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And I’m not talking about the Green Lantern or Green Arrow

By all rights, being the science-fiction-loving computer geek that I am, I should be a comics fan. But I'm not, and need not be to know that Captain America is ... [spoiler alert!] ... dead.

As The New York Times reports:

Captain America, a Marvel Entertainment superhero, is fatally shot by a sniper in the 25th issue of his eponymous comic, which arrived in stores yesterday. The assassination ends the sentinel of liberty's fight for right, which began in 1941.

And that fight for liberty was most recently told in Civil War, which my friend Matt (an actual comics fan) writes about on his blog:

SI loves us, we love them

Sports Illustrated finds Grist “superbly entertaining,” and we must say we feel the same way about them. Appreciative ass pat, SI. We are particularly big fans of their cover story this week, headlined “Going, Going Green,” although we think we could have come up with a better title. But hey, two points for effort. The […]

An opportunity for reflection

I know the issue of Gore's carbon emissions has already been a subject of discussion here on Grist, but this recent article in USA Today raised my eyebrows even more. Gore gets 20K a year from zinc mine concessions? From a company with a poor environmental record? His massive energy use isn't from green power at all? Zero. The DNC hasn't been willing to pay the extra 2 cents a kilowatt hour for green power?

Look, I'm a policy guy and I don't think changes in personal lifestyles are the holy grail (in fact, I think they're way overrated), but this left me shaking my head. Is it really just a rightwing talking point or is there something more to this?

The real tipping point? Maybe?

The claim in a McGraw Hill NAHB report that green homebuilding will reach a tipping point in 2007 has gotten a fair amount of attention (like CNN Money and USA Today):

Green building will reach its tipping point -- the point where the building community turns from "less involved" to "more involved" in the 2006 to 2007 time frame, depending on how conservative the estimate. ... more than 2/3 of builders will be building green homes (more than 15% of their projects) ... Looking beyond 2007, the sheer number of participants in the homebuilding market will pull the rest of the market up to their standards to remain competitive.

There's nothing I'd like to see more than a real tipping point in green building practices. But trying to spot green tipping points often seems like the environmental community's favorite hobby. We're like compulsive birdwatchers looking for exotic species of environmental progress. Too often it turns out to be a wee bit more complicated than it appears at first glance.

NYT does green-biz special section

Today’s New York Times features a special green business section, highlighting a number of companies and biz leaders who are getting hip to environmentalism. "Friend of Nature? Let’s See Those Shoes" looks at the greening of consumer goods from yogurt to Timbs and gets at the notion that greening makes environmental and economic sense. It’s […]

Environmental web suckage

I’ve been having fun playing with Compete.com for a while — though as with all these traffic ranking sites, it’s a bit obscure how they come by their numbers. They say it’s "a unique methodology created by experts in the fields of mathematics, statistics and the data sciences to aggregate, transform, enhance and normalize data […]

Using nuclear power to extract oil

Nuclear plants to generate enough power to extract oil from Canadian tar sands. Makes total sense.

TXU bleg

Rumblings and grumblings are afoot that the big TXU deal is not quite the unqualified victory for environmentalists that some enthusiastic bloggers made it out to be. I have neither the time nor inclination nor knowledge to get into the weeds of finance deals — numbers are not my thing, to put it mildly — […]

Let’s be clear-eyed about it

This story reminds of a point I’ve been meaning to make. Too often discussions of corporate green initiatives — or just corporate involvement in green matters — devolves into whether it’s "good" or "bad," whether corporations are sincere or greenwashing, whether executives are green at heart or roleplaying with devious motives. It doesn’t really matter. […]

From a former homeowner

Over on the blog of the popular real estate site Zillow, a former homeowner makes an eloquent case for the joys of city living: Now, we stand face-to-face with people in our building’s elevators, at our corner hangouts, and on the sidewalks. We chitchat and pet our neighbors’ dogs. We exchange “good mornings” with the […]