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Ethyl alcohol dulls the imagination

What explains The Economist's fascination with ethanol? In this week's issue, Britain's leading current-affairs magazine has published an extended article on "Green America: Waking up and catching up." Although most of the article actually talks about other energy sources besides ethanol, and about state-level efforts to encourage energy conservation and reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, the photo editors chose to illustrate it with pictures of ethanol, ethanol, ethanol.

No, not that

Talking about climate change, that is. More evidence that it's the hot political topic of the moment -- even the muckety-mucks at Davos are all abuzz over greenhouse gas emissions:

More adventures in Utah

I first heard about Sundance’s renegade biofuels enthusiasts via email. The folks from Freedom Fuels, a new documentary about biofuels, were in town for Sundance — well, roaming town that is. They weren’t actually in the festival, but they were there to screen their movie regardless, traveling around town in a biodiesel-powered school bus showing […]

Let’s put bison back on the praries

Every once in a while, a pearl tossed to the swine (we Gristmill commenters) by a fellow Sus scrofa domestica (that's for you, Canis) sticks in my ear. Blame this one on amazingdrx. He mentioned that a concerted effort to restore our prairies could sequester underground much of our carbon without any new technology or the warming effect of temperate tree plantings.

Harvesting a mix of prairie grasses to displace coal in a power plant is many times more efficient and ecologically benign than converting it to liquid fuel, and would tie in nicely with the URGE2 concept. I'm not licking boots here. URGE2 is a powerful idea.

Pew report shows Americans poised to take global climate crisis seriously

The State of the Union address may be just a lot of talk. But considering that each word in these national speeches is painstakingly choreographed, a small phrase for a president can be a giant step for mankind.

That's why, when Bush uttered the words "global climate change" before a TV audience of 45.5 million, I nearly jumped out of my seat. He said it! He said it for the first time in any of his seven State of the Union addresses.

This is huge. Especially in light of the results from a Pew Research Center poll on global warming that was released Wednesday. Even those few words, when spoken by Bush, may signal a tipping point for Americans who remain on the fence about the reality of climate change and what can be done about it.

Check out these numbers:

Yeah, yeah, it’s not about the celebrities. Only it is.

I spent most of my time in Utah almost seeing stars. Hung out with a biofuels enthusiast that Ed Begley Jr. had hung out with the day before. Rode in a car that chauffeured Bradley Whitford the previous two days. Touched a poster that Justin Timberlake would touch just the next day. Sigh. An update […]

The music video

OK, it won't win any Oscars or snag a screening at Sundance, but this little clip only asks for three minutes of your time:

PBS’s NOW chats with Laurie David, Majora Carter

“The Heat Over Global Warming” is the topic of discussion on tonight’s episode of the PBS show NOW. They’ll be chatting with high-profile activist Laurie David as well as Majora Carter of Sustainable South Bronx. From the show’s website: Ahead of a major scientific report on global warming to be released next week, David Brancaccio […]

Two yoot-based eco-vids

For those of you who haven’t read Grist List yet today (and why not, hm?), we called attention to two yoot-based eco-vids. But Grist List isn’t exactly G-rated, so I wanted to call attention to them here, too. The first is a charming series of videos created by fourth-graders at The Park School in Massachusetts. […]

From Handbags to Hooligans

We wish we were an Oscar maybe winner Dreamy Al‘s got this Oscar nod in the bag … an Ecoist bag made from movie billboards, that is. (Yeah, we did!) We give the eco-totes two thumbs up, though we could think of a few other things to do with a larger-than-life McConaughey. Photo: Ecoist Baby, […]