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This store takes its green role seriously

Last month, we reported on a few regional grocery chains that are earning organic certification. I went to one of them, a Hannaford, the other night, and have been meaning to publicly praise them ever since. Not only do they have huge, clearly marked organic sections (none of this shy, tucked-away business), they also had […]

Hansen gives a talk in Iowa about climate change impacts

Hansen writes faster than I can blog. He has posted a "talk given at Des Moines last Sunday, with description of Declaration of Stewardship slightly edited for clarity." He talks about the "three major consequences of global warming, if we go down the business-as-usual path, with fossil fuel use and greenhouse gas emissions continuing to increase":

TV watching inhibits learning

Neil Postman and Jerry Mander have said that educational TV is a fraud for decades -- what you learn watching television is how to watch television. Period.

The conceit of "educational TV" is the same one that sells "eat all you like" diet books and "think yourself rich" plans to fools: the idea of something for nothing (someone else, smarter than you, will handle raising your kids -- just pop in the video).

You learn to be human by interacting with humans, not appliances.

A look at Hillary Clinton’s environmental platform and record

Update: Clinton suspended her campaign for the presidency on June 7, 2008. Hillary Clinton. Photo: Roger H. Goun During her years representing New York state in the U.S. Senate (2001 to the present), Hillary Clinton has earned an 87 percent lifetime voting score from the League of Conservation Voters (lower than it might have been […]

Activists pester him about the most trivial stuff

OK, I’m back to defending Dingell (sorry Brian!), mainly because the activists attacking him are acting like idiots. At a town hall in Ann Arbor, Mich., Dingell unveiled the various climate-change proposals he’s going to introduce to Congress on Sep. 1. Press coverage of the event is fairly sketchy, and I can’t find a transcript […]

15 Green Fashionistas

These fashionistas aren’t just talking the talk, they’re walking the catwalk. See who’s shining a spotlight on clothing with a conscience, then join our comment thread below. Tierra Del Forte Just call her Ms. Green Jeans. This designer and founder of Del Forte Denim has created a line of premium organic denim for women. And […]

NYT dating advice: Eat more flesh

This makes me want to barf, on so many levels: Martha Flach mentioned meat twice in her Match.com profile: “I love architecture, The New Yorker, dogs … steak for two and the Sunday puzzle.” She was seeking, she added, “a smart, funny, kind man who owns a suit (but isn’t one) … and loves red […]

More thoughts on how sea level will be influenced by global warming

Hansen has posted some important thoughts about sea level rise on his website. In particular, he has shortened his "Scientific reticence and sea level rise" paper and New Scientist has published it. The key conclusion:

[I]ce sheets will respond in a non-linear fashion to global warming --- and are already beginning to do so. There is enough information now, in my opinion, to make it a near certainty that business-as-usual [emissions] scenarios will lead to disastrous multi-metre sea level rise on the century time scale.

This leads directly to his emissions strategy:

The global community must aim to restrict any further global warming to less than 1°C above the temperature in 2000. This implies a CO2 limit of about 450 parts per million or less. Such scenarios require almost immediate changes to get energy and greenhouse gas emissions onto a fundamentally different path.

Hansen also offers some useful thoughts about recent research on Greenland, and has been misunderstood by the media.

Good News, Sad News

Six species discovered in Congo, four endangered gorillas shot A research expedition to a remote forest in the Democratic Republic of the Congo found six new animal species — a bat, a rat, two shrews, and two frogs — and may have found new plant species as well. The trip, which ran from January to […]

On blueberries, zucchini, and dragon slime

A few years ago, a friend served me some blueberry-studded gingerbread that she had bought at a local bakery. It was fine, but the spices in the gingerbread really obscured the flavor of the blueberries. On the other hand, I find plain blueberry muffins boring and bland. While I’ve had delicious lime-blueberry muffins and lemon-blueberry […]