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Japanese, Norwegians, and Icelanders spout off in favor of whaling

If you’re into eating whales, Kouji Shingru’s shop is the place for you. Located on a pedestrian-only street in Tokyo’s bustling Asakusa neighborhood, Shingru’s compact establishment has it all: deep red whale steaks and fillets in vacuum-sealed packages, cured whale on a stick, snack-sized bags of whale jerky, and a wide selection of canned whale […]

If the only tool you have is a Hammer …

... you see every problem as nailed.

Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) is leaving government.

Water safety rules will be more lax in rural areas

Has the White House declared war on farmers and ranchers?

The brunt of the Bush administration's rush to expand energy development in western states has been most directly borne by rural voters. Water-intensive gas-extraction procedures run ranchers' wells dry and expel water so salty it's toxic to crops. Gas compressor stations and their generators pump sulfur dioxide and carbon monoxide into the air. Livestock drink from uncovered drip pans containing antifreeze and perish. "People can't believe this can happen to them until their own ox is gored," says Jill Morrison of Wyoming's Powder River Basin Resource Council, which works with rural communities facing environmental concerns.

If that wasn't stunning enough, now there's this, courtesy of The Washington Post ... in March the EPA proposed regulating drinking water quality differently in rural America than in the rest of the nation.

Bottom line: If you live in a community of less than 10,000 people, your water would be permitted to contain three times the level of arsenic as your counterparts in urban and suburban areas. (The proposal is open for public comment until May 1.)

The logic is that smaller communities have more trouble than other areas paying to update and repair water treatment systems. But isn't this a clear case where the federal government should step in to bridge the gap -- not shrink away?

Update: More on the EPA proposal here from Carl Pope, who notes that one community that would be at risk is Crawford, Texas.

Obama on energy independence and Bush

Today, Sen. Barack Obama gave a speech before the Associated Press, ripping Bush administration energy policy a new you-know-what.

Think Progress has the full transcript. There's press coverage here.

(Our Obama mini-interview on the same subject is here.)

Update [2006-4-3 14:38:9 by David Roberts]: Hm ... reading through it, I see the speech is at least as much about global warming as it is about energy independence. Which is actually more interesting -- it's one of the most forthright and comprehensive descriptions of the danger of climate change that I've seen from a prominent politician.

Triumph of the Will-bashing

George Will is peddling a new column about global warming that's just a lame, tired rear-guard set of conservative talking points. Shocking, I know! Still, if you'd like to see it eviscerated, I give you Progress Report:

Could you go without shopping for a year?

MSNBC interviews author Judith Levine, who spent a year avoiding all unnecessary consumerism and just released her new book Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping.

Think you could do it?

The Daily Grist Headline Battle Royale: Match 6

Is it Monday again? It seems just like yesterday we were celebrating "Flame! I Wanna Log Forever's" victory over "Silly Rabbit, Toxics Aren't for Kids!"

So, let's find out which witty headline won last week's rumble ... [drum roll] ... and it's "Freeport Your Mine, and Unrest Will Follow," with 39% of the vote. Damn! I was hoping for "They Got Seoul But They're Not Eco-Soldiers" -- proof that these bouts are not rigged.

Moving on ...

After I revealed that I normally choose one headline from each Daily Grist of a given week, I was informed that this just ain't right. It was explained to me that the Grist headline-generating machine has its good and bad days. Apparently Monday of last week was a good day. Thus, each of the seven Daily Grist headlines from Monday, March 27, is up for contention.

So, here are the nominees:

1. Tiiiiiime Is on Our Side, Yes It Is: Time cover story propels global warming into the mainstream
2. Ebb and Fla.: An interview with Michael Grunwald about his new Everglades book
3. Oh Say, Can You, Seattle?: Seattle commission unveils recommendations for meeting Kyoto goals
4. Oceans Delve: Umbra on measuring ocean temperatures
5. E-Waste Not, E-Want Not: Washington Gov. Gregoire signs far-reaching e-recycling law
6. Garden of Edens: Jason Edens, rural solar advocate, InterActivates
7. Bait and Switchgrass: New coal-powered ethanol plant a sign of things to come

Okay, voting time!

The cult of Chip adds a member

Today brings much news with regard to our Founder and Dear Leader, Chip Giller, seen here passed out on the floor.

First is a long, glowing, and only partially fictional profile from The Seattle Times' Nicole Brodeur. "It's not the Cult of Chip that we're trying to create," he says. Nonsense! Join ... us ...

In even happier news, Chip and his wife Jenny welcomed a healthy baby girl to the world on -- get this -- April 1. But unlike Saturday's Daily Grist, this was no April Fools joke.

No word yet on a name (just decide, you two!). And, much to staff chagrin, no pictures yet.

Regardless, a huge congratulations and much love to Chip, Jenny, and Baby X. All baby gifts can be directed through this page [wink, wink].

You Want a Lease of Me?

Wyoming governor opposes federal drilling leases in national forest Wyoming is plenty bullish on a local natural-gas boom — but Gov. Dave Freudenthal (D) has put his foot down at the Wyoming Range, asking the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service to halt sales of drilling leases on 19,000 acres of western […]

How’d they do it in the ’70s?

Today, it's a good bet that if you consider yourself an environmentalist, you lean left politically. That's especially true here in D.C. But it wasn't always. Once leaders in both parties fell all over each other competing to be known as champions of the environment.

Recently I had a chance to speak with the former chiefs of staff for both Democrat Ed Muskie and Republican Howard Baker -- the dynamic duo whose early-1970s Senate subcommittee produced the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and Endangered Species Act, among other landmark environmental laws.

My basic question: How'd ya do it?

Leon Billings, Muskie's staff director, said one thing that didn't grind meaningful action to a halt was waiting indefinitely for more data to roll in: "We know so much more about the science of global warming now than we knew about the science of leaded gasoline and auto emissions in 1970 when we wrote Clean Air Act," he said.

His counterpart, Republican Jim Range, says: "Once we had identified the problem, there was a commitment on both sides of the aisle not to agree on everything, but to agree that you would work together until you had addressed the problem."

In other words, just sitting on your hands wasn't an option.

Let's hope we're fast approaching the day when Washington takes the same approach toward global warming. We can't afford to wait much longer.