Climate Technology

It’s the Environment, Stupid

China’s first-of-its-kind “Green GDP” report finds pollution hampering economy The Chinese government is exploring an innovative way to assess economic growth with a new “green GDP” report, released last month. The report found that air and water pollution cost the nation $64 billion in 2004, equivalent to 3 percent of gross domestic product; it suggests […]

Virgin founder’s $3 billion climate pledge heralds new era in philanthropy

Richard Branson, founder and chair of the British conglomerate Virgin Group, has racked up more than his share of high-profile high jinks over the years. Among them, signing the notorious Sex Pistols to his young record label, dangling nearly nude over Times Square, and botching numerous transoceanic hot-air balloon expeditions, necessitating rescue by helicopter. But […]

Can’t See the Forest for the Bling

Northern forests worth up to $250 billion a year, research says You thought they were just standing there, but forests in Russia, Canada, and other northern nations provide services worth up to $250 billion a year, say Canadian researchers. Water filtration, erosion control, habitat provision, greenhouse-gas absorption, and tourist attraction are highly lucrative pursuits that […]

Sustainability visionaries see room for hope in our worry-filled world

Who’s afraid of the big, bad future? Al Gore, clearly — and pretty much anyone who has seen An Inconvenient Truth. While Gore’s dissenters may argue that he cries wolf too often, no one who knows and understands the statistics used in the film can doubt that the Big Bad Wolf of climate change is […]

Box Populi

Wal-Mart will push suppliers to reduce packaging by 5 percent In its latest effort to woo enviros (and, of course, save some dough), Wal-Mart has unveiled a five-year plan that it believes will reduce packaging on the products it sells by 5 percent. Speaking at the Clinton Global Initiative meeting on Friday, Wal-Mart CEO Lee […]

Biz Bang

Big business increasingly acting to fight climate change More and more big companies are waking up and smelling the climate change, recognizing that it could have a notable impact on their bottom lines, according to the fourth annual survey by the Carbon Disclosure Project. The CDP, backed by large institutional investors, got responses from 360 […]

Alisa Gravitz, director of Co-op America, answers questions

Alisa Gravitz. What work do you do? I have the great pleasure of serving as Co-op America’s executive director. What does your organization do? Co-op America uses the power of the marketplace to solve social and environmental problems. Our name itself stands for the idea of people in their economic roles (as consumers, workers, investors, […]

And possibly sell them

My, my. Google searches, finds cause:

According to people briefed on the program, the organization, called Google.org, plans to develop an ultra-fuel-efficient plug-in hybrid car engine that runs on ethanol, electricity and gasoline.

They have about $1 billion in seed money.

This is an extraordinary development.

How Mexico’s iconic flatbread went industrial and lost its flavor

In a spectacle similar to the one conjured up by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2000, a Mexican judiciary panel handed the nation’s presidency to Felipe Calderón last week. Even The New York Times, in its circumspect way, acknowledged that the new president-elect’s narrow victory over leftist rival Andrés Manuel López Obrador involved seemingly illegal […]

Congress grills BP execs on Alaska spills

BP executives were under fire in Washington, D.C., this week for failing to prevent two oil leaks that occurred earlier this year in the largest oil field in the country. The company willfully ignored pipeline corrosion and harassed employees who voiced concern, Congressional representatives say.

The first leak occurred last March, spilling 5,000 barrels of oil onto the Prudhoe Bay's western tundra. The second, in early August, forced the closure of half the oil field after further testing found significant corrosion in pipelines.

The nearly five hours of questioning on Thursday focused largely on BP's failure to monitor the pipelines with a "smart pig," a diagnostic device that detects corrosion. The eastern line had not been "pigged" since 1992, and the western line since 1998.