Climate Technology

What’s the real cost of climate change, and where do all those numbers come from?

As serious governments shift the climate-change debate from whether the phenomenon exists to the best means to combat it, one of the first things officials want to know is how much economic damage it will cause — and how much measures to fight it might cost. It is the trillion-dollar question, and figures are flying […]

No More McDonald’s For Them

French prime minister proposes an import tax on Kyoto-averse countries We’d like to preface this story on French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin with an amuse bouche: his name always makes us think of that Singing Nun tune from the ’60s, which led us to a lyrics site today, which featured the offer, “Send the […]

Nike is recognized for sustainability, commutability

Swoosh, for those not hopelessly entrenched in American consumer culture, refers to Nike, and is not to be confused with the enviably-young-and-far-more-talented-than-I-will-ever-be Smoosh.

My point being:

What’s in Your Wal-let?

Wal-Mart issues a progress report on its experimental eco-store The company greens hate to love is releasing a report today on progress at its year-old, experimental eco-store in Aurora, Colo. Wal-Mart is trumpeting its successes, from waterless urinals to LED lights in its freezers, and acknowledging its, uh, challenges, such as wind turbines that have […]

Car-maker planning to expand the family

The Prius may soon be more than just one oh-so-stereotyped hybrid motor vehicle. Toyota's talking about starting a family of the cars, and in this case I'd have to support wanton reproduction.

The automaker announced this week that they are considering creating a line of the gasoline-electric cars. It could include a wagon and a smaller, Smart-Car-esque inner-city model.

Business Week article gave some the wrong impression, company says

Stonyfield Farm, purveyor of organic yogurt and milk, is concerned that some folks got the wrong idea about its business strategy from a recent Business Week article about the big-ification of organic, which I pointed to a couple of weeks ago.

Morgan Bang for the Buck

Morgan Stanley will invest $3 billion in carbon trading and offset projects Investment giant Morgan Stanley announced today that it will invest $3 billion in carbon trading and offset projects over the next five years. Expecting a rush to purchase offsets as the Kyoto Protocol’s 2012 deadline approaches, the bank is playing the middleperson — […]

Wonder why?

Though it has a noble history and many smart, good-willed people among its ranks, the Republican party now suffers under leadership that has become utterly, irredeemably corrupt. Virtually no coherent public policy agenda remains; efforts to keep up the pretense of one have all but vanished. What's left is pandering to the base with symbolism, terrifying the middle with terrorism, and -- the linchpin around which the rest is organized -- serving the interests of corporate America with lax regulation and enforcement, industry-authored legislation, and boatloads of subsidies and pork.

Corporate America knows this all too well. And with Republicans in real danger of losing one or both houses of Congress in November, it's starting to sweat. A story in the Wall Street Journal (sub. only, I think) details the enormous amounts of corporate campaign cash flowing in to Republican campaign coffers. It focuses mainly on drug companies, but here are some other tidbits of interest:

People Still Read Those Things?

Newspaper and magazine companies seek to lessen environmental impact A handful of large publishers are beginning to think about the eco-impact of the paper they publish on. The paper industry is the fourth-largest source of carbon dioxide emissions among U.S. manufacturers. Paper production uses gobs of energy, and then there’s the impact of chopping down […]

Will the latest corporate sustainability reporting guidelines herald a brave new world?

What a swell party it was. The first week of October saw a crowd of 1,150 people from 65 countries rubbing shoulders in the Netherlands, including royalty (in the form of HRH the Prince of Orange), politicians (including former Vice President Al Gore and Margot Wallström, VP of the European Commission), titans of industry (like […]