Climate Technology
All Stories
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Flexing Their Muscles
The car-sharing company Flexcar is planning to expand beyond its Northwest roots and enter the Washington, D.C., market this fall, where it will compete with Boston-based Zipcar. Both companies work to reduce the number of cars on the road by enticing customers to share vehicles and avoid the hassles of car ownership. Customers pay for […]
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Celling Like Hotcakes
Canadian company Ballard Power Systems announced yesterday that it had signed a three-year, $22 million deal to provide Ford with fuel cells for a line of vehicles the automaker hopes to launch by 2004. Ballard is providing fuel-cell technology to DaimlerChrysler, Honda, Nissan, and Volkswagen, among others. General Motors expects to have a fuel cell-powered […]
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Bad Company
Commercial recycling is hit or miss in the U.S. — in some cases, for example, companies assume that recycling is occurring, but their cleaning companies are actually mixing recycling with garbage and throwing everything out as trash. From 35 to 45 percent of waste produced in the U.S. in 1999 was commercial, according to the […]
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The Slush of Mount Kilimanjaro
Many favorite vacation spots around the world are threatened by global warming. For example, the snow atop Mount Kilimanjaro may be around for just 15 more years and the glaciers in Glacier National Park in Montana may last just 70 more, according to recent studies. Would you like to travel to an uncomfortably hot and […]
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Victor Victorious
Mexico’s environmental minister, Victor Lichtinger, is trying to slow down sprawl by actually enforcing environmental laws on the books. For example, he has closed or suspended 19 hotel and condo developments, including a 1,400-room complex that would have been built alongside a federally protected sea turtle sanctuary in Cancun. Lichtinger said his moves were meant […]
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Fly the Friendly Skies?
350 million — number of pounds of smog-producing chemicals (nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds) released by planes landing and taking off from U.S. airports in 1993 200 million to 600 million — number of gallons of wastewater created each year from airplane deicing 219 — number of volatile organic chemicals found in the air […]
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Boxy but Good
Greenpeace and the small London-based group Families Against Bush are using consumer pressure to try to embarrass corporations into supporting the Kyoto treaty on climate change. Earlier this summer, the groups put the heat on Ford by highlighting a rift between the U.S. automaker and its Swedish subsidiary Volvo. Volvo publicly supports Kyoto; Ford does […]
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Give a Hoot, Don't Commute
The U.S. Transportation Department launched a new campaign yesterday to reduce pollution and encourage telecommuting by offering smog-emissions credits to companies that get more employees to work from home. Under a two-year pilot program, businesses that earn the credits will be able to swap them for air-quality requirements or sell them to other companies. The […]
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In for a Penny, in for a Pound
Assets of socially responsible funds grew five times faster than those of other funds over the past three decades, according to a report released last week by Pax World Funds. The funds focus on different issues, screening out companies with poor records in areas like the environment, diversity, and health. Pax World said the assets […]
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Coughing Up the Dough
In the latest victory for residents suffering from pollution-related health problems in a Japanese city, 10 companies agreed today to pay $12.2 million to 260 locals who went to court to protest emissions from the companies’ factories. The out-of-court settlement ends a 12-year dispute in which the Nagoya residents contended that the factory emissions and […]
