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The first ever Official Gristmill Music Recommendation

I downloaded an album several weeks ago and it's been growing on me ever since: Below the Branches, by Kelley Stoltz (Sub Pop).

Randomly, a few days ago, I received a press release (one of dozens I get each day), and what should it say, but:

The Bonneville Environmental Foundation (BEF), together with the Green-e program of the Center for Resource Solutions (CRS) announced today that recording artist Kelley Stoltz's newest album, titled Below the Branches, is the first album to incorporate the Green-e label on its product packaging. The logo explains to consumers that the album was recorded using 100-percent renewable energy.

Well I'll be damned!

I wouldn't do this if it were merely a good album, or if it were merely created with renewable energy, but the combination adds up to the very first Official Gristmill Music Recommendation: Below the Branches, by Kelley Stoltz. Buy it. And tell 'em Gristmill sent you.

If we don’t look, maybe it will all just go away …

From DailyKos, a cite to an AP story about budget cuts imperiling the satellites that are currently used to study global warming.

That's one way to deal with the recent uptick in news stories about government inaction in the face of a clear catastrophic threat ...

Elizabeth Kolbert’s Field Notes From a Catastrophe gives climate change a human face

Elizabeth Kolbert began building a fan base among political junkies with a series of vivid New Yorker profiles that were collected in 2004’s The Prophet of Love. Ranging from George Pataki and Hillary Clinton to Regis Philbin and Al Sharpton, from title character Rudy Giuliani to former Weatherman Kathy Boudin, Kolbert’s pieces were filled with […]

Public support for renewables

Both Jeff and Navin bring word of a survey commissioned by 25x25, a coalition aiming to have 25% of America's energy come from renewable sources by 2025. Poaching from Navin, here's what the survey found:

* Americans don't believe that there is an energy crisis, but they do believe we have a serious problem; it's just not the level of a crisis in the public's mind.

* 98% of Americans believe the overall goal of getting 25% of our energy from renewables is important (74% very important)

* 90% believe the goal is achievable

* 88% support federal incentives to achieve the goal and 92% favor government mandates.

* Energy ranked at the top of Americans concerns along with health care, security and education

* the public believes that special-interests, such as the oil and gas industry, are the primary obstacle to achieving the goal

* national security is the best way of selling the goal.

These are pretty amazing numbers. Just as we saw with last week's gas-tax poll, the public sentiment is there. It's just waiting for the right public figure to come along and crystallize and direct it.

Navin also has more details on the recent 25x25 conference.

Three new books put the spotlight on our warming world

Here at Grist, we tend to be good at detecting extremely subtle patterns. Like, say, the way certain politicians keep trying to drill in certain areas. Or the way love letters inevitably come after we publish a striking photo that might portray Umbra Fisk. Or the number of rainy days in a row outside our […]

Crowley on Crichton

Michael Crowly has a rollicking good piece on Michael Crichton today in The New Republic (not sure whether it's behind a sub wall). It starts like this ...

She took a sip of red wine, then set the glass down on the bedside table. Unceremoniously, she pulled her top over her head and dropped her skirt. She was wearing nothing beneath.

Still in her high heels, she walked toward him. ... She was so passionate she seemed almost angry, and her beauty, the physical perfection of her dark body, intimidated him, but not for long.

--State of Fear by Michael Crichton

It may be hard to fathom that someone capable of writing the above passage is also capable of discovering the hidden truth about global warming that has eluded the world's leading scientists.

... and just gets better.

It goes badly wrong, of course, in failing to cite my review of Crichton's book, but otherwise it perfectly captures the anti-elitism that has, ironically, vaulted both Crichton and Bush into the elite.

Wolf millennium

New wolf numbers released this afternoon from U.S. Fish and Wildlife: Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming now host an estimated 1,020 wolves, a stunning 21 percent increase in just a single year. Since reintroduction in the mid-1990s, gray wolf numbers have grown at an astonishing pace, faster even than the most optimistic prognostications. Idaho continues to shelter more wolves than any other state in the West, with about half the total. The rest are split almost evenly between Montana and Wyoming.

Smaller cars make a comeback … kind of.

Great news! According to at least one analyst, sales of subcompact cars in the U.S. are supposed to double in the next five years!

If this gives you visions of nation-wide FUH2 dancing in your head, you may also be one of those folks who believed your friends when they said the word "gullible" wasn't in the dictionary. (Hint: it is.) A doubling of the U.S. subcompact car market would bring small cars' share of the new-vehicle market to a whopping 3 percent. Actually less than 3 percent. Sigh. Why, why would this be? Says another analyst:

I don't think [the subcompact is] a car for the U.S. market ... Those cars look great in Europe, but put them on road here next to a big SUV and they don't look so good anymore.

I'm assuming by "good" he means "pridefully wasteful to compensate for small-manhood syndrome." That being the case, I suppose he has a point.

One-stop data shop

Given that states take the lead on most things electrical, perhaps you are wondering how to find out which state is doing what when it comes to ameliorative policies.

Wonder no more. The good folks at the Interstate Renewable Energy Council have now added energy-efficiency programs to their popular and invaluable database of state renewable-energy incentives. Check it here.

Always Low Vices … Well, Sometimes

Wal-Mart to double organic food selection In the next few weeks, Wal-Mart plans to double its offering of organic foods, expanding its produce and dairy selections and offering dry goods as well. Organic food is one of the fastest-growing segments in the grocery biz, and Wal-Mart is one of many large retailers hoping to capitalize […]