Climate Technology
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Globalization Shmobalization
San Francisco Bay Area coalition urges focus on local economy What will those hippies think of next? A coalition of groups in the San Francisco Bay Area is undertaking a push against globalization and the labor and environmental offenses it incurs. The coalition, which just released a 30-page plan, hopes to coordinate with business and […]
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Why The Economist’s recent assault on “ethical food” missed the mark
Last month, the influential British newsweekly The Economist took the measure of the sustainable-food movement and found it wanting. “There are good reasons to doubt the claims made about three of the most popular varieties of ‘ethical food’: organic food, fair-trade food, and local food,” the journal declared, and proceeded to subject each to withering […]
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Social and environmental entrepreneurs have a lot to teach big business
Solutions to sustainability challenges come in various forms, colors, and strengths. Some are compliance-driven and done grudgingly. Some are citizenship-led and done at a slight distance from an organization’s core business. And some are truly innovative and entrepreneurial. Now this third category is on the verge of taking off like a rocket, involving new breeds […]
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An interview with Mary Beth Stanek, General Motors energy director
Trucks with a green hue? GM is in heaven. What a difference three bucks a gallon makes. In the past year, General Motors has rallied state and federal support to get more E85 (an 85 percent ethanol, 15 percent gasoline blend) pumps at U.S. gas stations, launched a corn-hued marketing blitz, and announced that it […]
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A biodiesel entrepreneur in Argentina spreads seeds of wisdom
Even by Argentine standards, Ricardo Carlstein can talk a blue streak. Ricardo Carlstein. I met with the founder of Biofuels SA, an Argentina-based maker of small-scale biodiesel plants, in the posh environs of Buenos Aires. Carlstein sat at his desk and explained how any person can be a fuel plant by using his invention, a […]
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Millionaires Beg for Change
Business execs and military leaders smack down Bush energy policy Prominent business execs and retired military officers are down on their knees begging Congress and the Bush administration to cut U.S. dependence on oil. “It’s the height of folly for the U.S. to continue on this course, lest we have some major economic or national-security […]
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An interview with Missouri farmer and ethanol co-op member Brian Miles
Cultivating change? Photo: iStockphoto Like his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather before him, Brian Miles spends his days working the family farm. Unlike his forebears, however, he also sits on the board of Mid-Missouri Energy, a farmer-owned ethanol cooperative in Malta Bend, Mo. Grist talked to Miles about the present ethanol boom, the potential for an […]
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An interview with Greasecar founder Justin Carven
Justin Carven. In the span of just two years, Justin Carven invented the first waste-oil conversion kit for diesel engines, graduated from Hampshire College, drove a vegetable-oil-fueled van across the country, and started his very own company. Six years later, Greasecar Vegetable Fuel Systems is selling so many conversion kits that Carven is talking about […]
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Silicon Valley investor Vinod Khosla chats about the promise of ethanol
Venture capitalist and ethanol booster Vinod Khosla. Billionaires are piling onto the biofuels bandwagon. Bill Gates is doing it. Richard Branson is doing it. The Google guys are doing it. Less well-known is the billionaire who kicked off the whole trend: Vinod Khosla, a cofounder of Sun Microsystems and former partner with Kleiner Perkins, the […]
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Richard Branson chats about embracing ethanol and slashing airplane emissions
Does a music mogul who signed the Rolling Stones and Janet Jackson have what it takes to make a pop star out of biofuels? Sir Richard. Earlier this fall, publicity-chasing British entrepreneur Richard Branson made a $3 billion bet that he could do just that — and help solve the climate crisis to boot — […]
