350.org supporters talk about saving the planet in Shanghai, China. (Photo: Flickr/Schuyler Olsson)

Let me make an argument here, and feel free to take violent exception. I’ve just read several books–Bill McKibben’s Eaarth, Hans Tammemagi’s Air, James Hansen’s Storms of my Grandchildren—that do a very good job of making the case that we’re already on a global warming precipice, looking down at an abyss of huge planetary change.

Their conclusion (all three of them) is that we have to stop burning fossil fuels. That means no more coal for power plants, no more gas in the fuel tanks. And we need to do it now if we’re going to avoid the very worst effects of climate change. We’re well past the point where we can forestall it completely.

Hansen is our pre-eminent climate scientist, one of the first to sound the alarm about global warming, and he’s abandoning scientific reticence. I’m afraid not that many people will read his book, but its conclusions are absolutely chilling. McKibben thinks we’re creating “a tough new planet,” which is why he spells it “Eaarth.”

Now these authors and climate scientists are in one corner, sounding the alarm, attending conferences, founding organizations like 350.org. But for the rest of the world it’s business as usual. We’re genuflecting toward climate concern, but we’re not doing anything at all to actually stop the buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

As you know, the Copenhagen COP-15 climate talks ended in dismal failure, and nobody expects much to come out of the succeeding get-together in Mexico City. The utility smokestacks are still pumping, the lights are still on, and the shiny new cars are driving onto the lots.

Project a little further ahead. In 2020, world oil demand could go from 85 million barrels a day to an incredible 100 million. The Chinese, who once rode mostly bicycles, could have 500 million cars on the road by 2030, the Department of Energy predicts. Clearly, this center can’t hold.

I’m a car writer, so I spend a lot of my time going to auto introductions. On one level its heartening, because there are so many green cars in the pipeline. On the other, it’s depressing because the pace is so maddeningly slow — far slower than we need to stop global warming in its tracks (if that were even possible).

Week 5 Challenge: Fish

The Issues
I write this post with a heavy heart. I cannot think of fish right now without thinking of the Gulf Coast oil disaster, including what that is doing to aquatic life and the fishing industry. Who knows at this point how wide reaching the repercussions will be. But it’s devastating on just about every level.

Seafood has always been a tough topic for me. The wild versions are woefully contaminated, as our waterways are the runoff basin for all of the environmentally destructive activities we humans do (mercury from power plant emissions, PCBs that were banned so many years ago but still linger, hormone disruptors from the cosmetics we wash down the drain), and the farmed fish are very similar to factory-farmed animals. I would never willingly eat the crap they feed the fish – including hormones, antibiotics and dyes – so I don’t eat the fish that eat it. To top it all off, eating locally – something I try to do a lot of – can be particularly difficult if your local waterways are known to be contaminated, which mine are. Further complicating things, 80 percent of the fish in the US is imported from Central America and Asia, where regulations are iffy. Their wild stuff tends to be fished in ecologically destructive ways, and the farmed stuff usually raised in what are essentially sewage pits. No thank you.

Knowing all this I have always had a hard time telling people who want to eat seafood what they can safely eat. I skirted the topic as much as possible in my first book, The <a href="http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?EAN=9780060887452&lkid=J15656933&pubid=K125307&byo=1" target="_blank"Complete Organic Pregnancy, only talking about contaminants to avoid when pregnant. So I made seafood my own challenge to really tackle for The Conscious Kitchen. By and large I feel I succeeded. It wasn’t easy (ask my editor!), but I’m more comfortable now than I have ever been with the seafood I eat. Overall it’s still fraught, because we’re still polluting and harvesting unsustainably, and we haven’t cracked the code on the right ways to farm fish. If we could all eat the Spanish fish that Dan Barber highlighted in his Ted talk (right), that would be lovely, especially if it were local. But the sad fact remains that if you want to eat seafood consciously, you have some navigating to do. Here’s how to do it.

Week 5 Challenge: Fish

The Issues
I write this post with a heavy heart. I cannot think of fish right now without thinking of the Gulf Coast oil disaster, including what that is doing to aquatic life and the fishing industry. Who knows at this point how wide reaching the repercussions will be. But it’s devastating on just about every level.

Seafood has always been a tough topic for me. The wild versions are woefully contaminated, as our waterways are the runoff basin for all of the environmentally destructive activities we humans do (mercury from power plant emissions, PCBs that were banned so many years ago but still linger, hormone disruptors from the cosmetics we wash down the drain), and the farmed fish are very similar to factory-farmed animals. I would never willingly eat the crap they feed the fish – including hormones, antibiotics and dyes – so I don’t eat the fish that eat it. To top it all off, eating locally – something I try to do a lot of – can be particularly difficult if your local waterways are known to be contaminated, which mine are. Further complicating things, 80 percent of the fish in the US is imported from Central America and Asia, where regulations are iffy. Their wild stuff tends to be fished in ecologically destructive ways, and the farmed stuff usually raised in what are essentially sewage pits. No thank you.

Knowing all this I have always had a hard time telling people who want to eat seafood what they can safely eat. I skirted the topic as much as possible in my first book, The <a href="http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?EAN=9780060887452&lkid=J15656933&pubid=K125307&byo=1" target="_blank"Complete Organic Pregnancy, only talking about contaminants to avoid when pregnant. So I made seafood my own challenge to really tackle for The Conscious Kitchen. By and large I feel I succeeded. It wasn’t easy (ask my editor!), but I’m more comfortable now than I have ever been with the seafood I eat. Overall it’s still fraught, because we’re still polluting and harvesting unsustainably, and we haven’t cracked the code on the right ways to farm fish. If we could all eat the Spanish fish that Dan Barber highlighted in his Ted talk (right), that would be lovely, especially if it were local. But the sad fact remains that if you want to eat seafood consciously, you have some navigating to do. Here’s how to do it.

Asia currently has 98% of lithium-ion battery-making plants. By 2010, the U.S. could have 20% of the market, starting in Nashville, with the new lithium-ion battery factory for the Nissan Leaf.

Missouri University of Science and Technology works to get its fuel-cell car ready for the road. (Jim Motavalli photo)

YUMA, ARIZONA–David Koch experienced both ecstasy and panic on the same day. The graduate student is a member of Penn State’s EcoCar team, which is competing with 15 other collegiate teams to build the cleanest, most consumer-friendly vehicle on the road. The competition is helping create career goals for hundreds of engineering students, and providing innovative employees for the auto skunkworks of the future. At many mechanical and electrical engineering departments, clean cars are where the action is.

The worst part of the day for Koch was when he dropped a washer into the power inverter of his team’s biodiesel-fueled extended-range electric vehicle. Like the Chevrolet Volt, it uses its small internal-combustion engine (in this case a 1.3-liter diesel from the European Opel Corsa) not to turn the wheels but to power a 75-kilowatt generator to provide electricity for the 120-kilowatt motors. That washer could have caused a lot of mischief, so work ground to a halt for several hours as the team fished around in a two-inch by two-inch hole. They found it….

Composting is the ultimate act of green frugality, turning unwanted organic material into rich humus for use in the garden rather than sealing it in plastic trash bags to spend eternity in a landfill. But for some of us, composting is something even more special – a hobby, a passion, almost a religion. I’ve even named my beloved compost pile; “Gomer,” as in Gomer Pyle (get it?).

As compost enthusiasts say, “A rind is a terrible thing to waste.” But composting fruit and veggie rinds and other trimmings, along with leaves, grass clippings, shredded paper and cardboard is only the beginning. Here are some compostable items you might not think about:

Dryer Lint
If you must dry your clothes in an electric clothes dryer (it significantly shortens the lifespan of many garments, wasting energy and money) instead of using a clothesline, at least compost the lint.

Hair and Fur
With my receding hairline, I don’t have a lot of my own hair to share with Gomer, but our four cats shed enough to make up for it. Hair adds nitrogen and other beneficial nutrients to compost…

On May 15 I delivered the commencement address to graduates of the University at Albany’s Geography and Planning program in upstate New York. I’d offer the same advice to all recent grads – in fact, to anyone committed to ensuring a healthy future for the planet. Therefore, this month I’d like to share my remarks:

I’m sure many people are reminding you of what an important moment this is for you, both looking back and looking ahead. The choices you’ve made–or are still trying to make—about your first job, your summer bumming around Europe, whether or not to extend or end that romance… and others will set the course for your future.

One can never know where a choice will lead you, which reminds me of one of Yogi Berra’s mind-bending sayings – “When you get to the fork in the road, take it!” The famous Yankees catcher also astutely noted, “If you don’t know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else.”

After graduating from college, I worked for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game 200 miles from the nearest road or village, competing with grizzly bears for the attention of spawning salmon in mountain streams. I was planning to set down roots in Alaska when I received a job offer from a French liqueur manufacturer in the Alps, a choice I took, though it doesn’t appear on my resume.

Just as the choices you make will set your compass, choices we make as a nation will chart a course for the future well-being of the citizens of the United States and, indeed, the entire planet. Today and every day for the past three weeks …

He’s driving, you’re just along for the ride. (Photo: Joel W. Henderson for LexusDarkRide.com)

The old way of promoting a car was to run TV and magazine ads, and associate the new model with an aspirational lifestyle. But that’s the way grandpa did it. The new way is to film a 12-minute high-def interactive video with movie stars that connects to Facebook, post it on the web, then Twitter it to get some buzz. Tap into their webcams, too, so they can “talk” to the high-watt actors.

Toyota has done exactly that to promote its new and rather angular Lexus CT 200h hybrid car. The Lexus, which comes out in early 2011, is a “premium compact” hybrid, and not based on a conventional version. With a 1.8-liter Atkinson Cycle four-cylinder engine, it should offer excellent fuel economy, though that’s not been released yet.

Lexus Dark Ride, which debuted Friday afternoon, stars Norman Reedus of Boondock Saints fame and is a spy thriller/Fast and Furious kind of thing, with lots of off-the-wall driving and folks getting shoved around. Reedus is the unshaven Tony Driver, a handy man behind the wheel. You get to be the passenger, interacting with a very gruff Reedus, who in a carryover from the Saints still sounds vaguely Irish (he’s not). The mission: deliver the …

He’s driving, you’re just along for the ride. (Photo: Joel W. Henderson for LexusDarkRide.com)

The old way of promoting a car was to run TV and magazine ads, and associate the new model with an aspirational lifestyle. But that’s the way grandpa did it. The new way is to film a 12-minute high-def interactive video with movie stars that connects to Facebook, post it on the web, then Twitter it to get some buzz. Tap into their webcams, too, so they can “talk” to the high-watt actors.

Toyota has done exactly that to promote its new and rather angular Lexus CT 200h hybrid car. The Lexus, which comes out in early 2011, is a “premium compact” hybrid, and not based on a conventional version. With a 1.8-liter Atkinson Cycle four-cylinder engine, it should offer excellent fuel economy, though that’s not been released yet.

Lexus Dark Ride, which debuted Friday afternoon, stars Norman Reedus of Boondock Saints fame and is a spy thriller/Fast and Furious kind of thing, with lots of off-the-wall driving and folks getting shoved around. Reedus is the unshaven Tony Driver, a handy man behind the wheel. You get to be the passenger, interacting with a very gruff Reedus, who in a carryover from the Saints still sounds vaguely Irish (he’s not). The mission: deliver the …