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Pelosi’s plan to save the polar bears — and poor kids, too …

There has been a lot of discussion about the energy package that is set to pass the U.S. House this week. But the media so far has missed one of the most interesting and innovative proposals that will be voted on: the Green Jobs Act of 2007. This ground-breaking legislation will make $120 million a year available across the country to begin training workers (and would-be workers) for jobs in the clean-energy sector. When the bill becomes law, 35,000 people a year will benefit from cutting-edge, vocational education in fields that could literally save the Earth.

Heath Row

London airport owner seeks injunction against weeklong climate protest We’ve got juicy legal goings-on from London, and while it’s probably not true that all involved are wearing long, white wigs, we like to picture it that way. Here’s the deal: in mid-August, an estimated 5,000 protesters will descend on London’s Heathrow Airport for a weeklong […]

Are Those Bisphenol Genes You’re Wearing?

New study confirms that bisphenol A can mess with animal genetics Know what time it is? It’s time to check in on bisphenol A, the chemical in many plastics that gets creepier by the day. Despite continuing claims by the chemical industry that products containing the compound — which can include baby bottles, water bottles, […]

Brangelina argue over politics

Ever wonder what Brangelina fight about? Turns out it’s Barack Obama. From a super credible news source: An insider close to the Pitt family said: “They got into a huge fight about politics (Brad supports Barack Obama, while Angie’s a John Edwards fan.) Brad ended up calling her immature. He says the next thing he […]

Prints: Not Charming

Laser printers can emit high levels of unhealthy small particles, study says Remember how computers were going to usher in the Paperless Office? We so should have done that. An Australian study has found that many laser printers emit high levels of small particles that can be harmful to human health, with the highest-emitting machines […]

Climate marches kick off in New Hampshire and Iowa

A scholar-in-residence at Middlebury College, Bill McKibben is the author of The End of Nature, the first book for a general audience on climate change, and, most recently, Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future. He serves on Grist’s board of directors. Thursday, 2 Aug 2007 LITCHFIELD, N.H. The climate movement is […]

It’s a thing

Tom Konrad ponders the ethanol situation and wonders: what if, instead of feeding most of our corn to cows, and then growing a bunch of grass to make cellulosic ethanol, we use all the cow corn for ethanol and feed the grass to the cows? Gimmicky hook, but quite a fact-filled, educational article.

For now, local politics is the way to effect ag-policy change

Over the past few years, grassroots support has swelled for new federal farm policies — ones that promote healthy, sustainably grown food, not the interests of a few agribusiness firms. Udder madness. Photo: iStockphoto The target of much of this organizing has been the 2007 farm bill. If past farm bill debates have been the […]

Soros, Goldman Sachs financing destruction of Brazilian forests

Well, that whole beating George Bush thing in 2004 didn't work out, so now billionaire financier / Democratic fundraiser / anti-Communist crusader George Soros is back to his first love: making money -- apparently even when it comes at the expense of the planet.

Sabrina Valle of the Washington Post is reporting that Soros is one of the biggest investors in growing sugarcane ethanol in the Brazilian cerrado, "a vast plateau where temperatures range from freezing to steaming hot and bushes and grasslands alternate with forests and the richest variety of flora of all the world's savannas."

That could soon come to an end. In the past four decades, more than half of the Cerrado has been transformed by the encroachment of cattle ranchers and soybean farmers. And now another demand is quickly eating into the landscape: sugarcane, the raw material for Brazilian ethanol.

"Deforestation in the Cerrado is actually happening at a higher rate than it has in the Amazon," said John Buchanan, senior director of business practices for Conservation International in Arlington.

"If the actual deforestation rates continue, all the remaining vegetation in the Cerrado could be lost by the year 2030. That would be a huge loss of biodiversity."

The roots of this transformation lie in the worldwide demand for ethanol, recently boosted by a U.S. Senate bill that would mandate the use of 36 billion gallons of ethanol by 2022, more than six times the capacity of the United States' 115 ethanol refineries. President Bush, who proposed a similar increase in his State of the Union address, visited Brazil and negotiated a deal in March to promote ethanol production in Latin America and the Caribbean.

In a prominent op-ed

Today in the Washington Post, Rep. John Dingell has an op-ed arguing on behalf of a carbon tax: I apparently created a mini-storm last month when I observed publicly for at least the sixth time since February that some form of carbon emissions fee or tax (including a gasoline tax) would be the most effective […]