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Alan Hipólito, creator of green jobs for low-income folks, InterActivates

Alan Hipólito is putting low-income residents of Portland, Ore., to work restoring ecosystems with native plants. He is director of Verde, a new nonprofit that trains residents of affordable housing for new eco-friendly jobs and careers. As this week's InterActivist, Hipólito chats about his aversion to authority, his plan for livening up your city council meetings, and his desire to see everyone benefit economically from environmental protection. Send him a question of your own by noon PST on Wednesday; we'll publish his answers to selected questions on Friday.

Montana Governor wants to turn coal into a liquid diesel fuel

Anyone channel surfing last night that happened upon 60 Minutes might have recognized a familiar face: Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer. Last month, Grist published a story about Schweitzer, who is now promoting his latest big idea: turning Montana coal into a liquid diesel fuel.

It's not enough to completely break our addiction to foreign oil, but a start. Most coal today is used for electricity but the governor's plan is to turn Montana's billions of tons of untapped coal into a liquid diesel fuel for our cars.

Schweitzer wants to take coal that's been pressurized into a gas, and then use something called the Fischer-Tropsch process to convert that gas into a clean diesel fuel, similar to what is made at a demonstration plant in Oklahoma.

The governor handed Stahl a jar of this synthetic fuel, which looked and smelled clean. "Chanel No. 37," Schweitzer said, laughing. "It is diesel. You can pour that in your diesel car or truck right now."

Lesley Stahl also interviewed Dr. Robert Williams, a senior energy scientist at Princeton, who informed viewers that this fuel would be cleaner than conventional diesel since pollutants aren't being emitted into the atmosphere, but a lot of carbon dioxide would be released -- "twice as much carbon dioxide than traditional petroleum."

So what is Schweitzer's plan for dealing with the CO2?

"This spent carbon dioxide, we have a home for it. Right back into the earth, 5,000 feet deep," the governor explains.

He plans to sell that carbon dioxide to oil companies that use it to boost the amount of oil they can pump. "It's called enhanced oil recovery. It's worth money to the oil business," Schweitzer said.

Read more about the segment and watch a clip at CBSNews.com.

Is This the “Safe, Clean” Nuclear Power We Hear So Much About?

Illinois nuke-power operator criticized for leaks and “incidents” Quantity doesn’t equal quality with Chicago-based Exelon Corp., which runs all six nuclear plants and 11 nuclear reactors in Illinois. There were at least four “incidents” at Exelon plants last week, including a false alarm at one generating station that initiated the first “site-area emergency” at a […]

Rumblings in the Bronx

A virtual walking tour of the South Bronx New York’s South Bronx was once a getaway for the rich; now the defining landmarks of the community are power plants, landfills, and parking lots. Where some might see hopelessness, though, resident Omar Freilla sees opportunity. Freilla founded Green Worker Cooperatives to salvage reusable materials from trash […]

Jurassic beavers and hairless skunks.

So, how do you tie a story about a Jurassic beaver in with one about a hairless skunk? Looks more like a shaved weasel to me, by the way (maybe that's because skunks are in the weasel family). Random genetic mutations like that seen in the skunk are what drive evolution. Given enough global warming, we may start to see more of them. The same mutation imparted an evolutionary advantage to naked mole rats. In fact, a similar mutation happened in our past, which eventually lead to the evolution of clothing (via a December post on Biopolitical).

Which brings me to an analogy. Periods of rapid change in an environment spark bursts of evolution where new designs are tested out; similarly, global warming, combined with peak oil, is creating a frenzy of new technology designs in human cultures, all being tested in the crucible of the free market. It will be interesting to see what shakes out.

A virtual walking tour of the South Bronx with Omar Freilla of Green Worker Cooperatives

New York’s South Bronx was once a getaway for the rich; now the defining landmarks of the community are power plants, landfills, and parking lots. Where some might see hopelessness, though, resident Omar Freilla sees opportunity. Freilla founded Green Worker Cooperatives to salvage reusable materials from trash and demolition waste, creating a neighborhood that is […]

Planning and development books

Interested in land use and urban planning? Like to read? If so, you'll want to check out the Planetizen Top 10 Books of 2005 list.

Grist vs. The Wall Street Journal

I kicked off the "Daily Grist Headline Battle Royale" on Friday, and now Treehugger gives us the "Slaughterhouse Smackdown," wherein Grist and The Wall Street Journal go head-to-head over differing perspectives on the impacts slaughterhouses have on American life. Grist is currently leading 76 to 10.

Interviewing Rabbi Michael Lerner

Later today (Monday), I'll be sitting down for a chat with Rabbi Michael Lerner, who -- among his many accomplishments -- is the founder and editor of Tikkun.

What should I ask him?

Decentralized energy generation

I am increasingly fascinated by the twin subjects of decentralized energy generation and smart grids. On the first, Enviropundit has a handy collection of links.