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The Tyee busts Harper

I think the hue and cry about "greenwashing" is generally overdone, for reasons I’ve discussed at length elsewhere. But the Tyee has a great story today that looks like a bona fide example of selling a big infrastructure project as "green" when its consequences will be just the opposite. It’s about a proposal by Canadian […]

Discuss amongst yourselves

This is heartening: the activist netroots are starting to get serious about figuring out global warming policy. Welcome to the fun, y’all! Stoller comes to a familiar conclusion: carbon tax is preferable to cap and trade. I think he’s a little hard on the latter, but the basic position is sound — and all but […]

Exxon Mobil hikes spending, big time

Perhaps fearing the coming crunch of climate and energy legislation, oil giant Exxon Mobil more than doubled their reported lobbying expenditures in 2006 to $14.5 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. This blows their previous year’s total of $7.14 million and next-highest-spender Chevron’s $7.5 million out of the water.

The Mustache way

The Mustache wants a green pony: In this election cycle, we need to hold a “Green Debate,” devoted only to energy and environmental questions. I would suggest Tulane University in New Orleans on Aug. 29, 2007 — the second anniversary of Katrina. That would give the candidates, Republicans and Democrats, all summer to develop positions […]

Can a mother survive without antibacterial wipes?

A few Sundays back, the newspaper seemed to spill an overwhelming number of cleaning-product coupons onto my living-room floor.

"It's like They know," my husband said. "They're on to you."

"They" are the companies selling household liquids and powders for a little spring cleaning. And the secret my husband thought they'd discovered? I had decided to purge my pine-fresh scents and 99.9 percent germ killers in favor of a few products our "great-grandparents used," as advised by green-parenting maverick MaGreen.

If we aren’t causing it, why would reducing emissions fix it?

According to a new poll, a majority of folks in South Carolina — from both parties — agree that it’s time to do something about global warming. However, while the majority of Democrats polled believe that humans are driving recent warming, a majority of Republicans cite "natural processes." This position by Republicans, which I think […]

Happy birthday!

Peter Madden, chief executive of Forum for the Future, writes a monthly column for Gristmill on sustainability in the U.K. and Europe.

"Sustainable development" is 20 years old this week.

On April 27, 1987, after four years of deliberation, the World Commission on Environment and Development released its report. The inquiry -- also known as the Brundtland Commission -- was led by the prime minister of Norway, Gro Harlem Brundtland.

I was at university then, and devoured the contents of the report, which was later published as the book Our Common Future. Here, at last, was someone tying together the environment and development agendas. The report had much to say, too, about the relationship between poverty and environmental degradation. And as a female leader, Brundtland was such an antidote to our own prime minister; she was pretty much everything Margaret Thatcher was not.

The report gave us an enduring definition of sustainable development: "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own need."

So 20 years on, what is the legacy of sustainable development as a concept?

Polls point to yes

There’s lots of interesting stuff in this new Quinnipiac poll, particularly this: Former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani leads New York Sen. Hillary Clinton and other Democrats in the 2008 presidential race in three critical states – Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, according to Quinnipiac University’s Swing State Poll, three simultaneous surveys of voters in […]

Travel to exotic lands …

During Vietnam we used to say that "fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity" (OK, not exactly, but you get the point). I had a flashback of that today here at Gristmill.

Unwanted babies: the worst kind of emissions

We get the whole energy-wasting phone charger thing, and we think free Ben & Jerry’s sounds awesome, but is Unpluggit advocating unprotected sex in their online video? (h/t: reader MB)