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A guest essay from enviro legend James Gustave Speth

The following is a guest essay from James Gustave Speth, dean of the Yale University School of Forestry & Environmental Studies and author of Red Sky at Morning: America and the Crisis of the Global Environment. The opinions expressed here are his personal views.

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Thanks to an outpouring of first-rate science, excellent media coverage, and a resurgent Al Gore, the U.S. public may have turned an important corner in acknowledging global warming as a real and serious threat. To see Gore's An Inconvenient Truth in theaters alongside Nacho Libre and the usual fare is extraordinary indeed.

But if Americans take the next step and ask, "OK, what do we do now?" we encounter five other truths, most of them also inconvenient. They do tell us what we must do, however, and by when.

There’s something wacky in the D.C. water supply

The intersex part aside, here's evidence that there is something in D.C.'s water that may also explain why our elected officials so often seem to be, well, nutjob freaks of nature.

Well-Fed

It’s now oh-so-easy for federal employees to give to Grist Do you earn your bread and butter in the employ of the U.S. federal government? Have we got a deal […]

A Fish Called Wanda

Male fish with female characteristics found in Potomac tributaries Male smallmouth and largemouth bass in the Potomac River have been found to be developing eggs, leading federal scientists to suspect […]

Vast untapped oil reserve discovered in the Gulf of Mexico

Yesterday, Chevron Corp. announced the finding of a vast untapped oil reserve in the Gulf of Mexico, after Jack2, its test well, hit the biggest jackpot in a generation. It comes as a relief for some, but could be a headache for environmentalists.

A new group that’s not afraid to get its, um, shirts dirty

Things I loved as a kid, and not-so-secretly still love: rubber duckies, bubbles, and dirt.

My love for the latter is apparently shared by the founders of More Dirt. Why More Dirt? Glad you asked:

MTV and Campus Climate Challenge team up to get students greening

So I mentioned last week that mtvU and GE are teaming up on an ecomagination Challenge asking college students to come up with ideas for greening their campuses. Today, I found out about another partnership -- this one between MTV proper (or rather, thinkMTV? So many MTVs, so little interest in figuring out which is which) and the Campus Climate Challenge kids.

The Break the Addiction Challenge gives students (both high school and college) three assignments aimed at promoting models of climate responsibility on campus. From the press release:

What’s up with Bush’s nominee for Transportation Secretary?

OK, that headline is horrible. But does anyone have the green goods on Mary Peters, the administration's nominee for Transportation secretary?

Linking up nature areas boosts species

In an effort to test the effectiveness of landscape corridors, scientists down in South Carolina have been surveying forest plots either connected by greenways or not. The result, reported in the current issue of Science as well as in today's Science Times, was a 20% increase in species biodiversity in the connected patches.

Not too astounding, except when you consider that the survey has been going for just six years. Said Dr. Ellen Damschen, lead author of the study:

It is surprising that we would see such a dramatic change over a short time scale ... plants can change relatively quickly through their interactions with the landscape and the animals that interact with them.

Biodiversity, it appears, thrives with connectivity. Just another reason for neighborhoods to have sidewalks. That is, unless your neighbors happen to be the human equivalent of praying mantises -- then you best watch your back, uh, head.

Steve Irwin dies in freak occurrence

Irony, from the Latin ironia: incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the normal or expected result; example: earning fame and fortune wrestling crocodiles and being killed by a basically inoffensive marine creature.

As David pointed out, beloved naturalist Steve Irwin, aka "the crocodile hunter," was killed by a stingray during a diving expedition off the Australian coast on Sunday. The stingray's barb had pierced the TV personality's heart and he died within moments.