Sorry if someone posted a diary on this before, but... over at Grist.com, the "main dish" is a review of the top 10 green stories of the year. The short version is...
- The UK report on the economic costs of global warming.
- The failure of "takings" initiatives in Western states in the fall election.
- Everyone going "carbon neutral."
- California's setting of greenhouse gas emissions limits.
- The court-ordered restoration of the Clinton Administration's Roadless Rule to protect remaining wild national forest lands.
- Bush's State-of-the-Union acknowledgment of our oil "addiction."
- The rise of concern among evangelical Christians over global warming.
- The Democratic takeover of Congress and the demise of Richard Pombo.
- Wal-mart/corporate embrace of sustainability
- An Inconvenient Truth
It's a good list that I find pretty spot on. But here's really why I thought this was worth posting....
The writer, David Roberts, does a fine job. The piece is well written, chock full of good links, and Onion funny. But here's what made this irresistable diary material -- the finest summary comment (in discussing #3 above) of the mid-term election results that I've yet read:
The 2006 mid-term elections were, in the memorable terminology of our Electoral Poison in Chief, a "thumpin'." Democrats picked up 31 seats in the House and six seats in the Senate, while Republican gains can be expressed in the following equation:
Republican gains in House + Republican gains in Senate x 1 bazillion = zilch.
That laugh just made my evening... Hell, it made my year!
If Roberts had waited just a little longer, he might have included yesterday's deeply sobering story about the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service possibly adding the polar bear to the list of endangered species, due to loss of habitat (i.e., the advanced melting of the Arctic ice cap). So: Is there anything that the Grist List Mist??