Latest Articles

Demand for green products exceeds supply

My relatives in the D.C. area are on a Prius waiting list. People wanting to build their own electric bikes are on waiting lists for parts. If you’re planning to put up some solar panels, well, get in line. According to Rich Bunch, at Silicon Solar Inc, their next shipment of solar components is due […]

Chicago’s City Hall is growing green

This is a guest post from my travel partner, Todd Dwyer, head blogger for Dell’s ReGeneration.org. —– Even as Sarah and I ran frantically down LaSalle Street in downtown Chicago in a desperate attempt to make it to our appointment with the Mayor’s office in time, it was apparent that there was something different about […]

NSIDC stunner: Arctic ice at ‘Likely record-low volume’

Looks like the Arctic may have set a record this year after all. The National Snow and Ice Data Center said today that Arctic sea ice volume likely hit a record low in 2008. They reconfirmed that the sea ice extent (or area) “dropped to the second-lowest level since satellite measurements began in 1979” and […]

Could you be the next energy czar?

We could be over-thinking this whole energy crisis. Maybe we need just a wink and the chant, “Drill, baby, drill.” Maybe we need a healthy helping of “clean coal and safe nuclear.” Or maybe what we need is you. What do you think: Could you be the next energy czar? Side note: If the last […]

Snippets from the news

• Six E.U. states ready to block climate plan. • World Bank green-energy funding up 87 percent. • Offshore wind farm approved in New Jersey.

EPA talked out of declaring public-health emergency in asbestos-ridden town

A public-health emergency has never been declared in Libby, Mont., where asbestos exposure from vermiculite mining has killed 200 people and sickened more than 1,000 more. But documents and emails obtained recently by Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) show that in 2002, the U.S. EPA was primed to declare such an emergency — before being talked […]

If you can’t stand the smell, tough luck

Duplin County, N.C. stinks. And no wonder. Its human population is just under 50,000 people, but it is also home to 2.2 million [PDF] of North Carolina’s 10 million hogs [PDF]. Last week, I went on a bus tour of Duplin County as a part of the Politics of Food Conference to see how confined […]

Green, Inc. author says big environmental groups have sold out to big business

For my money, there’s nothing more delicious than a book that lays bare the rot of a corrupted industry from an insider’s perspective. In the hands of a skilled observer, the subject can spring to life. Liar’s Poker, Michael Lewis’s hilariously disturbing account of Wall Street’s investment-banking industry in the late 1980s, comes to mind. […]

The Biden-Obama position on ‘clean coal’ is not a mistake

Today, my inbox is bombarded with emails from enviros and clean energy advocates, some of whom say that Biden’s (and Obama’s) support of clean coal is “abysmal, absolutely abysmal.” I could not disagree more. I have this argument with enviros all the time. Tuesday, I argued the point with Ted Glick, the national coordinator of […]

Constructing a green space for green biz

Driving along I-90/94W out of downtown Chicago, you can see London, France, the old Vassar Swiss Underwear Company building now under construction. A sign adorning the highway-facing façade tells you this will soon be the Green Exchange, a retail and office facility that will house some 100 businesses, all of them environmentally and socially responsible. […]