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Hydrogen at what cost?

Hydrogen is a clean-burning fuel, but it's difficult to make in quantity. What if we could make "the equivalent of 200,000 gallons of gasoline each day" in hydrogen with a single processing plant? That would be great, eh? What if we had to do it with nuclear power?

Tough call. Green Car Congress has a mind-bendingly technical write-up of the process, if you're interested in the nuts and bolts.

Could enviros embrace nuclear to get this much clean energy? What do you think?

Charismatic carnivores

Tom Engelhardt profiles and presents an essay by Chip Ward, author of Hope's Horizon: Three Visions for Healing the American Land. It's about "charismatic carnivores," the big animals that eat us and that we are slowly and haltingly coming to love -- or at least coexist with in a reasonably non-savage manner. It's good reading.

Injustice for All

On 20th anniversary of Bhopal disaster, justice still eludes victims Thanks to bureaucratic inertia, government corruption, and corporate evasion, the citizens of Bhopal, India — site of a catastrophic 1984 […]

Frankenforest

Interesting article in the Christian Science Monitor on genetically modified trees that absorb more carbon, grow faster, are pest-resistant, and other such quasi-miraculous qualities. I have mixed feelings about genetic modification, which I suppose makes me an apostate in the enviro movement, wherein one is supposed to be reflexively against any such tampering. But why? This story is a good example -- there's a lot of handwaving about the dangers, but very little empirical evidence, or even reasoned argument, about them.

Industrial freecycling

In the tradition of freecycling, NYC-based WasteMatch offers companies the ability to post their waste to a website, in case some other company has a use for, say, hundreds of cardboard boxes.  The idea is to save on waste-disposal fees -- thus the slogan, "Out of your dumpster, onto your bottom line."

Just one of many great environmentally friendly ideas that offer a genuine service, make a profit, and require no government intervention.

(via Treehugger)

The new anthology Rio Grande chronicles the life and troubled times of a fabled river

The week before I sat down to read Rio Grande, a thick new anthology about the famed river edited by Texas scribe Jan Reid, a strange sight appeared on the actual Rio Grande outside the border town of Eagle Pass, Texas. A fiberglass statue of Jesus was discovered grounded on a sandbar in the river, drawing faithful visitors from both sides of the border to its river-stained robes. Admittedly, little connects the literature of the river and the religious relic that appeared there this fall -- except, perhaps, this: the contributors to the book and the worshipers of the statue share the conviction that the river needs a savior.

Much more on framing

Speaking of WorldChanging (and speaking of framing), Alex Steffen has an absolutely stellar post over there on ways environmentalists can frame their issues more successfully.

I highly, highly recommend that everyone read it. Seriously. Go now. It connects to what I was trying to say here, and what I was trying to say here, but does so more thoroughly and insightfully, and gives the concrete examples that I'm sure we're all hungry for. Bravo, Alex.

UPDATE: Also worth checking out: some clarification on framing from Kevin Drum.

Metabloggery

Mike Millikin's Green Car Congress is the best place to keep up with the action in sustainable personal transportation.  WorldChanging is the best place to keep up with futuristic sustainability issues of a dizzying variety.

Every Sunday, Mike contributes a post to WorldChanging, summarizing the week's developments in green transport. It's always good. This week's is no exception. Make it a weekly read.

Salmon, haiku, Grist

The scrappy B.C.-based alternative online journal The Tyee recently published an interesting pair of point-counterpoint sytle pieces on farmed salmon. The first claimed farmed B.C. salmon were escaping into the wild; the second claimed that the first was hokum.

But enough about salmon. Let's talk about the contest Tyee is running in conjunction with the pieces. It asks readers to send in ... haiku ... hey, wait a minute!  That sounds familiar!

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, well, consider us flattered.

John Emory Parks, international marine expert, answers questions

What work do you do? I’m an international affairs specialist with the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the federal oceans agency. How does it relate to the environment? NOAA […]