Climate Technology

ADM gets its filthy paws on an immaculate confection

Earlier today, Trina Stout brought to our attention a food crime in progress: the FDA is quietly preparing to let manufacturers adulterate chocolate by replacing cocoa butter with cheap vegetable oil. This will allow them to cut costs on candy bars and use cocoa butter for more valuable purposes — thus undermining the quality of […]

An expedition to see critters and talk freshwater

Mary Pearl is the president of Wildlife Trust, cofounder of its Consortium for Conservation Medicine, and an adjunct research scientist at Columbia University. Over the next week, she'll be traveling in the Galapagos Islands of Ecuador with a boat full of scientists, conservationists, and business leaders to forge partnerships and develop solutions to the global freshwater crisis. This is the first of her dispatches from the journey.

Claudio Padua and I hatched a crazy idea last year, and at this moment we are living with the consequences. Claudio directs research at Brazil's Institute for Ecological Research (IPE), and I run the organization Wildlife Trust, which is based in New York. Together, we coordinate an entity known as the Wildlife Trust Alliance. The alliance is an egalitarian network of leading research-based conservation organizations around the world. The 14 independent groups each set their own strategies and annual conservation research and action agendas, and come together annually to identify problems we can address as a team, exchange experiences, and make plans for all kinds of collaborations.

After last year's meeting, Claudio and I decided to bring together members of the Wildlife Trust Alliance and a group of international business leaders to build partnerships between researchers and conservationists and those who can provide advice and support to help them succeed.

AEI brings us the good news on climate

How about that fascinating ad in Gristmill today for the new video courtesy of the American Enterprise Institute! An Inconvenient Truth ... or Convenient Fiction? aims to present us with an alternative to the "climate extremism" that is "popular with Hollywood and other pessimistic enclaves" and seeks to assure us everything is A-OK. They're even doing screenings around the U.S. In, uh, three locations. Anyone else give this AEI spin project a spin yet?

[editor's note, by David Roberts] This seems like a good time to draw attention to Grist's advertising policy, to wit: we don't screen ads for political or ideological content. If we did that, every ad that did appear on our site would carry an implied endorsement, and we don't want to get into that briar patch. The main thing to note is: advertising is advertising, editorial is editorial, and never the twain shall mess with each other.

The cosmetics company will pay offsets through CarbonFund.

Carbon neutrality is popping up in more glamorous places than Yahoo's headquarters, Al Gore's mansion, and The New Oxford English Dictionary these days. Cosmetics giant Lancome will start paying for its pollution and funding green power projects through the nonprofit CarbonFund. But Lancome isn't greening all its operations; only four boutiques, plus its four jet-setting spokesmodels (including Elettra Rossellini Wiedemann, Isabella's daughter), will buy into carbon offsets.

Music to the ears of us corn hataz

From the WSJ energy blog: Is the anti-ethanol crusade beginning to gather steam among mainstream Western publications? Two weeks after The Economist confessed, in a stunned-sounding editorial that it found itself in agreement with Fidel Castro’s vehement critique of foods-as-fuels, Foreign Affairs magazine has also jumped on board. In the magazine’s May edition, two professors […]

You Can Green It. They Can Help.

Home Depot, Conoco make big eco-announcements Big news from big companies: Conoco is entering the biofuels biz, and Home Depot is launching a green-labeling program that could become the largest in the U.S. First, the fuel: partnering with meat giant Tyson Foods, Conoco will make biodiesel from animal fat. The companies hope to introduce the […]

Friedman in the NYT Magazine

What's red white and blue, and green all over? The cover of this week's New York Times Sunday Magazine. In "The Greening of Geopolitics," Thomas Friedman applies his trademark econo-politico-historical analysis to the state of the global environment, and he is nothing if not comprehensive. From China, Schwarzenegger, and Wal-Mart, to Islamic fundamentalism and oil prices, Friedman traces the connections. Enviros won't learn much about global warming they didn't already know; on the other hand, how greening America could ultimately result in democracy in Saudi Arabia and better schools in Qatar is a point not often made in activist circles. Particularly encouraging are Friedman's call for regulations at the national level to encourage green innovation (free hand of the market won't do this by itself) and his call for a 2008 candidate with a rock-solid plan to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Oh yeah, and the art is pretty too.

For shame!

This Monday, Newsweek will publish an op-ed by well-known climate-change contrarian Richard Lindzen, which concludes that global warming is nothing to worry about and may even be a good thing. "Why So Gloomy?" he wonders, and adds that "a warmer climate could be more beneficial than the one we have now."

Check it out , starting tonight

Those of you who listen to public radio know that Marketplace Money from American Public Media has done some good sustainability coverage. This weekend, they’re running a story that includes some tips from my monthly jobs column Remake a Living. Makes me feel all gristy inside. Check the local listings to find out when Marketplace […]

When insurers get serious about climate change, EVERYBODY gets serious about climate change

United Services Automobile Association (USAA), a "most-admired" company in many different rankings, has decided not to insure multiple homes in FL for one policyholder -- the first step in what will eventually be the revolt of the insurance companies against climate denialists (and against Florida legislators who want policyholders in other states to share the costs of insuring the damages from more intense and frequent hurricane strikes).

This is great news (unless you own multiple Florida homes).

The insurance industry has long been the sleeping giant of climate policy response. A lot of very red states have a lot to lose from climate disruption, and the threat of finding your property uninsurable gives you a whole new perspective on whether we need to do something on climate before the tipping points are reached.