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Under the Covers: Getcha grub on

Grub, as defined in the book of the same name by Anna Lappé and Bryant Terry:

grub* (grəb), n.

1. Grub is organic and sustainably raised whole and locally grown foods;
2. Grub is produced with fairness from seed to table;
3. Grub is good for our bodies, our communities, and our environment.

*Grub should be universal ... and it's delicious.

Last night, I went with a cadre of social Gristers to a book reading and signing by Lappé and Terry at the Elliott Bay bookstore. Their book, Grub: ideas for an urban organic kitchen, is half scary facts and figures about our food system and the chemicals therein, half earth- and people-healthy menu plans (complete with soundtrack suggestions and short poems and essays to compliment the meal), and 10 percent resource guide. (And apparently I suck at math.)

Much like the book, the reading was a good mix of factual bits and personal stories about the authors' relationship with food, spiced with bits of humor. Lappé, coauthor (along with her mother, Frances Moore Lappé) of Hope's Edge: The Next Diet for a Small Planet and cofounder of the Small Planet Institute and Small Planet Fund, joked about a book she reads when she needs a laugh, Saving the Planet with Pesticides and Plastics. Terry, a chef and founding director of b-healthy!, chuckled about his past forays into fruitarianism and even breatharianism before realizing he was a "grubarian," adding that "to embrace grub, you don't have to give up anything -- except maybe a mouthful of pesticides." The real fun, however, began after the bookstore event.

Media Shower: The MTV generation

A lot of media companies have been jumping on the stop-global-warming bandwagon lately, but few are as influential with the kids as MTV:

Following President Bush's State of the Union declaration earlier this year that "America is addicted to oil," MTV announced today the network's latest pro-social initiative, BREAK THE ADDICTION, a year-long campaign to engage, educate and empower young people to take simple, daily actions that can have a measurable impact in the fight against global warming. The campaign will launch with a channel takeover on Earth Day, Saturday, April 22, including an on-air, online and wireless messaging campaign about how to help stop global warming, break-ins to regularly scheduled programming that offer environmental lessons, multiple public service announcements (PSAs), and an MTV News package introducing BREAK THE ADDICTION, featuring a leading young environmental activist.

BREAK THE ADDICTION is MTV's year-long recovery program aimed at mobilizing a new generation of environmental activists. On-air, online and on wireless, the initiative will connect the audience to simple, daily tips, as well as in-depth resources, to help them recognize and change habits that harm the environment. Viewers will be directed online to think.mtv.com to quantify and track their efforts by the amount of carbon dioxide emissions and dollars saved due to changes they commit to making throughout the year. Supplemental MTV programming - both long-form and news packages - will air throughout the year and the tips will be revealed in daily PSAs on air on MTV, MTV2, and mtvU as well as online and delivered to cell phones. Additional PSAs will appear on mtv.com, mtv2.com, mtvU.com, MTV Overdrive and mtvU Über. Through partnerships with StopGlobalWarming.org, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Grist.org, World Resources Institute, Student PIRGs, Campus Climate Challenge, and Clean Air-Cool Planet, MTV will go beyond the broadcasts to create online and wireless resources, as well as opportunities for grassroots organizing and outreach.

And as part of our partnership with MTV, we will be providing MTV with select Grist content over the next 12 months. Check it out.

Props to our marketing manager, Brendon Smyth, for making this happen.

The Sierra Club and Lincoln Chafee

A mini-imbroglio has broken out in the blogosphere over the Sierra Club's decision to formally endorse Senator Lincoln Chafee (R-R.I.). A similar dust-up took place late last year over NARAL's decision to endorse Chafee. Both endorsements were largely deplored by the progressive blogs, with a few dissenters.

I'm going to argue for what might seem a slightly odd position: NARAL made a terrible decision; the Sierra Club made a good one.

Start with this premise: For a variety of structural and historical reasons, party discipline has increased sharply in American politics over the last few decades. We more and more resemble a parliamentary system. So the relevant questions here have less to do with Chafee's own positions or votes than with party dynamics -- specifically, Republican party dynamics.

On both abortion and the environment, Chafee is an exception to the prevailing Republican position. But Republican party dynamics are vastly different on the two issues.

Pombo’s Earth Day message

The House Resources Committee -- headed by everyone's favorite Dick, Rep. Pombo (R-Calif.) -- has an Earth Day message for the masses.

To summarize: everything's great with the environment; environmentalists are hysterical fear-mongers; Ronald Reagan rulez.

(hat tip: reader C.L.)

Legislators and citizens are starting to catch on to the health and environmental consequences of Bi

New Mexico is the nation's seventh largest producer of milk. More importantly, it is the fastest growing dairy state, and, as of this year, home to North America's largest cheese plant, a facility that extrudes one truckload of processed cheese every hour.

In some ways the dairy industry is easy to forget about, even if you live here. Its activity is concentrated in the eastern and southern part of the state, sections of which are so remote that their only neighbors are Air Force bases and a weapons-testing range. But given the impact this industrial-scale production of nature's "most perfect food" is having on human, animal, and environmental health, it's worth keeping a close eye on.

Spring brings a new crop of climate bills in Congress

A small crop of new climate bills is sprouting up in Congress, and none too soon. Grow, little seedling, grow. Photo: iStockphoto. Earlier this month, a number of influential energy execs called on Congress to regulate industrial greenhouse-gas emissions. And earlier this week, the EPA quietly released dismal new figures showing that U.S. emissions are […]

Earth Day Network TV

Today, the Earth Day Network launched Earth Day Network TV (currently streaming: a live panel discussion on matters earthly, accompanied by a live chat).

You'll also find a variety of videos submitted from different groups, on subjects ranging from renewable energy to climate change to trailers for environmental-media projects.

Here is some info included in an email that I received back in March:

[The network] will include hours of interviews, documentaries, film clips and compelling visual and interactive information on climate change from leading independent films such as "Nobelity" and "The Great Warming", cable television networks such as Lime, public and broadcast television networks and leading television production groups. The Earth Day TV Network will be available worldwide to anyone with high speed internet, and will look much like a regular television broadcast. EDN is partnering with Google Video as part of this IPTV launch.

For more info on today's live chat, go here.

Yahoo! also celebrates Earth Day

AOL is not the only Internet giant celebrating Earth Day. Yahoo! is as well. And while Yahoo! only has 10 ways to reduce climate change (to AOL's 11 planet-saving tips), Yahoo!'s dress-your-avatar-in-Earth-Day-gear trumps AOL's buddy icons. (By the way, check out the handsome virtual devil to the right.)

And all you Ask Umbra readers go make your momma proud: Yahoo! is awarding a trip to the FIFA World Cup for people who answer Earth Day questions, such as this one: Why does it matter if the seas rise and the ice caps melt? How will that affect my children and me anyhow?

And taking advantage of their acquisition of Flickr, visitors can check out a collection of environmental photos.

From Hip-Hop to Hybrid

The Ghostface of Earth Day present Want to celebrate Earth Day, but don’t wanna roll wit dem punk-ass bitchez? Stop by NYC’s Green Apple Music and Arts Festival and catch a set by Ghostface Killah, who shared these words of wisdom about the importance of conscientious environmental stewardship: “I don’t know nothing about that.” Word, […]

You hear that? Eh, it’s probably nothing …

Anchorage Daily News:

A pipeline leak-detection system sounded warnings on four straight days in the week leading up to last month's record North Slope oil spill, but field workers interpreted the signals as false alarms, a new investigative report says.

The report, prepared by a team of BP and state investigators, confirms that the leak from a large Prudhoe Bay oil field pipeline went on undetected for at least five days "and probably much longer."