Longer Step: Ideas for Justice and Sustainability

  The greenest car is a plug-in hybrid . It allows electric-only driving for almost all your day to day driving (while you can use the gas engine for long trips, avoiding the still-immature, sometimes-not-working national recharging system). And its batteries are much smaller than those in all-electric cars, which scores much better in the "let's not destroy the Earth too much" test. Someday we'll have greener (and safer) car batteries, but for now PHEV may be a smart choice.

  Re: Sudden, dramatic growth in worldwide gov't support for modern (hybrid) winegrapes!   Friends, if you thought that modern grapes ("hybrids") play just a minor role, and are not relevant to your life or to this planet's future, then you need to think again. I have never seen such an outpouring, in just the past few months, of major news from wine regions all around the world, dropping their (stupid) prohibitions against modern grapes, and suddenly embracing them as their regions' salvation for the future. (I want to say "duh," but I need to be professional.) I include many of the latest news stories about this, below. What's the impetus for this? In many regions of the world, it is becoming impossible to grow traditional European winegrapes consistently successfully, due to climate change (higher high temps; unexpected late Spring and early Fall severe cold snaps; worsening droughts; early arrival of Fall, etc.). Sometimes the trigger is the loss...