Latest Articles
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New bike helmet filters pollutants
Speaking of bikes, a new helmet with a decidedly Storm-Trooperish look may soon help cyclists breathe easier, filtering out particulate matter as they ride.
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Globalization of the fuel vs. fuel debate
Last Thursday, Canada's Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, announced substantial subsidies to boost Canada's production of biofuels. Under its "ecoENERGY for Biofuels" program, the government will provide up to C$ 1.5 billion (US$ 1.4 billion) in the form of incentives over nine years to producers of renewable alternatives to gasoline and diesel fuel.
"With leading-edge technology and abundant supplies of grains, oilseeds, and other feedstocks, Canada is uniquely positioned to become a global leader in the production of biofuels," said the prime minister.
Today, the BBC ran a story explaining that, in part thanks to the increasing diversion of Canadian durum wheat into biofuels, supplies of this very special grain are getting tight. The result: the price of pasta, one of Italy's staple foods, is forecast to go up by about 20 percent this autumn.
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Mindy S. Lubber of CERES looks at how far we’ve come and what the future might hold
To celebrate its 15th anniversary, the GreenMoney Journal asked leaders in the realms of green business and socially responsible investing to forecast 15 years into the future. How green will our economy be in 2022? GreenMoney's anniversary issue features responses from Amy Domini of Domini Social Investments, Gary Hirshberg of Stonyfield Farm, futurist Hazel Henderson, and others.
Mindy Lubber.Here, reprinted with permission, is a view from Mindy S. Lubber, president of Ceres, a leading coalition of investors, environmental groups, and other public-interest organizations working with companies to address sustainability challenges such as global climate change. Ceres also directs the Investor Network on Climate Risk, a network of more than 50 institutional investors collectively managing $4 trillion in assets. (Tune in later this week for a perspective from Joan Bavaria, president of Trillium Asset Management Company.)
If past is prologue, then to forecast where businesses will be in tackling environmental protection, humane labor practices, biodiversity, water supply, and other sustainability challenges, we have to look back.
Fifteen years ago, when the GreenMoney Journal was launched, a relative handful of niche companies such as Ben & Jerry's, Timberland, and Tom's of Maine were integrating the social consciences of their founders and even, in some cases, their spiritual values, into the capitalist model. But these companies were far outside the mainstream of American corporate culture, throwbacks to the idealism of the 1960s, and represented a tiny fraction of American corporate power.
Indeed, for decades there had been strong and pervasive resistance in the corporate world to environmental responsibility, transparency, and sustainable business practices. Such corporate values were seen as the province of the "tree-hugger" fringe and the notion that this could ever change was widely dismissed as a pipe dream.
Fast-forward 15 years to a single week in May 2007. Citigroup, one of the world's largest financial conglomerates, announces that it will commit $50 billion over 10 years on investments and project financing to reduce global carbon emissions, including development of alternative energy and clean technologies. News Corp., one of the word's largest media companies, led by the ultraconservative Rupert Murdoch, announces that it will become carbon "neutral" by 2010. And IBM, the venerable computer giant, announces it is spending $1 billion to become more energy efficient across its global operations. All in a single week! In each case, these decisions were driven by bottom-line economics and a recognition that sustainability is a core business issue.
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NYC puts training wheels on new program
New York City is putting training wheels on a new bicycle-sharing program to demonstrate to city-dwellers that two-wheelers can be a viable form of alternative transportation. Sponsored by the Forum for Urban Design, a group of architects, designers, and planners, the five-day trial run has made 20 bikes available for free from 10 a.m.-6 p.m. […]
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Send me your questions before tomorrow
Tomorrow, I’m interviewing Amory Lovins, Cofounder, Chairman, and Chief Scientist of the Rocky Mountain Institute. I suppose Lovins needs no introduction here, but if you want a compact summary of his contributions, Wikipedia’s got a decent entry. If you’d like to read some of his stuff, check out Winning the Oil Endgame, which promises a […]
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Blue plus green equals sustainability
Manufacturing can be a source of pollution, and the iconic image of manufacturing is the smokestack hurling smoke into the atmosphere. But in order to create a sustainable economy, we're going to have to manufacture the necessary windmills, solar energy systems, trains, and electric vehicles. We have a negative demonstration of the necessity of manufacturing in yesterday's Wall Street Journal, in an article entitled "Alternative Energy Hurt By a Windmill Shortage" (attention web surfers: the Wall Street Journal is free all day today!):
The race to build new sources of alternative energy from the wind is running into a formidable obstacle: not enough windmills.
In recent years, improved technology has made it possible to build bigger, more efficient windmills. That, combined with surging political support for renewable energy, has driven up demand. Now, makers can't keep up -- mostly because they can't get the parts they need fast enough.It turns out that mostly European utilities have locked up the consumption of most of the wind turbine builders in the world, so if in particular a small U.S. utility wants to expand its wind power base, it has one alternative: sell itself to a European utility. The wind turbine manufacturing capacity in the U.S. is so small that much of our wind turbine industry could soon be mostly European:
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A few random observations before getting back to work
Well, here I am, back from a nine-day vacation in the South, sunburned, mosquito-bitten, jet lagged, and generally dazed. Rather than wading through the 300 or so emails demanding my attention, how about a few vacation observations? I split my time between big-city Atlanta and the sort of not-quite-rural, not-quite-city, not-quite-suburb nether regions that, it […]
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Trees are good for a lot of things; carbon offsetting isn’t one of them
The first rule of offsets, according to Joseph Romm, is "no trees." This is a pretty good rule, as these thing go. The TerraPass offset portfolio contains no tree-planting projects, despite the fact that most consumers love trees and the fact that tree-planting projects are typically cheaper than offsets from renewable energy projects.
So if trees are both consumer-friendly and cost-effective, why avoid them? There are lots of reasons, and Romm chooses to focus on one of the more minor ones: a recent study suggesting that trees outside of tropical zones actually cause a net increase in global warming by absorbing sunlight.
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While planet burns, Boeing scores a PR victory
At the gym, in between hearing an EMT talk about the heat stroke issues he expects tomorrow, I marveled at how awful news programs were today, devoting huge chunks of time to talking up Boeing's new "Dreamliner" jet, which the blow-drieds say will consume 20 percent less fuel per mile. I even heard one blow say "eventually reducing the cost of air travel."
Man, talk about delusional.
(Oh, and I know I'm not supposed to connect things like our craze for jet travel and high temperatures, as if to suggest a connection between another spate of record breaking temperatures in what's shaping up to be a record breaking year ... bad me. I'll report to reprogramming.)
