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Can religion help save our biodiversity?

I listened to a lecture given by E.O. Wilson at the Harvard Divinity School a couple of weeks ago. I guess I'm spoiled by the slick documentaries on the Discovery Channel, and by the internet. For me, listening to a professor give a lecture is like watching grass grow. It was at a lecture just like this one that a self-righteous young college student, swayed by the arguments of her professor, once poured ice water on Wilson's head for what she thought were the racist and sexist ideas embodied in sociobiology.

Foodie kisses all around

We've got a pretty funny take over at Chews Wise on what went down at the Mackey-Pollan debate last night: It turned out to be more of a mutual love fest than a smackdown.

Aliens!

Here’s an idea that hadn’t occurred to me: A former Canadian defense minister is demanding governments worldwide disclose and use secret alien technologies obtained in alleged UFO crashes to stem climate change, a local paper said Wednesday. … Alien spacecrafts would have traveled vast distances to reach Earth, and so must be equipped with advanced […]

Ragin’ Cajun speaks

For what it’s worth (very little, IMHO), political operative James Carville thinks Gore is gonna run. Something about running for president being like sex. (via The Plank)

Umbra on insulation, again

Dear Umbra, You’re wrong, you can blow in insulation yourself. At every Home Depot I’ve been to, you can buy either fiberglass loose-fill insulation or cellulose loose-fill insulation, and you can also rent the machine that you use to blow it into the attic. Sometimes, if you purchase enough insulation, you can rent the machine […]

UN reports are hott!

A while back, the UN put together a group of 18 distinguished scientists from 11 countries and gave it the characteristically catchy name "Scientific Expert Group on Climate Change and Sustainable Development." SEGCCSD, in the house! The panel was asked to come up with innovative ways to mitigate and/or adapt to climate change. The panel […]

You Can Poach an Egg, But You Shouldn’t Poach an Elephant

Elephants massacred as ivory trade picks up As many as 23,000 elephants may have been killed in just one year, as an international effort to stem the ivory trade has fallen to the wayside, particularly in Africa. Increased demand for white tuskiness in Japan and China, combined with declining funding for anti-poaching programs, has overwhelmed […]

Nisshin Accomplished

Burned out of business, Japan calls a halt to its annual whale hunt Japan’s whaling fleet, unable to recover from a mid-February fire that killed a crew member and disabled its main ship, has called off its controversial annual hunt a month early. While protesters expressed sympathy for the human loss, they also did a […]

And because it’s free

Oscar winner An Inconvenient Truth now available online, in its entirety.

‘Cause what else can we feed our cattle?

According to a recent story in the Corn and Soybean Digest, a group of 30 state and national agribusiness groups are asking the USDA to let farmers plant corn on land currently set aside for conservation through the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP).