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Two great tastes that taste great together!

If y'all want to do something nice for Grist without, you know, spending any money, you could bookmark GoodSearch as your main search site (or install the toolbar widget on your browser). Tell it to remember Grist as your charity of choice. Each time you search, half the resulting ad-sale revenue goes to us. Easy breezy and oh so sweet!

Of course, we are in the midst of a fundraiser, so you could spend some old-fashioned cash too. The phrase has become hackneyed from overuse, but it is nonetheless true: we depend on your generosity to keep going. Despite the bling-bling you see on the site every day, we are in fact a perpetually broke non-profit. Our wee staff runs like a crack-smoking gerbil on its media wheel 10 hours a day. Give us some nice gerbil food, won't you?

How cash and corporate pressure pushed ethanol to the fore

… got all liquored on that road house corn … — Tom Waits, “Gun Street Girl” Before it became widely used as a car fuel, ethanol was just grain liquor — and the federal government was not particularly kind to it. We pledge allegiance to ADM. Shortly after the American Revolution, the new government imposed […]

Barbara Boxer is sweet talking us

Man oh man, I sure do like what I'm hearing from incoming Senate EPW Committee chair Barbara Boxer.

There's this:

A new report ranks offset providers, all bogus-like

A new report (PDF) purporting to rank carbon offset providers has just been released. It was commissioned by Cool Air-Cool Planet and put together by Trexler Climate + Energy Services, a consulting firm run by Mark Trexler. Trexler rated 30 carbon offset providers with seven criteria, each on a 1-10 scale.

This stuff is super-wonky, so let me skip to my conclusion: The report is good reading, with some interesting discussion of various issues facing the carbon offset industry, but as a guide for average consumers looking to purchase offsets, it's not particularly useful.

The report's larger goal of encouraging transparency and quality is certainly laudable. But a simple ranking of industry players at this point probably confuses more than it elucidates. Many questions need to be worked out, and independent standards need to be established, before such a ranking can serve as a meaningful guide to action.

The what, where, and why of E85 ethanol

If you’re like the rest of us, you’ve probably heard of E85 — yet don’t have the slightest idea what it is. Or if you do have an idea, it’s, well, slight. But never fear, friends and neighbors: We’ve got the skinny on the corn-a-rific fuel that’s increasingly on the tips of tongues and in […]

But other mail-order mags lag behind in setting eco-standards

Intimate-apparel maker Victoria's Secret, beloved by teenage boys everywhere, sends out more than a million catalogs a day. There's a catalog for every season (because you can't just wear pastels year round) and every sale (no matter the time of year, there are bras and panties half off).

And until recently, all those delicate underthings -- and the angelic models making us all wish we had airbrushers of our very own -- were gracing pages made entirely from virgin wood. (Not the kind you're thinking of, perv.) Which is why treehuggers ForestEthics launched a major PR campaign to expose Victoria's 'Dirty' Secret.

Fast-forward about two years to a victory announcement today, as Victoria's Secret's parent company, Limited Brands (which also includes Express, Bath & Body Works, and The Limited), commits to a number of tree-happy measures. In addition to upping post-consumer waste and Forest Stewardship Council content in their catalogs (including 80 percent PCW recycled content in their clearance mags), Limited Brands will eliminate all pulp supplied from Canada's Great Boreal Forest, which contains 25 percent of the world's remaining intact, roadless forest. Additionally, they're reducing overall paper use, shifting some paper mills to FSC, and putting $1 million toward research and advocacy protecting endangered forests.

Wo0t!

Umbra on the promise of ethanol

Dear Umbra, Lately I’ve been struggling with the idea of ethanol as a green fuel. It seems to be getting a lot of attention in the government and media, and it is being touted as the answer to this country’s petroleum woes (see GM’s “Live Green, Go Yellow” campaign). But from what I’ve read, ethanol […]

Rising sugar prices mean even more profit for the ethanol king.

In today's Main Dish, I attempt to lay out the long and twisted tale of Archer Daniels Midland's government-aided hijacking of the nation's biofuel market. (A while back, during the Poverty and the Environment series, I tried to tell the related story of how ADM high-jacked the food system.)

A few days ago, an interesting bit caught my eye in the Wall Street Journal that I couldn't fit into my piece. It's a twist on the topic of ADM, high-fructose corn syrup, ethanol, and Brazil.

Watch out, EPA dudes!

Kevin Drum flags this little bit from the latest Evans-Novak Political Report:

He understands you … and you too

Let's discuss Barack Obama, shall we?

I'm about 3/4 of the way through his book. The first half or so is mostly him telling stories -- his own history, stories from his campaigns, stories about his fellow senators. The writing is just spectacular: clear, engaging, slyly funny, self-deprecating, perfectly paced. It's got those touches of idiosyncrasy no ghostwriter can capture (if you've read ghostwritten books, you know they all have a certain feel). It's clear he's uncommonly self-aware, intelligent, authentic, and charismatic. It's impossible to resist the guy.

But when he turns to discussion of the issues, the tic emerges. In every case, there are two moldy, entrenched positions, politicized extremes advanced by shrill partisans. In every case, neither of those moldy positions adequately addresses our current realities. He, however, has a clear-eyed, above-the-fray position of his own that synthesizes all the best of both extremes.