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The top green stories of 2007

Wow. That was something else. Green has gone from “dead” to ubiquitous in just a few short years, and it peaked with the crazy buzz of 2007, which kept us Gristies busy as bees — ironically without the actual bees (see No. 15). Here you’ll find our selection of the year’s top 15 stories, biased […]

Why have a real fire when you can download one?

Oh, the trials we face at holiday-time: A merrily burning Yule log is just so festive, but we can’t even enjoy the warmth for our guilt over the pollution it causes. Enter iYule, a half-hour-long downloadable video of a crackling hearth. Which kind of makes us happy and sad all at the same time.

Australia steps up to oppose Japanese whaling

This move by the Australian government is great news. Moral: elections matter! Let's hope other countries follow suit and stop this madness masquerading as "scientific research".

Explosion at Florida chemical plant causes deaths, evacuations

An explosion at a chemical plant that manufactures fuel additives and solvents has rocked the Jacksonville, Fla., area, forcing evacuations and causing an estimated three deaths. The blast at T2 Labs — described by those at the scene as a “hellish inferno” and “a great ball of fire in the air” — also knocked out […]

Menahem Anderman analyzes the state of car-battery technology

The following is a guest post by Marc Geller, who blogs at Plugs and Cars, serves on the board of directors of the Electric Auto Association, cofounded Plug In America and DontCrush.com, and appeared in Who Killed The Electric Car.

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Menahem Anderman, PhD, is Mister Battery Consultant. The California Air Resources Board, DOE, and Congress all seem to turn to him to analyze the state of battery technology. His reports always suggest batteries won't quite cut it for freeway-capable cars.

His report at CARB in 2003 seemed to suggest the electric cars then on the road couldn't be functioning as well as they were. Drivers of electric cars were stunned at his low opinion of the state of battery technology. He's always called upon, contracted with, and his report inevitably finds batteries wanting.

At EVS23, he stopped at the Plug In America booth to challenge what he felt was the overly optimistic tone taken by these advocates in their questioning at various sessions. One of the things he specifically said to Sherry Boschert, author of Plug-in Hybrids, to demonstrate the inadequacy of NiMH in electric cars was that the batteries have been replaced in many of Southern California Edison's fleet of RAV4-EVs. Chelsea Sexton of Plug In America inquired of Ed Kjaer at SCE to find out what the truth is. Here's what Mr. Kjaer wrote in response to the inquiry:

Al Gore named first runner-up for Time magazine’s Person of the Year

In what’s expected to be his final award of a very busy year, Al Gore was named first runner-up for Time magazine’s Person of the Year, followed by Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling. This year’s winner is Russian President Vladimir Putin who, the magazine says, “is not a boy scout. He is not a democrat […]

Don Blankenship is an evil bastard

A while back, I wrote a piece for a magazine called Old Trout, in an issue devoted to the “Thirteen Scariest Americans.” It was edited down to about 200 words there; here’s the full original piece. Don Blankenship Is an Evil Bastard There is no greater threat to the future habitability of the earth than […]

A short review of Cormac McCarthy’s recent book

Eric's call for some good nature books has motivated me to do a short book review. I'm not sure the one I've chosen is a good book, or that I would recommend reading it. And it does not have a whole hell of a lot to do with nature writing. Nevertheless.

I don't usually read fiction (preferring to learn something while at leisure). My wife reads a lot of it and recently finished a book from Oprah's book club called The Road, by Cormac McCarthy. She insisted I would like it, so I invested a couple of hours to read it. This is a book you do not want children to read.

Is it only OK to talk about limiting population after it’s too late?

Sam Smith, inimitable editor of The Progressive Review, perhaps the world's first progressive blog (if you count its days as a print publication), reports that even he finds it difficult to bring up discussions of population.

I have experienced something like what Smith talks about, where even mentioning Bartlett (who has been campaigning against exponential population growth for decades) is enough to get you called nasty names by liberals and "anti-life" by church members.

Here's today's series of looks at the issue, with Smith's preface first:

Which circle of hell for illegal logging?

Sickening. Kevin John Moran of Camano Island, Wash., was just convicted of illegally cutting down 27 old-growth cedars on public land. They were between 400 and 700 years old. And they were dry-side trees, even rarer than the Northwest's west-slope titans.

But here's the worst that can happen to him:

Theft of government property is a Class C felony, which means a maximum sentence of 10 years or less, and a fine not to exceed $250,000.

Some of these trees were mature giants long before Europeans ever encountered the Pacific Northwest. They were protected on public land. They were our natural heritage.

But destroying them? That's just "theft of government property."

Sentencing is in February.