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Elevate Good Times, Come on!

Last chance to enter the Gristmill Environmental Elevator-Pitch Contest The time has come to close out the Gristmill Environmental Elevator-Pitch Contest. We’ll accept entries until Friday, March 11. On Monday, the finalists will be announced, and readers will be able to vote on their favorite (creator of said favorite will — get this — win […]

PS: We’re all going to die

The latest science news, nicely coinciding with the belching of Mount St. Helens: some time, not sure when, an extra-giganto-huge volcano is going to erupt and kill a buncha people. Might be in Yellowstone, which is 40,000 years overdue for a super explosion and has inspired a BBC docudrama (check out the still of a pick-up truck fleeing the scene). Or might be somewhere else around the world. Might be tomorrow. Or might be thousands of years from now. But whenever it happens, it's going to be ugly. And, scientists say, there ain't nothin' we can do about it.

Is it any wonder people (and when I say "people," I mean me) bury their heads? The planet is scary, the experts who talk about it are scary, and we are helpless.

OK, well, got to get back to writing silly headlines.

Local v. organic

The study showing that buying local food is better than buying organic got covered all over the blogosphere, but Treehugger has a particularly helpful pair of posts up on what to do about it.

Death: A vast rightwing conspiracy?

I think this is a bit cuckoo-for-cocoa-puffs, but if you're into that kind of thing, you'll be into it.

(via Sustainablog)

Bill Frist gets one right

Senate majority leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) has introduced a bill that would make access to clean water and proper sanitation an explicit objective of U.S. foreign aid. I haven't seen this covered anywhere but Joel Makower's blog, but really, what else do you need?

We'll write more on this in coming weeks.

It’s Girl Scout cookie season …

And along with $400 million worth of cookie orders, the national office of the Girl Scouts of the U.S.A. has received a number of concerns about the cookies saying, among other things, that child labor is used to produce the chocolate that covers Thin Mints -- an allegation Girl Scout officials deny. Critics also charge that Girl Scout cookies are contributing to the American obesity epidemic with high levels of unhealthy trans fats, particularly in their newest cookie, Animal Treasures, a shortbread treat featuring endangered animal imprints. Says Jennifer Romback of the Girl Scout Council of Greater New York, "I'd like to think that Girl Scout cookies are the least of our worries." Indeed.

Clear Skies takes a fat whack

Bush's Clear Skies Act is on life support after a vote today in the Senate
Environment and Public Works Committee failed to draw enough support to push the measure to the Senate floor. The committee had been deadlocked 9-9 on the bill for weeks, and James Inhofe (R-Okla.), committee chair, was unsuccessful in his arm-twisting attempts to sway at least one more senator to his side. (Barack Obama [D-Ill.] had been thought a potential swing vote, but he held his ground. Phew.)

As AP's John Heilprin writes, "The committee vote doesn't preclude Republican leaders from bringing the bill to the full Senate for action" -- though they'd have to do it through unconventional methods. "But it also arms opponents with several parliamentary tactics that they can use to defeat it on the Senate floor." Whatever that means.  

Inhofe knew just who to blame: "This bill has been killed by the environmental extremists who care more about continuing the litigation-friendly status quo and making a political statement on CO2 than they do about reducing air pollution."

Ellen Degeneres outbid for titi

The monkey, people. The monkey.

The right to name an unidentified species of titi monkey in Bolivia has been sold for $650,000. No word yet on what the name is, but it has to conform to the rules of the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature. Presumably that rules out titi jokes. Sigh.

Huh?

Insects dislike the smell of garlic as much as human beings do, according to a Bangladeshi scientist who has used it to develop an environment-friendly alternative to pesticide.

Um, what human beings are we talking about here?

Turning air into water

If I posted about every cool widget that popped up on Treehugger I'd end up doing nothing else, but this particular widget for some reason caught my fancy.

It makes clean water! Out of air!

In five years this thing will be the size of a coffee mug. The Future: Live It!