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Finding a proper coffee in the Texas hipster mecca

In “Mad Flavor,” the author describes his occasional forays from the farm in search of exceptional culinary experiences from small artisanal producers. For the next week or so, Mad Flavor will be reporting from location in Austin, the author’s hometown. News flash: I’ve found proper espresso in Austin, Texas, home of dozens of cafes. The […]

Whatever its other costs and bennies, ethanol is no biggie on global warming

A new study (found via Tidepool, and reported here in the Des Moines Register) claims that U.S. taxpayers will pay somewhere between $5.1 billion and $6.8 billion dollars this year to subsidize ethanol production. That's works out to, oh, around a buck and a half per gallon of gasoline equivalent, on top of the sales price of the fuel.

As far as I can tell, the authors have done a pretty credible job of tallying up the various costs of ethanol subsidies -- not just the federal tax credits, but also farm subsidies, accelerated depreciation allowances for capital investments, and even state-level ethanol promotion programs.

Still, I don't think this is the last word on the matter. Not by a long shot. A complete assessment of the issue would look even farther afield, and tally a far wider swath of costs, as well as benefits.

And when I do that, I see billions and billions of dollars, on both the plus and minus sides of the ledger. But the climate-change benefits of ethanol? Not so big.

Will it really be green this time?

So how do you feed the poorest? The Gates and Rockefeller Foundations have an answer but skeptics abound.

We Will Rebury You

Bush and Putin may look to store radwaste at site of Russian nuclear catastrophe Besides the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the deadliest nuclear catastrophe in history happened … no, not at Chernobyl, but in Chelyabinsk, Russia. In the mid-20th century, three disasters in the area spread contamination from a nuke-weapons complex, but the news […]

Who’s on your team?

A sport for the wonky, competitive folks out there.

Fantasy Congress.

My heart goes pitter-patter.

Bigger than we thought

It was big news a few weeks ago when Google announced plans to put a solar voltaic system on its Mountain View, Calif., headquarters. The system -- the largest customer-owned system on a corporate building -- will create 1.6 MW of electricity a year.

But according to a leaked company document, that was just a small part of a much more ambitious plan.

A brief post-preamble

As David said, I am going to be reposting, article by article, my How To Talk to a Climate Skeptic guide here at Grist. Before beginning, I would like to make a correction, present a plan, offer an explanation, and make a request.

Order your heritage turkeys now (if you eat turkey)

For those of you responsible for producing a Thanksgiving meal that features a turkey, it's time to start thinking about ordering one.

You can order a heritage turkey from a local farmer in certain states. To learn more about heritage turkeys, and for contact information for local farmers, go to Slow Food's "Ark of Taste."

We need better ways to measure well-being

For a moment, let's ignore the political context of this NYT article (about how incumbents are having difficulty capitalizing on the "strong economy" in this fall's U.S. election). As ur-blogger Matthew Yglesias points out, there's something seriously amiss with reporting that describes the economy thus ...

... the economy has not looked so good in a long time. ... the Dow Jones industrial average has finally returned to its glory days of the late 1990's, setting records almost daily ... glowing economic statistics ...

... and so on, all with the subtext, "Hey, we're doing great!" -- all while burying the followng down in the bowels of paragraph 30:

Survival of the Ritziest

Threatened frogs get cushy new habitat at a Panamanian hotel Hundreds of frogs and toads can be found in an unusual habitat in Panama — Rooms 28 and 29 of the Hotel Campestre in the town of El Valle de Anton. An international crew of biologists, environmentalists, and zoo employees relocated the critters to save […]