to be much higher than the science suggests.

In 2008, scientists recommended to the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas that quotas should be set at 10,00-15,000 tons of bluefin per year to regenerate the fish stock. ICCAT chose to set them at 29,000 tons. And the fishing industry? It hauled 61,000 tons anyway.

The last 20 minutes of the documentary, which offer suggestions for how consumers can make changes, feel like an afterthought. And after the powerful first 70 minutes, which effectively frighten viewers about the state of the world’s fish stocks, the consumer tips fall flat.

Though it’s predictably grim (what environmental documentary about the oceans is going to be reassuring?), there were some moments that took me by surprise. Did you know lobster is on the upswing? And some fishing practices in the United States (yes, the U.S.A.!) are considered on the cutting edge of sustainable practices? What’s more, any environmental documentary that ends with comforting words from former Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens certainly knows its, um, fishy business.

Gruesome, candid, and definitely not a date movie, The End of the Line is required viewing for anyone who’s ever snacked on the bounty of the sea.

Watch it: In honor of World Oceans Day, The End of the Line will show June 8 at the Seattle International Film Festival. Check the SIFF website for details.

For readers outside of Seattle, check the film’s website for many screenings in the U.S. and the U.K. during the month of June.

Picture in your mind the Niger River Delta. What do you think of? Water, mangrove trees, fishing boats?

Wrong.

Try brown sludge-filled waterways flanked by constantly flaring gas stacks. Welcome to Oporoza, Nigeria — the place where 10 percent of U.S. oil imports originates.

When filmmaker Sandy Cioffi traveled to Oporoza in 2006 to make a documentary about a community library, she did not expect to return with Sweet Crude, a film that mentions AK-47s more than books. But at the library’s opening ceremony, a student group (read: political activist group) protested, objecting to Chevron’s role in funding the library and calling for local resource control. At that point, Cioffi started to see a larger story about the oil industry’s exploitation of Nigeria.

In Sweet Crude, we see the polluted rivers, the smoggy skies, the assassinated political leaders, the depressed villagers, the corrupt government leaders, the corrupt oil executives, the violent resistance fighters, the non-violent activists, the academic experts, the inept Western reporters, and even the arrested (yes, arrested) filmmaker herself. And if you’re starting to feel like that’s a lot of drama for a 100-minute movie, you’re right.

Sweet Crude is long. And it’s unwieldy. Cioffi starts with a discussion with local political leaders on the environmental devastation of the delta region, follows with a primer on Nigerian history, then debates violent vs. non-violent resistance, and ends with an indictment of the Western media’s neglect of the Niger River Delta story. In each instance, she presents an elegant case, but she could have made four documentaries here, not one. Jamming all that material into one long film does a disservice to the bigger story.

However, it’s hard to criticize Cioffi because her work provides an excellent expose of the downside of being a petro-state. The narrative of oil production causing misery for developing nations is not new, but watching someone in his mid-20s — who, by the way, speaks perfect English and is dressed in Western clothes just like yours — tell you that the life expectancy of his region has fallen from 60 to 40 years in just the last decade — that’s chilling.

What Cioffi does in Sweet Crude that’s so memorable is simply to bring the human element of oil exploitation to the big screen. Westerners may be familiar with stories of gas price spikes caused by Nigerian rebel attacks, but rarely do we see the faces of the people behind the attacks or consider their rationale for engaging in such warfare. Considering the U.S. alone purchases 48 percent of the oil that Nigeria produces, it’s time we start to face, and see the faces of, the consequences of our oil habit.

Watch it: Sweet Crude is showing at the Seattle International Film Festival on June 13. Check the SIFF schedule for details.

For readers outside of Seattle, check the Sweet Crude website for details on other screenings.

In the Carteret Islands, Papua New Guinea, a rise in sea level is cutting off people’s supplies of fresh water and fertile land. The islands’ residents will be among the first people to be forced to migrate due to climate change.Photo by Toby Parkinson for Oxfam America

“The Next Wave” by Jennifer Redfearn and Tim Metzger follows the Carteret islanders as they take steps to relocate their community, which is located on an atoll off the Pacific island of New Guinea (see a map of the Carterets). The islanders need to move because rising sea levels have polluted their fresh water wells with salt water. High tides flood more and more of the islands, and erosion is a growing problem.

This eight-minute film follows some of the Carterets as they travel to Tinputz on the nearby island of Bougainville to investigate relocation on the “mainland” (Bougainville is about two-thirds the size of Connecticut). According to the film, this is their third attempt at relocation.

Warning to Grist readers: this film is earnest. Very earnest. And it leans heavily toward lamenting the loss of the Carterets’ cultural identity. But its message is loud and clear: climate change is real. Rising sea levels are going to displace a lot of people, and the aftermath is going to be much harder to deal with than we presently expect.

Redfearn is also working on a feature-length film, “Sun Come Up,” on the Carterets. Find out more on the Redfearn’s blog at the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting Web site. Dan Box is also documenting the Carterets’ migration on his blog and for BBC Radio 4.

Below is a video report Redfearn produced for the Pulitzer Center:

Mai Iskander presents Al Gore with a drawing made by the children at The Recycling School in Cairo.Courtesy Garbage Dreams via FlickrBut the trash also presents an opportunity. For the past 50 years, one group of people in Cairo has made its living collecting and recycling one- to two-thirds of Cairo’s residential waste. Profiled in Mai Iskander’s new documentary film, “Garbage Dreams,” the Zaballeen — Arabic for garbage collectors — daily whisk trash bags from doorsteps in Cairo’s upper-class neighborhoods, bring the bags back to their own neighborhoods, and separate the recyclables from the rest of the waste. And at this task they are extraordinarily efficient.

Winner of the Al Gore Reel Current award for film, Garbage Dreams opens with jaw-dropping scenes of Mokottam, Cairo’s largest trash village. Piles of food waste and two-story mountains of aluminum cans clutter the streets. Pigs dart between trucks hauling crates of plastic bottles. While we ogle at how the Zaballeen could possibly live under a leaning tower of pizza boxes, Iskander notes that of all the waste we see in that neighborhood, the Zaballeen recycle more than 80 percent of it. Point of reference: in the U.S. we’re lucky to recycle one-third of household waste [PDF].

The film follows Adham, Nabil, and Osama, three teenage boys trying to make a living in the garbage trade, and Laila, a community social worker who liberally dispenses tetanus shots and tries to organize the Mokottam community into a more modern business operation. Laila’s work becomes more and more critical in the film as the city of Cairo grants contracts to foreign multi-national waste haulers, thus depriving the Zaballeen of the trash that provides their income.

As trash disappears, tense community meetings take place. Many Zaballeen believe that they need to modernize and out-compete the waste-haulers, while others argue that the incursion of the foreign companies represents the end for their way of life. Iskander deftly balances these competing points of view with confessional-style interviews, and evocatively portrays the financial and personal crises squeezing the Zaballeen (not to mention environmental crisis brought on by the fact that the waste haulers were only contracted to recycle 20 percent of collected waste.)

But the film is not all gloom and doom. Spliced in between the scenes of combative community meetings, Iskander highlights the Recycling School in Mokottam where Zaballeen children learn to read, to break down plastic bottles, and to create Excel spreadsheets (maybe they can tutor me?). After the waste-haulers came to Cairo, the school organized a field trip to show the children the large landfills where the foreign companies dumped the waste — recyclables and all.

To its detriment, Garbage Dreams begins with a touch of a sob-story sentiment. At one early point a young man sighs on a voiceover that he never wished to be born a Zaballeen. But after the introduction of the foreign waste haulers, the narrative of the film markedly shifts from a story about the stigma of being garbage collectors to a story about how to capitalize on the business opportunity that waste presents.

If you’re not sold already on watching how a community disposes of a mountain of soda bottles, it’s totally worth the $11 and 80 minutes to see Adham’s reaction when he learns that the people of Wales (and most other places in the West, for that matter) recycle less than half of what the Zaballeen do.

Watch It: Garbage Dreams is showing at the Seattle International Film Festival on June 9 and 10. Check the SIFF schedule for details.

For readers outside of Seattle, check the Garbage Dreams website for details on other screenings.