Latest Articles

Corrode to Perdition

BP closes two more North Slope pipelines Oil giant — oops, beyond oil giant — BP is shutting down two more of its pipelines on Alaska’s North Slope, at the expense of 22,000 barrels of crude (worth some $1.5 million) a day. Neither pipe had leaked yet, but BP officials have been monitoring serious corrosion […]

Village of the Dammed

China nears completion of massive Three Gorges Dam, plots more dam-building Construction of the world’s largest hydroelectric dam — the Three Gorges Dam in China — may be completed as soon as May 20, nine months ahead of schedule. The $22 billion dam on the Yangtze River will eventually flood the homes of some 1.3 […]

Curses, Fideled Again

U.S. lawmakers see offshore drilling near Cuba and feel left out The U.S. has a years-old ban against offshore drilling in the Florida Straits, but it looks like the area might get drilled anyway — by Cuba. The island country has rights to resources in half of the straits under a 1977 agreement, which President […]

Has the corporate-responsibility movement lost sight of the big picture?

Just as people sailing full-tilt into an iceberg zone can get distracted rearranging deck chairs, those of us advocating corporate responsibility may be guilty of spending too much time fiddling with the nuances of the language that describes our work. We do this even as abrupt climate change, pandemics, and other mega-trends float, quiet but […]

Move over HGTV, here comes GBTV

PBS is going to start airing a show called Building green in September.

A green-building TV show sounds interesting, but also makes me nervous. Will it be more of the shallow consumerism that defines most home shows? Or will it actually seek to give average people the comfort and confidence to try green-building projects themselves.

Another action item for renewables

I just got an email from the Solar Energies Industry Association (SEIA) asking for people to let their representatives know they support extending the 2005 investment tax credits for residential solar power and fuel cells. The credits are set to expire in 2007, but there's a bill being proposed to extend it another 8 years.

The next big vote on renewable energy

The next big vote on renewable energy won't take place in Washington. It will take place in Phoenix.

Some time this summer, the five commissioners on the Arizona Corporation Commission will vote on a proposed rule to significantly expand renewable energy in Arizona -- 15% renewables by 2025, 30% of that from distributed-generation resources like solar. We are talking on the order of up to 1,800 MW of solar: a very big deal. The emissions reductions are roughly equivalent to removing 1 million cars from the road -- not to mention jumpstarting the clean technologies of the future.

There is a precarious 3-2 majority on the Commission right now, and the usual suspects are gearing up opposition.

There's a public comment period culminating in a public meeting on May 23. Demonstrating the public mandate for renewable energy is critical. We've set up a petition -- if you live in Arizona, here's your chance to stand up and be counted. Or no complaining later.

All mixed up

Everyone knows you have to be careful about taking more than one prescription medicine at a time, since drugs can interact in strange and dangerous ways. A Google search of "dangerous drug interactions," for example, yields nearly 10 million hits.

Apparently the same is true of chemical contaminants in the environment. From Scientific American comes this troubling but none-too-surprising story (only part of which is free, unfortunately) suggesting that mixtures of toxic chemicals are often more potent and damaging than the compounds in isolation.

The Culinary Institure of America sells out to Coca-Cola

Undeniably, haute U.S. culinary culture has been a boon to the sustainable-food movement over the past 20 years or so. From Alice Waters' Chez Panisse to Dan Barber's Blue Hill at Stone Barns to the star-studded Chef's Collaborative, high-end foodie institutions have largely rallied round the cause of local, environmentally responsible agriculture.

While their wares are generally reserved for the expense-account-positive, these institutions invest in their local foodsheds and have been a valuable tool in the fight against flavorless, environmentally and socially destructive food.

All the more shocking, then, the brazen corporate flackery being performed by the Culinary Institute of America, the premier U.S. cooking school.

‘Eco-terrorism’: Motive matters

Seattle Times reporter Hal Bernton had an excellent story on "eco-terrorism" in Sunday’s edition. Most of it will be familiar to readers of my obsessive blogging on the subject, but a couple of tidbits were new (to me). There’s this: In making its 2003 recommendations, the FBI Office of Inspector General said that funneling those […]