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A guessing game!

I love contests.

Today's exciting game: find the theme in today's Daily Grist headlines.

First one to post a correct answer gets a virtual high-five!

The Daily Grist Headline Battle Royale: Match 1

Is it me or has it been pretty serious here in Gristmill as of late? This is Grist -- "gloom and doom with a sense of humor," you know? Plus, it is Friday. So, I've decided to launch a new weekly tradition here in Gristmill: "The Daily Grist Headline Battle Royale"!

Here is how it will work:

1. The Daily Grist Headline Battle Royale nominating committee (yours truly) will pick the top five Daily Grist headlines from the week based on humor, wit, and the presence of soy milk coming out of my nose.
2. I'll post the top five headlines for your consideration.
3. You vote. (Must be a registered Gristmillian.)
4. The following week I present the winner and the new batch of nominees.
5. And maybe -- just maybe -- at the end of the year we'll have a "Daily Grist Headline Deathmatch" where you choose the most punny headline of the year.

So here it goes -- the nominees are:

1. Utahward Bound: NRC approves nuke-waste dump on Utah Indian reservation
2. Mapled Crusaders: Community forests help revitalize New England towns
3. The Midas Crutch: EPA may replace ozone-depleting chemical with cancer-causing chemical
4. Finger-Lickin' Bad: How poultry producers are ravaging the rural South
5. One King to Bring Them All and in the Darkness Bind Them: An interview with Sir David King, U.K.'s top scientist and climate crusader*

* As it was a short week due to the holiday, I included this one from last week. And it is a LOTR reference -- I just had to! (My precious made me do it.)

Vote

Now it is time to vote (click "Link and Discuss" below)! Remember, you have to be registered and logged into Gristmill to cast your vote.

(And PS, once you register, you'll also be able to post comments and submit your own posts within the Poverty & the Environment discussion area.)

Update [2006-2-25 9:7:16 by Chris Schults]: Apparently you don't have to be registered or logged into Gristmill to vote. We encourage you to register anyway so you can enjoy all the benefits of membership.

Remember: this is supposed to be fun. Happy Friday!

Moth dearth, cat-on-cat violence, poached oxen, and other oddities

I photographed this moth in Costa Rica. It was about four inches across and looked like a pair of flying lips. A study has found that the number of moths in Britain has declined by about 30% in the last thirty years. That's a 10% decline per decade. Sixty-two species have already gone extinct on the island in the 20th century. Extrapolating into the future, you could expect the last moth to drop dead in about seventy years, assuming the decline remains linear.

A Florida Panther (radio collared of course) was recently tranquilized for eating, among other things, a house cat. The biologists seemed to know everything about this cougar -- how many cubs he has sired, his age. He even has a name and a number. I have to wonder how many times in its eleven-year life it has been shot with tranquilizer darts and radio collared. He must feel like a pin cushion. Rapid housing development continues to destroy habitat. There are only 80 Florida panthers left on the planet.

Media Shower: Listen up! And see the big picture.

This morning I received the Summer Rayne Oakes newsletter, which mentions that the eco-fashionista will be heading to Singapore to film "a new, entertaining environmentally-charged show." I've contacted SRO's PR firm for details.

Also highlighted in the newsletter is a video by New Century Thinking featuring Summer Rayne, who speaks on "fashion's hidden impact." So, who is New Century Thinking?

New Century Thinking is a media project in the early stages of development, dedicated to getting the varied stories of the movement into the mainstream. The project's principle focus is on the American college campus, which is rapidly expanding as a meeting ground for those who wish to realize the economic, social, and environmental opportunities upon which a brighter future depends.

Other videos feature Peter Senge, Sara Schley, Paul Freundlich and Billy Parish.

APRIL, Come Around She Will

Loggers and environmentalists strike deal in Indonesia Maybe we can all just get along. A landmark deal between a logging company and an environmental group could double the size of a designated national park in the Tesso Nilo rainforest on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, the site of years of conflict between conservationists and timber […]

Utahward Bound

NRC approves nuke-waste dump on Utah Indian reservation This week, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensed the nation’s largest — and only private — radioactive-waste storage facility, to be located on the (prophetically named?) Skull Valley Goshute Reservation in Utah. It’s a major win for the nuclear industry, which desperately needs a dump site for spent […]

Mama Don’t Take My Chromium Away

Chromium industry hid troubling health data, say researchers Scientists working for the chromium industry withheld information about the carcinogenic metal’s health risks even as the industry campaigned to block a strict new regulation, according to a new report. In the journal Environmental Health, researchers describe an industry-sponsored study that suggested lung cancer deaths were five […]

Never mind climate science — what about climate economics?

The word "uncertainty" has become a bit of a bugaboo in green circles, since it's typically used by skeptics to muddy the waters on climate science. But uncertainty around climate science is not the only relevant kind when it comes to global warming.

There's also uncertainty with regard to how much it will cost to do something about it.

It seems to me this is woefully under-discussed. Virtually all public discussion of climate change has to do with the science -- whether global warming is real, how fast it's happening, the effects on sea levels, weather patterns, species, etc. The assumption seems to be that if we can nail down the science, policy will automatically follow.

Not so.

Iowa blows

Mason City, Iowa allows windmills in residential areas, and other good wind news from the Midwest -- read about it here.

Actually, it is about the oil

Also in the NYT (but behind the $elect wall), Ted Koppel (who I guess is looking for new ways to spend his time) points out the obvious:

Keeping oil flowing out of the Persian Gulf and through the Strait of Hormuz has been bedrock American foreign policy for more than a half-century.

...

Perhaps the day will come when the United States is no longer addicted to imported oil; but that day is still many years off. For now, the reason for America's rapt attention to the security of the Persian Gulf is what it has always been. It's about the oil.

Why else would we be building permanent bases in Iraq?

And why are statements like this still viewed as vaguely conspiratorial and wacky? If we can't openly discuss the plain truth, we'll never get anywhere.