Gristmill

Vote early and often!

Grist has been nominated for a Webby award in the "magazine" category. Webbys are the Internet Oscars. You know it's true, cause their site says so!

Seriously, though, it's a cool thing, and to be nominated alongside Consumer Reports and Alternet, well, it's downright heady.

So please, all you Gristers: head over and vote for Grist.

(Yes, you have to register to vote. And yes, it's a pain. But you love us that much, right?)

The Onion: funny.

The Onion is, as always, hilarious.

There are serious issues in the vicinity, however. If you care to read about them, check out this Mark Schmitt post.

Popping corn

Every time I post something about biofuels (such as ethanol and biodiesel), it gets, shall we say, spirited comments. Passions run hot on both sides, with opinions split between those who think that biofuels are one of the most promising solutions to America's petroleum dependence and a great way of reducing climate-warming emissions, and those who think that that biofuels are mostly a costly and wasteful distraction.

What do I think? I posted a longer post on that subject on the Cascadia Scorecard Weblog. Here's a Cliff Notes version.

• Corn ethanol's chief critic says that it's a waste of energy -- ie., that it takes more fossil fuel energy to grow corn and distill it into ethanol than the ethanol itself contains. But he uses outdated data.
• A widely cited USDA researcher says that corn ethanol can reduce fossil fuel use -- ie., that corn ethanol contains considerably more energy than is contained in the fossil fuels used to farm corn and distill ethanol. But he relies on some generous assumptions, and ignores some significant energy costs.
• Averaging the two views, it seems that corn ethanol probably uses about as much fossil fuel energy to produce as is contained in the gasoline it displaces -- maybe a little more, maybe a little less, but not a lot either way.
• Which means, as things currently stand, that I'm much more interested in promoting fuel efficient vehicles and compact urban design than I am in even discussing corn ethanol. Those steps can have a big impact on fossil fuel consumption. Ramping up corn ethanol production--unless I'm badly mistaken--won't.

Now, obviously, there are lots of other points to be made both for and against corn ethanol; and these arguments don't carry over into biodiesel or cellulose ethanol. But they do make me feel like shrugging and changing the subject whenever someone gets all excited about corn ethanol, either pro or con.

Sometimes political showmanship is just what the Dr. ordered

This comment from reader mmuller23 on the by-now-notorious CHEERS study raises an important point that is worth elevating here. On the Senate Dems' efforts to stall Johnson's nomination, he/she says:

Somehow it has more the feel of an easy media stunt than the rational approach to policy making we (liberals) like to take pride in.

My initial reaction to this is: Argh.

To flesh that out a bit:

Check out Business Ethics’ list

Via TriplePundit, check out Business Ethics Magazine's new list of the "100 Best Corporate Citizens for 2005."

N.Y. Times columnist says climate change makes nuclear energy a must

Inspired, no doubt, by recent lively discussion in Ask Umbra and Gristmill on nuclear power (necessary evil or pure evil?), New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof has decided to join the fray with his simplistically titled (and conceived) "Nukes Are Green" column. He's of the James Lovelock school of thought, arguing that with climate change bearing down on us and renewables not yet up to full speed, nuclear is our only hope.

The Soviet Union’s collapse led to a revolution in Cuba’s farming system

Speaking of the latest issue of Harper's, it also contains a great piece by frequent Grist contributor Bill McKibben called "The Cuba Diet." (It's reprinted in full on this blog.) Dang, the dude can write.

The piece begins as a sort of anthropological meander through Cuba's agricultural system. Turns out, when the Soviet Union fell, Cuba's heavily-subsidized, mechanized, chemical-soaked farm system collapsed. It was a huge and sudden economic change probably without precedent in the modern world. Since Castro wouldn't/couldn't open up trade, the whole country basically had to shift to a small-scale, localized, de facto organic farming system, almost overnight. Now they've got their crop load more or less where it was, with almost no use of petroleum-heavy pesticides or huge farm machinery. Pretty interesting.

McKibben pivots very subtly from this story to a meditation on our current agricultural system. It's worth reading the whole thing. Here's a tasty bit:

Harper’s article on Appalachian mountaintop-removal mining causes outbreak of despair, depression

Its contents are not available online (as far as I can tell), but the recent issue of Harper's Magazine contains a piece that makes it worth buying on the newsstand. It's called "Death of a Mountain," by Erik Reece. The subtitle is "radical strip mining and the leveling of Appalachia," and apparently Reece is at work on a book on the subject. (For a quick primer on mountaintop-removal mining, go here.)

It is -- and I say this as someone who reads a lot of depressing stuff -- one of the most disheartening things I've ever come across. It is truly monstrous what's going on in Appalachia, difficult even to comprehend. I've been faintly cognizant of the issue, but Reece's piece really paints the picture. Some of the oldest and most diverse ecosystems in the country are simply being blown up, irrevocably destroyed. The poor surrounding communities suffer from polluted water and air, denuded landscapes, and showers of debris (last year a boulder dislodged by a mining explosion crushed and killed a three-year-old boy in his bed). The process has been aided and abetted by the Bush administration

Worse, the mines provide almost no jobs -- a crew of nine people can blow the top off a mountain and dig out the coal below -- and most of the coal is sold outside the state. Virtually none of the enormous profits benefit local communities. There's a reason those communities are, and remain, some of the poorest in the country. The presence of coal is an almost unmitigated curse for the region. But by and large, poor Appalachians view environmentalists as their enemies, people who want to steal their jobs and economic livelihoods, who care more about forest critters than about them.

The injustices involved -- both natural and socioeconomic -- are tragic on a scale that boggles understanding.

Compare the amount of attention this gets to the amount lavished on the Arctic Refuge. Why is that? At risk of offending some delicate sensibilities, I've come to think that the refuge plays the same role for the left that Terri Schiavo played for the right: It's almost an abstraction, distant and uncomplicated, a blank slate where we can project our own virtue. In contrast, Appalachia has a deep and complicated history and is populated by working class, culturally conservative whites -- the kind of people that upper-middle-class lefties refer to behind closed doors as "white trash."

But make no mistake, there's a huge crime taking place, the effects of which will be felt by our grandchildren, and theirs. Ecosystems are being wiped out, and vulnerable communities along with them. We need to force this stuff into the mainstream media. I can't imagine any human being with a heart or a brain remaining unaffected.

(If you'd like to do something to help, head over to Mountain Justice Summer and sign up. Thanks to them for the picture above.)

Oklahoma Senator kicks off series of speeches

Chris Mooney, indefatigable chronicler of science politicization (say that five times fast!), draws our attention to the kick-off of Oklahoma Sen. and unrepentant flat-earther James Inhofe's promised series of speeches debunking mainstream climate science. It is, predictably enough, chockablock with misrepresentations, cherry-picked facts and phrases, and outright falsehoods. Head to Mooney's for the details, and if you have the stomach for it, read the speech itself.

Someday, our children will find this in the history books and marvel at how truly bizarre our political culture was in this transitional phase at the end of the oil economy.