Climate Culture

Looks like the plug-in might actually happen

General Motors is apparently serious about introducing a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle, which I have repeatedly argued is the car of the future (PDF). The race is now on between Toyota and GM as to who will be the first to introduce this game-changing vehicle.

The Chevy Volt is to be the "legacy" of Robert Lutz, GM's vice chair of product development, according to Business Week's "Auto Beat" column. The Volt will go about 40 miles on an electric charge before reverting to being a regular gasoline-powered hybrid.

Can a bag of potato chips point the way to saving the planet?

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

Can a bag of potato chips point the way to saving the planet?

In the U.K., we have started down the path of putting "carbon labels" on products. Tesco, our biggest supermarket chain, has said they will label every product they sell. The Carbon Trust, a government agency, has already produced a prototype label and is trying it out on shampoo, a fruit juice, and a bag of potato chips.

Clearly we do need to measure and manage carbon. A lot has been done to calculate and reduce the direct climate impacts of companies. Now attention is shifting to the wider climate-change footprint; businesses are looking up and down the supply chain.

Labeling is a great idea in principle. We have seen labels like fair-trade, organic, energy-rating, and marine stewardship engage consumers, change production, and move markets. And on climate change, consumers tell us they want simple, straightforward choices that are guaranteed to make a difference.

The Girls of Grist do Sasquatch

A group of Grist hotties ladies just returned from the Sasquatch Music Festival at the Gorge in George, Wash., where we spent two days volunteering at the TRASHed Recycling Store, sponsored by Global Inheritance, a hip nonprofit based in California that combines creativity, youthful enthusiasm, and activism into unique, progressive-minded projects. They travel around and […]

And start a green tour

Live Earth organizers announced today that Linkin Park will headline the Tokyo show. They also announced that Japan will be the only country to have two events — one in surburban Tokyo (the mainstage featuring Linkin Park) and one at a Buddhist temple in Kyoto (and I think you get the connection there). The Kyoto […]

Two Green Builders Take Trains Leaving From Different Stations…

U.S. schools betting on benefits of going green When we were kids, the only thing green about our schools was the vomit-hued paint on the bathroom walls. But times change, and these days, schools across the U.S. are incorporating green features that save money, improve student performance, and help protect the planet. The trend is […]

An hour-long discussion

Here’s Al Gore appearing on Charlie Rose. It’s about an hour long:

Taking on the belief that technotoys will allow the status quo to continue

James Howard Kunstler, dyspeptic critic and peak oil Paul Revere, nails the people whose approach to the twin calamities of global heating and peak oil is to spend all their time trying to cobble together the McGyver solution that saves the day, rather than trying to adapt to the new, low-energy imperative.

By Mark Twain

The war prayer: For background, see Kevin Drum and the war prayer site.

Good stuff in the new issue of the ‘journal of food and culture’

Edible Media takes an occasional look at interesting or deplorable food journalism on the web. Anyone who loves food, and enjoys reading about it, should check out the quarterly magazine Gastronomica, which calls itself the “journal of food and culture.” It’s published by the University of California Press, but it’s no academic rag. It tends […]

Maybe we’re wrong thinking that airline executives don’t get it

This Washington Post story suggests that the airline industry is not being led by dumb people who just don't get it.

No, the darling of the industry, the best and the brightest, the folks heading the industry vanguard, aren't stupid. They get it.

They just don't care. They believe that personal wealth will protect them and their children and grandchildren.

They plan for growth, even as the planes carry fewer people, which means they plan to keep increasing both their overall greenhouse gas emissions and the per-mile traveled emissions, as well as to have more planes emitting more water vapor into the atmosphere where is serves as powerful heat trapping barrier.

But you're not supposed to think ill of them, because they earn money for helping destroy the climate.

At least the damage inflicted by cigarette companies is felt mainly by the smokers and the people close by -- these guys are helping push a rock over a cliff onto millions of people who can't even afford an in-flight magazine, much less a flight.