Green as a Thistle

These people, places, things, etc. are right in line with the Smoggies theme song (”We love to make things messy / Just as dirty as can be / And you can bet we’ll mess you up / Ecologically!”).

• I don’t think I’ve ever been more offended by my own newspaper. For the most part, it hasn’t been such a problem working alongside an editorial board full of global warming deniers; I just kind of sigh, shake my head and green on. But this recent column by George Jonas made me choke on my organic oatmeal this morning — I can’t believe the Post is willing to print an article that compares environmentalists to Nazis. Seriously —”the Green Gestapo”? “Eco-fascists”?! Yes, there may be some activists that push things a little too far every now and then, but even David Suzuki is not about to go door-to-door beating people up for using more than one square of toilet paper. Jonas might as well have started calling charity workers “humanitarian fascists” while he was at it. I can’t even get into his whole tirade about how burqa-clad women in Iran look “like witches from an amateur production of Lady Macbeth” without getting heart palpitations (and probably getting fired) so I’ll just stop here and let you read it yourself (or not).

• I keep telling people about this amazing documentary about corn, and they all keep looking at me like, “Yeah, corn, whatever.” But seriously — CORN! It’s crazy! Lloyd Alter over at Treehugger explains a little more eloquently, quoting Michael Pollan and the NYT, about how U.S. government subsidies on corn and soy are, in a flow-charted way, leading to obesity and other health concerns, not to mention taking a big toll on the environment.

• When I read this story, all I could picture was the Toronto Blue Jays coach developing a third eye, like that nuclear fish from the Simpsons.

• OK, I think the purpose behind this One campaign is great and all, but hello? Bottled water? Couldn’t we have endorsed this with reusable Nalgene bottles or something?

• According to the BBC, the U.S. doesn’t want to play nice and carbon trade at the G8 summit. Germany’s environment minister, in the understatement of the year, says “We find this regrettable.”

• Channel 4’s controversial “documentary” The Great Global Warming Swindle, which is apparently littered with false claims. In the Green posts a nice deconstruction of the whole thing over here — reading it is probably much more informative than watching the actual film.

• Companies that tout themselves as environmentally friendly while sweeping carcinogens and pollutants under the sweatshop-manufactured rug — otherwise known as greenwashing. The Post’s Dave McGinn writes about it here.

• Oh no. No, no, no no no no. When global warming affects the children, it’s one thing. But when it gets to the wine, that’s just low. Really low.

• Who puts a 78-year-old grandmother in jail, just for being green? (Apparently, Canada).

• I’ll admit, I find David Suzuki’s “If I Were Prime Minister” campaign a little stale somehow, and kids reading out speeches their parents wrote isn’t exactly endearing (except when they mispronounce Kyoto, which is pretty darn cute). But did Peter Foster really have to go to the opposite extreme in Wednesday’s National Post and accuse him of using children to “promote his ‘ecophobic’ terror of the end of the world”? And when he tries to argue that the science of climate change is subjective and unproven, I kind of want to pat his head and hand him a blue box. Then again, he sits across the newsroom from me and could very well march over and kick my hippy ass, so I’ll refrain.

• It’s weird that people like these guys, who deny that global warming even exists, are still around. Didn’t anyone tell them? Although someone like Reverend Jerry Falwell — who says global warming is “Satan’s attempt to redirect the church’s primary focus” from evangelism to environmentalism — actually makes those guys sound reasonable. Link.

• Nothing new here, but it can’t be said enough: cars like this one or this one, that seem to be built for the sole purpose of giving Mother Nature emphysema, should be crushed… into some reusable material!