The First Ever List of Grist Superlatives is now live. Who's the hottest eco-model? The mustachiest geo-green? What's the kinkiest eco-innovation? The most self-defeating anti-Kyoto argument? Check out our picks, then tell us what we botched, missed, or totally nailed.
It’s All in the List 30
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Posted 2:03 PM on 20 Apr 2006
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nattydad Posted 9:27 am
20 Apr 2006
Oh yeah, and Summer Rayne Oakes is totally hot.
Trolls, phishers, spammers, etc. you all suck! That's why I ignore you. Hahahahaha!
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caniscandida Posted 3:43 pm
20 Apr 2006
Most heroic migrant, facing terrific challenges along the way and especially on arrival, going south to north:
the undocumented Mexican farmworker, hoping to feed his family.
On California seceding: that would be a great sorrow (no loss, though, that hunky but contemptuous surfer). California leads the nation in all sorts of important things. I refuse to allow California secede, unless it allows New York City to secede along with it, retaining sovereignty however as an autonomous city-state.
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nbabs Posted 4:24 pm
20 Apr 2006
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amazingdrx Posted 9:45 pm
20 Apr 2006
I like that one the best!
You ought to interview Ed Begley.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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amazingdrx Posted 9:51 pm
20 Apr 2006
That ought to be "clean" coal though. NRDC should get a mention for endorsing clean coal.
Add this one:
Worst environmental traitor: RFK jr.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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VictoriaE Posted 2:03 am
21 Apr 2006
Summer is a wonderful, successful person & she is the greatest example of progressive thinking on the East Coast. I'm hoping to be make the same impact here in San Francisco.
Victoria E
Model, Writer, Environmentalist
http://victoria-e.com/
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atreyger Posted 2:44 am
21 Apr 2006
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NZVegan Posted 6:50 am
21 Apr 2006
Farming of animals is already causing huge problems through wasting large areas of land which could be more productive with non animal food production, creates methane via cow farts, pollutes the land and rivers through farm run off, encourages forest clearing for grazing land, wastes water via irrigation in order to create dairy farms in draught stricken areas, and leads to obesity through overconsumption of animal flesh and dairy in western countries - not to mention the cruelty and death of millions of innocent lives.
Now we are going to see countries rasing cattle to make biofuel in order to add it to petrol to make the petrol go further. Because its called 'biofuel' people will be sucked into thinking its an environmentally friendly fuel alternative - NOT!
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chdulmage Posted 7:28 am
25 Apr 2006
A Virginian with Ohio roots
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chinkinthelink Posted 1:19 pm
25 Apr 2006
mmmm... chestnuts.
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caniscandida Posted 3:33 pm
25 Apr 2006
There is no reason to be angry. We are all friends. And we all want to hear what you have to say.
I would have thought being vegan should make you less angry and more peace-loving. But sorry, God forbid I should stereotype.
I am a dairy/egg/fish-consuming vegetarian, in fact, and would make an effort to be vegan, if I were not married to a carnivore. So we compromise, after a fashion. E.g., we eye each other suspiciously over the antepasto, gripping our sharp utensils.
I have no idea what the effect of meat-eating is on global warming. But there are some very learned folks who tune in to Grist regularly, who are quite clever with numbers and chemistry and all that stuff, who will be able to tell us clearly how, say, cattle farts contribute to the total green-house gas emissions. And that is just one detail, isn't it.
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atreyger Posted 2:10 am
26 Apr 2006
Meat-eating by itself has not contributed to global warming, except for the fact that it allowed humans to have a larger brain and allowed us to progress our technology to a whole new level. There's nothing wrong with eating meat though, it's perfectly natural. Except we should all know though where it exactly comes from, who killed it and preferably have it be yourself, family member or friend, since that would allow for the closest relationship to it.
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David Roberts Posted 2:55 am
26 Apr 2006
That's a pretty casual way to rule out 99% of the meat Americans actually eat!
www.grist.org
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atreyger Posted 3:46 am
26 Apr 2006
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bookerly Posted 8:08 am
26 Apr 2006
Actually meat eating contributes quite a bit to global warming. First of all, it takes more land to raise meat than to raise the equivalent amount of vegetables (amount needed to supply the same food values). The last numbers I saw quoted were at least ten times as much. So, we could feed ten vegetarians using the amount of land it takes to feed one meat eater (I am using the 10X figure here, it is the lowest I have seen). More land clear cut to raise beef, less forest, more global warming.
Then there is the additional damage caused by the energy required to process meat (it takes more energy to kill, cut up, etc. a cow than to pick an ear of corn). More energy equals more global warming.
Consider that chinkinthelink may not be a native English speaker, but is trying to communicate. I didn't see anger in the message, more like sorrow. Mmmmm, Chestnuts!!
A while back (more than 10 years), the Union of Concerned Scientists said the two things worst for the environment were cars and meat eating.
Certainly people who won't give up their cars aren't going to give up their big macs.....
FWIW, at dinner last night, I was told that more and more Chinese Universities are adding vegetarian options to their dining halls (two of my former students got one going on my old campus).
BTW, I always tell people I am an environmental vegetarian....
patrick
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atreyger Posted 2:35 am
27 Apr 2006
Another problem with those figures is that herbivores do not convert tomatoes and beans into meat, but rather grasses and other high cellulose foods. The point of my post was that if all of us knew exactly where our meat came from and if we ourselves killed it or knew who did it, then that is about as good of a scenario as anyone can find.
For example, organic veggies from Cali eaten in New York are pretty much the same as non-organic foods (except for possible health benefits), since they are transferred using... Tum tum tuum... fossil fuels. It's much more sustainable to eat beef grown on grass on a farm 15 miles from where you live or eating venison from a deer that you or your friend killed then those Cali veggies.
"Then there is the additional damage caused by the energy required to process meat (it takes more energy to kill, cut up, etc. a cow than to pick an ear of corn). More energy equals more global warming."
That's also too broad of a statement. Yes, it costs more energetically to kill a cow and process the meat then to pick an ear of corn. But that's like saying: it costs more energetically to make a meal than to eat an apple, so we should not eat meals.
In reality, how many ears of corn would we have to eat to equal the same amount of calories as in a steak?
3oz filet mignon: 185 cal, 4.4oz corn: 118 cal or 63%. How many ears of corn to pick v. killing a cow? 1000 lbs in a cow (small Angus), probably 1/2 is usable, or 500 lbs. Suppose that all parts of the cow that are usable are the same nutritionally (clearly not true, but might average out to be close). 500 lbs * 16 oz/lb * 185 cal/ 3 oz =493,000 cal per cow (I believe a conservative estimate). 493000 cal/118 cal/ear of corn = 4180 ears of corn! Which one do you think is more energetically efficient to process? Hard to say, but it cannot be that drastic of a difference.
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atreyger Posted 2:37 am
27 Apr 2006
cow not steak
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bookerly Posted 8:17 am
27 Apr 2006
When you eat a cow, you are also eating all the ears of corn that cow has eaten (smile). When I worked on a farm, cows ate not only grass, but corn, wheat and other things. They also got shots and other medical treatment that corn does not get (ask me the difference between a bull and a steer).
People who are committed to eating meat are committed to eating meat. But it is not good for the environment, and certainly worse than veggies.
As to the 15 mile cow vs. the 3,000 mile corn, why not compare a 15 mile cow to a 15 mile ear of corn?
Everyone will never be vegetarians, but it would be nice for the earth if more of us were. There are another 3 billion or so folks coming to dinner....
patrick
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atreyger Posted 8:36 am
27 Apr 2006
Furthermore, I am far from advocating corn-fed beef. I was talking specifically about grass-fed, plus hunting. You can't eat corn, plus corn sucks, there you go I said, corn sucks. The US is entirely far too overplanted with corn, and the majority of it for cattle. I do like a good ear of corn though, I am not against it during the summer, but how about the winter?
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atreyger Posted 8:41 am
27 Apr 2006
How 'bout them predators? How can you convince a wolf, dog, puma, whatever, that what they are doing is bad for the environment. 'Cus it ain't bad.
Also, we need animal protein. I think it's better to eat that then rely on an industry of vitamins and supplements, and trying to balance out the right intake. Plus the entire worse than veggies thing, I already covered that with 3000 mile trip from Cali. Face it, most people that are vegetarian (non-environmental) would still buy the food from there despite the locally grown possibilities.
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bookerly Posted 12:03 pm
27 Apr 2006
We do get a lot of produce from far away, but much of what we eat is fairly local (especially if you eat at the low end of the budget scale (smile)).
In the winter, I eat a lot of root vegetables (they have been stored) and processed foods (tofu).
I want to apologize, I didn't mean to insinuate that non-vegetarians don't care about the environment. Food is a very personal thing for most people, for a lot of reasons. And different people have different needs. So, eat meat if you wish. I will not.
Let me do clear up a couple of myths. First of all, you do not HAVE to have animal protein. This is not true. There are many people who are very healthy, even among the strictest vegans.
I rarely take vitamins or supplements, nor do most of the vegetarians I know. I eat as I please, and have good health. People who have problems being vegetarians are obviously going about it the wrong way! You don't need to obsess about your daily intake.
You meat eaters should eat balanced diets too!! (smile).
As for predators? They should eat what is natural for them to eat. And I personally don't think that everyone should become vegetarian. There are poor people in communities where they don't have access to other forms of nutrition, they should eat as they need.
patrick
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caniscandida Posted 12:08 pm
27 Apr 2006
And if our ancestors were not pretty regular meat-eaters, we would not likely have become pals with dogs and cats, which would have been a very great loss indeed.
On the other hand, is it not a myth that we actually "need animal protein"? Does not Frances Moore Lappe teach us, in "Diet for a Small Planet," about how our protein needs are satisfied by a diet including whole grains and legumes?
On eating food that comes to us from afar, e.g. California in my case, I think we should indeed try to do what we can to eat locally, but I doubt it will ever be 100% possible. And personal preferences of an ethical sort are not to be treated lightly. A vegetarian or vegan in NYC is not going to be persuaded to eat beefsteak from New Jersey (?; we associate many interesting cultural phenomena with the Garden State, but not cattle drives) rather than broccoli from California.
That said, I hear you about corn (which I never liked much either, though I like cornmeal things): we should cultivate a love of seasonality. We do not need to have our favorite fruits and vegetables all year long.
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caniscandida Posted 12:31 pm
27 Apr 2006
I wish we in the West had better traditions about storing summer vegetables to hold us through the winter. Of course there is a certain amount of drying, pickling, preserving; but probably nothing as rich as what you have in China. Chinese cuisine is one of the chief glories of humanity.
Does canning count?
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bookerly Posted 1:34 pm
27 Apr 2006
Hello Caniscandida,
When I was a boy in America (about 40 years or more ago), we canned every winter. We went to the farm and picked a lot of vegetables, then cooked them and canned them for a couple of days. I remember getting tired of canned tomatoes towards the end of the winter.
In modern China, winter vegetables come from the South and from other countries. But in smaller restaurents, they will change the menu to reflect what is available (and affordable). Tomatoes and spinach are available year round, though towards the end of the winter, they aren't as nice.
On the street, we can chart the changing seasons as street vendors show up with different products. Winter brings chesnuts and yams (roasted on the spot) as well as popcorn (made fresh while you watch). As new fruits become cheap, the vendors change, from tomatoes to oranges to lychee to cherries to watermelon and so on (not in that order, but you get the idea).
Chinese folks like things fresh, so there is less emphasis on pre-prepared foods (those terrible dried noodles being an exception, the students gobble them up!). Even simple dishes are made from scratch usually, which adds to their appeal.
Canned foods don't seem so widely available, nor popular. This also applies to frozen foods. They all exist, but in smaller quantities. The dairy industry, though, is growing rapidly here.
patrick
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atreyger Posted 12:34 am
28 Apr 2006
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bookerly Posted 1:31 pm
29 Apr 2006
Not sure where else to put this, so I'll try here.
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20060424/veggies_pla.html
For an article about the connection between what we eat and global warming...
patrick
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amazingdrx Posted 11:39 pm
29 Apr 2006
The key question? How much carbon is stored in healthy organic soil? Chemical ag destroyed soil must be near zero.
With the huge land area devoted to agriculture could this reverse global climate disaster all on its own?
If one thinks of photosynthesis as nature's main mechanism to restore the greenhouse gas atmospheric balance to pre-human created combustion related catastrophic change, then that huge land area as a carbon sink might just be the difference that saves us, along with renewable energy replacing fossil, chemical fuel farming, and nuclear.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Mauichris Posted 8:59 am
01 May 2006
I would say that if Ed Case becomes senator he would be most likely to stab anti-war enviros in the back. This guy votes like a republican even though he calls himself a democrat.
Hawaii is in a place where after being democratic for such a long time it has become complacent and is being taken over by conservative big biz anti-environment republicans. It is a shame.
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Mauichris Posted 5:08 pm
02 May 2006
Web of Hope
and
Project Flamingo
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Mauichris Posted 5:10 pm
02 May 2006
Sorry...
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