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Mooney on TPMCafe

For the past week, on TPMCafe's Book Club, they've been discussing Chris Mooney's book The Republican War on Science. It's been a great back and forth among Chris and several guests, including Roger Pielke Jr. and Lawrence Krauss. The reader comments, as usual on that site, have been literate and insightful. Head on over and start scrolling down.

Carl Pope is speaking my language

Has Carl Pope been reading Gristmill? Cause he's speaking my language. (Leave me alone with my illusions, people.)

In a post today he makes this point:

Cradle to Cradle certification arrives

Ever since I first heard him mention it, I've been wondering when Bill McDonough's "Cradle to Cradle Certification" program was going to become a reality. I think it has huge potential to become for product design what LEED has become for green building (though probably, as Jamais cautions, more slowly and fitfully).

Well, via WC, here it is. The first six recipients have been announced.

Cradle to cradle is a biomimetic approach to design, wherein every material used can either be returned to the earth to biodegrade without harm (a biological nutrient) or can return to the manufacturing cycle with no loss of quality (a technical nutrient). In short: no waste. Or rather, in C2C terminology: waste is food. A great primer on biomimicry can also be found at WC.

The certification ...

... covers five categories (PDF): Materials (including assessment and emissions); Material Reutilization/Design for Environment (including product recovery plans); Energy (including an emphasis on solar energy use); Water (including plans for conservation and quality); and Social Responsibility (including corporate ethics statements and third-party social responsibility assessments). The overview linked above is a basic checklist; the Application Form (PDF) has the full details on what's required for each step of the certification process.

Look for C2C product on shelves near you! Uh, some day.

Featuring the faces of over 1,000 JibJab fans

For all you crusaders against Wal-Mart and overconsumption, check out the latest from JibJab.com. Happy Friday.

Rebuilding: do it right

Two good things on rebuilding:

Leo DiCaprio (heard of him?) and (ex-InterActivist) Matt Petersen give a brief but pungent rundown on what went wrong in New Orleans and how it could be made right. I wonder which part Leo wrote.

(Oh, and no offense, Leo, but the consensus in the office is that Jake Gyllenhaal is the eco-hottie du jour.)

Van Jones has a similar piece in Yes! Magazine, calling for social justice and environmental principles to govern the rebuilding process. Apparently a longer version will run in the Oct. print issue.

Green humor

As I believe I've mentioned, environmentalism is never funny.

Environmentalists, however, are the source of endless amusement. To wit: here's a set of jokes that's been making the eco-rounds:

Jeff Jarvis on Current TV and the new iPod

For a different perspective on Al Gore's recent speech and cable TV network, Current TV, head on over to the BuzzMachine to read what Jeff Jarvis has to say.

While I won't go into his critique of all things Al, other than to say he's critical of the former Veep for not embracing the Internet more, he did make one suggestion I've meant to blog about:

Finally, at the end, Gore returns to the internet.

Indeed, Current TV relies on video streaming over the Internet as the means by which individuals send us what we call viewer-created content or VC squared.

Not to nitpick, but streaming is usually outbound, not inbound. And I find it odd that you still call these people "viewers" if they're supposedly programming the network. Aren't they your journalists and programmers? Aren't you supposed to be the viewer now?

And he still complains about the internet because there's not enough bandwidth for full-motion video. Try Bittorrent, Al. Try video iChat. Try video on those new iPods.

For those who did not hear the latest news, Apple is now selling a video iPod. If you've been toying around with the idea of participatory journalism, your potential audience just got a whole lot bigger.

Now wouldn't it be interesting to have someone make a clip about the iPod's non-replaceable battery, which destines it and its constituent toxic heavy metals for a premature trip to the landfill, to play on said iPods.

DDT myths

You may not have noticed, but the Right is fairly obsessed with propagating the notion that environmentalists, by getting DDT banned in 1972, are responsible for the deaths of millions of poor in the developing world. This is the kind of thing that people with, um, lives tend to ignore. It travels around underground on right wing sites until it slowly seeps into conventional wisdom.

It's bullsnot, though. For a brief primer on why, see Tim Lambert.

This carpool’s rockin’ … come knockin’

As I was leaving work last night, a bus blew past me with a big, colorful ad on the side. "Freewheeling," said the type at the top. The photo showed a van on a bare stretch of road, with a beautiful sunsetty skyline beyond. Then the tagline: "Vanpooling is your trip, your way."

Um, really? I thought vanpooling was 12 other people's trips, and you have to wait your turn, and it takes forever, and is sort of smelly.

I wish I could get over that notion. Because I do believe in sharing rides. And the Washington DOT website makes it look so darn bucolic. I admire their attempt to sex up vans, I really do. I wish them the best of truck.

Gore says he won’t run

And adds this:

"My country is extremely attentive to the slightest increase in a risk from terror, and that's appropriate," he said. "But why should we be so tolerant of risk where the future habitability of our planet is concerned?"

Sigh.