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GM turns to greenwashing.

Look, GM, your bond rating just got lowered to junk status, and now you're participating in this pathetic greenwashing campaign. My advice: Save your advertising dollars and invest the money in catching up to Toyota and Honda.

UPDATE: Green Car Congress chimes in with some more suggestions.

Got to Admit, It’s Getting Brighter, It’s Getting Brighter All the Time

Global dimming reversed in past decade; now brightening again So, remember that big hubbub about “global dimming” a while back, whereby particulates (e.g., smog) in the earth’s atmosphere were reflecting […]

Copying company pledges to reduce emissions.

Today Xerox became the latest corporation to announce voluntary reductions of their greenhouse gas emissions. They pledged to reduce their emissions 10 percent by 2012, or 100,000 tons a year.

The EPA wants us to clean up our houses; too bad they’re not doing their part.

On World Asthma Day -- May 3rd if you missed it -- the EPA urged the 20 million asthma sufferers across the nation to clean their houses. According to its press release, 70 percent of people with asthma could better manage the triggers that set off an attack.

Unfortunately for asthma sufferers, the last trigger on EPA's list is ozone, which is hard to control without the EPA's help. Insted of helping "better manage" ozone, the EPA has weakened controls on the industrial pollution that forms ozone, adopted rules that will delay ozone clean-up from power plants for over two decades, sought to extend ozone cleanup deadlines through policies, rules and legislation, and issued rules allowing states to weaken and eliminate even existing ozone control measures. (More here on the Bush EPA clean air record.)

Now I'll admit that the dust bunnies are usually winning the cleaning war in my house. But if the EPA expects me to better manage asthma triggers, I expect it to do its part too. It could start by using the law to inject a little responsibility into polluting industries.

JPMorgan nods to sustainability

This is progress:

Time to change the way you do business

Hmmm ... maybe those Reapers were onto something after all?

DETROIT - Standard & Poor's Ratings Services cut its corporate credit ratings to junk status for both General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co., a significant blow that will increase borrowing costs and limit fund-raising options for the nation's two biggest automakers.

Shares of both companies fell 5 percent or more after Thursday's downgrades, and the news sent the overall market lower.

The decision by one of the nation's most respected ratings agencies comes as the two iconic American automakers are losing market share at home to Asian automakers, seeing sales soften for their most profitable models and are facing enormous health care and post-retirement liabilities.

The credit ratings agency said its downgrade of GM's long-term rating below investment-grade status reflects its conclusion that management's current strategies may not be effective in dealing with the automaker's competitive disadvantages.

My free advice to Ford and GM: spend more time and resources innovating and less time fighting against CAFE standards.

Breaking a Bad Habitat

More problems uncovered with habitat conservation plans The Seattle Post-Intelligencer has published parts two and three of its special series on habitat conservation plans (HCPs) and, suffice to say, the […]

Knock on Wood

Researchers suggest wood as source for ethanol production Wood could one day join corn as a major source of ethanol, with the production process feeding off a by-product of paper […]

Live chat on habitat conservation plans

If you've been following the great Seattle P-I series on habitat conservation plans, you should tune in for a live online chat with one of the authors, Robert McClure. It happens at 12:30 (PST) today. You can submit a question now.

UCS on hybrids

Check two new projects on hybrid cars from the Union of Concerned Scientists: Hybridcenter.org, a source for consumer and technical information, and Hybridblog.org, which is, you guess it, a blog.

They also offer this HybridAction widget, where you can express your support for the CLEAR Act, recently offered up by Orrin Hatch.

(Via Mike Millikin, who is -- have I mentioned? -- this week's InterActivist.)