Climate Technology
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Canada-Do Spirit
Societies tend to measure progress in narrow economic terms — gross domestic product, employment figures, trade deficits. Now an influential team in Canada is proposing that the country become the first in the world to measure its ecological health with the same care and precision. The National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy today […]
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Things That Make You Go Hummer
Yesterday, Grist reported that the average fuel efficiency of U.S. vehicles is at a 22-year low. Today, we’re happy to report that at least people are upset about it. A survey of complaints about new vehicles, released yesterday by J. D. Powers and Associates, found that fuel consumption was the second-most-common complaint among all respondents. […]
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Colorado’s proposed water projects could sink the environment
This March, the Denver Broncos football team agreed to spend $40 million on a seven-year contract with its new quarterback, Jake Plummer. Since winning two Super Bowls at the end of the 1990s, the Broncos have struggled just to make the playoffs. At his introductory press conference, Plummer predicted, “Winning a Super Bowl is what […]
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Daewoozy
An automobile company lobbying for stricter emissions standards? It might sound like an unlikely tale, but not when the bottom line is at stake. General Motors is pressuring the South Korean government to impose tougher standards for diesel emissions than it is currently considering. Here’s why: The automaker is trying to increase the competitiveness of […]
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Driving Us Crazy
Toyota last week unveiled a spiffy new version of its hybrid gas-electric Prius, which will get better gas mileage (55 miles to the gallon), emit fewer air pollutants, and give passengers more room than previous Prius models. The car will hit showrooms late this year as a 2004 model. Toyota also said it plans to […]
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A Peruvian activist takes on the fishmeal industry
Maria Elena Foronda Farro was born to be an activist. Her father, a union lawyer in Chimbote, Peru, taught her — through words and by example — about the importance of social justice. Foronda, who grew up in Chimbote and earned a master’s degree in sociology in Mexico, is now applying her father’s lessons to […]
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Throwing It in Reverse
Ford Motor Company backpedaled yesterday on its promise to increase the fuel economy of sport utility vehicles 25 percent by 2020. It now says it will continue to try to improve gas mileage but will not set a fixed deadline for reaching the 25-percent goal. The company chalked up the change in plan to technological […]
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Give a Hoot
Pollution in North America decreased by 5 percent between 1995 and 2000, according to a report released today by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation, established under the North American Free Trade Agreement. In 2000, the U.S., Canada, and Mexico released 3.6 million tons of pollution. Of that, 1.5 million tons went directly into the air, […]
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The economic heresy of Herman Daly
If economics is a religion, the World Bank is perhaps its grandest church. For the last half century, the venerable institution at 1818 H Street in Washington, D.C., has been dispatching its missionaries around the globe, spreading the theology of the free market to the heathens. And if economics is a religion, Herman Daly is […]
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Rewriting the book on economics
Joshua Farley, a researcher at the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics, didn’t get into economics to make money. In fact, he tells me, he almost quit the academy altogether to go back to carpentry — a far more lucrative career prospect. “When I graduated, there were virtually no jobs in ecological economics. I applied to […]
