Some days you wake up and find everything you’re doing and believing is wrong — like eating tomatoes or thinking your fellow Americans trust the scientific consensus that man is causing climate change. This, ladies and gentlemen, is one of those days. But tomorrow is Climate Action Day, so…maybe slice a tomato and take it in a sandwich?

1. Yesterday’s big news: A Pew poll showing a dive in the percentage of Americans who believe human activities are causing global warming — down to 35%. This morning, Grist’s Dave Roberts breaks down the numbers and says it means we should focus on making clean energy cheap.
2. Are we all wrong about how much biofuels could help reduce carbon emissions? A new paper in Science says yes — that policymakers and scientists have underestimated the carbon released by the land-use changes farmers have to make to grow biofuels…like cutting down trees. (Hat tip: Washington Post.com.)
3. Will eating carrots instead of tomatoes save the planet? Sweden is now listing the carbon emissions associated with food production, reports The New York Times…and its national food administration is making diet recommendations — like eat farmed carrots instead of hothouse cucumbers and tomatoes, which require lots of energy to produce. (Only in Sweden could this happen…)
4. Is Big Coal the obstacle to U.S. climate change legislation? Economist and former UN Millennium Project head Jeffrey Sachs says yes in the Guardian. (Hat tip: Environmental Capital.)
5. Are reptiles the world’s great unknown disappearing class of fauna? The BBC’s Richard Black says snakes, lizards, etc. are woefully understudied — but could be in as much danger of extinction as amphibians.

(Image credit: The Ewan/Flickr through a Creative Commons license.)

Posted: October 23rd, 2009 under Animals, Climate Change, Climate Science & Research, Conservation Issues, Cool Green Morning, Energy, Green Living, Policy, United States.
Tags: American believe global warming, Americans believe climate change, biofuel, biofuel carbon emission, biofuel climate change, biofuel science, biofuel Science magazine, carrots carbon emission, clean energy, Climate Action Day, Climate Change, coal climate, Dave Roberts, Environmental Capital, global warming, Grist, Jeffrey Sachs, Pew Climate poll, reptile extinction, Richard Black, Science magazine, Sweden food emissions, The Guardian, The New York Times, tomato carbon emission, Washington Post