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Use Google Maps to simulate rising sea levels anywhere in the world

Somehow this isn't as much light-hearted fun as Sim Earth.

New business and climate change video

Sea Studios Foundation has a new 12 minute video entitled Ahead of the Curve: Business Responds to Climate Change. It features some of the biggies (DuPont, Wal-Mart, PG&E) and the hot green business broker, Bill Reilly, who facilitated the TXU energy deal. It also has John Holdren, the Harvard climate change prof who is pushing AAAS in more aggressive directions on climate as board chair. It is a format that works well done by real professionals (Sea Studios does Strange Days on Planet Earth, the excellent series narrated by actor Ed Norton).

Grist reviews the spring crop of green glossy mags

Last year at this time, Vanity Fair and Elle tried a shocking experiment: they published green-themed issues. Could mainstream readers handle eco-news if it came in the shape of Julia Roberts and Evangeline Lilly (and, uh, Chip Giller)? Would green really prove to be the new black ink? Covering green issues … or just green-issue […]

Human impacts, Al Gore, and more

I was fortunate enough last night to hear Tim Flannery -- he of The Weathermakers -- speak here in Toronto to a crowd of businessmen and lawyers. Favorite moment:

Questioner: Mr. Flannery, do you think or wish that Al Gore should run for President?

Flannery: He's already done it, and what's more, he won!

Levity aside, Flannery delivered an excellent talk and specifically explained why, exactly, the atmosphere is so much more vulnerable to human disruption than something like the ocean.

‘Nature for nature’s sake’ has limited appeal

Stephanie’s post on Dave Foreman’s rant raises a subject that’s been hashed over on this site many times. But we’ve got some new readers around, so I’m going to hash it over some more. Here’s how I see it. If you really love "nature for nature’s sake," you’ll want to do or say whatever it […]

Why bother filing an EIS for a biodiversity-destroying project?

Ag giant Cargill was forced to close a soy export terminal in the Brazilian Amazon this weekend, marking a major victory for greens, who have argued for years that the plant was built illegally and became a significant cause of rainforest depletion.

The terminal spurred a major leap in soy production -- millions of acres of rainforest were turned over to soy bean fields -- which is used principally to supply European livestock farms. Ironically, it was closed not because of the destruction, but because they never submitted an EIS. Mmm, soy.

Seems like a dead end

Last week, Erik Hoffner posted about H2CAR, a process developed at Purdue University that would allegedly dramatically improve the productivity of coal or biomass gasification by adding hydrogen to the mix.

I was intrigued by the idea, and read the article. Unfortunately, I think this is a dead end.

Judge refuses request for a closed courtroom in global warming case

You may have heard about efforts by the motor vehicle industry to invalidate state laws restricting greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks. California crafted a rule, other states adopted it, and the industry filed suit.

It's a legal argument that stretches back to 2005. And with three active cases -- in California, Rhode Island, and Vermont -- it's not going away soon.

In a dramatic new twist, the industry asked the court in the Vermont case to hold most of the trial in secret.

Tips for reliving your childhood

I recently removed the play structure I'd built 16 years ago in our backyard. I remember wondering as I built it, "What will it feel like when I tear it down?" Well, it was kind of sad. Memories washed over me as I worked. Time perception isn't linear.

I also tore down the tree house I'd built for my kids. Not only have they outgrown it, but it also wasn't in our tree. Our neighbors had graciously given us permission to use their tree because we didn't have one of our own. Luckily, Seattle's building department has standing orders to ignore kid's tree houses.

I heart David Tilman

Tilman on biofuels in Sunday's Washington Post: eminently readable and reasonable on parsing the differences between good and bad biofuels, drops in ethanol production in Brazil, what renewable really means, and where we should go from here.

The op-ed's based on his December Science study, which was discussed here. Everything he writes makes so much sense. Why can't all scientists be this articulate?