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Meetings, meetings who love meetings

Sorry for the lack of blogginess today. I've been in some marathon meetings about Grist's target audience, how to reach them, what they want, what we want to become, and how to select a concrete course out of the almost limitless possibilities in front of us. Heady stuff.

There's all sorts of interesting stuff going on out in the world, including a new report ranking carbon offset providers that has created quite a fuss in that sector. But alas, it shall all have to wait until tomorrow.

Funny video alert!

These retractable pillars are traffic-control devices in Manchester, England. People don't seem to really get them:

NASA invests … on the moon

Typically I am in the tank for investment in basic science. But it mystifies me that NASA would announce they are going to set up camp on the moon's south pole as a galactic jumping off point. Gives new meaning to the idea of forward basing -- something that isn't working out too well in practice here on Earth.

If we are going to make a super-sized investment in science, how about jumping on the climate bandwagon here at home, an area where NASA already does some good work, like here or here or here or here.

All the resources you need to hop on the biofuels bandwagon

Once upon a time, we were going to make a beautiful map for you, showing all the available biofuel pumps in the country. Then we realized: hey, there are already beautiful maps out there. Not to mention books. And articles. And organizations working their tails off on this stuff. So why reinvent the wheel? Instead, […]

A blistering report on biofuel from the tropical south.

In today's Main Dish, Julia Olmstead surveys the environmental liabilities involved in biofuel production -- stuff you don't typically hear about in, say, an Archer Daniels Midland press release or from celebrity biodiesel enthusiasts.

One of Julia's focuses is industrial biodiesel production, which, she writes, is increasingly focusing on tropical palm as a feedstock:

Throughout tropical countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, Brazil, and Colombia, rainforests and grasslands are being cleared for soybean and oil-palm plantations to make biodiesel, a product that is then marketed halfway across the world as a "green" fuel.

As if on cue, today's Wall Street Journal features (sub required) a blistering report on that very topic.

Look, he’s on the teevee!

I just got back from taping my first ever appearance on national teevee. I'm here to report that it is a truly surreal experience. There I am, sitting alone in a room, with awkwardly rigid posture, speaking to a yellow arrow above a camera in response to a disembodied voice that keeps telling me to "smile more," struggling to recall the snappy talking points I'd written down at 2am the previous morning. Totally natural!

The show is The Climate Code, a Weather Channel program hosted by Heidi Cullen (who we interviewed last year). They're interviewing five or six people about the top 10 climate stories of the year, and then they'll smoosh the whole thing down into a half-hour program, so it will probably be a blink-and-you-miss-me sort of thing.

Nonetheless, if you want to see me looking like a deer in headlights, speaking in a slightly-too-loud voice and an ill-fitting earnest tone, tune your idiot boxes to the Weather Channel on Dec. 17, 5pm EST. It should be good for a laugh.

A Royal Al-ly

Gore lends heft to sustainable-business campaign launched by Prince Charles We were so excited when we saw that Prince was recruiting Al Gore for a green campaign. We loved thinking about the velveteen rocker and the ex-veep partying like it was 1999 again. But alas, it was gently pointed out to us that it’s Prince […]

Selecting Dion

Environmental advocate elected leader of Canada’s Liberal Party We bring you news from a faraway land called “Canada” (pronounced Can-uh-duh). Reports translated from Canadian reveal that the country’s out-of-power Liberal Party has elected as its new leader the greener-than-green Stephane Dion, an academic-turned-politician who served most recently as Canada’s Environment Minister. Dion’s victory was what […]

In Sickness and in Wealth

Bush administration apparently tried to limit payments to ailing nuclear workers You know you’re in trouble when America’s bubblegum newspaper nails you. According to a memo obtained by USA Today, the Bush administration has tried to avoid compensating Cold War-era nuclear workers sickened by radiation. Under a federal program created in 2000 to pay claims […]

One Last Stab

U.S. House of Representatives will vote on offshore-drilling bill today The U.S. House will vote today on a measure to open 8.3 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico to offshore drilling, as Republican leaders try to get in as much mischief as they can before being demoted. The bill is being pushed through under […]