Climate Technology
All Stories
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The Shipping News
Global warming may open Northwest Passage to shipping Global warming may melt arctic ice enough to make the legendary Northwest Passage a viable trade route, trimming almost 40 percent (roughly two weeks) off the current Asia-to-Europe route, which involves a large detour down through either the Suez or Panama canals. Some view this as a […]
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European. Small. How Can They Fail?
European automakers target the U.S. with itsy-bitsy cars European automakers hope to make inroads in U.S. markets with small, fuel-efficient cars, but they have quite a task ahead of them, despite gas prices that now exceed $2 per gallon. While a segment of the U.S. market is gaga for hybrids like the Toyota Prius, which […]
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Blood and Gore
Al Gore launches an investment firm focused on sustainability After the whole endorsing-Howard-Dean thing didn’t work out, Al Gore is hoping his new venture is more successful: It’s an investment firm called Generation Investment Management that will focus on socially and environmentally conscious companies. The firm’s approach “is designed to serve people who want to […]
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Exx the Foul
ExxonMobil’s greenhouse-gas emissions continue to rise ExxonMobil, the world’s biggest oil company, supported President Bush’s decision to keep the U.S. from ratifying the Kyoto Protocol. In a wacky coincidence, the company’s greenhouse-gas emissions have been increasing, last year rising 2 percent to almost 150 million tons — more than twice the emissions of the entire […]
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Fat Accompli
Overweight passengers lead to higher airplane CO2 emissions Everybody knows the U.S. is in the grips of an obesity epidemic. And many folks know that airplanes are major sources of atmospheric carbon dioxide, which exacerbates global warming. But did you know that the former is contributing in a significant way to the latter? Neither did […]
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Ray Anderson, sustainable biz pioneer, answers questions
What work do you do? I am founder and chair of Interface, Inc. How does it relate to the environment? I used to think that my job didn’t have anything to do with the environment. Then I realized that my job, as well as everyone else’s job, impacts the environment in some way. And now […]
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Love Hurts
Worries over ecotourism on the rise Ecotourism and its more profit-centric cousin nature tourism make up about 20 percent of international tourist travel. These two sectors are growing by 10 to 30 percent a year, and generate hundreds of billions of dollars — money that often helps the ecosystems being toured, not to mention local […]
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Mad Props, Yo
California approves measure to block citizen lawsuits against businesses By a significant margin, California voters on Tuesday approved Proposition 64, which curtails the right of private citizens and public-interest groups to bring legal action against companies under the state’s Unfair Business Competition Law — a move that could hamper efforts to protect the state’s environment. […]
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Thank Your Lucky Starbucks
Starbucks chief pushes for fair-trade, eco-friendly coffee Starbucks has served as a convenient target for the anti-globalization crowd, especially given that you can’t throw a brick in some neighborhoods without breaking a Starbucks window. But CEO Orin Smith is fighting back against the company’s bad reputation. He recently announced that, by 2007, Starbucks would attempt […]
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Dole-ing Out Favors
A lobbying success story, from the maker of atrazine The manufacturer of atrazine, an herbicide connected by studies to frog deformities and increased risk of prostate cancer in humans, spent $260,000 lobbying the U.S. EPA and other government bodies on behalf of the chemical. Not only that, but Syngenta Crop Protection enlisted the formidable lobbying […]
