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The Chemical Druthers

New Jersey becomes first state to require stronger chemical security New Jersey has become the first state in the nation to require security assessments for chemical plants — assessments blocked at the federal level by industry and Republican lawmakers. The new rules call for the state’s 140-odd chemical plants to evaluate potential security risks and […]

That’s Soil, Folks

Officials understating health risks in New Orleans, say eco-groups Louisiana state and federal regulators are not doing enough to warn the public about the health risks in New Orleans, say public-health advocates and enviros. According to the Natural Resources Defense Council and state eco-groups, soil in many parts of the city is contaminated — sometimes […]

Bye Catch

Over a fifth of all fish caught are killed and discarded, study finds The first comprehensive study of “bycatch” — unwanted fish caught and discarded by commercial fishing operations — has confirmed the worst fears of conservationists: Over a fifth of all fish caught by U.S. commercial fishers, around 1.1 million tons, are tossed out […]

Free Your Mind and the Tax Deduction Will Follow

Give to Grist, annihilate your angst Feeling burdened by your eco-sins? Did you nudge up the heat instead of donning a cardigan? Let the tap run while brushing your teeth? Drive all over town hunting for bargains on Black Friday? Don’t sweat it. Just buy a Grist Indulgence and wipe that slate clean. That’s right: […]

Thom Yorke to meet Tony Blair on climate change

Apparently, Radiohead singer Thom Yorke was asked by Friends of the Earth UK to meet with Tony Blair about climate change.

Uh, what?

And supposedly he wrote about it on his blog, although I can't find the entry there. I can only find it quoted in the press. Here's a bit of it:

Friends Of The Earth have asked me whether I would meet Tony Blair at Downing Street to discuss what our government is not doing about climate change. I don't know if this will ever happen for certain. It is rattling around in the back of my mind and concerns me a lot. I have no intention of being used by spider spin doctors to make it look like we make progress when it is just words.

...

Blair has been uttering nonsense lately about Kyoto and such, real la la stuff... looks like the American right have finally eaten his mind. Why on earth would I meet this man? Or perhaps that is exactly why I should. But i dont have powers of persuasion, i just have temper and an acid tongue.

The American right has finally eaten Blair's mind. Indeed.

In other news, damn I can't wait for that new Radiohead album.

The reapers are back, still too clever for their own good

Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus -- yes, yes, the reapers -- want you to know that environmentalism's not only dead, but possibly responsible for the coming apocalypse.

Noting that in Montreal the Bush administration has yet again derailed climate efforts, and the Blair government has yet again acquiesced thereto, the reapers pin the responsibility right where it belongs: on ... greens?

But the stalemate over addressing global warming highlights the failure of neither Blair nor Bush but rather of environmentalism and the politics of limits.

Picture me here doing a double-take-and-rub-eyes, a la Jon Stewart.

Let’s go through this one more time.

A couple of enterprising students have uncovered a confidential brief (PDF) from the IPCC to George W. Bush.

It'll never work. Too many pages.

Rocío Romero and the L.V. prefab house

I missed this short New Yorker piece about architect Rocío Romero and her L.V. prefab house. It's probably been blogged a zillion times, but whatevs: it's interesting. My ears especially perked at this bit:

Romero originally thought that the primary market for the L.V. would be California, but most of her customers have turned out to be in the East or in the Midwest. The first kit Romero sold was to a couple in Virginia, Barry Bless and Jennifer Watson, who put it on a six-acre site in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Bless, a musician, and Watson, an architectural photographer, finished their house this past March. They did much of the construction work themselves, and it took about a year; the final cost was ninety-five thousand dollars. The couple christened their L.V. the Luminhaus. As soon as it was done, they put up a Web site filled with Watson’s photographs of the house amid fall foliage and winter snow, offering the house for rent at eight hundred dollars a week. In six weeks, it was booked for the rest of the year.

My lust for modernist prefab knows no bounds.

SUV sales are down

Pretty sharply:

Sales of all new vehicles in the United States were off 2.8 percent in November from a year ago, with Detroit automakers bearing the brunt of the industry slowdown, according to Autodata Corp. Sales of some SUVs were off more than 50 percent from last year. Meanwhile, U.S. sales by Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co. continued to surge.

What can I do but refer back again to this post.

Oh. Em. Gee.

Currently picking my chin up off the floor after reading this.

Note this gem from local scientist Mikhail Tiyunov: "If it really happened, things must be pretty bad in our forests." Ya think?