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Ad features naked men and phallic-shaped sustainable lumber

Imagine my delight at seeing this on the side of my bus: "Choose your wood responsibly," beckons the ad for Seattle's Environmental Home Center, a mecca for green home improvement. (See the full ad in PDF form here.)

Universities considering adding organic-farming to curriculum.

Recently in Daily Grist we reported how locally grown foods are catching on at college dining halls.

Now wouldn't it be nice if the students knew the in's and out's of how that food was produced? Well, they may get their chance, as several universities are offering (or are considering offering) organic-farming majors.

But as KATU 2 in Portland, Ore., reports:

... starting up such a major can carry an implicit critique of traditional programs, said Matt Liebman, director of the graduate program in sustainable agriculture at Iowa State University in Ames.

"It implies that everyone else is non-sustainable, and they find that fairly threatening," Liebman said. "It can imply a critique of traditional agriculture, and its effects on the environment, or farm size."

Kinda like saying that slapping on non-GMO labels implies that there is something wrong with genetically modified foods.

Now, the question is, will organic-farming majors think that they are morally superior?

Car company makes bikes, lures the kids

So Cadillac introduces a bicycle. Is this good news or bad? On the one hand, you have a major car company endorsing the idea of human-powered transportation. On the other hand, they're doing it to -- you guessed it, brainiac -- sell more Cadillacs. The notion is to use this "unexpected brand contact" to reach younger buyers. Who, having just spent $500-$1900 on a Cadillac bike, will presumably think nothing of dropping another $40,000 on a luxury car.

Disturbing, yes, but mostly it's just weird. Whatever happened to a good old-fashioned Schwinn?

‘Toon In, Turn On, Drop Out

Do you draw funny stuff? Get in touch! Calling all doodlers, calling all doodlers. Grist is now accepting submissions for our soon-to-be-revamped cartoon section. We’re looking for political cartoons with environmental themes. To get filled in on the technical details — file formats, dpi, etc. — write emailE=(‘cartoons@’ + ‘grist.org’) document.write(‘‘ + emailE + ‘‘) […]

I’ll Take Menhaden

Tiny fish being wiped out to make health-food supplements Omega Protein Corp. is overharvesting a little Chesapeake Bay fish called menhaden in order to make omega-3 fatty-acid food supplements for its health-crazed customers, leading to a decline in the striped bass that eat them (the menhaden, not the supplements or the health-crazed customers). This according […]

The Right-Whale Stuff

Emergency steps needed to save right whale from extinction, experts say The North Atlantic right whale could face extinction within the next century, according to marine scientists writing in the journal Science. Only about 350 right whales are alive today, and the researchers estimate that their deaths may be underreported by up to 83 percent […]

On the Gutting-Room Floor

Clean-energy measures dropped as Congress reaches energy-bill compromise Working into the wee hours Tuesday morning, House and Senate negotiators finished crafting a compromise federal energy bill, in the process killing two provisions intended to curb America’s fossil-fuel addiction. A Senate measure that would have required the president to find ways to reduce oil use by […]

A Little Dab’ll Do Ya In

Micro-exposure to common chemicals may cause big health problems Will wonders never cease? The Wall Street Journal, not typically known for its sympathy to green issues, had a blockbuster piece of environmental reporting plastered on page A1 yesterday. In the first part of an ongoing series, it describes new research on low-level exposure to common […]

Inuit fight climate change with human-rights claim against U.S.

Sheila Watt-Cloutier. Photo: ICC. When Sheila Watt-Cloutier was growing up in Kuujjuaq, an Inuit village in far northern Quebec, summer days never got hot enough for shorts and T-shirts. Only the very brave ventured into the frigid local river for a swim. But now, she says, there are many warm days, and “the whole community […]

Energy bill update

Looks like the energy bill is headed for passage. Ezra Klein sums it up:

Save for substantive modernization of our electricity grid, an increase in CAFE standards, an actual stance on global warming, a coherent framework for reducing our oil consumption, a serious investment in natural gas, an actual interest in new technologies for alternative sources, and really anything that'd have any sort of worthwhile impact on our energy situation at all, this bill has is just what we need. Subsidies. Giveaways. Handouts. Protection. Guidelines. Bureaucracy. All sprinkled with liberal amounts of Corporate Love and put on the Senate's desk.

...

This isn't conservatism. And it's only sold as progressivism. In reality, it's modern Republicanism distilled, a perfectly pure mixture of incoherence and corruption publicly aimed at solving a serious problem but privately written to ignore the issue in favor of industry demands.