Articles by Joseph Romm

A study on gender equality as a prerequisite for sustainable development — debunked!

Lord knows we men are to blame for most things -- but global warming?

Yes -- according to a major new report (PDF) by Gerd Johnsson-Latham for the Environment Advisory Council of the Environment Ministry of ... wait for it ... Sweden. The report's focus:

What we know about the extent to which women globally live in a more sustainable way than men, leave a smaller ecological footprint and cause less climate change.

Ouch! Don't look at me -- I telecommute; my wife takes the car.

If gender equality is in fact a prerequisite for sustainable development, it's definitely be time to buy property on high ground. Fortunately, the theory is debunked by a best-selling nonfiction book: Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus.

This is fatal to Gerd's theory. After all, which of those two planets is cold -- and which is "a 900-degree inferno" with a "runaway greenhouse effect," to quote a 2002 NASA study?

The defense rests.

Australian prime minister goes down to decisive defeat

Global warming takes down its first major political victim:

Conservative Prime Minister John Howard suffered a humiliating defeat Saturday at the hands of the left-leaning opposition, whose leader has promised to immediately sign the Kyoto Protocol on global warming.

Why the stunning loss? A key reason was Howard's "head in the sand dust" response to the country's brutal once-in-a-thousand year drought. As the UK's Independent reported in April:

... few scientists dispute the part played by climate change, which is making Australia hotter and drier ... Until a few months ago, Mr Howard and his ministers pooh-poohed the climate-change doomsayers.

You can read about Howard's lame attempt to change his position rhetoric on global warming here.

Full-cell company bought by Daimler and Ford

Ballard -- the Canadian fuel-cell company that once hoped to be the "Intel Inside of the hydrogen car revolution -- has sold off its automotive fuel-cell business to Daimler and Ford.

You can listen to a good CBC radio story on it, which includes an interview of me (click on "Listen to the Current," Part 2). You can read Toronto Star columnist Tyler Hamilton on the story here. A Financial Post post piece headlines the story bluntly: "Hydrogen highway hits dead end: Ballard's talks with potential buyers is admission that dream of hydrogen fuel car is dead: analyst."

The story has a keen interpretation of the sale's meaning from Research Capital analyst Jon Hykawy:

NBC’s vast green wasteland

What a dud NBC's Green Week turned out to be. I thought that:

1. The shows would find clever ways to promote green themes.
2. This would launch NBC on its way to becoming greener.

Not! Indeed, the only good news is that the shows bombed across the board. Looks like viewers aren't suckered by greenwashing.

As for No. 2, you can't even find a single reference to being green on nbc.com today (you have to click on the tiny "corporate info" item at the bottom, and then look for the "Green is Universal" link under Headlines). But, amazingly, what you will see on the NBC homepage are multiple ads for the Nissan Rogue, a crossover SUV that gets 23 or 24 mpg! I guess green isn't really that universal. (Incidentally, the TV writers are striking in part because greedy producers won't share this kind of online ad revenue with them.)

The shows were very, very lame from a green perspective. The funniest was 30 Rock (click on David Schwimmer picture/Greenzo episode), but it was a brutal satire on corporate greenwashing. The only person who is genuinely green is Schwimmer, who is a stereotypically obnoxious about the environment. Al Gore has a funny cameo, but he is mainly spoofing himself.

Scrubs is pretty funny, but the janitor's effort to green the hospital fails for lack of interest. Thanks NBC! (Katharine Wroth was similarly disappointed with the Thursday night line-up.)

Deal or No Deal had the models saying things like "Recycling is Cool, America." Recycling? Seriously? That is, like, so 1980s. Even dumber, Kermit the Frog (or what sounded like a lame imitation of him) was on the show to green it up, although he didn't actually say any environmental things that I recall. But he was green-colored!

What really convinced me this was not just a meaningless but actually a counterproductive exercise was that I happened to catch Las Vegas. NBC should be embarrassed for calling this a "green" episode (you can watch the episode, titled "It's Not Easy Being Green" -- gosh, how original -- here):