The disastrous state subsidies for agrofuels piled on top of the federal ones.  Here’s a must-read story on Another pair of studies showing that ethanol–both corn AND switchgrass flavors–is WORSE for climate change than petroleum.
In other words, Big Ag has persuaded us to pour gas on the climate fire.
Spending millions to prop up climate-destroying ethanol [...]

Coal
The hard energy news of the moment: The price of coal threatens to reach $300 a ton this week. That’s a sudden tripling in the price of the stuff (see EB 2/4) . For those depending on cheap coal to solve future energy problems, put that in your stack and smoke it.

Oil
Financier Matthew Simmons told [...]

Must see: in just a few minutes of Flash video, Annie Leonard breaks down our consumer society into its various parts. She makes it all fun and easy to follow, while at the same time creating a powerful indictment of the modern American lifestyle.
Watch it and tell your friends and family:
www.StoryofStuff.com

I feel odd wishing people a “Happy New Year,” because it seems like such a trivial wish — like visiting soldiers about to be sent to the front and wishing them a pleasant train ride.
We have stirred up some serious stuff with our obstinate refusal to accept and live within ecological limits, but — as [...]

Presidential hopefuls are treading lightly on Social Security, but it’s shaping up to be an important issue in the 2008 general election.
Meanwhile, the first baby boomer applies for Social Security…
Boomers read on. This is our chance to right the wrongs of Social Security and to realize the dignity in retirement that we’ve earned.

The estimable George Monbiot starts his latest thus:

An Agricultural Crime Against Humanity
Posted November 6, 2007
Biofuels could kill more people than the Iraq war.
By George Monbiot. Published in the Guardian 6th November 2007
It doesn’t get madder than this. Swaziland is [...]

Well, at 8:45 it appears that Measure 49 will pass, thank God, which means that people who backed Measure 37 should be happy and those who opposed Measure 37 will be breathing a huge sigh of relief: Measure 49 gives Measure 37 backers everything they said they wanted, so everybody should be happy now.  The [...]

An intelligent plan. Here.

Short answer: because biofuels are about taking money from people who are going to be extremely hard-pressed and giving it to corporations in the guise of a futile attempt to preserve the fantasy that we can maintain an auto-based life. There’s the direct problem with the policy, but even more that that [...]

From today’s David Sarasohn column:
Food banks — and the people who depend on them — are being hit by a combination of table-clearing typhoons. As food companies and processors get ever more efficient, contributions of excess and irregular food packages decline. Donations from farmers are lower than usual this time of year, said Food Bank [...]