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100 sustainable companies

As usual, I'm getting to this late.  Here are the 100 most sustainable corporations in the world, as announced at the World Economic Forum in Davos. The comically fuzzy definition: " A Corporation that produces an overall positive impact on society and the environment."

Joel Makower rightly criticizes the opacity of the ranking process and Alex Steffen rightly emphasizes that these types of rankings aren't about seeking perfection so much as moving the debate in the right direction.

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Richard Brooks, Greenpeace campaigner, answers questions

Richard Brooks. With what environmental organization are you affiliated? I am a forest campaigner with Greenpeace Canada. What does your organization do? What, in a perfect world, would constitute “mission accomplished”? Greenpeace campaigns in 35 different countries using lobbying, science, public education, markets mobilization, and peaceful protest to bring about increased environmental protection of the […]

Shrinking glaciers

Via BoingBoing, a series of pictures showing melting glaciers from story in the San Fran Chronicle a few months back.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. talk

This evening I saw Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speak at Seattle's Paramount theater, thanks to Foolproof's excellent "American Voices" program.

The guy is pretty amazing. For one thing -- and I'm not sure why this is the first thing that struck me -- he looks like a Kennedy! It's a little strange, like some PBS documentary or Discovery channel special come to life. And he speaks like a Kennedy too, obviously erudite but completely at ease with the kind of aspirational, inspirational rhetoric for which his father and uncle were known.

It's one of the more substantive one-hour public talks I've ever seen. His pleasantries lasted about 30 seconds (with a quick shout-out to local eco-hero Rep. Jay Inslee), and he was off and running full tilt -- few personal anecdotes or attempts at humor, no sugar, just fiber. That style might not be everybody's cup of tea, but I love it. There was no slack.

The basic theme of the talk was less environmental stuff than corporate power. Here are a few random notes and reflections, off the top of my head, in no particular order (all this stuff will, of course, be familiar to those who have seen him speak or read his book):

Go “Geo-Green”

Environmentalists need to seek new allies and new rationales, according to the raging debates spurred by the "Death of Environmentalism." This country's most important foreign affairs column is increasingly giving voice to one such argument.

Tom Friedman in The New York Times once again bangs the drum for energy efficiency, renewables, and lowering oil consumption as a means to spur reform in the Middle East. He does throw in a call for nuclear power, an argument that won't sit well with many greenies.

But Friedman dubs himself a "geo-green," explicitly promoting green behavior for geopolitical ends. He wants to deprive the undemocratic regimes of the Middle East the huge petro dollars that allow them to buy their way out of facing realm reform.

You give me $18-a-barrel oil and I will give you political and economic reform from Algeria to Iran. All these regimes have huge population bubbles and too few jobs. They make up the gap with oil revenues. Shrink the oil revenue and they will have to open up their economies and their schools and liberate their women so that their people can compete. It is that simple.

Environment and forgotten humanitarian stories

Doctors Without Borders, or Medecins Sans Frontieres, has published its top ten underreported humanitarian stories of 2004. Many are from active conflict zones such as Chechnya, Colombia, Northern Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Conflict is a recent memory and simmering threat in others like Liberia and Burundi. Still another is a disease -- resurgent tuberculosis. Ethiopia and North Korea present tragic tales of malnutrition and suffering.

So where is the environment in these stories? In too many of these places ...

Crichtonomania

Michael Crichton gave a talk at the American Enterprise Institute today -- you can watch the video here. Sadly, I was not able to attend and ask him why the eco-terrorists in his book use small, poisonous octopi as their primary weapons. I get that octopi are natural and everything, but given that to use them you've got to get right up next to your victim and hold him or her still for a few seconds -- or get a friend to do it while you fumble with the sandwich baggies in which said octopi are contained -- it seems like the opportunity costs in terms of time, energy, and range speak in favor of going with a more traditional tool of evil, like say guns.

Also, via Chris Mooney, a response to Crichton from Brookings Institute environmental scholar David B. Sandalow. And while you're at Mooney's, check out this wackiness from Crichton's talk and this wackiness from Crichton's website.

You can look for my better-late-than-never review of Crichton's book early next week. Mark it on your calendar!

Here a Whitman, There a Whitman, Everywhere a Whitman-Whitman

Christie Whitman does the rounds criticizing Republican radicalism Ex-EPA chief Christine Todd Whitman’s new book It’s My Party Too is out now, and she is having her moment of media ubiquity, bashing what she calls the increasing extremism of the Republican Party. In interviews and appearances on such commie-pinko outlets as NPR’s “Fresh Air” and […]

Plug-in Play

Enterprising hybrid owners tinker to get better mileage Hybrid vehicles have been touted as the Next Big Thing in efficient transportation. So what’s the Next Next Big Thing? Maybe hybrids with a twist. A handful of engineering students at the University of California at Davis and other mechanically inclined greens have been tinkering with existing […]