Articles by David Roberts
David Roberts was a staff writer for Grist. You can follow him on Twitter, if you're into that sort of thing.
All Articles
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Ethanol sucking up corn
AP:
Ethanol production in the United States is growing so quickly that, for the first time, farmers expect to sell as much corn this year to ethanol plants as they do overseas.
"It's the most stunning development in agricultural markets today - I can't think of anything else quite like this," says Keith Collins, the U.S. Agriculture Department's chief economist.
The amount of corn used for ethanol, estimated at 2.15 billion bushels this year, would amount to about 20 percent of the nation's crop, according to department projections.And remember, this is with ethanol still serving only a tiny fraction of our liquid-fuel needs. What if there really were an E85 station on every corner?
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Unseen Al Gore campaign video
On a blog about "professional presentation design" -- yes, there is such a thing -- Garr Reynolds posts about Duarte Design, the outfit that helped Al Gore design his now-famous climate-science slideshow. It includes a short interview with Nancy Duarte, the co-founder. Quite interesting.
Even better, the post led me to "Unseen Al Gore Campaign Video" (part one; part two), which consists of footage director Spike Jonze shot just before the 2000 campaign started in earnest. I can't recommend the videos highly enough -- they're fascinating. They show Gore at home, flirting with his wife, getting razzed by his daughters, joking about the campaign ... it's the first thing I've seen that really shows him as he is: a middle-aged family man who cares about public service. I wish they could have gotten circulated more widely in 2000. Check them out.
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Top ethical businesses
Business Ethics magazine has posted its list of the 100 best corporate citizens. Here are the top 10:
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Kyle Smith’s review of An Inconvenient Truth
In the right-wing tabloid New York Post, movie critic Kyle Smith has a review of An Inconvenient Truth that virtually defies mockery. It almost invites sympathy.
Right off the bat, there's this:
But there is wide disagreement about whether humans are causing global warming (climate change preceded the invention of the Escalade) and about whether we should be worried about the trends.
Um, no there isn't.
His implication that he is our only hope ... is ridiculous.
What implication? What possible fever dream did Smith pull this from?
For jaw-dropping ignorance, this is probably the coup de grace:
