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Do you pod here often?

Speaking of incremental improvements, Grist will be launching a weekly podcast shortly. Before we officially roll it out to the entire Grist audience, I'm hoping you Gristmillians could take a listen and provide some feedback. Specifically, we'd like to make sure that the RSS feed is working, the podcasts are downloading and playing fine, and the sound quality is good.

If you're an iTunes user, click here to find our weekly podcast in the iTunes store. If you'd prefer to use another RSS reader or podcatcher, use this:

http://www.grist.org/rss/weekly_podcast.xml

Please email feedback to me at podcasts [at] grist [dot] org. Thanks, and enjoy!

Al Gore out, Big Oil in for public schools

Gristmill readers have been knocking at our proverbial door to make sure we've seen Laurie David's article from Sunday's Washington Post. It details the National Science Teachers Association's (NSTA) rejection of 50,000 free copies of An Inconvenient Truth for use in science classes across the country, and it's definitely worth some Gristmill grinding.

Techno-hotness!

Grist is in the early conceptual stages of a comprehensive redesign -- or as they call it in the entertainment industry, a reimagining. It's going to kick ass. Your mind will be blown. You'll never see web media the same way again. You will be spiritually renewed. Your love life will perk up. Your breakfast cereal will taste better.

Winter veggies served with a labor shortage and a side of rocket fuel

Last summer, plenty of drama emanated from California's Salinas Valley, epicenter of industrial vegetable production (organic and otherwise) and self-proclaimed "nation's salad bowl."

The season began amid grumbles among growers about a labor shortage. To paraphrase their complaint: Not enough Mexican workers are sneaking across the border, and ones who are are drawn into higher-paying construction jobs.

The season ended in an ignominious nationwide E. coli outbreak that killed three people and sickened hundreds of others.

About this time each year, industrial vegetable production shifts to Arizona's Yuma County, source of 90 percent of winter vegetables in the U.S. and (gasp) 98 percent of its iceberg lettuce. Let the drama begin.

Oil imperialism is going to be the end of us

Via Political Animal, this little nugget got me thinking:

In other words, the bill to bring Army and Navy battalions back to the status they were in before the invasion ... [will be] $50 to $100 billion. "The next president will face a staggering bill," Wilkerson says, not even counting the costs of further efforts in Iraq.

So, not counting the cost of the war itself, just returning U.S. armed forces to the fighting condition they maintained back in ye olden dayes of Feb. 2003 will cost as much as $100 billion. The estimates for the total cost of the war have been pegged as high as $2 trillion.

We talk a great deal about the "externalities" of oil. It's important to remember that one of its costliest externalities -- probably No. 2 behind climate change -- is American military spending in the Persian Gulf, and at least two major wars.

Show Us Your Titanium

Smog-eating mineral added to buildings and roads in Europe, Japan Why do buildings just stand there when they could make themselves useful? Some companies have a solution: coating buildings and roads in Europe and Japan with a “smog-eating” mineral, titanium dioxide, that cleans surfaces and nearby air. The coating can reduce some pollutants by 20 […]

Best Feet Forward

Two takes on the box-office smash Happy Feet For the last couple of weeks, a moving musical about a dance-happy penguin has been romping through U.S. box offices, shoving even suave operative James Bond out of the way. What’s the key to the movie’s success, and does its environmental message ring true? Andrew Sharpless of […]

The Hunter is a Lonely Heart

Christian Coalition leader-to-be resigns over climate change, poverty stance We remember when evangelical leaders served time before stepping down in disgrace — hello, fabulous Bakker boy — but the latest kerfuffle involves a figurehead who hadn’t even assumed his position. And this time the scandal isn’t sexual, it’s environmental. The Rev. Joel C. Hunter, a […]

Mass Appeal

Supremes to decide whether EPA can or must regulate greenhouse-gas emissions Tomorrow, the U.S. Supreme Court will begin hearing arguments in Massachusetts v. EPA, a humdinger of a case looking at whether the federal government can or must regulate greenhouse-gas emissions. The case centers on a Clean Air Act provision that requires regulation of air […]

Piscean Match

Fishing industry, USDA square off over definition of organic fish What makes a fish organic? That query has the U.S. Agriculture Department swimming in circles as it fleshes out a new organic rule. Is wild-caught fish the purest, or is closely monitored farm-raised fish the better option? If the latter, does it matter if the […]