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Mos Def was on the water issue first

You know, Jay-Z is getting all kinds of press and hype for his work on water issues, but as I was listening to my music collection on shuffle (as always) last night, I was reminded that Mos Def was all over the water issue way back in 1999. From his album Black on Both Sides, here's "New World Water" (mp3):

Pope comes out in favor of, uh, the environment

In an annual message for peace, [Pope] Benedict [XVI] strongly emphasized a theme rarely taken up in his nearly two years as pope: what he called the "ecology of peace," the idea that protecting the environment and finding alternative energy sources could also reduce conflict.

Climate change politics is in flux

Ha. I claimed just below that policymakers are unusually open to climate and energy issues right now -- and five seconds later I stumbled across a Reuters article: "Climate change catching voter attention around world." To wit:

And support grinning green journalism in the new year.

Read what Summer Rayne Oakes -- model, hottie, and eco-advocate -- has to say on Grist's behalf, and the cool clothes she wants to give you. There's also a video. And a bike. And a Grand Canyon hike.

Oh, the excitement!

Donate to Grist now.

Home-grown and filthy energy

Kill me. Just kill me.

Coal-to-liquids will emerge as a key player in a push by congressional Democrats next year for alternatives to foreign oil, two Washington energy analysts say in a report today.

But CTL technologies that draw transportation fuels from coal reserves are expensive and have a mixed environmental record, so they will need "additional and substantial government subsidies," say Christine Tezak and K. Whitney Stanco of the Stanford Washington Research Group.

That "mixed environmental record" is actually an unmitigated disaster. But hey, at least we won't be importing our environmental disaster from scary brown foreigners!

Say it with me, kids: Coal is the enemy of the human race.

A moment of silence

The white dolphin known as baiji, shy and nearly blind, dates back some 20 million years. Its disappearance is believed to be the first time in a half-century, since hunting killed off the Caribbean monk seal, that a large aquatic mammal has been driven to extinction.

Situation Normal, All Ducked Up

Feds won’t make livestock-identification plan mandatory Surprising exactly no one, a federal plan to track all U.S. livestock with ID tags remains controversial with farmers. Surprising some, the U.S. Department […]

To y’all readers, that is

On Nov. 30, we published an interview with Travis Bradford, author of Solar Revolution: The Economic Transformation of the Global Energy Industry and founder of the Prometheus Institute for Sustainable Development.

The interview was reprinted on Alternet, where it kicked up a vigorous, extended discussion. I asked Travis if he'd like to respond to some of the themes and comments there. His thoughts follow.

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I was delighted to see so much serious discussion of solar and other renewable energy sources follow my interview with David Roberts. Many of the questions and ideas readers raised are addressed in much greater detail in my book. But I'd like to take a few moments to address some specific issues.

First, should the solar revolution -- which has already happened in Japan and Germany, and is well underway in other European countries and in California -- be centralized or localized?

Can U.S. corn farmers fill both bellies and tanks?

The boom in corn-based ethanol seems like good news for farmers, who suddenly face growing demand for their crop. But is there enough corn to go around? And will surging demand mean surging prices for consumers? Tom Philpott addresses the food vs. fuel debate in today's Victual Reality column, and Yolanda Crous talks to a farmer in Missouri who's an ethanol co-op board member. Also, as a wee digestif, we bring you a rundown of celebrity biofuels hitting the shelves soon. (OK, we completely made them up. What can we say -- two weeks of biofuels coverage would leave you a little punchy too.)

JibJab’s latest

The fellows at JibJab have put up their latest animation. It's a fairly apt and amusing summary of 2006, though I am surprised to see Al Gore and his movie escape mention: