Climate Technology

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 […]

Biz magazines spotlight the sustainability revolution

If the business press is any indication, sustainability issues have risen up the corporate ladder and are now seen as a central challenge for companies in the coming decades. In its first-ever green issue, Fortune commends “10 Green Giants” — corporations that are making impressive environmental gains. The editors decided to bypass GE and Wal-Mart, […]

New business and climate change video

Sea Studios Foundation has a new 12 minute video entitled Ahead of the Curve: Business Responds to Climate Change. It features some of the biggies (DuPont, Wal-Mart, PG&E) and the hot green business broker, Bill Reilly, who facilitated the TXU energy deal. It also has John Holdren, the Harvard climate change prof who is pushing AAAS in more aggressive directions on climate as board chair. It is a format that works well done by real professionals (Sea Studios does Strange Days on Planet Earth, the excellent series narrated by actor Ed Norton).

Why bother filing an EIS for a biodiversity-destroying project?

Ag giant Cargill was forced to close a soy export terminal in the Brazilian Amazon this weekend, marking a major victory for greens, who have argued for years that the plant was built illegally and became a significant cause of rainforest depletion.

The terminal spurred a major leap in soy production -- millions of acres of rainforest were turned over to soy bean fields -- which is used principally to supply European livestock farms. Ironically, it was closed not because of the destruction, but because they never submitted an EIS. Mmm, soy.