Climate Technology
All Stories
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Economics of recycling getting much worse
The world economic slowdown has hit recyclers hard as prices for everything from metals to plastics to paper have fallen dramatically in the last few months. While the downturn hasn’t yet completely shut down many municipal recycling programs in the United States, in some areas the precipitous price drop has led recyclers to stop collecting […]
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Big Three auto execs pledge to become greener, more profitable
In a desperate, collective plea for up to $38 billion in government aid, executives from Detroit’s Big Three automakers told a Senate committee on Thursday they would start to crank out smaller, more fuel-efficient cars and streamline their businesses to stay afloat. “Now we are absolutely committed to exceeding our customers’ expectations for quality, fuel-efficiency, […]
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Sales of popular hybrid vehicles plunged in November
Sales of popular hybrid vehicles like the Toyota Prius and hybrid Honda Civic fell significantly in November, due to a poor economy, higher upfront costs for hybrids, and significantly lower gas prices nationwide. Hybrid Honda Civic sales fell some 68 percent last month while figures for the Toyota Prius show that its sales plunged about […]
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Shell greenwashes with a full-page WaPo ad
Shell’s Mad Men win the 2008 award for the most unintentionally ironic greenwashing ad. On Monday (and again today), Shell ran a full-page ad in the Washington Post on carbon capture with this image: Yes, Shell is apparently trying to catch CO2 with a net! Let’s hope they have better luck than either the Bush […]
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Bank of America will stop funding mountaintop-removal mining
In a big win for environmentalists, Bank of America agreed Wednesday to “phase out financing” to coal companies “whose predominant method of extracting coal” is mountaintop-removal mining. Green groups recently persuaded several BoA execs to visit ravaged Appalachian mountains. Ironically, the U.S. EPA just this week approved a rule change that makes mountaintop removal easier.
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New policy would divest bank from mountain obliteration
In light of the crappy news from the EPA, which seems ready to make mountaintop removal coal mining easier by loosening restrictions on burying Appalachian streams with mining rubble (when’s the “protection” part of this agency going to speak up?), there’s this bit of hope in NRDC’s blog about Bank of America, which just revised […]
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Taking on corporate America’s faves
Activists occupy Environmental Defense’s offices.
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Time to slice up the tomato industry?
What happens when a few large buyers dominate a market? Anyone who keeps up with my posts — still there, mom? — knows what’s coming next: The buyers gain the power to dictate to dictate terms and conditions to sellers. For farmers, the results of concentrated markets are devastating. As a few giant companies like […]
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What should be done with the empty big box?
Last month, Circuit City announced that it would close 155 of its stores, most of them big boxes: those 50,000- to almost 300,000-square-foot warehouse-like structures, often built far from city centers. By one estimate, there are almost 3,000 vacant big boxes littering the American landscape, with more to come as major retailers falter. Makes Wal-Mart’s […]
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One in three toys tested has worrisome levels of toxic chemicals, group says
A study of some 1,500 popular children’s toys sold in the United States found that one in three tested contained “medium” to “high” levels of a range of toxic chemicals including arsenic, lead, mercury, and others, according to green group the Ecology Center. “Our hope is that by empowering consumers with this information, manufacturers and […]
