Climate Technology

Whole Foods tries to trick greens into praising a big corporation

Whole Foods, Inc., the natural-foods market, has recently announced that it will attempt to "reduce its waste to zero," mainly through increased composting. (Via Nick and Jeff)

But wait!

Whole Foods has consistently attempted to prevent its workers from unionizing! And they sell meat!

For these heresies, I assume our readers will rise with a unified voice and condemn this heinous attempt at greenwashing.

Nice try, Whole Foods!

Neva Goodwin, ecological economist, answers questions

Neva Goodwin. What work do you do? I’m an economist, and codirector of the Global Development And Environment Institute at Tufts University. How does it relate to the environment? My overall goal is to affect what people are taught when they take economics courses, and to change the kind of economics that’s subsequently in people’s […]

Umbra on letter-writing campaigns

Dear Umbra, I just switched to all-natural cleaning products (Seventh Generation, it’s great!) and I wanted my switch to have the most impact possible. I was thinking about sending emails to the companies whose cleaning products I had previously used, telling them why I switched, describing the nasty effects of their products, and encouraging them […]

Better Latte Than Never

Eco-friendly coffee could save El Salvador’s dwindling wildlife Environmental groups are working to help El Salvador’s coffee farmers achieve green certification so that they can survive in a volatile worldwide market — and the wildlife that finds refuge on their farms can survive as well. The country’s native ecosystems have been almost entirely wiped out, […]

Emily Gertz sends a dispatch from a summit on climate change and investing

Emily Gertz is a regular contributor to WorldChanging.com, and an internet content and strategy consultant for nonprofits. She has written on environmental policy for BushGreenwatch, and on the intersections of environment, culture, art, and activism for The Bear Deluxe and other independent alternative publications. Wednesday, 11 May 2005 NEW YORK, N.Y. Yesterday, nearly 400 people […]

High energy costs don’t get in this brewery’s way

Hey, I don't want to get a reputation. But here's more news from the beer-and-rising-energy-costs front: The New Belgium Brewing Company in Fort Collins, Colo., is hopping on alternative energy instead. To wit: The company uses methane captured from its wastewater to help power its facilities, and uses a biodiesel blend in its delivery trucks. No big surprise from an outfit whose employees voted, waaaay back in 1998, to make it the nation's first wind-powered brewery.

When it comes to sustainability, New Belgium is "pretty impeccable," fellow beermeister Garrett Oliver of the Brooklyn Brewery told Fortune Magazine in 2003. "They're the people the rest of us look up to."

GE kicks off ambitious green initiative

Last night, General Electric Chair and CEO Jeffrey Immelt canoodled with Congress members and industry top brass at a swish cocktail party on Pennsylvania Ave. in Washington, D.C., celebrating the launch of “ecomagination,” an initiative he announced earlier in the day to ramp up development of clean technologies and lighten the company’s Goliath-like environmental footprint. […]

Wait — They Drilled for Gas With a Nuclear Bomb?!

Oil company hopes to drill near nuclear-blast cavity in Colorado Some 36 years ago, the Atomic Energy Commission and a Texas oil company put a nuclear bomb in an 8,000-foot shaft on Colorado’s energy-rich Western Slope and detonated it, hoping to reach a reserve of natural gas lying beneath the subterranean rock. They succeeded in […]

Play Economisty for Me

U.K.-based weekly Economist exhaustively analyzes global oil situation Market-lovin’ U.K. weekly The Economist has a cover package on oil this week. The major topic, of course, is the recent spike in oil prices. The grumpy Economist editors are bothered by what they consider some pervasive myths. First, “energy independence” is a chimera as long as […]

Ford Imperfect

Ford, G.M. sales down as buyers spurn SUVs and look for fuel efficiency Detroit automakers Ford and G.M. are cursing Prius drivers right about now. Sales figures and market share for both companies were down in April, as car buyers turned their fickle affections from gas-gulping SUVs to smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles — specifically those […]