Climate Technology

Litter of the Law

The Chicago-based Oil-Dri Corporation, which, as the maker of Cat’s Pride, is the world’s largest kitty litter company, wants to dig an open-pit clay mine on public land outside of Reno, Nev. But county commissioners have effectively thwarted that plan by refusing to issue a permit to operate a processing plant for the cat litter […]

You Say You Want a Resolution

Do investors care if the companies benefiting from their dollars are contributing to global warming? Increasingly, the answer may be yes: Global warming is the fastest-growing resolutions category tracked by the Investor Responsibility Research Center and the Social Investment Forum, according to data released last week. So far this year, 18 global warming resolutions have […]

A look at the hiring practices at U.S. nuclear power plants

Could the Sept. 11 hijackers have gotten jobs at nuclear power plants? Under the current rules governing nuclear safety, at least some of them could have easily gone to work as janitors, carpenters, computer programmers, or other plant employees, according to Dave Lochbaum, a nuclear safety engineer who works for the Union of Concerned Scientists. […]

Boise in the Hood

Timber giant Boise Cascade said quietly last week that it would phase out old-growth logging in the next two years. Almost all the old growth cut by Boise Cascade in recent years has come from federal land, and the company said its plan reflected a shift in federal forest management away from felling the big […]

Sticker Shocker

But never fear, there’s still some hope: Eco-friendly products might not be raking in the dough, but 60 percent of new-car buyers say they would purchase a more fuel-efficient hybrid vehicle, even if it raised the sticker price of the car. That was the conclusion of a study released today by auto industry research firm […]

Nothing New

In what was billed as her first major environmental speech of the year, Interior Secretary Gale Norton called Wednesday for “a new environmentalism” in which local residents and landowners, not just the government, would take responsibility for protecting the Earth. Norton also called for an environmentalism that did not threaten jobs. The Interior secretary said […]

Mickey Mao’s

It might be the Magic Kingdom, but sometimes it has to face reality: That’s the message of an environmental study released today on a future Disney theme park in Hong Kong. Environmentalists have attacked the $1.8 billion project as an ecological nightmare, and now the report seconds the opinion. The park is slated to be […]

Pax With the Devil

Enron is seldom called “socially conscious” these days — but that’s how some investment companies routinely described the company in the not-too-distant past. The Pax World Balanced Fund, which promotes investing in good corporate citizens, and the Domini 400 Social Index and Calvert Social Index, which screen stocks based on social and environmental criteria, all […]

Winter Accounting Olympics

Hot to Rot?

The U.S. EPA announced this week a two-year phase out of an arsenic-based preservative used to pressure-treat lumber against rot and insect damage. The treated wood is popular for use in fences, decks, and playground equipment, and its manufacturers and vendors — including Home Depot and other building-supply stores — currently face a class-action suit […]