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Toward a civil, inclusive national conversation on food — over a savory tart

As the date for Slow Food Nation — the big sustainable-food conference scheduled in San Francisco this coming August — draws near, I’ve been thinking about attitudes toward food in the erstwhile Fast Food Nation. Like a big pot of water that’s been on high heat seemingly forever, our national conversation on food seems to […]

Inconvenient Truth gives an encore — as an opera

Climate change ain’t over ’til the fat Albert sings …

McCain to skip another crucial climate vote

Unbelievable. Sen. John McCain — who just weeks ago said of the Climate Security Act, "I hope it will pass, and I hope the entire Congress will join in supporting it and the President of the United States would sign it" — now says he won’t show up to vote on it. He won’t vote […]

Childhood lead exposure linked to criminal behavior, and more

Read the articles mentioned at the end of the podcast: For on the Floor Beyond the Palin Pb & Jail Now Taking Reservations Read the articles mentioned at the end of the podcast: The Drop Heard ‘Round the World Ounce For Ounce He’s Got the Remedy

U.K.’s former prime minister says symbolic vote on Boxer-Lieberman-Warner matters to the world

In March, British prime minister Tony Blair launched the Breaking the Climate Deadlock initiative to promote a new global agreement on climate change.

Today he has an op-ed the in the Washington Post, "Leading On Climate Change: How Action in Congress Can Move the World," in which he argues,

U.N. report forecasts continued high food prices for the next decade

Food prices worldwide are likely to remain relatively high for at least the next decade, according to an analysis by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. Biofuel demand, high energy costs, and commodity speculation will continue to keep food prices high in the long term, despite periodic dips in price. Climate change is also […]

The Pentagon that ate America

There have been some discussions on Grist lately of the military, the military budget, how how militarism relates to sustainability. Everyone interested in those topics should immediately go and read “Entrenched, Embedded, and Here to Stay: The Pentagon’s Expansion Will Be Bush’s Lasting Legacy” over on TomDispatch. It is a deeply disturbing — not to […]

Republicans for Environmental Protection lets McCain off the hook for missing important votes

Yesterday, Republicans for Environmental Protection issued their annual scorecard for 2007. Party standard bearer Sen. John McCain missed every vote they scored. (For more on that, see here.) So what did REP do? Give him a score of zero? No, they just didn’t score him at all. Nice to see calculated political cowardice rewarded. With […]

Dow Chemical ordered to clean up dioxin downstream of headquarters

Dow Chemical on Wednesday was ordered to clean up dioxin in homes and yards downstream of its Michigan headquarters, the result of dumping dioxin-laden chemicals in nearby rivers for decades. Test results revealed yesterday show dioxin levels in and around a number of houses some 20 miles downstream exceed by a few times the level […]

Displaced by development, squatters await justice in Argentina

Next to a busy train station in Buenos Aires, not far from the chic restaurants and condos getting all the attention these days, lies another world. Behind a gate is a long metal shed, once used to store trains. This is La Casa del Afectado Social y Ambiental — literally, “the house of the enviro-socially […]