GOOD Magazine on the impact illegal drugs have on the environment. I’ll give you three guesses which one is best for the planet.

A Slate reader recently asked the Green Latern which illegal drug was the least harmful to the environment. If you not only care about your carbon footprint but also enjoy the occasional recreational high, you might find the Lantern’s response enlightening.

Let’s be frank: Most highs for you are kind of a downer for the planet. The conditions under which illegal drugs are produced make it impossible for the government to enforce any sort of clean manufacturing regulations, and the long-standing “War on Drugs” inflicts its own environmental damage. (Think of the RoundUp herbicide sprayed on 120,000 hectares of rural Colombia each year.) There are some ways to measure the eco-credentials of various narcotics, though. To understand how various drugs affect the environment, we need to take a close look at where each one comes from and compare the ways they’re harvested or synthesized.

Ecstasy, which is derived from the sassafras oil of endangered rainforest trees, and crystal meth, which comes from either Asian grasses or the pharmaceutical chemicals ephedrine and pseudoephedrine, are among the most environmentally damaging. Meth’s production is particularly toxic: “In California’s Central Valley, law enforcement estimates between 4 million and 7 million pounds of lab waste were poured into canals and on properties between 2000 and 2004.”

(GOOD: Which Drugs Are Best for the Environment?)

GOOD magazine reports on the decade in environmental advances. Having spent the latter half of the decade in the green trenches, I’m not quite sure what to make of this. I worry that this decade, while it was clearly the “Tipping Point” on the environment, was largely a decade of greenwash and back-slapping. The results of the Copenhagen conference are a case in point. Time to get it together, instead of running business as usual with a green Smilex smiley face painted on.

This decade will be remembered, first and foremost, as the time we finally came around to understanding climate change?

 
You gotta leave it to a Druid to really give a f*ck about nature. Archdruid John Michael Greer has a go at our culture’s standards on measuring productivity. Reported by GOOD magazine below:

The author, blogger, and druid (no joke, he’s a real druid) John Michael Greer has a piece in Energy Bulletin explaining why our normal way of thinking about economic “productivity” is flawed. Greer suggests that we look at “energy productivity” instead:

In an age that will increasingly be constrained by energy limits, for example, a more useful measure of productivity might be energy productivity?

The newest part in GOOD magazine’s ongoing “Ideas for Cities” series on how to properly revitalize our urban areas for a sustainable century. I like this one in particular, because it seems like it could very easily manifest without much effort, and solve a lot of issues in one go.

Cities should provide service opportunities and training for all ages to instill confidence, self-reliance, and pride. One of these programs could be an Edible Schoolyard that is cared for by students and led by professional farmers and volunteers. It would provide 100 percent of the school meals to the student body, and excess food would be delivered to the ill and elderly. In addition, schools would produce zero waste by composting all bio matter. The school could also compost neighborhood bio matter to fund its agricultural efforts.

(GOOD: Ideas for Cities: Edible Schoolyard)

As a companion to the story about the UCLA near-riots, here’s a DIY education chaser courtesy of GOOD magazine.

We live with an economy and country where education is increasingly becoming either priced out of availability or a lifelong financial ball-and-chain turning students into indentured servants to the state that has paid for their education?

GOOD Magazine reports on bioalgae, a fuel source that’s been in beta for the last couple decades but which looks to be moving. Interest picking up? Let’s hope.

The brightest minds within the industry estimate that algae biofuels are five to 10 years away from commercialization. And while some might believe that algae?

Hilarious article from GOOD Magazine on people and their dog-obsession:

Kids chase fewer squirrels and postal workers than dogs, but the way we pamper our poodles and great danes and mutts has a lot in common with how we treat our toddlers and teens.

Though I try not to over-kid-ify my canine, the bounds of sane dog owner behavior are blurry. I frequently arrange playdates for my rat terrier Monkey, and, I hate to admit, once shoved him into a Dracula costume and took him to a dog party, which included dog cake, dog champagne, and a doggie masseuse (who terrified my pooch?

Excellent GOOD Magazine essay on how 30 Rock has enriched our cultural lexicon.

Since it?

Some generally good news, for a change.

The United Nations military commander, General Martin Agwai, says that although the area will likely continue to see things like banditry and skirmishes of local violence, the ?