Climate Technology
All Stories
-
Market for natural personal-care products booming in spite of economy
Despite an economic slump, eco-friendly personal-care items have Americans sitting up and paying attention top dolla. Sales are booming despite high food and energy prices, and analysts predict the products’ popularity won’t ebb anytime soon. Chicago-based research firm Mintel reports that sales of natural personal-care products rose 12.5 percent last year to an inflation-adjusted $465 […]
-
$100 billion stimulus for 2 million new jobs in two years
Yesterday, the Center for American Progress released “Green Recovery,” a new report by Dr. Robert Pollin and University of Massachusetts Political Economy Research Institute economists. This report demonstrates how a new Green Recovery program that invests $100 billion over two years would create 2 million new jobs with a significant proportion in the struggling construction […]
-
Gourmet’s Barry Estabrook on Palin, mining, and a sustainable salmon fishery
Wasn’t McCain initially trying to pitch Sarah Palin as some sort of maverick who stands up to Alaska’s dirty industries on matters of principle? Whatever. According to an excellent post by Barry Estabrook on Gourmet magazine’s blog, Sarah Barracuda has been baring her fangs on behalf of Alaska’s mining industry, even when its actions imperil […]
-
Natural foods giant agrees to penny-per-pound raise for farmworkers
I reported a few days ago that a deal was imminent; now it’s official: Whole Foods has signed an agreement with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers to pay an extra penny-per-pound for Florida tomatoes. The raise will go directly into the pockets of some of the lowest-paid workers in the United States. In addition, the […]
-
Newest iPod nano is ‘toxic free’
The newly unveiled update of the iPod nano is slender and sexy, equipped with “shake-to-shuffle” capability, and eco-friendly to boot. (Well, you don’t actually have to boot it … oh, whatever.) Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who is alive and kicking despite reports to the contrary, says the music player is Apple’s “cleanest” and most “toxic […]
-
Russia’s Lake Baikal under threat from massive lead and zinc mine
One-fifth of the world’s freshwater could be under threat from heavy-metals pollution if a giant lead and zinc mine opens as planned upstream from Russia’s giant Lake Baikal, the deepest lake in the world. Mine advocates say leaving the world’s third-largest lead and zinc field unmined would be a waste of natural resources regardless of […]
-
X-Prize
In San Francisco this Friday, the Long Now Foundation will host a talk by Peter Diamandis, founder and Chairman of the X Prize Foundation, on X-Prizes. Here’s a YouTube taster. It got me thinking. Large prizes are great for stimulating the public’s imagination, but do they make for good public policy? Take John McCain’s proposal […]
-
U.S. bottled-water guzzling is slowing
Americans’ seemingly insatiable thirst for bottled water seems to be slowing, according to new industry stats. Annual U.S. bottled-water consumption shot up nearly 46 percent between 2002 and 2007, to an average 29.3 gallons per person. But the Beverage Marketing Corporation predicts that bottled-water guzzling will grow only 6.7 percent in 2008, the smallest increase […]
-
Energy politics take a weird turn
Kate Sheppard mentioned it in her tireless coverage of the Republican convention, but it bears highlighting again: The official GOP presidential platform calls for an end to the biofuel mandate. Now, politics makes strange bedfellows, and sudden Republican opposition to biofuels stems largely from meat-industry shrieks about high grain prices. For example, Texas Gov. Rick […]
-
Consumers demand market rejection of food from cloned animals
Consumer market rejection seems to be the ongoing theme of U.S. food politics in the waning days of Bush’s inept Food and Drug Administration. Given FDA’s repeated failure to protect our nation’s food supply or to respond quickly and appropriately to outbreaks of food-borne illnesses, consumers have turned to food companies and demanded that they […]
