
Interdisciplinary Postmodern Liberal Democratic Salon
 Thanks Grist.org!
"And here’s the thing: each dollar invested in coal produces more external costs than the dollar before. The trend lines are all in the wrong direction. Even if carbon pollution can be handled by sequestration, refitted coal plants will need to burn more coal to get the same amount of power—that means ...more devastated mountains, polluted streams, asthma, lung cancer, heart disease, strokes, and mercury poisoning of pregnant mothers and fetuses.
In contrast, the costs of renewable energy technology are steadily declining as innovation, manufacturing efficiencies, and economies of scale increase. In short, it’s becoming clear that only a steady diet of federal subsidies—and maybe not even that—can protect the coal industry from a “perfect storm of competitive technology, stricter regulation and growing obsolescence.”
Kudos to Patel for surfacing the hidden costs of many things we take for granted. Let’s make sure coal takes its rightful place at the center of that conversation."
www.grist.org
Raj Patel has an interesting list of
Yesterday at 3:47pm

Grist.org We take a lot of things for granted as being "cheap" ... burgers, bottle water, and cell phones not the least among them. Raj Patel has a great list of just such "cheap" products, but David Roberts points out one huge omission.
www.grist.org
Raj Patel has an interesting list of "things that aren't as cheap as you think," with an always-welcome reminder that many industries and social practices have costs that don't appear in the sticker price. These "externalities" are offloaded to the public; they represen...t, in effect, enormous subsidi...
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Grist.org It's time to wash those "green" claims right out of our hair!
www.tnr.com
Companies have been making misleading claims about the eco-friendliness of their products for almost as long as people have cared about the environment. But now, according to Greenwire, the Federal Trade Commission may finally start cracking down hard on this sort of "greenwashing"

Grist.org Want to know how to sow the seeds of love? Ask Umbra shows you how in her DIY video on nontoxic love juice. Go ahead and watch it (SFW).
www.grist.org
Just in time for Valentine’s Day, Umbra shows you how to make your own eco-sexy lube with flax seeds. Watch and love.

Interdisciplinary Postmodern Liberal Democratic Salon
 Thanks Grist.org and Michelle Obama!
"As one of the teachers involved with Michelle Obama and the White House vegetable garden, I’ve been impressed with the sudden surge of public interest in the simple act of children planting seeds. At Bancroft Elementary School, where I work first and foremost as an art teacher, we k...now only too well the benefits children get from growing their own food."
www.grist.org
Michelle Obama's high-profile advocacy has helped make school gardens popular. But for school gardens to flourish and reach their educational potential, they'll need more resources, argues a teacher whose students helped the First Lady break ground on the White House Garden.
Yesterday at 5:23am

Interdisciplinary Postmodern Liberal Democratic Salon
 Thanks Grist.org!
"Is it me or were the Super Bowl commercials this year unusually ugly, misogynistic, and, worst of all, unfunny? Some of America’s biggest corporations seemed to be trying to play to Teabag America, and the results were as bitter as the teabaggers themselves. Amidst the dreck was a commercial from Aud...i featuring the “green police.” Here it is:"
www.grist.org
The Audi ad during the Super Bowl seems at first blush to be yet another pot shot at greens meant to appeal to mooks. But scratch beneath the surface and there's something more -- and more interesting -- going on.
Mon at 7:31pm

Grist.org
An argument for creating walkable communities: "A woman in a video about Chicago's economically diverse, award-winning Parkside of Old Town neighborhood said, 'I feel more alive just being outside here.'
People don’t tend to say that about parking lots."
www.grist.org
Sure, walkable neighborhoods help the climate, public health, and public safety. But people at last week's Smart Growth conference talked about how they simply liked being in places that were built to the scale of people, not autos.

Grist.org If you watched the Super Bowl yesterday, you probably saw Audi's "green police" commercial during it. David Roberts argues that it's a bigger deal than you might think.
www.grist.org
The Audi ad during the Super Bowl seems at first blush to be yet another pot shot at greens meant to appeal to mooks. But scratch beneath the surface and there's something more -- and more interesting -- going on.

Interdisciplinary Postmodern Liberal Democratic Salon  Thanks Grist.org and Bernie Sanders!
www.grist.org
On Thursday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) introduced a bill aimed at getting 10 million new solar rooftop systems and 200,000 new solar hot water heating systems installed in the U.S. in the next ten years. ...
Sun at 2:22am

Interdisciplinary Postmodern Liberal Democratic Salon  Thanks Bernie Sanders and Grist.org!
www.grist.org
On Thursday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) introduced a bill aimed at getting 10 million new solar rooftop systems and 200,000 new solar hot water heating systems installed in the U.S. in the next ten years. ...
February 6 at 4:15am

Grist.org Is America fertilizing disaster through our food system? Take a walk down it's dark petro-path with Tom Philpott as your guide, and see what light there is on the other side.
www.grist.org
You already know that a shocking amount of the American diet comes from corn. But where does all that corn come from? The answer, in a very real sense, is synthetic nitrogen fertilizer. In this special series Fertilizing Disaster, Grist takes a hard look at synthetic N -- where it comes from, where ...

Grist.org Tom Philpott couldn't believe the news that the EPA decided to go all in and cozy up to corn-based ethanol and "clean" coal. It's almost as if it was straight out of the Bush era. What's going on here?
www.grist.org
The press release could have come straight out of the utterly disgraced Bush EPA--and if it had, imagine the howls of outrage it would have provoked. Its headline read as follows:

Kendall Hale Schumacher wrote Small Is Beautiful in 1973, and it looks like Americans will need to take it seriously now. Smaller cities, smaller cars, smaller houses, smaller farms.

Grist.org Legendary good food farmer Eliot Coleman speaks: Small is beautiful (and radical).
www.grist.org
In sustainable-farming circles, Eliot Coleman is legendary for growing top-quality food all winter in Maine with minimal fossil-fuel inputs. See what he had to say on the topic of "is small the only beautiful?"















