» 2007 » November

The southeastern United States is drying up and the Bush administration and FEMA don’t want to consider what happens if a major city’s faucets run dry.

Georgia’s on my mind. Atlanta, Ga. It’s a city in trouble in a state in trouble in a region in trouble. Water trouble. Trouble big enough that the state government’s moving fast. Just this week, backed up by a choir singing “Amazing Grace,” accompanied by three Protestant ministers, and 20 demonstrators from the Atlanta Freethought Society, Georgia’s Baptist Gov. Sonny Perdue led a crowd of hundreds in prayers for rain. “We’ve come together here,” he said, “simply for one reason and one reason only: to very reverently and respectfully pray up a storm.” It seems, however, that the Almighty — He “who can and will make a difference” — was otherwise occupied and the regional drought continued to threaten Atlanta, a metropolis of 5 million people (and growing fast), with the possibility that it might run out of water in as little as 80 days or as much as a year, if the rains don’t come.

Source: www.salon.com/…

LS » Ummm yeah, what would happen if a major US metropolis ran out of water? Could be some interesting time folks.

All he is saying is that conservatives can be green, and with some good ol’ know-how, America can lead the world out of its environmental troubles.

Pop quiz: What beloved American politician declined to enter the race for president to champion the environment? That’s right: Newt Gingrich! The icon of American conservatism, the former speaker of the house, the co-author of the Contract With America has a new contract out; this one’s called “A Contract With the Earth.” It’s a slim volume that serves as an inspirational green polemic for the sort of conservative who usually associates the word “environmentalist” with all that’s abhorrent. Gingrich wants to convince his conservative readers that deep down, they can be green too.

Source: www.salon.com/…

LS » I guess it is official, environmentalism has gone mainstream … and that is a good thing. As Newt says:

They [liberals] can own the issue forever and get nothing done. Or they can reach out and decide to have a bipartisan discussion and get something done. It’s up to them to decide. Because it’s very unlikely that we’re going to solve the environment on a purely partisan basis.

Are Alice Waters’ gastronomic principles — shop locally, eat organically — too hard to live by? A frank talk with the renowned guru of fresh food.

I had been prepared to skewer Alice Waters. Though I have eaten some of the best food I’ve ever encountered at her Berkeley restaurant Chez Panisse, and though I have generally tried to live by the gastronomic principles that she’s become famous championing, and though I believe that the world would be better off in nearly every way if more people listened to her, there is a limit to what can be expected of us — of me! — and I wanted to tell her, Alice Waters, you just want too much.

Alice Waters is not content for you to simply eat organic produce. No, no. It’s got to be organic and local and seasonal, and really, for it to be any good at all, you have to get it from the farmer who pulled it out of the earth. And ideally that farmer would be a friend of yours. You and he would discuss the soil and seasons and his search for heirloom varieties, and he would give you tips for your own garden, where, of course, you’d spend many of your weekends.

Source: www.salon.com/…

LS » Seems a little extreme at first glance but then you start to want to go and get a mortar and pestle and cook with it. Interesting also is her take on the cultural values that are created by our fast food notions.

Judge rules on climate film and ‘balance’ in the classroom.

Al Gore’s Oscar-winning film contains some “errors.”

Whether that’s the same as containing errors — without the quotation marks — is a more complex question than you might imagine.

The confusion was inevitable. Two days before Gore shared in the Nobel Peace Prize last week, a British high court judge ruled that Gore’s film, An Inconvenient Truth, contains nine “errors.” The court also observed that the film was “political.”

News stories reported that the judge found the movie to be “riddled” with errors. Some accounts said the judge found nine mistakes, others said 11. Climate change deniers, who have found themselves increasingly ignored over the past year, tried to use the judgment to rekindle a debate over whether there is such a thing as man-made climate change.

Source: -> www.thetyee.ca/…

LS » Was this really before the courts???