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Grist in Slate

Our very own Maximum Leader Chip and our very own Maximum Story Editor Katharine have a piece in Slate today on the basics of global warming.

Consider that seas worldwide have risen 4 to 8 inches in the last century, causing Massachusetts alone to lose 65 acres a year. They're expected to rise another 3.5 to 34.6 inches by 2100. Even moderate estimates allow for an 18-inch increase. More than half of U.S. residents live in coastal areas. We're not in Kansas anymore, but maybe we should be.

Hee hee.

Read the whole thing.

Contribute to Universal Climate Skeptic Response Project

Over at WorldChanging they're pushing the "debate is over" notion we've been talking about (here and here) to another level -- compiling a "Universal Climate Skeptic Response Post" to act as catchall answer to those who want to keep the conversation stuck in debate terms.

They're asking for help (and have already gotten a lot). I'm sure folks here have lots of good ideas and resources to add in.

The Mustache waxes poetic about America’s innovators

And finally, completing our tour of tomorrow's NYT, The Mustache of Understanding points out that even though the government has not launched the much-discussed Manhattan Project for energy, there is in fact a "distributed Manhattan Project" going on as we speak, powered by American entrepreneurs:

Hillary maneuvering against Gore?

Of course you can't read it because it's behind the NYT $ wall, but Maureen Dowd speculates that Hillary's big speech today on energy and the environment was a bid to divert some of the spotlight that's been cast on Gore lately.

Maybe, maybe not. But if presidential candidates start competing to show who can be most bold on the energy issue, we will all benefit.

Easterbrook accepts global warming

Gregg Easterbrook magnanimously concedes that global warming is, in fact, real. So all of us who have been warning about it for years -- pushing against dimwits like Gregg Easterbrook -- are now, retroactively, by His Own Centrist Grace, transmuted from "alarmists" to reasonable people. Thanks, Gregg.

Kakutani on Gore

The New York Times' Michiko Kakutani -- the most feared, worshiped, loathed, influential book reviewer on the literary scene -- gives Al Gore's new book a strong thumbs up.

A new book reveals the truth about Chilean sea bass

Ahoy, mateys! Methinks you landlubbers will enjoy this here installment of Something Fishy, as I bring news of a book hitting the shelves this month -- about pirates! That's right, me hearties, it's called Hooked: Pirates, Poaching, and the Perfect Fish, and the "perfect fish" in question is the Patagonian toothfish (better known to seafoodies as Chilean Sea Bass). As described in press materials, Hooked is an adventure story about toothfish poachers caught in one of the longest pursuits in nautical history.

Unfortunately, I can't offer me own opinion on the book -- bit hard to read out on these rough seas, what with the eye patch and all ... arrr! -- but I hear that Tom Brokaw is a big fan and had this to say: "Hooked is a fish story, a global whodunit, a courtroom drama -- and a critically important ecological message all rolled into one. Read this and you'll never look at Chilean Sea Bass on the menu the same way."

Word on the poop deck is that author G. Bruce Knecht will be interviewed by Brokaw on the Today Show tomorrow. (Too bad me ship doesn't get good reception out here!)

From the press materials, some Patagonian toothfish facts:

What’s to do in New England?

I'm getting hitched in August (yay!) to this dashing young man, and we're talking about honeymooning in New England. Any of you Gristmill readers live in the area? Any ideas of where we should go? What we should do? Where we should stay? (No, I don't think we'll stay at your house -- but thanks for the offer.)

Any tips (eco- or otherwise) would be greatly appreciated!

Moyers and humility

In his extraordinarily humane baccalaureate address to Hamilton College, journalist Bill Moyers raises all the looming catastrophes -- peak oil, global warming, etc. And raises all the reasons for hope. And then admits that he has no $%@! idea what's going to happen.

I think all of us -- particularly, ahem, the bloggers among us -- could learn from this kind of humility:

Gore = Goebbels?

Jesus. The slime campaign against Gore is escalating even faster than I expected.

ThinkProgress -- which must have 500 interns watching every news channel and reading every publication -- brings news of the latest:

Sterling Burnett is a senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis, an organization that has received over $390,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998. This afternoon on Fox, Burnett compared watching Al Gore's movie, An Inconvenient Truth, to watching a movie by Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels to learn about Nazi Germany. Watch it.

Yowza.