EPA plan would spew under-treated sewage into U.S. waterways

Like clean water? Then you’ll love Rep. Bart Stupak. Swimming in sewage just isn’t this fun. For the last year,...

We’ll Drink to That

Americans prefer their water clean, poll shows “An overwhelming majority” — some 86 percent — of Americans believe clean, safe...

If you mainstream it, they will come

I took two tidbits away from this interesting Clint Wilder piece on framing clean energy (via Sustainablog). Here's the first:

In opinion research conducted last year in Rhode Island, the Clean Energy States Alliance and marketing consultancy SmartPower found that the label of "clean" energy had a much more positive public reception than "green" (too political), "renewable" (too niche), or "alternative" (too much of an implication that its users must adopt a new lifestyle).

These kinds of things are small but important to know for everybody who writes or talks about environmental issues. Little bits of repetitive framing add up. For my part, I'm going to make a habit of using "clean energy" instead of the alternatives.

Here's the second:

But even when viewing clean energy as positive for the environment, the public was skeptical of its ability to replace fossil fuels.

...SmartPower ran a public information campaign, including TV ads narrated by actor Peter Gallagher spotlighting renewable-powered houses, hospitals, and factories with the tagline, "Clean energy: It's real. It's here. And it's working." The result? A thousand new customers switched to the local utility's green power option in 100 days, and the number of people who agreed that clean energy is as reliable as fossil fuels jumped from 40% to 51% in the same period.

That's a pretty extraordinary shift in opinion in response to one ad campaign.

I draw the same lesson from this that I drew from the news that 75% of people consider themselves "green shoppers" -- there's broad interest in green issues out there. Mainstream America is sniffing around at organic food and clean energy. Folks don't know if the stuff is ready for prime-time, and they're not yet willing to go out of their way (or pay lots more) to support it, but once they're convinced it's legitimate they are willing to take the leap. (See: Prius, Toyota)

There's a huge market waiting.

Polluter Actually Pays

Illinois power plants will spend half a billion on pollution controls A 1999 lawsuit against Illinois Power has ended in...

Half a Bridge Over Troubled Water

EPA proposes stronger protections on lead in drinking water The U.S. EPA has proposed strengthening protections against lead in drinking...

You Are Now Free to Emit About the Country

U.K. plans to offset CO2 emissions from officials’ airline flights As part of its sustainable-development strategy announced today, the U.K....

Faster growth, kill kill kill!

I missed this last week, but apparently Virginia has followed Oregon in nixing some strong limitations on development. Times are tough for the Slow (read: sane) Growth crowd.

(via Pat Burns)

Update [2005-3-7 11:16:15 by Dave Roberts]: And more from Jon Christensen, who also points to a Joel Kotkin article in Architecture Magazine arguing that urban planners need to get over their aversion to suburbs and start helping them become more livable, because like it or not, suburbs are the future. Ugh.

Update [2005-3-7 11:32:30 by Dave Roberts]: I suppose I should add, for those of you too lazy to click on the link (surely not!), that the VA thing was a court decision, not a referendum like OR's, and the VA thing was a county issue, not a state thing like OR's. The two are united only by the fact that they will result in the rampant loss of green space. Oh, and by sucking. FYI.

Have you hugged a corporation today?

How can we get corporations to operate more sustainably?

Lefties often characterize corporations as ruthless automata like the Terminator, grinding toward a goal -- short-term profits -- with no consideration of social or environmental consequences. I don't think that is quite accurate, at least not in all cases. Though there is structural bias toward short-term thinking in the very nature of incorporation (exacerbated by the requirement in the U.S. to report profits every quarter), corporations are in fact composed of people. People, though often misguided, are rarely sociopaths. People within corporations who struggle to make them more humane and green can and do have an effect.

Perhaps instead of thinking of corporations as terminators, we should think of them as overgrown toddlers, stumbling erratically in search of instant gratification but susceptible to behavior modification.

As the parent of a toddler, the best piece of advice I ever heard is this:

Bill Bryson’s books offer environmental ethics with a light touch

A Walk in the Woods, the venerable travel writer's best-selling 1998 account of hiking a portion of the Appalachian Trail, conjured memories of adventures I'd had as a kid in the forests where I grew up. Bryson seems to capture my dueling feelings about the woods: beautiful and inspiring from a distance -- "an America that millions of people scarcely know exists" -- yet disorienting and at times menacing from within. "[The] trees surround you, loom over you, press in from all sides," Bryson writes. "Woods choke off views and leave you muddled and without bearings. They make you feel small and confused and vulnerable, like a small child lost in a crowd of strange legs."