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God

Check out this story in The Guardian on the tensions emerging on the religious right. It's got lots of juicy stuff, but like everyone else, I'm going straight to the money quote:

Public not sold on nuclear power

A new survey (press release PDF; full results PDF) done by Opinion Research Corporation (ORC), commissioned and released by the Civil Society Institute, finds what I at least consider good news:

Dependence Day

Today, Environmental Action launched a campaign called Dependence Day.

Why today? Well, today marks the symbolic end of America's domestic oil for the year. Proportionally speaking, for the rest of the year we'll be using imported oil.

According to Navin at EA, they've pulled together "a diverse coalition of groups including security experts, environmentalists, consumers, and labor unions -- all of whom agree that America's dependence on oil is one of our greatest threats and that it is time to move beyond decades of rhetoric to actually do something." Word.

Blah blah Pollan interview blah

Dozens of emails flagged. More than 15 tabs open in Firefox. Well over 100 unread entries in the "green" folder of my RSS reader.

These signs all point to one fact: I'm a bad, bad blogger.

I'll try to catch up a little tomorrow.

Do check out my interview with Michael Pollan. He's a smart cookie, and honestly one of the best pure prose stylists in the non-fiction world, IMO.

And here's a question for you: the interview we published is 2,000 words, roughly. But the original interview is much longer, around 10,000 words.

Would y'all have any interest in seeing the whole thing? If so, I could clean it up a little and post it on the blog, maybe in chunks.

How overfishing and pollution are changing our eating habits

I love fish as much as the next guy. Broiled, baked, fried, it doesn't matter -- as long as it's swimming in butter (no pun intended). But being an expert in the plight of our oceans precludes me from rewarding my palate at every opportunity. As the New York Times reports, "many [fish] varieties are nearly depleted and many have been tainted by industrial pollution."

So I constantly consult my pocket seafood guide (PDF) to remember which is the "good" fish and which is the "bad." It's a shame that our short-sighted, destructive practices have forced us to rely on such guides, but they are an essential resource. Hopefully they'll catch on more than Richard Simmons's deal-a-meal did.

Google maps go green

Check out Have a Green Summer, a collaboration between the Earth Day Network and Google that helps you find eco-friendly vacation destinations. Very cool.

Virtual ecosystem

Want to learn about the interconnectedness and dependencies of an ecosystem? Build one yourself.

In Second Life, a virtual world where people reinvent themselves, buy real estate, create and sell products, have sex, host charity events, film movies, etc., Laukosargas Svarog has created her own ecosystem on the virtual island of Svarga:

The result of a year's work, Laukosargas Svarog's island of Svarga ... is a fully-functioning ecosystem, adding life or something like it to the verdant-looking but arid pallette Linden Lab offers with its world. It begins with her artificial clouds, which are pushed along by Linden's internal wind system.

"If I was to turn off the clouds the whole system would die in about six hours," she tells me. "Turn off the bees and [the plants stop] growing, because nothing gets pollinated. And it's the transfer of pollen that signals the plants to drop seeds. The seeds blow in the wind, and if they land on good ground according to different rules for each species, they grow when they receive rain water from the clouds. It's all interdependent."

Cool!

(Via BB)

A Bid for a Whale, and It’s About to Set Sail

Japan may have enough votes to set stage for repeal of whaling ban The end of the 20-year-old global commercial-whaling ban is a looming possibility, as pro-whaling Japan may have garnered enough allies to win control of the 66-member International Whaling Commission. The IWC’s pro-whaling contingent now numbers about 35 countries, including some which have […]

Americans and Climate Change: Incentives: Business and financial leaders

"Americans and Climate Change: Closing the Gap Between Science and Action" (PDF) is a report synthesizing the insights of 110 leading thinkers on how to educate and motivate the American public on the subject of global warming. Background on the report here. I'll be posting a series of excerpts (citations have been removed; see original report). If you'd like to be involved in implementing the report's recommendations, or learn more, visit the Yale Project on Climate Change website.

Why aren't people in the business world -- corporate leaders, financial analysts, etc. -- more hip to climate change? Find out below!

The Vandals Took the Handles

Water privatization brings a flood of problems in U.S. cities As of 2003, some 1,100 U.S. municipalities had privatized their drinking-water systems, hoping that mismanaged public systems could be made higher-quality at relatively low cost. So much for that idea. Private firms in cities across the country have been investigated for illegally discharging sewage into […]