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Time for Obama to embrace another GOP energy plan

By Jesse Jenkins and Yael Borofsky With President Obama’s announcement Wednesday that the administration would support expanded offshore oil and gas extraction, it’s now apparent that price pressures on oil make political pressures on politicians impossible to ignore and that some expansion of offshore drilling is inevitable. But despite Green backlash against the Obama administration’s […]

China’s global shopping spree: Is the world’s future resource map tilting East?

Cross-posted from TomDispatch. Think of it as a tale of two countries. When it comes to procuring the resources that make industrial societies run, China is now the shopaholic of planet Earth, while the United States is staying at home. Hard-hit by the global recession, the United States has experienced a marked decline in the […]

Pasta con sarde: the gateway drug for sardine obsession

Sardines at a market in Portugal. We’re wasting this magnificent resource on low-quality, mercury-laden farmed salmon? Not in Tom’s Kitchen! In Tom’s Kitchen, Grist’s food editor discusses some of the quick-and-easy things he gets up to in, well, his kitchen. Forgive him for the lame iPhone photography. —— A while ago, my colleague Jon Hiskes […]

Underground school lunch blogger hits ‘Good Morning America’

Still life, with spork: Mrs. Q’s snap of pre-fab “Salisbury steak,” with canned peaches and canned corn. Photo: Mrs. Q   In “Chewing the Scenery,” we round up interesting food-related video from around the Web. ——- Mrs. Q is an anonymous midwestern public-school teacher who has vowed to eat the rotten dreck being served up […]

Ask Umbra on Ronald McDonald’s retirement, card games, and a coffee stirring stir

Send your question to Umbra! Q. Dear Umbra, After close to 50 years of hawking fatty food directly to kids, a groundswell of parents, health experts, and children’s advocates are calling on McDonald’s to retire Ronald McDonald. A new report and national poll released by Corporate Accountability International found that close to half of the […]

My family (yours, too) needs rich social spaces–not cars–to be happy

Lisa’s fantastic essay, “Say it loud: I’m childfree and I’m proud,” had 196 comments last time I checked. If you haven’t read it, you really should. I’ll wait here. … It got me thinking. Pardon a weekend ramble. Me and my little resource hogs.I’m a father of two boys and I’ve absolutely loved it. I […]

Friday music blogging: Rogue Wave

Rogue Wave’s 2004 debut album, Out of the Shadow, was an immediately memorable mix of bright, melodic indie pop and off-kilter, art-rock time shifts. It made you want to tap your foot, but often made it quite difficult to keep time. It was one of those albums that got better the more time you spent […]

Easter and plastic eggs

There’s always a place for some old-fashioned hating on plastics, especially if there’s a timely hook: “If the traditional Easter egg is a symbol of resurrection, or a more paganesque generalized celebration of fertility, than what does a plastic Easter egg signify?” Andrew Leonard asks at Salon. He learns that Easter, historically a high-sales season […]

Why climate realists and skeptics talk past each other

Courtesy Nemo’s great uncle via FlickrTruth be told, I’m more interested in people who are overcoming barriers to progress than in the endless “does global warming exist?” debates. When your house is on fire, at some point you stop arguing with someone who says there’s no fire, and you focus on getting your family out. […]

Can we get some attention for our issues now?

Fareed Zakaria — prominent foreign policy writer, Newsweek International editor, Washington Post columnist — uses President Obama’s campaign words to suggest it’s time for the president to devote his attention to energy policy: During the 2008 campaign — before the global economic crisis — Barack Obama said the top three things he wanted to accomplish […]