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  • Wal-Mart will slice use of plastic bags

    Wal-Mart aims to cut plastic-bag waste in its global operations by an average 33 percent over the next five years, the retail behemoth announced Thursday at the annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative. And if you ever doubted that Wal-Mart is big, consider this: The move is expected to eliminate some 9 billion plastic […]

  • Van Jones talks about the National Day of Action

    Green-job advocates Green for All have just moved into a lovely new office space in Oakland, California. There’s plenty of natural light, beautiful bamboo floors, and lots of room to grow. Unfortunately, their charismatic founder, Van Jones, hasn’t had much chance to enjoy it. Jones is one of the faces at the forefront of the […]

  • Chrysler to offer electric car by 2010, full lineup of EVs sometime after

    Automaker Chrysler announced Tuesday that it too is jumping into the electric-car fray, aiming to roll out its own electric vehicle in the United States by 2010, followed soon after by a full line of electric and/or plug-in hybrid vehicles. If the company meets its intended deadline, 2010 will be a busy year for electric […]

  • Western states announce proposal for cutting GHG emissions

    Participants in the Western Climate Initiative on Tuesday announced specific plans for cutting greenhouse-gas emissions 15 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. The seven states and four provinces will initiate a cap-and-trade program, establishing a carbon market that applies to industries and utilities by 2012 and transportation, heating, and other fuels by 2015. The proposed […]

  • The financial crisis, how we got here, and who knows what to do about it

    David Roberts recently said about the current financial crisis: • Nobody clearly understands how we got in this situation. • Nobody clearly understands what situation we are in. • Nobody clearly understands what’s going to happen next. The first and second were, I think, serious errors. Dean Baker predicted this back in September of 2002 […]

  • U.S. biz waiting for regulation before cutting emissions, report shows

    Only about one-third of leading U.S. companies have set targets to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, compared to 74 percent of global corporations, says the sixth annual report from the Carbon Disclosure Project. CDP, an influential initiative backed by 385 institutional investors, received input from 64 percent of the Standard & Poor’s 500 U.S. companies (a jump […]

  • How would a green recovery help your state?

    My post on the Bush bailout for the financial sector mentioned the “Green Recovery” report recently released by the Center for American Progress and Dr. Robert Pollin from the University of Massachusetts Political Economy Research Institute. Here’s a little more detail: The report looks at how a $100 billion strategic investment can generate 2 million […]

  • The financial sector and the ‘real economy’ aren’t that far removed

    Sean has done an estimable job knocking down some of the more piqued reactions to the financial bailout in comments, but this really is a topic that deserves above-the-fold treatment. The crisis raises a host of big-picture questions about the proper role of oversight in the financial industry, but wherever the blame for the current […]

  • Chrysler, Mazda, Hyundai, and Nissan announce plug-in hybrids — but not Honda

    The number of companies planning plug-in hybrids is growing steadily. Some recent announcements can be found here. Calcars maintains an excellent update on “How carmakers are responding to the plug-in hybrid opportunity.” As for Honda, last year, The Wall Street Journal reported: Honda Motor Co. Chief Executive Takeo Fukui said so-called plug-in hybrid gasoline-electric vehicles […]

  • Production and ecosystems are more important than the financial sector

    Over the past eight years or so, the so-called “masters of the universe” in the financial sector seem to have swallowed their own hype. Arguing that money equals wealth and the freer the market the better, they have led the charge to offshore our manufacturing base while hopping on the biggest bubble in history, the […]