Forbes Magazine finds New Jersey is one of the greenest states.

Poor New Jersey. For years, it's been the butt of countless jokes for its pollution and contamination, snickering references to "the heavy industry of the Garden State" and the like. And if you've ever been through Bayonne or Linden, you can understand why people thought that way. But Forbes.com found differently. Its survey of the greenest states finds New Jersey near the top of the list, along with Oregon and Washington: smaller carbon footprint, less driving, smarter state laws protecting the environment and better policies to continue and extend that protection. The same Forbes piece finds that western states we like to think of as being green aren't, maybe because having a lot of space and low population density makes people think resources are infinite and leads them to behave that way. Then there's the curious case of California: Governor Arnold  Schwarzenegger's policies make the state an environmental leader, but there's a lot of environmentally unfriendly behavior that needs changing. There's an intriguing cause-and-effect conundrum there.

Elsewhere on Forbes's site: another cautionary note about biofuels. Making them is a lot more damaging to the environment than burning them as fuel is. Now, their expansion threatens food prices.