Climate Technology
All Stories
-
Alcoa-holics
Two of the nation’s corporate giants, Alcoa and Archer Daniels Midland, have agreed to settle charges of violating the New Source Review rules of the federal Clean Air Act by making upgrades ballparked at some $700 million, according to people familiar with the settlements. Alcoa, the world’s largest producer of aluminum, has 12 months to […]
-
Ecological economist Robert Costanza puts a price tag on nature
The idea of slapping a dollar value on to an alpine meadow or the dappled green shade of a forest strikes a chill into the very bones of most environmentalists. Like love, nature is the kind of thing that money just can’t buy. Or is it? A small but growing chorus of ecological economists are […]
-
Dumb and Hummer
While sales of many big SUVs are dipping, Hummers are rumbling out of showrooms at a rate of 3,000 per month, topping the list of best-selling large luxury SUVs in the U.S., despite a starting price of $50,000. Some buyers say they feel patriotic in a massive Hummer H2, the civilian sibling of the military […]
-
Civil Wrongs
In the South, low-income, black citizens are becoming more outspoken and effective as they fight the construction of landfills, polluting factories, and other environmentally hazardous facilities in their communities, and they’re increasingly being joined by neighbors of all colors. “Companies now don’t just bully in,” said Robert Bullard, a sociology professor at Clark Atlanta University […]
-
They Brought Bad Things to Life
Meanwhile, in another legal victory on the other side of the country, a federal court yesterday rejected General Electric’s constitutional challenge to the U.S. EPA’s power to force the company to clean up the Hudson River. From the 1940s to the 1970s, GE dumped 1.3 million pounds of PCBs into the upper Hudson, where 500,000 […]
-
Hawkeyes on the Prize
Iowa will soon be home to the world’s largest land-based wind farm if MidAmerican Energy Company has its way. The power company plans to erect between 180 and 200 turbines capable of generating 310 megawatts of electricity and powering some 85,000 homes. If approved by the Iowa Public Utilities Board and state lawmakers, the $323 […]
-
Overdrive
214,000,000 — number of vehicles in the U.S.1 290,000,000 — number of people in the U.S.2 2 — number of American cars on the Top 20 list in “The Greenest Vehicles of 2003,” produced by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (the other 18 are Japanese)3 22,802 — miles per year driven by the […]
-
Mr. Blackwell’s Worst Polluting List
No surprise: Pickup trucks and oversized SUVs scored the lowest on the U.S. EPA’s latest ranking of vehicles based on tailpipe emissions. The list graded vehicles on a scale of 0 to 10. Large SUVs like BMW’s X5 and General Motors’ Hummer H2 earned a 0 and a 2, respectively, while most small and medium […]
-
When Nature Emails
Ah, wilderness — the chirping of birds, the burbling of creeks, the melodic chime announcing that new mail has just arrived in your inbox. Yep, that’s right — or it will be if the Colorado Department of Natural Resources has its way. In an effort to boost revenue in the middle of a massive budget […]
-
Wooda, Coulda, Shouldn’t
The U.S. Congress is readying to pass its catch-all domestic spending bill this week — and with it, a provision that would give the timber industry responsibility for managing millions of acres of national forests throughout the West. Under the provision, which was added at the last minute by Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), the U.S. […]
