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Now If Only They’d Stop Serving Meat

Restaurant biz hops onto the green bandwagon Green ain’t just the color of the broccoli anymore in the restaurant biz. And a good thing too: the average restaurant generates 50,000 pounds of waste (half of it food) and uses 300,000 gallons of water every year. Enter the Green Restaurant Association, which provides environmental assessments and […]

Wave of Futilation

U.S. House, at odds with White House, passes $1.7 billion wastewater bill The U.S. House made waves yesterday by passing the first of three water-quality bills it will consider this week. Faced with White House disapproval, feisty U.S. reps voted 367-58 to spend $1.7 billion over five years to modernize wastewater systems and stem sewage […]

Balls to the Wall

Global warming hits sports world, sports world hits back Forget the safety of coastal dwellers — let’s focus on the truly important question. What is global warming going to do to sports? As Sports Illustrated reports in a cover story on climate change, fans are already being forced to adapt. The too-sweaty Miami Dolphins have […]

Circuit Training

U.N. launches global partnership to combat unhealthy e-waste habits Faced with an annual global gadget toss approaching 40 million tons, the United Nations has launched a partnership to battle the world’s heaps of e-waste and the environmental and health problems caused by impromptu e-recycling. Solving the E-Waste Problem, or StEP — which counts governments, universities, […]

And I’m not talking about the Green Lantern or Green Arrow

By all rights, being the science-fiction-loving computer geek that I am, I should be a comics fan. But I'm not, and need not be to know that Captain America is ... [spoiler alert!] ... dead.

As The New York Times reports:

Captain America, a Marvel Entertainment superhero, is fatally shot by a sniper in the 25th issue of his eponymous comic, which arrived in stores yesterday. The assassination ends the sentinel of liberty's fight for right, which began in 1941.

And that fight for liberty was most recently told in Civil War, which my friend Matt (an actual comics fan) writes about on his blog:

SI loves us, we love them

Sports Illustrated finds Grist “superbly entertaining,” and we must say we feel the same way about them. Appreciative ass pat, SI. We are particularly big fans of their cover story this week, headlined “Going, Going Green,” although we think we could have come up with a better title. But hey, two points for effort. The […]

An opportunity for reflection

I know the issue of Gore's carbon emissions has already been a subject of discussion here on Grist, but this recent article in USA Today raised my eyebrows even more. Gore gets 20K a year from zinc mine concessions? From a company with a poor environmental record? His massive energy use isn't from green power at all? Zero. The DNC hasn't been willing to pay the extra 2 cents a kilowatt hour for green power?

Look, I'm a policy guy and I don't think changes in personal lifestyles are the holy grail (in fact, I think they're way overrated), but this left me shaking my head. Is it really just a rightwing talking point or is there something more to this?

The real tipping point? Maybe?

The claim in a McGraw Hill NAHB report that green homebuilding will reach a tipping point in 2007 has gotten a fair amount of attention (like CNN Money and USA Today):

Green building will reach its tipping point -- the point where the building community turns from "less involved" to "more involved" in the 2006 to 2007 time frame, depending on how conservative the estimate. ... more than 2/3 of builders will be building green homes (more than 15% of their projects) ... Looking beyond 2007, the sheer number of participants in the homebuilding market will pull the rest of the market up to their standards to remain competitive.

There's nothing I'd like to see more than a real tipping point in green building practices. But trying to spot green tipping points often seems like the environmental community's favorite hobby. We're like compulsive birdwatchers looking for exotic species of environmental progress. Too often it turns out to be a wee bit more complicated than it appears at first glance.

NYT does green-biz special section

Today’s New York Times features a special green business section, highlighting a number of companies and biz leaders who are getting hip to environmentalism. "Friend of Nature? Let’s See Those Shoes" looks at the greening of consumer goods from yogurt to Timbs and gets at the notion that greening makes environmental and economic sense. It’s […]

Uh, no it doesn’t

News flash: Coca-Cola has responded to consumer demand and is now producing “healthy” beverages. “Diet and light brands are actually health and wellness brands,” Coke’s CEO E. Neville Isdell told The New York Times. He was referring to a new product called Diet Coke Plus, which is Diet Coke plus a few vitamins. Where do […]