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Bits from an interview with Whole Foods co-president

Bonnie Powell, aka "DairyQueen" over at Ethicurean, has posted snippets from an in-depth interview with Walter Robb, co-president of Whole Foods. Here's a couple of bites from the full interview.

On media:

Depressing

Ken Calderia, of the Carenegie Instition's Department of Global Ecology has an op-ed in the NYT today, in which he cautions against willy-nilly tree-planting projects for carbon sequestration:

Food stuff this year

I busted my butt to get this in before too much of 2007 passed (I submitted it in the wee hours of 1/2/07), but it turns out I forgot to hit the all-important little button that says "post." Isn't there an expression about yesterday's news being today's fish wrapper? (That expression makes a lot more sense in England where people wrap fish'n'chips in newspaper ...) Here, belatedly, is my 2006 summary, ready to be recycled for your cyber-fishwrapping needs.

My personal best and worst food-related stuff of 2006:

Boise Will Be Boys

As feds prepare to delist gray wolf in Idaho and Montana, hunters polish their rifles In Idaho and Montana, the impending removal of Endangered Species Act protections for the gray […]

I Am Woman, Hear Me Saw

U.S. Forest Service gets first female chief, trees cower File this under The More Things Change: On Friday, the 101-year-old U.S. Forest Service named its first-ever female chief. Huzzah! Alas, […]

An old-school method for making gas from biomass

There is a great deal of argument over biofuels, and indeed we don't want to overuse them. But I don't think anyone argues that we can't get some of our power from biomass, or that we won't need a sustainable source of hydrocarbons for chemicals and liquid or gaseous fuels.

I'm going to ignore the usual suspects for a moment to discuss the Fischer-Tropsch process, which uses catalysts to convert biomass to gasoline, diesel, or kerosene (pretty much in whatever ratios you wish). Unlike biodiesel and ethanol, these products are 100% compatible with existing engines in all temperatures, without needing dilution by fossil fuels and without needed engine modifications, even minor ones. The net energy balance is better than for cellulosic ethanol, too.

Is ethanol skeptic Pimentel right after all?

In 2004, the USDA came out with a study (PDF) claiming that corn-derived ethanol delivers 67 percent more energy than it consumes in production. For many observers, including green-minded ethanol […]

Schwarzenegger wants more

DR: There’s always an emphasis on personal transportation. How do you kick start public transportation and more dense settlements? Did you guys make steps toward that in California? TT: We […]

Golden Globe partiers go green

Tonight, you watched a herd of mildly to wildly intoxicated beautiful people congratulating themselves on their artistry, but take heart. At least a small group of them continued the self-celebration responsibly at the "Greenest Party on Earth," sponsored by the Environmental Media Association and E! Television.

Could I have missed this?

I know I'm late on this, but the Wall Street Journal had a report on the 11th about Exxon backing off their position on climate change and perhaps engaging with emissions regulation:

In one of the strongest signs yet that U.S. industry anticipates government curbs on global-warming emissions, Exxon Mobil Corp., long a leading opponent of such rules, is starting to talk about how it would like them to be structured.