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Landsea

Enviros are in a fairly massive worldwide fight right now, trying to convince governments and average citizens alike that global warming is real and that its effects could be devastating. Vested interests of various sorts are trying to paint this as alarmism and hype.

That picture is flattering to enviros, but of course there's more to it than that

Design of the Times

Electronics manufacturers hop on the cradle-to-cradle bandwagon Mindful of the growing impact of consumer electronics on the waste stream — and of the likelihood that government regulations could one day require them to recycle their own wares — electronics manufacturers like Dell, Hewlett-Packard, and Panasonic are beginning to design products with their full lifecycle in […]

Hope Against Slope

Bush admin poised to open sensitive Alaska North Slope land to drilling The Bush administration plans to open to drilling more than 400,000 acres of Alaska’s North Slope thought to be vital to migratory birds and caribou, after the Bureau of Land Management determined that drilling can be done with “minimum impact” on wildlife. Interior […]

The answer, my friend, is basking in the sun

Joel Makower does a quick review of the growing momentum of solar power on the world market, with high-profile moves being made by Sanyo, Sharp, Kyocera, and Mitsubishi. Then he turns to the U.S. solar market, which is lagging:

Reclaiming leadership in the global solar marketplace will be no mean feat. As recently as 1997, U.S. solar companies controlled 100% of the U.S. market and 40% of the global market, according to SEIA. Today, U.S. firms control only 73% and 14%, respectively. In 2003, following several years of growth, shipments from U.S. solar manufacturers actually decreased by 10%, while shipments from Europe grew by 41% and from Japan by 45%.

It is vitally important for enviros to make the point that solar is not some kind of hippie preoccupation -- it's a major world market that is rapidly reaching a tipping point. The U.S. risks being left behind.

This is an industry that offers the possibility of thousands of jobs -- jobs that cannot be offshored, jobs that could potentially revive dying rural areas -- in a market that's only going to grow for the foreseeable future. Yet a combination of corporate clout and political myopia is hobbling our efforts. Tell me again how environmentalists are against economic growth?

45th

The U.S. is the world's 45th greenest country. Finland, Norway, and Uruguay are the top three.

Details below the fold.

EPA offers air-pollution immunity to factory farms

On Friday, in the shadow of the splashy presidential inauguration jamboree, the Bush EPA offered factory farms a tempting tradeoff: more than two years of immunity from the Clean Air Act and certain toxic-discharge standards in exchange for participating in a data-collection program that would monitor air emissions from their facilities. Factory farms may be […]

Jordi Honey-Rosés, WWF butterfly protector, answers questions

Jordi Honey-Rosés. With what environmental organization are you affiliated? Currently I serve as program officer in the Mexican Forest Program for World Wildlife Fund, working to protect the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve in central Mexico. The pine and fir forest region where I work is the winter habitat for the migratory North American monarch butterfly. […]

Sustainability sunday

If you're not already, I highly recommend stopping by WorldChanging every week for Sustainability Sundays, where the finest minds of our generation blogosphere convene to review the week's developments. Check out the week in sustainable transportation from Mike Millikin of Green Car Congress, the week in green building from Gil Friend of Natural Logic, and the week in green design from Justin Thomas of Metaefficient.

Umbra on making eco-friendly cleaning products

Dear Umbra, I’d like to start making my own environmentally friendly cleaning products for my home. Are there any books or websites you would recommend for cleaning “recipes”? Rachel P.S. — Thanks ever so much for your mention of the Keeper in one of your columns. Quite possibly the most useful device ever invented. Why […]

The Daily Show barometer

I finally got around to watching Thursday's edition of the Daily Show. The inauguration coverage was predictably funny, but something else jumped out at me.

Joe Lieberman was the guest (pretty funny guy, as it happens). Jon Stewart asked him, among other things, what his top three priorities would be at the beginning of Bush's second term.

First, Lieberman said, he would stop Bush from messing with Social Security. The crowd roared their approval. Second, he said, he would work with John McCain to persuade Congress and the president to do something about global warming.

The crowd's reaction? Dead silence.

You can watch the interview here.