Climate Technology

Heads You Lose, Tails I Win

World Bank has been OKing illegal logging in the Congo, says Greenpeace study You’ve probably developed an immunity to scandal and outrage, but we’ll keep plying you with it anyway: a two-year study by Greenpeace International has found that in the past three years, Congolese village chiefs have handed over vast expanses of the world’s […]

An overview of environmental careers experiencing growth

“April is the cruelest month,” T. S. Eliot wrote. Ha! What did he know? For environmental-job seekers in a host of fields, this April could almost be certified “cruelty free.” In no particular order, here’s a quick overview of green career areas experiencing growth right now: Wind Power and Solar Energy A 2007 report from […]

Corporatists overestimate environmental response costs every time

A friend sends an article from a legal publication that makes an important point about economists and other naysayers who insist that addressing global climate disruption will be too expensive. (Oddly, the same people always gassing on about boundless human potential when it comes to imagining new substitutes for depleting resources always forget to incorporate that creativity in their projections of the cost of fixing environmental problems.)

A key excerpt (my emphasis):

An interview with Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers

Meet Jim Rogers, a great American paradox. He’s the top gun at Duke Energy, a huge (and hugely polluting) power company; he’s also one of the nation’s most dogged advocates for federal regulation of greenhouse-gas emissions. Jim Rogers. Duke Energy operates smack in the heart of coal country in the Midwest and Southeast and derives […]

New Yorker article reminds you why you hate it

Stacy Mitchell did a bang-up job earlier this week of explaining why Wal-Mart and other big-box stores could never actually be green. But if you need a more wide-ranging reminder of Wal-Mart’s deep and abiding loathsomeness, check out Jeffrey Goldberg’s article in the latest New Yorker: “Selling Wal-Mart: Can the company co-opt liberals?” If you’ve […]

Say what?

CNN: Global warming “could create opportunities for pharmaceutical, chemical, biotech and healthcare companies, but present serious challenges for paper, agriculture, furniture, energy and the overall economy.” Too bad for you suckers who invested in Overall Economy Inc.!

Unintended or not, the consequences were predictable

It’s hard to imagine what politicians and corporate chiefs are intending to do by crafting a corn-based ethanol boom, beyond rigging public policy (and raiding the public purse) to generate huge private profits. But whatever their intentions, they’re methodically creating environmental and social disasters — while brazenly brandishing the “green” flag. Before I go on, […]

Without subsidies, they’re just not profitable

News breaking from Canada: It turns out that once the government stops subsidizing fossil fuel developments ... fossil fuel developments are increasingly unprofitable!

Brief summary of the link: It looks like all forms of fossil-fuel development in Canada -- especially the tar sands -- are going to suffer as governments are forced by public pressure to reduce the subsidies and tax breaks they've been doling out. This looks to be equal parts environmental activism and populist "screw the oil barons" attitude, but whatever it is I say huzzah!

The impossibility of a green Wal-Mart

With its recent flurry of green initiatives, Wal-Mart has won the embrace of several prominent environmental groups. “If they do even half what they say they want to do, it will make a huge difference for the planet,” said Ashok Gupta of the Natural Resources Defense Council. Environmental Defense, meanwhile, has deemed Wal-Mart’s actions momentous […]

Sacks Education

San Francisco approves first-in-nation ban on plastic bags San Francisco is the first U.S. city to pass a ban on non-recyclable plastic bags at major supermarkets and drugstores. Once it’s signed into law, the stores will have six months to a year to sack the sacks, switching to compostable, recyclable ones made from corn or […]