Snow job College Republican chapters across the country have begun hosting "Global Cooling Day" events to debunk the myths deny the facts about global warming. There are kiddie pools, sand, girls in bikinis, even free snow cones. Ah, rich white kids -- never funnier than when they're mocking the disease and death awaiting the global poor. Wocka wocka! Photo courtesy of College Republican National Committee. Imagine all the people playing to stereotype Meanwhile, some 3,000 earnest activists gathered on a beach in Australia to raise awareness about global warming by having a beach party prancing around in bikinis giving out …

Climate change gets splashy coverage in USA Today and U.S. News The paradigmatically middle-of-the-road USA Today is running a series on global warming this week -- guess that means mainstream America is getting hep to the crisis. Articles cover the life of an eco-groovy family in Colorado, the greening of corporate America, and the likelihood of abrupt Day After Tomorrow-esque climate changes. Alaska gets a special designation as the "poster state" for climate problems -- apparently it's melting -- and is the subject of a three-part video series. Other features point out global warming's effects on precipitation, wildlife, and the …

It's just a jump to the left Welcome to Grist List's time-warp edition! This week, Al Gore and both Clintons made noise about global warming and energy policy. For a sec we thought we'd been transported to 1996, but then we realized: a decade ago, they weren't saying a damn thing. Photo: AP/Denis Paquin. And then a step to the right In a nod to the beginning of time, a new book and TV series profile sustainable steps in the urban "Edens" of our day, from Philly to Seattle. Curiously missing from the bunch? The Big Apple. Musta been that …

Gas prices spur Americans to change behavior Americans hit in the pocketbook by high gas prices are, shockingly, changing their consumptive behavior. A survey by Consumer Reports found that over a third of American drivers are pondering getting a more fuel-efficient vehicle in place of their current one; half of those are considering a hybrid, and fewer than 5 percent want a luxury sedan or large SUV. Lots of drivers are downsizing to two wheels: when gas prices spiked last year, motorcycle sales jumped 16 percent compared to the same period in 2004, and scooter sales leaped 65 percent. Bike …

It's something of a miracle that An Inconvenient Truth, the chronicle of Al Gore's quest to raise alarm about "climate chaos," exists at all. A movie with a scantily clad Jessica Alba presenting a computer slideshow on climate science is implausible enough. Al Gore doing it, well ... even C-SPAN could be forgiven for having second thoughts. Albert Arnold Gore Jr. may be many things, but he's no penguin. And this is no Murderballian story of triumph over tragedy. It's a story of tragedy over tragedy. His sister's death of lung cancer. The near-death of his 6-year-old son. The 2000 …

Dear Umbra, How come it's so expensive to go organic? I could swing it by myself by eating a bare minimum of food, but I'm charged with feeding consume-mass-quantity types who favor the traditional American diet, and they eat meat. I would be in debt buying just half the monthly food consumption. One would have to be rich to go organic. MonikkaMarie Jackson Queen Village, N.Y. Dearest MonikkaMarie, The usual answer to your question from organic proponents is: organic isn't expensive, conventional is unrealistically cheap. Not that helpful, but it's true. It doesn't make cents. Photo: iStockphoto. In the United …

Look at the set of issues on that chick! At a boring heads-of-state summit, a bikini-sporting beauty queen crashed a photo shoot, protesting a pulp mill planned for Uruguay. "It was one of the best things that has happened at this summit," said Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. He added, "I didn't see anything about pulp, I was just looking at her." Is, like, cashmere fur? After being pelted and prodded by PETA, fashionista Paris Hilton has contacted fellow Mensa alum Pammy Anderson about being an anti-fur spokesbimbo. She's even giving up her own fur coats. As for being the, er, …

Random House to bump up use of recycled paper For you fogies who still read books made of ... what do they call it? ... "paper," here's some good news: Leading U.S. publishing company Random House announced this week that it plans to increase the recycled-paper content of its books to 30 percent by 2010. It's an ambitious goal, as only about 3 percent of paper currently used in Random House books is recycled. The average recycled-paper content in the biz is about 5 percent. Random House, which buys about 120,000 tons of paper each year for book production, claims …

OMFG, so, I finally went and watched the TV ads to be aired by the Competitive Enterprise Institute a week before An Inconvenient Truth is released. I'm not sure what I expected, but these things are genuinely funny. They look like nothing so much as a parody produced by Saturday Night Live. The tag line -- the last line of the ad, read dramatically as a little girl blows a dandelion -- is: "Carbon dioxide. They call it pollution. We call it life." It's a pro-CO2 ad. Seriously. It turns out, we breathe CO2 out. And plants absorb it. It …

Dear Umbra, I've been weeding the garden and yard, and got to thinking about some of the more invasive plants. I've heard that not everything goes in the compost pile, but what weeds can I toss in? I'm fairly new to the composting game, so any advice is much appreciated. Danielle Walker Monroe, Ore. Dearest Danielle, Composting is the original and highest form of recycling. People frequently write in to ask what can go into their recycling bins. While recycling is specific to the services available where one lives, composting is a do-it-yourself endeavor, and there are some universal rules …