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Grist Master MCs

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Oh, Heartland Institute. We thought you were climate-sanity adversaries on par with Sauron, but your latest PR move reminds us more of Wile E. Coyote: desperate overreach followed by spectacular flameout.

Let’s get up to speed. Ahead of its 7th International Conference on Climate Change (which is basically like Burning Man for deniers, but with more peyote and charts), the Chicago-based climate denial think tank launched a billboard campaign on the Eisenhower Expressway that equates belief in climate change to mass murder. It did so by featuring the looming mugs of Ted “The Unabomber” Kaczynski, Fidel Castro, and Charles Manson next to the phrase, “I still believe in global warming. Do you?”

Its reasons were plain: “Still believing in man-made global warming … is more than a little nutty. In fact, some really crazy people use it to justify immoral and frightening behavior.” But before the Heartland Institute folks could realize their dream of launching future billboards connecting Osama Bin Laden with wind power or John Wayne Gacy with backyard chickens, massive public outcry led them to cancel the campaign. LOLsob:

We know that our billboard angered and disappointed many of Heartland’s friends and supporters, but we hope they understand what we were trying to do with this experiment. We do not apologize for running the ad, and we will continue to experiment with ways to communicate the ‘realist’ message on the climate.

I won’t get into quaint optimism of launching a modern PR “experiment” by billboard (what internet?). I can’t even take umbrage at the fact that the Heartland Institute hopes to paint us kindly climate advocates as bunker-dwelling psychos with stockpiles of C4. Mostly, I’m just sad that I won’t ever get to have a highway commute filled with an unending parade of psychotic killers and genocidal madmen serenading me with universal truths and acknowledged facts.

But you know what? Someone famous (and probably from Hollywood) once said that you must be the change you want to see in the world. Because one should never ignore the advice of famous people, we at Grist have taken the liberty of continuing Heartland’s noble mission.

Behold: a rogue’s gallery of some of the world’s greatest killers, sociopaths, despots, and evildoers — all sharing incontrovertible truths and proven science fact.

P.S.: We’re just getting started.

Here at Grist HQ, we’re in the unique position of receiving a press release about every targeted Earth Day campaign in existence. No matter what we say to the collective PR hive mind, come Earth Day they always make sure we’re fielding pitches like a young Joe Garagiolo. And bless ‘em for it, because with the dire state our atmosphere’s in (insert second Sriracha joke here), we sure could use the yuks.

We figured you can, too. Here are some of our favorites this year.

Cheap Trick headlines Earth Day rally on the National Mall: Can’t say that dad-rock granddad-rock will bring in the kiddies like Wiz Kalifa or even Flaming Lips (they headlined in 2009), but Rick Nielsen windmilling on his signature gazillion-necked guitar is a powerful argument for wind energy.

Celebrate Earth’s 400th birthday with … Ed Norton?: OK, we get that it’s pretty much all been downhill since Primal Fear, but did Edward Norton really approve that image? (But seriously, Ed’s a U.N. biodiversity ambassador, and as all U.N. ambassadors know, the Earth is only 400 years old. Just ask Angelina.)

Ford teams up with Adrian Grenier: We thought we had Earth Day celebrities covered with Ed, but Entourage’s Adrian Grenier sneaks in on a technicality: “He’s sexy, FWIW,” says an anonymous staffer.

NASCAR to plant trees at Santa Rosa Elementary School: NASCAR Green Clean Air tree planting. Never mind that NASCAR is fucking the Earth with its very existence.

Extrabux will plant a tree for every purchase made: Go ahead and buy that hoochie dress from Forever 21. It’s also a forest now.

MyRegistry.com eco-friendly babycare products: “If you’re expecting, support our planet this Earth Day by registering for an organic hammock to rock your baby to sleep in, or an eco-friendly diaper bag to carry bottles and baby wipes while on the go. Before your baby can take his first step or utter her first word, he or she can make a contribution to the environment.” Do you guys carry a Baby Einstein for irony?

Earth Day? More like Earth Gay: No jokes here, since this is one campaign we actually dig: Out For Sustainability expands eco-awareness for the LGBTQ community and beyond. They’re spreading to four cities this year and 20+ next year.

Some crap is free: Not everyone’s selling something on Earth Day — some folks are just givin’ it away. Get free reusable bags, Origins skin cleanser, Pottery Barn sunflower seeds (huh?), burritos from Chipotle, green cleaners from Whole Foods, and “scenery” from our national parks, who’ll offer free admittance on Earth Day.

The Real Housewives of Orange County go green: “The ladies take a ‘glamping’ trip to Santa Barbara and one housewife dishes about her decision to drive a Prius.” A Prius?!? BE still my heart: Who says reality TV doesn’t create role models?

Earth Day 1970 revisited: Don’t let that handsome tree fool you: “Free-market” Earth Day is code for “no Earth Day at all.”

MAVEA water filtration pitchers: “We can’t think of a better way to commemorate [Earth Day] and rededicate yourself to a healthy, sustainable lifestyle than with a MAVEA water filtration pitcher.” Really? I can think of about 3,000 better ways, and about half of them involve destroying MAVEA water filtration pitchers. The other half involve Adrian Grenier. (Also, a note to MAVEA’s spelling-bee champion: Can you help me locate this “While Foods” you mention in your press release? I’ve never heard of it.)

TREE WRITES A BOOK CALLED A Kindle Saved My Life
[Ed. note: Original emphasis preserved because it's inscrutably awesome.]: “The author, known only as The Tree, writes that he hails from a forest that supplies a major book publisher and penned A Kindle Saved My Life to express his gratitude for the new lease on life afforded him by the e-reader. The Tree informs and entertains, sharing tree-saving tips and views on topics from the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree to famous actors who’ve played trees. The Tree even weighs in on Chaz Bono’s gender change (and explains why it’s relevant).”

Nothing says ‘Earth Day’ like ‘national tragedy’: From an actual Care2 email received by a Grist staffer: “Good morning. Wednesday is the 45th day since the murder of Trayvon Martin. Also, remember to keep up with our Earth Day coverage every day in April! Have a wonderful holiday.” We have no words.

Earth Day is for pets, too: “What better way to celebrate Earth Day than by treating your cat a lush, edible bed of oat grass or a pinch of Certified Organic Catnip?” My cat celebrates Earth Day by murdering invasive spiders and sleeping, thank you very much.

Zlango Icon Messaging “Goes Green” this Earth Day: “Users can now add even more personal expression to their mobile messaging with unique icons that share emotive, funny and serious sentiments about Earth Day with a set of funny, cheeky and even educational icons that add a ‘green’ dimension to everyday messages.” Seems to me the only dimension I need to add to everyday messages is DELETE.

That’s about all we can stomach this year. In the meantime: Happy Earth Day, Earth! You don’t look a day over 388!

When writer and outdoorsman Mike Lanza realized climate change was staking a full-scale assault on our most beloved national parks, he didn’t just lament about how his kids wouldn’t get to experience them the way he did. Instead, he saddled up his entire family — wife Penny, son Nate, 10, and daughter Alex, 7 — with packs, kayaks, and climbing gear and embarked on a year-long mission to visit them all. His new book Before They’re Gone: A Family’s Year-Long Quest to explore America’s Most Endangered National Parks chronicles the adventure. He took some time to answer a few questions about our changing parks, life-list trip planning, and educating the next generation about climate change through adventures in the great outdoors.

Q. What moment did the idea to take your kids out for this book hit you? 

A. I had been researching and writing stories about the impacts of climate change on national parks and wilderness, and increasingly understanding that much of this fallout will occur within my kids’ lifetimes. But in September 2009, I returned to Glacier National Park to backpack for six days and met briefly with a leading federal scientist there, Dan Fagre, whom I had interviewed two years earlier for a story about the park’s glaciers. At that time, his models forecasted the glaciers in the park all disappearing by 2030. When I spoke with him again in 2009, he said they had revised that previous forecast because warming and glacial recession had sped up faster than anticipated: The projected year for no more glaciers in Glacier National Park was now 2020. I thought, Wow, my kids will be just 19 and 17 then. This is not far off in the future — it’s right around the corner.

Alex hiking in the Grand Canyon.

I started thinking more and more in the fall of 2009 that we should get the kids to these places that mean so much to my wife and me as soon as we can. It wasn’t as if glaciers were going to disappear the next year. But it’s easy to get caught up in life and not achieve the goals you set, not see the places you want to see. I’ve long believed that you have to just have to get out and do things because you never know what’s in store for the future.

Q. A lot of people would love to do something like this, but they couldn’t ever dream of pulling it off. How’d you do it? What were the biggest logistical hurdles?

A. Part of the answer is that this is what I do for work. But I did this even years ago, before I made a living at it. Planning 11 major trips in a year’s time is definitely a lot of work. I researched where to go, reserved permits, arranged travel (some trips involved flights and lodging), packed and sorted and dried out and repacked gear numerous times, wrote hundreds of emails to outfitters and other people in the know, and figured out where to shoehorn each trip into the calendar. We made six of the 11 trips between late June and late August 2010; we weren’t at home very much that summer, and that alone can get tiring. In the busy lives that most people lead, to do things like this you have to plan months in advance and put dates on the calendar, or it’ll never happen.

But that said, we don’t look back on that year and think about the hassle of trip planning and travel. We think back on all the amazing experiences we had and the places we saw. At one point during our last trip for this book, canoeing in the Ten Thousand Islands of Everglades National Park, right after my son, who had turned 10 by then, and I had sat in our canoe watching a dolphin swim laps around a small bay for about 20 minutes, he said to me, totally unprompted: “You know, Dad, thinking back on this past year, and all the trips we’ve done, I think it might be my best year ever.”

My kids gleaned a rare kind of perspective from this experience that I believe will guide them for the rest of their lives.

Q. Were you worried for your kids? How did you deal with issues of safety?

A. I think it’s natural for any parent to worry more than necessary and it’s probably impossible to cure yourself of worrying. Penny and I had long, serious conversations about the wisdom of taking young kids backpacking in grizzly country; or sea kayaking in waters patrolled by orcas, where capsizing could mean dying of hypothermia within 15 minutes; paddling among alligators in the Everglades; or rock climbing, among other concerns. We’ve had the misfortune of seeing people die in backcountry accidents, so we know how dangerous the wilderness can be.

Alex and Nate in Rocky Mountain National Park.

But frankly, I’m more worried about my kids growing up without a love of the outdoors than I am about their safety in the backcountry. I take the same approach when they’re with me in the wilderness as I always have on my own trips. I want to know as much as I can about the environment we’re entering and how to manage its potential hazards. I explain this stuff to them; they’re remarkably good about avoiding dangers, although I still keep a close eye on them. I think that, statistically, they’re at greater risk on the drive to the park than they are on the trail.

Q. Which place was your favorite? How about for Nate, Alex, and Penny?

A. We’d all rank sea kayaking in Glacier Bay, Alaska, among our favorites. Incredible scenery with glaciated mountains rising thousands of feet straight up out of the sea, glaciers calving bus-sized blocks of ice with explosive cracks, and wildlife like you can’t see in many places: brown bears, sea lions, seals, bald eagles, an abundance of bird life. We all loved backpacking in the Grand Canyon because it’s so spectacular; the Everglades for the exotic birds, alligators (though Penny was petrified of them), gorgeous sunsets, and wilderness beach camping; as well as cross-country skiing to frozen waterfalls and thermal features in Yellowstone. I’m a big fan of Glacier National Park, where my kids saw their first mountain goat up close. Penny really liked backpacking in the North Cascades, a place where the two of us have a lot of personal history. Our kids considered backpacking the Olympic coast one of their favorites, for the fascinating sea life found in the tide pools, and, of course, because they played on the beach every day.

Alex and Penny canoeing in the Everglades.

Q. Were there any places that were so tragic (or that had changed so much, or threatened to change so much) as to taint the experience? 

A. Honestly, no. Having done so much research, I saw these places partly within the context of knowing what was in store for them and how much change has already occurred. But I think it’s impossible to taint the wonderful experience of getting into the wilderness in a national park. It’s the kind of thing a child never forgets, and that can, I believe, change the course of your life. The outdoors has certainly done that for me — I didn’t grow up doing these activities. I only started hiking after college, and for 25 years my life has revolved around the outdoors. I’d like that for my kids.

Q. Getting to all these places obviously required a lot of carbon. Did that ever trouble you?

A. Yes. I’m kind of a nut about energy consumption. I’m the one who’s constantly turning off lights in empty rooms in our house and insisting that our family can ride our bikes around town instead of drive, even when the weather’s crappy. Right now, with my wife at work and the kids at school (I work at home), my thermostat is set at 60. I bike or walk local errands year-round, so I’m able to keep my personal car trips to four or five per week, and I put about 12,000 miles a year on my Subaru Outback (I used to drive twice as much when I commuted to a job), while my wife drives a Prius. So I try to be conscious of minimizing my carbon footprint, but recognize that I’m like a lot of people in that my work and preferred forms of recreation require some travel.

Part of the colossal challenge we face in reducing our emissions is getting beyond the sense of hopelessness that is exacerbated by guilt. Yes, we’re all part of the problem. But we can accept that responsibility while at the same time taking positive action. We have to take whatever personal steps we can each take to reduce energy consumption and simultaneously demand societal progress on climate policy of our elected officials. I hope people will always long to visit our national parks. I don’t think Americans will decide to stop traveling. To truly address this problem, we have to change our energy systems. I hope my book helps motivate that kind of change.

Q. On what level did Nate and Alex comprehend the significance of the trip? How did it affect them emotionally?

A. Nate was 9 when we started, 10 when we finished. Alex turned 7 a week before the first trip (she hiked one 10-mile day and climbed 4,000 feet uphill on another day in the Grand Canyon, a week after her 7th birthday — do I sound proud?); and we did the last trip, in the Everglades, a month before she turned 8. So Nate, who loves science and reads voraciously, had a better ability to understand the issues surrounding climate change, and he and I actually had fairly intelligent conversations about it. Alex developed a more refined comprehension of the subject than the average 7-year-old; in fact, probably more than the average adult (sad to say).

Nate and Alex hiking in Glacier National Park.

Q. Everyone knows a child’s mind can sometimes cut through a lot of BS to reveal an unvarnished, simple truth about a complex issue. Did you hear Alex or Nate saying anything like this in regards to climate change, or your trip in general?

A. One of my favorite anecdotes comes from something Alex said. We were day hiking to Upper Yosemite Falls, and reached a point about 1,000 feet above Yosemite Valley where the trail rounds a bend and you get your first full-on view looking up at this column of water free-falling 1,430 feet, spreading out in a massive white curtain that gusts of wind periodically blow sideways, making the waterfall appear to tilt in defiance of gravity. Staring up at it, Alex asked me, “How does the water get up the mountain?” Of course, from below, the waterfall appears to magically erupt from the rim of this enormous granite cliff. So I explained to her that, way up there beyond sight, there’s a lot of snow melting that feeds the creek flowing over this waterfall.

One inevitable outcome of warming temperatures is that there will be less snowfall in the High Sierra, as in mountains around the globe. There already is measurably less snowfall, in fact, and snowpacks across the West melt out two to four weeks earlier than 60 years ago. More winter precipitation will fall as rain instead of snow. Waterfalls and streams will reach peak runoff increasingly earlier in spring instead of in early summer, when more hikers and tourists are in the park. There will be profound and widespread impacts on virtually every animal and plant species, which are adapted to having water available in summer. I saw my daughter’s simplistic question as a metaphor for a fast-approaching future in which we will see the impacts of not having water on the mountain.

Q. How can you keep the lessons you learned on this trip alive, long after the trips become memories and everyone goes back to school and regular life resumes?

A. In the year that has passed since our last trip for my book, we’ve had many conversations in my family about climate change, and my kids are able to speak confidently when their teachers talk about it at school. I think the subject interests them in part because they’ve had such a personal, visceral experience in places that they now associate with global warming.

The whole family at Glacier Bay, Alaska.

As for the outdoors, it’s really so central to our lifestyle as a family that it’s not something we have to make the effort to remind them of. Nate (now 11) went backcountry skiing with me for the first time this winter. All of us took our annual four-day ski trip to a backcountry yurt that we do with another family. When we were discussing what to do over the kids’ spring break from school, which was the last week of March, the kids insisted that we go backpacking and slot canyoneering, so we did just that in Capitol Reef National Park. We’re planning a family climbing trip to the City of Rocks in June, a nine-day hut trek in Norway in July, and a four-day backpacking trip in the Wind River Range in August. I have to carve out time for an annual “boy trip” that Nate and I take (we often backpack, but may rock climb this year) and a “girl trip” for Alex and me (she likes to call our father-daughter getaway a “girl trip”).

Q. This is obviously an inspirational tale. What do you hope it inspires people (specifically, parents with kids) to do?

A. I’ve heard many parents say to me, “We used to do this stuff before the kids came along.” Don’t stop getting outdoors because you have kids. Go out and have fun with your kids, starting when they’re babies, choosing activities appropriate for their age. It can be a lot of work with little ones, and not always fun, but I always saw it as an investment in my future because I was hopefully instilling in my kids a love for the outdoors. Now I’m reaping the payoff. For parents who were not previously outdoors people, start now at whatever level that’s within your mental and physical comfort zone. Kids aren’t fine china; they’re stronger and more resilient than we often give them credit for, and their curiosity and enthusiasm will inspire and reward you. And talk to them about climate change.

If you had to choose a Public Enemy No. 1 for the food movement this year, pink slime would be a strong contender. This slurry of ammonia-soaked leftover “fatty trimmings” from industrial meat has been used in everything from school lunches to McDonald’s Big Macs. Now, after much public outcry, fast-food chains have dropped it, and the USDA has started to pay attention to its presence in school lunches.

But small-scale organic meat producers across the country are discovering something unexpected about pink slime: They actually like it.

Bob Chilliwack, an organic, grass-fed beef producer from Boulder, Mont., admits that pink slime adds a special something to a Big Mac that he couldn’t replicate in his own home-cooked burgers. “The trick is finding a way to produce it for our audience of eco-conscious customers,” Chilliwack says. “I don’t agree with most of what industrial agriculture does, but when it comes to the ‘lean, finely textured beef’ they achieve with pink slime, well, they’ve got it dialed.”

So Chilliwack set out to create a “sustainable pink slime” from leftover beef bits of his own pasture-raised cows. The result has an artisanal streak (natural cleaning products like white vinegar stand in for industrial ammonia), but it still retains the undeniable taste, tang, and texture of classic pink slime.

“Since we’re producing it in an all-natural, sustainable fashion, I’m calling it ‘green slime,’” he says. “Which I guess is a little confusing, since it’s still more of a bloody pink in color.”

Chilliwack isn’t alone. Others in the food movement are taking up the charge of creating their own brands of pink slime all over the country. And they all aspire to provide the same combination of all-natural ingredients and local flair they add to their pampered meats.

“Not having ammonia to work with makes it tough to achieve the same texture,” says Bryan Clegane, of Santa Fe’s Rio Grande Ranch. “But I find that if we can age our slime and work in a bit of natural gelatin, we approach the right mouthfeel. Additionally, we can apply our secret blend of 31 Southwestern spices to make sure our pink slime has the same fiery bite as our dry-aged ribeyes.”

Harder to replicate is Big Ag’s generous cocktail of antibiotics. While it’s hard to identify any flavor or texture directly associated with it, true connoisseurs usually say they can detect its absence. To make up for it, ranchers and artisanal butchers have tried adding various amounts and combinations of natural antibiotics like tea tree oil, echinacea, and colloidal silver. But few are satisfied with the result.

“Sometimes you just can’t imitate the lingering aftertaste of a really nice cephalosporin,” said Chilliwack.

But not all local meat producers are convinced. Jamie Stark owns Portland, Ore.’s The Beefery, a high-end butcher shop with connections to several lauded ranches within a 100-mile radius of the city. He takes a jaded view of the local meat industry aping anything pioneered by industrial agriculture.

“What are you, some kind of idiot?” he replied in a telephone interview. “Pink slime without ammonia or antibiotics already exists. It’s called sausage.”

Related:

• April fooled? See if you can spot real news among made-up stories.

Aiming for climate action? Maybe.

In a mad rush to hitch themselves to the pop-culture rocket sauce of The Hunger Games, a few media outlets (uh, guilty as charged) have suggested that the dystopian appeal of the books and now movies draws strength from the young’uns’ acceptance of the climate-disaster-addled hellhole they are destined to inherit. I’m not so sure. Suzanne Collins’ fleet prose is built for action; she largely skips the details of her futuristic world of Panem so that we can get on with the underage stabbin’. As such, any allusions to climate change must be drawn from one line:

[The mayor] tells of the history of Panem. He lists the disasters, the droughts, the storms, the fires, the encroaching seas that swallowed up so much of the land, the brutal war for what little sustenance remained. The result was Panem, a shining Capitol ringed by thirteen districts … ”

Is that enough for kids to draw connections between the fantasy world du jour and their own? Can Hunger Games make this generation care more about climate than the last? Curiously absent from this conversation are the Voices of the Youth themselves. So I decided to head into the belly of the beast: I would go to a midnight premiere in downtown Seattle to talk to the climate disaster survivors of the future. (It would be like war reporting, but with higher-pitched screams.)

As I enter the theater, I’m a stranger in a strange land. Even though I’ve burned through the books detailing heroine Katniss Everdeen’s struggle to win a battle royale against other teens for the entertainment of the oppressive Capitol government, I’m unprepared to translate the agitated parrot chatter of the tween crush around me. I think about reverting to hand signals when Laura and Lyla*, both 14, take pity on this old wretch to answer a few questions.

“Um, I’ve never read the books before,” says Lyla, “But I’m here because they kill each other — for the action.”

Not exactly a promise to follow Copenhagen 2025, but she doesn’t sound like someone willing to let the Keystone XL slide without a fight. Gonna put Lyla in the “maybe” column.

“I like to read a lot of dystopian fiction,” says Laura. “I think it’s possible to to end up in a world like that, but with climate change? Who knows. Maybe there’s a 6-out-of-10 chance. It’s hard to know how it’ll all turn out.”

A skeptic who’s good at math: Do I detect a future climate scientist?

I get the stink eye from a couple harrumphing dads chaperoning daughters in clownish makeup. But I duck them to chase down a pack of kids in hand-painted Hunger Games T-shirts.

“It’s about rebellion and standing up for what they believe in,” says Joey, 14. “I like how she has to make her own living off the land.”

Self-sufficiency, foraging, the 99% — it’s all there with this one. Maybe Millennials are going to be just fine.

“I’m wondering how far into the future this is — there’s just so much despair,” says Nadine, 13. “I think the way their government fell apart could happen. Also, like, the love triangle.”

I detect concern with a tendency to hedge, but also a sense of hope and even romance. Writing down “Nadine for president.”

A super-excitable pair of teens in matching white tees, brown Uggs, and black tights can’t stop bouncing up and down. Knowing that I’m shaving precious seat-searching time, I ask questions fast. They answer faster.

“I really like the action — I mean, they’re killing each other,” says Abby, 14. “I have no idea [about climate change], but they’re in the forest, and I don’t feel like that’s going to be a big thing.”

This one thinks we’ll screw up our world even worse than Panem. I think we’ve found a glass-half-empty climate pessimist.

I dash after them to nab a seat. The theater darkens, and after an interminable period of commercials (what’d Adrien Brody do to end up in Schick ads?), we’re transported to the world of Hunger Games in a rush of adolescent screaming. For big-budget entertainment, it’s a surprisingly dour (if well-acted) affair, though things pick up for the tyke-on-tyke bloodletting. Climate change or rising seas get even less play in the film, though there is a bit of Occupy Wall Street flavor to the oppressed and restless masses. And how’s this for dystopian: The hovercrafts and forcefields of the future still run on coal.

As I poll the exits, most of the reactions seem first and foremost concerned with whether the violence in The Hunger Games satisfied expectations. Evaluations range from “hella violent” to “Avengers better be more violent.”

So are the children, who are no doubt our future, more or less connected to the climate fight because of Hunger Games? It’s possible that I wasn’t in the auditorium that featured an extended solar vs. wind debate while the Twilight: Breaking Dawn: Part 2 trailer unspooled. But preliminary data is fuzzy, so we may just have to wait until Hunger Games 2: Catching Fire debuts to know for sure. Until then, I’ll echo the film’s catchphrase and hope “the odds are ever in our favor.”

*No last names for the kiddies. I didn’t want the perv patrol at Regal Theaters beating me with Capitol-like efficiency.

Wait, what was that? This is about shutting off your lights for an hour on March 31 to raise climate awareness? Oh, fine. Earth Hour can be a thing, too.

Plus, Earth Hour has perks Earth Day never got: Victoria’s Secret model Miranda Kerr will broadcast a yoga class (what?) if you pledge to shut off your CFLs. Are you telling me there will be ladies on the internet wearing NOTHING BUT YOGA CLOTHES if I agree to go without lights for an hour? Sign me up!

Stay glassy: What fancy beer tasting parties look like (not ours). (Photo by Cambridge Brewing Co.)

Beer — it’s what’s for dinner.

No, seriously: It sounds like a party T-shirt for bleary-eyed frat boys, but by now we all know Mesopotamians created beer at the dawn of civilization to help stretch their cereal crops, and perhaps to help get them smashed while watching the game. The point is, beer is closer to food than practically any other liquid, and we should treat it as such and ingest only the best. Thankfully, the craft brewers driving the malted beverage industry get this, and the ingredient quality and variety of domestic beers is arguably higher than it’s been in a century.

But while organic beer sales are on the rise overall, they remain a minuscule portion of the market. (Blame hops and barley: Organic versions of these key ingredients are often in short supply and expensive.) Colorado’s New Belgium just announced plans to phase out their Mothership Wit, one of the more high-profile organic beers on the market, because of declining sales. Most specialty stores carry only a handful of organic brews, and a fact-finding mission to Seattle’s Bottleworks bore this out. This is no fluorescent-lit liquor mart stacked with cubes of Natty Light, mind you. It’s more like a wood-trimmed, darkened library of beer, complete with hushed acolytes poring (pouring) over sacred chilled texts. Even here, an otherwise knowledgeable sales associate admitted no one had ever asked specifically for organic beers before. Nevertheless, he deemed the idea “cool” and helped me scour the archives looking for telltale green stickers on frosty bottles.

In the end, I came away with eight organic brews — comparable results to those of past Grist Beer High Priest Tom Philpott, who valiantly braved the malted seas on three separate occasions. Where Philpott convened a panel of experts with refined palates in genteel “temples of flavor,” I chose to taste-test beer as it is typically consumed: among bitter coworkers, straining to bear each other’s company at the end of a long day. (I kid, but come on — it was a Tuesday.)

Herewith, the results of Grist’s first staff organic beer blind taste test, completely scientific and recorded in the office kitchen. In ascending order of preference:

Samuel Smith Organic Lager
Samuel Smith Brewery, Yorkshire, England
Price: $3.99/18.6 oz.
Rating: 5.2

This old veteran of Grist organic beer tastings took a drubbing this time, and mediocrity seemed to be its chief sin. “I forgot it as soon as I started drinking it,” said one nonplussed staffer, while others proclaimed it “nondescript,” “unremarkable,” and “undistinguished.” One taster praised its malty aroma and subtle fruit, but overall response echoed one staffer’s most damning remark: “zzzzzzzzzz.”

Pinkus Mueller Munster Alt
Brauerei Pinkus Mueller, Munster, Germany
Price: $3.99/16.9 oz.
Rating: 5.4

A long German pedigree (the brewery opened in 1866) couldn’t save Pinkus’s Munster Alt from this kiss of death: “Tastes domestic. Yuck.” “Yeah, like PBR,” concurred another taster. Others compared it to “lite beer,” said it tasted like “rubber,” and noted it “smells funny.” A few liked its smooth character and clean, crisp finish, but Pinkus’s Munster Alt earned few committed fans.

Georg Schneider Edel-Weisse
Weisses Bräuhaus G. Schneider & Sohn, Kelheim, Germany
Price: $4.99/16.9 oz.
Rating: 6.1

Tasters were split to extremes on this weisse beer, with haters comparing it to a “menthol cigarette” and lovers comparing it to a “menthol cigarette.” A few drinkers swooned over the strong clove flavor, aroma, and finish; others admired this character while conceding they “couldn’t finish a whole beer.” Grassy “herb” notes drove some to call out its “minty weirdness — a.k.a. it’s complex,” while others praised the beer’s “hoptastic” moments and said “it’s got a beautiful, Belgian-yeast thing going on … it’s spicy and quite tasty.” Ultimately, tasters distanced themselves from the Schneider when it made one tester’s “face go totally angry-viking.” To sum up: “Interesting at first, then it got kinda weird.”

Pinkus Mueller Hefe-Weizen
Brauerei Pinkus Mueller, Munster, Germany
Price: $3.99/16.9 oz.
Rating: 6.2

Pinkus redeemed itself with its hefe-weizen, a “crisp and refreshing” summer beer that brought “little apple notes” and “lemony goodness” to a dreary Seattle day. A fruity nose, light head, and tangy aftertaste kept tasters lingering over the glass, while another scorer gave it the dubious praise of having a “hint of [Miller] High Life.” Caveat: Our most seasoned tester called it “thin and a tad sour,” and one confused tester said it “tastes like someone’s concept of beer and also not like beer at all.”

Pinkus Mueller Jubilate
Brauerei Pinkus Mueller, Munster, Germany
Price: $3.99/16.9 oz.
Rating: 6.7

Pinkus continued face-saving with Jubilate, a dunkel lager flush with “warm, buttery” notes of bourbon and caramel. Tasters praised the burnt amber color and appreciated the creamy head and mildly bitter bite at the finish. One tester enthusiastically hailed it as one of the best beers he’d ever had, while another offered a semi-schizo “pretty good! not the best!” Jubilate’s appeal could be limited, as one tester noted, “[It's] good, but not an everyday beer.”

Organic IPA
Eel River Brewing, Fortuna, Calif.
Price: $1.66/12 oz.
Rating: 7.0

An organic take on English IPAs, multiple testers reacted positively to “dill pickle” flavors. “I can taste Cascade hops — we’re definitely on this side of the Atlantic,” noted one taster correctly. “It’s my kind of beer!” Hop fiends stayed happy, noting they would “happily drink this with a burger,” but hop-haters found it too bitter, too hoppy, and too watery. One tester excused herself from evaluation, saying simply, “me drunk.”

Organic Pale Ale
Butte Creek Brewing, Ukiah, Calif.
Price: $1.66/12 oz.
Rating: 7.4

All-organic California brewery Butte Creek came in strong with the “super-awesome, apricot-like deliciousness” of their flagship Organic Pale Ale. Testers praised a “fuller body,” “notes of apricot,” and the orange aftertaste, while another fan dug the “butterscotch hop flavor.” Even the hop-averse declared it “smooth and not soapy at all,” “tasty,” and “hoppy but not too hoppy.” A lone detractor compared the beer to “shoe leather,” but most thought this beer “interesting in a good (as opposed to weird) way.”

Oatmeal Stout
Fish Tale, Olympia, Wash.
Price: $1.50/12 oz.
Rating: 7.9

Home-court advantage paid off for Fish Tale Oatmeal Stout: It wowed judges with its “hella dark” brown hue and “smooth, full, chocolatey” flavor. One seasoned beer drinker called it a “lovely, well-balanced” stout, and another declared it “molasses-tastic.” Even light-ale cravers called it “delish” and “not as bitter as I thought — like I spilled coffee in my beer.” Highest praise: “I could totally sip this until I could walk no more.” “Is there any left?”

Obama in Nashua in 2007.

With prospective GOP challengers hawking guarantees of Seinfeld-era gas prices, President Obama simultaneously called their bluff on what he called “phony election-year promises” and urged Congress to end $4 billion in subsidies for oil and gas companies. Sure, he’s said it before (most recently in his State of the Union address), but at a stop in Nashua Community College in New Hampshire, Obama put some muscle behind it:

“You can either stand up for the oil companies, or you can stand up for the American people,” Mr. Obama said. “You can keep subsidizing a fossil fuel that’s been getting taxpayer dollars for a century, or you can place your bets on a clean-energy future.”

It took GOP bigwigs approximately four nanoseconds to respond that the president’s move could make oil costs go even higher, while John Boehner needled him over what he perceived to be a reluctance to open the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (which also might not lower costs or stop our Bubbles-esque problems with oil). White House Press Secretary Jay Carney didn’t address whether Obama would tap into the reserve, but affirmed the president was “very concerned” about the pump-fatigued American family.

Though Obama’s clearly ready to put Big Oil in the crosshairs in an election year, for anything to actually, y’know, happen, Obama will have to hope his kick-in-the-pants for oil companies can reverberate through a thus-far paralyzed Congress. Good luck with that, Barry!

Damon and DeChristopher: dead ringers?

With last night’s totally shocking (read: not shocking at all) crowning of The Artist as last year’s best picture, we can finally say good-bye to Oscar season and months of back-patting, overwrought movies about gentle Nazis who can’t read good, or sappy, pseudo-racial vignettes that “help” Hollywood work through white guilt. Angelina Jolie’s leg will get some much-needed rest, and movie studios can get back to coming up with new ways to convince us that a weenie like Shia Labeouf can be a legitimate star. (Is he? I’ll let him answer that.)

Beyond a few second-tier parties and celebrities’ off-time advocacy, greens and green issues are not the focus of the occasion. It’s not that we haven’t had our moments: The emerald years of 2006-7 saw celebs ferried to the red carpet on briefly trendy Priuses (Prii?), and An Inconvenient Truth even brought home Oscar gold for Best Documentary and Best Song. (It was Melissa Etheridge, and no, we don’t remember how it goes, either.) Last year, the flaming faucets of Josh Fox’s Gasland got a nod, and this year, the enviro movement had another runner-up in If A Tree Falls, an ecoterrorism chronicle that bows heavily toward the Julia “Butterfly” Hill school of environmental sympathy.

That’s OK. We don’t need or want another documentary Oscar. Why? Because most people don’t really care about documentaries. I’d argue even the best documentaries carry an unmistakeable “eat-your-veggies” whiff; the ones that don’t just gloss over their message moments with lyrical cinematography or narration from a Teutonic acid journal. It’s not that there isn’t an appetite for docs among smart greens. But Sunrise Birkenstock and Antoine Von Aspiring Filmmaker have multiple opportunities to overdose on green documentaries at boutique film festivals around the country (like the San Francisco Green Film Festival happening this weekend). You can bet they’ll arrive on cruiser bikes and bring their own hand-cured seaweed strips instead of popcorn. Those people are already on board.

To make a real dent in the viewing culture, we need drama. This has been done before: Roland Emmerich’s schlocktacular The Day After Tomorrow, released in 2004, won precisely zero Oscars. But it dominated the pop-cultural conversation for months before and after its release and generated $544 million in ticket sales. And it did it with scenes like this:

Now for a second, imagine this: If half-wit teenagers outrunning lamewad monster freeze waves could inspire continual spots on the national evening news and even a comment or two from the Bush administration, what type of attention might a tense, well-written, Oscar-winning thriller bring?

Haters, before you even say it: Yes, the climate movement has dramatic stories to tell that go beyond converting the “wedges” report into eye-stabbing 3-D. As an example, we need look no further than this year’s Keystone fight. Summon your best trailer voice with me now:

• A respected author rallies thousands of people from across the country to fight an unwinnable battle against an oil pipeline that threatens our way of life. With nothing but voices, bodies, and the truth as weapons, they stare down a billion-dollar enemy, hoping to buy time by nudging impossibly corrupt institutions that are just inches away from disaster.

• In the desert Southwest, an anonymous idealist walks into a Bureau of Land Management auction and outbids crusty wildcatters to buy thousands of acres of gas-rich land adjacent to national parks with millions of dollars he doesn’t have. Seeking to make an example of him, the compromised local government sends him to jail. But instead of shutting him up, they anoint a hero who inspires a movement from behind bars.

• In a small town in the Pennsylvania hills, a widowed and impoverished father of two watches as his neighbors pull up stakes in exchange for millions of dollars and perpetual gas royalties. Eager to hold on to the hills and forests he loves but desperate to provide for his family, he holds out in hopes of wringing every last drop of blood money out of the too-nice-to-be-true drilling companies that visit his door. But the tables turn when his youngest daughter crumbles under a mysterious illness, and his faucets start dripping fire.

OK, maybe I dramatized that last one a bit. (Maybe a lot.) But the first two examples are 100 percent real, no drama added, and the particulars if not the characters of the last one are true. And they all tell part of the same story, the story of real Americans rolling in the dirt, engaged in the fight of their lives: the climate fight.

Filmmakers have and will continue to capture these real-life stories in documentary form (high-five a million angels, Josh Fox!). But Hollywood’s best and brightest could do wonders with this stuff. They should do wonders with this stuff, and not because it’s the right thing to do: They should do it so they can win Oscars and make a crapload of money.

Who could possibly take these three strands and weave them into an all-encompassing, dense meta-narrative rife with Traffic-esque tension, Out Of Sight black humor, and Erin Brockovich personal triumph? Steven Soderbergh, of course.  There’s no filmmaker more suited to taking a multi-pronged political issue and boiling it down into a filter-bleached action vehicle: He made a white-knuckle flick about the war on drugs, for chrissake, and he won an Oscar doing it. His Erin Brockovich bonafides prove he can handle thorny environmental paper chases, and his obsession with accuracy in Contagion means we probably won’t have to worry about a three-day ice age or wolves hunting Jake Gyllenhaal.

We’d have to pull Soderbergh out of painterly retirement, but we can count on his green-inclined roster of regular players to put on the pressure. (Speaking of the Soderbergh players, he’s got quite the ace up his sleeve when it comes to stunt casting: Look at that photo and tell me Matt Damon wasn’t born to play Tim DeChristopher.) More than that, I bet he wouldn’t be able to resist the challenge: He gets to return to film, tackle the most important issue of our age, influence the national conversation, and win a boatload of awards in the process. That’s how my fever dream goes, anyway.

And Hollywood at large gets to bask in the glory of its own reflection by making a movie that makes a difference (which, in Hollywood, usually gets confused with making a movie about someone else who made a difference). Sure, they’ll be drunk with power and collectively more insufferable than ever before, but as long as there’s a recent natural disaster to keep Sean Penn busy, it’ll be worth it.

And then maybe we greens can watch an Oscar telecast we’re proud of, where Tar Sands: The Movie loses Best Picture to some navel-gazing pap about an idiot savant who overcomes adversity to direct a silent film. But Soderbergh takes director and adapted screenplay, Damon nabs Actor in a Leading Role, and Clooney gets his second Supporting Actor trophy for his understated yet relatable portrayal of Bill McKibben.

What? The resemblance is uncanny.