Real Talk With Andrew Beaujon™: What is weighing on you most heavily this morning: The death of Claude Lévi-Strauss...or the impending release of DROID?

If you picked DROID, keep reading!

Lévi-Strauss said writing was the difference between the so-called civilized and the so-called savage; DROID says the difference between it and the iPhone is better coverage! ADVANTAGE: DROID!

Lévi-Strauss believed in "laws of mythical thinking"; DROID believes in making Garmin stock worthless! ADVANTAGE: TIE

Lévi-Strauss examined culture through food, but his theories were hostage to the fashion of academe; DROID is pretty great at everything except letting you end phone calls. ADVANTAGE: LEVI-STRAUSS.

POP QUIZ!
Two of these are headlines or subheads in today's print edition of the Washington Post, and one is something my grandmother used to say when conversation got incredibly boring.

1) "We happily let technology run the day, until it stops us in our tracks"
2) "Guardians of the roads or highway robbers?"
3) "Sure, you can get your money back, but there are no refunds on high expectations"

ANSWER: Trick question! They're all from today's Post!

BIKE COMMUTING CORNER
I am still wearing shorts when I ride to work. But much like I wonder where Northwest ends and Northeast begins when I look at North Capitol Street, I wonder where stubborness ends and being an asshole begins when Wearing Shorts in the Cold (WSITC). You need only walk through Adams Morgan at any time of day or night to feel the rage WSITC can inspire in even an even-tempered observer. Or fly! One of Beaujon's Immutable Laws of Travel (BILOT) is that wherever you are going, there's always someone in shorts on your plane. And yet here I am still bare-legging it to work! Please help me decide what is right. Also: I don't have proper bike pants. Problem?

IN OTHER NEWS: Does Yankee fan elation bother you more than Phillies fan sadness pleases you? DISCUSS. Sad day for Spaniards: Francisco Ayala dies...at 103! Eat more ham! EWWWW: you've got the cutest little baby face. Also: Washington Times readers on global warming!

I gotta bounce! Follow me on Twitter! Advantage: DROID!

Yesterday, beer lovers were devastated to hear global warming is hurting beer production. While that news was bad, the Washington Post followed up with a dispatch today suggesting that we can solve global warming if we stop having kids.

Put the two news items together in time-honored “news analysis” tradition and what do you get? A solution! To assure a lasting supply of quality beer, forget about having that The Waltons-style family you were considering. In fact, better not too have any of the little darlings, according to a crack team of researchers at the London School of Economics.

That’s right, if we stopped having kids, we’d pretty much wipe up the climate change problem, according to the U.K. study. And, we’d presumably still be able to drive around in Hummers, live in sprawling suburban McMansions, shop until we drop, and spend every evening at the pub – mugs of a top of the line pilsner in each hand.

I’m not making this stuff up, I swear.

Scientists in the Czech Republic say they think warmer temperatures caused by climate change are hurting the quality of Saaz hops used to make celebrated pilsner beers such as Urquell and Gambrinus. And, they aren’t the only ones claiming that global warming is taking a toll on the brewskies. Last year, Australian scientists predicted that climate change will drive up beer prices by making it more expensive to grow malting barely.

On the baby carbon front, the U.K. researchers aren’t the first to calculate how many pounds of greenhouse gases each child adds to the world. Check out these fun facts compiled by Mother Jones. 

In synthesis: If you want to keep drinking good beer, forget about having those kiddies!

Check out this set of instructions for building your own wind turbine. OK, most of us aren’t going to rush out and erect one of these above our row house or apartment building. But isn’t it nice to know you could?

Their particular form of protest comes from poking fun at serious issues such as world trade rules, corporate greed and the human role in global warming. And, they are so good at it that the suits usually don’t know the joke is on them until it’s way beyond face-saving time.

They’ve pinioned officials at the World Trade Organization, FEMA and Halliburton. In my book, I included their 2007 antics at a Canadian oil convention. Impersonating executives from ExxonMobil and the National Petroleum Council, The Men had a roomful of industry types on their feet and solemnly lighting candles made from what they claimed to be the next big renewable energy source: Vivoleum, a “fossil fuel” supposedly made from the human flesh of people killed in hurricanes, floods and other global warming-related disasters.

Given what's on TV this time of year, there are many worse ways to spend a Monday night. But even before seeing it, I have a complaint for the filmmakers: the title. The Yes Men certainly make it more fun to fret about corporate corruption and lack of political will, but change the world? At best, they call attention to its many dysfunctions.

By now, the downsides of the oh-so-last-year corn-based fuels are well known; they use too much water, harmful chemicals and petroleum. This has led some biofuels boosters to place their bets on cellulose from such things as grasses, wood chips and even algae.

Cellulose, however, has never been grown on a commercial scale, as the GAO points out in its new study. That means relatively little is known about how much water, fertilizer and pesticides it will take to grow it in industrial quantities. There’s virtually no information on what impact that’ll have on soil and water quality either, not to mention how much water and energy it will take to turn harvests into biofuel. 

This is just the latest news – much of it bad – for the emergent and yet booming biofuels industry, which begs the question: Isn’t it time to give up this pipe dream? 

But that doesn’t seem likely anytime soon. The buzz around biofuels is propelling any number of hair brained schemes. Besides cases of out-and-out fraud, there are plenty of dubious projects underway. Investor excitement over fuels made from such crops as corn and palm oil have driven up the prices of tortillas in Mexico and led to food riots in other countries. Plans to log this country’s publicly owned forests to feed biofuel plants, meanwhile, seem to make little sense for many reasons. One biggie is that climate scientists say we need to keep the world's remaining forests upright if we are too stave off more global warming.

If we are going to burn it, why bother turning wood into cellulose anyway? Why not just cut down the trees for firewood? O.K., O.K., before some smarty pants chimes in with a reason why burning woody biomass is better than lighting up a plain, old fashioned log, let me just say my point is rhetorical: Why embrace dirty alternative fuel made from finite resources when there are cleaner, more renewable options out there?

The final tally – webcast live on C-SPAN – was 219 to 212, largely along party lines, though more than three-dozen Democrats defected to vote against the legislation. 

Heavier rainfall, more scorching hot summer days, shorter winters, and spreading dead zones in the Chesapeake Bay – these are a few of the local impacts of global warming, according to a report released today by the Obama Administration.

The gist: Global warming is already here and only going to get worse.

Among the scarier scenarios for the D.C.-area: Heavy rains, like the ones we’ve had recently, will lead to more flooding and waterborne diseases. D.C. is particularly vulnerable because we have an antique  “combined sewer system” that carries storm water and sewerage in the same pipes. When the system gets swamped, sewerage overflows into rivers, drinking water supplies and swimming holes. Not a pretty picture and one that will increasingly expose District residents to waterborne parasites that cause diarrhea-like ailments with exotic names such as Cryptosporidium and Giardiasis.

For the full report, click here. For news from the press conference, check out this AP story. Meanwhile, the Guardian, says the report is part of the Obama Administration's "carefully crafted strategy" to push through the climate change bill currently before Congress.

Did you know that much of the city’s trash is trucked to Fairfax County, where it is incinerated and turned into electricity? According to the Department of Public Works and the “waste-to-energy” industry, it's a "win-win" scenario; the trash disappears and the country reduces its dependence on foreign oil. What could be more patriotic, especially since officials say filters on the smokestacks keep nasty pollutants from escaping into the air around the Lorton plant.

Well, in a report released today, environmentalists take aim at those claims. Clean Water Action, the Toxics Action Center and six other groups from around the country are seeking to debunk the growing buzz around waste-to-energy plants as sources of clean “alternative” fuel. Their conclusion: an incinerator is an incinerator is an incinerator. 

"The core impacts of all types of incinerators remain the same: They are toxic to public health, harmful to the economy, environment and climate, and undermine recycling and waste reduction programs,” according to the report, “An Industry Blowing Smoke."