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A World without Chocolate? -

Cocoa farmers are already having a hard time catching up with the world's sweet tooth. And now West Africa, which produces 70 percent of the planet’s cocoa, has drastically reduced its output because of dry weather attributed to climate change. That'll leave a bitter taste in everyone’s mouth. Mother Jones

Bottom Line -

Global warming is real, and coal, oil, and gas companies need to get out of the denial business and make big changes in the face of this “existential threat." Who said it? Some loopy treehugger, right? Nope, it was the former head of oil giant BP, Lord Browne, at a seminar in London this week. CNBC

Our Daily Rotten Bread -

“Each week, Father Michael drives the battered pickup down the mountain to the Safeway, where the clerks set aside the produce culls and the souring dairy. Heads of leaf lettuce bruised and blackened around their twist-tie cinches, irredeemably limp. Flaccid cucumbers, powdered white in parts with bacteria that looks like rime ice. Cartons of milk you shake and hear the solids thumping against the wax-board walls. Nothing is too far-gone to drag up the mountain and stuff into the kitchen’s old Traulsen cooler.” —From “Shopping for Rotten Vegetables to Cook a Feast for Monks,” former chef John Birdsall’s highly entertaining Vanity Fair/Lucky Peach story that challenges our tendencies to waste food

Put Down the Harpoon -

Japanese whaling is illegal, banned by international agreements that were recently backed up by the International Court of Justice. Yet the country plans to go ahead with its hunts next year, continuing to claim it’s all in the name of “scientific research.” Guess what, Japan? No one is buying it—or whale meat, for that matter. Los Angeles Times

Deniers Get Schooled -

True or false: Scientists disagree about what's causing climate change. Easy, right? It’s false, obviously. Yet two major book publishers, McGraw Hill and Pearson Education, printed the lie in new sixth-grade textbooks as a sop to the Texas Board of Education (which has a bit of a climate-denial problem). After backlash, both companies made revisions to better reflect reality. Good thing; we’d hate to see Lone Star youngsters discouraged from growing up to be scientists. National Journal

Wood Wide Web -

“Just like the human Internet, the fungal Internet has a dark side. Our Internet undermines privacy and facilitates serious crime—and frequently allows computer viruses to spread. In the same way, plants' fungal connections mean they are never truly alone, and that malevolent neighbours can harm them.” —From “Plants Talk to Each Other Using an Internet,” Nic Fleming’s BBC Earth story about hidden fungal networks that allow plants to pass information (for better or worse)