Articles by Adam Stein

Boat aims to set speed record … powered by human fat

Here's a nice PR gimmick (and by nice, I mean totally disgusting): power your monster "eco-boat" with biodiesel made from human fat:

You can also make biodiesel from tallow (animal fats), fish oil, seaweed and algae. In fact, in an extraordinary show of dedication to the project, the skipper, Pete Bethune, underwent liposuction, and the fat (all 100ml) was used to make a small amount of Biodiesel for Earthrace!

I think this mostly shows an extraordinary dedication to clever marketing. Unfortunately for the earth, Bethune isn't all that chubby, so he enlisted a few "big, fat people" (his words) to squeeze out four gallons of biodiesel. All in, this represents about 0.06 percent of the fuel Bethune will need to set the "Round the World Speed Record by a Powerboat."

Tips for low-carbon merrymaking

See that green line on the map? Study it closely, boozehounds. Those of you to the right of it can enjoy a nice French Bordeaux. Those to the left should be getting your Pinot from Napa.

So concludes Dr. Vino in his excellent -- and topical! -- study, "Red, White and 'Green': The Cost of Carbon in the Global Wine Trade."

The paper is nicely readable in addition to being thorough. Few details go unconsidered. Dr. Vino cares about the CO2 produced from the breakdown of sugar during the fermentation process. He mulls the land-use implications of grape production. He knows his screw caps from his corks.

All of these factors (well, not the corks) feed into a model that allows the paper's authors to compute the carbon content of different bottles of wine drunk in various points in the U.S. Some conclusions:

80% by 2050? Try 2010.

Got a headache from all the recent back and forth over rhetoric and politics of climate change? Last week, Frito-Lay served up a refreshingly rhetoric-free reminder that the future is coming no matter what we might do to encourage (or stop) it. Under their net zero initiative, the salty snack behemoth will be taking an Arizona potato chip factory almost entirely off the grid, running it on renewable energy and recycled water.

The project stands out to me mostly for what it is not:

Some unwitting climate change advice from the National Review

Hey, did anyone here read that recent article on political strategies for action on climate change? You know, the one published in the National Review?

[crickets chirping]

OK, I generally don't recommend the National Review on environmental policy, but I couldn't help peeking at the recent article [PDF] by Jim Manzi. Various writers of the more thoughtful right-of-center blogs have alternatively described it as "brilliant" and "a taste of how a wised-up, heads-out-of-the-sand Right could kick [liberals'] ass on the issue" of global warming. I hadn't realized that climate change was a game of flag football, but there you go.