Climate Technology

Industry to Bush administration: “Please regulate me”

Long-standing shared love for voluntary standards aside, businesses and manufacturers have begun asking the Bush administration to begin regulating industry’s health- and planet-ruining ways. A variety of factors have contributed […]

Discover Brilliant: Intro

I’m here at the introductory talk at the Discover Brilliant conference. The focus of the three-day event is on those areas where entrepreneurial energy and profit overlap with lower environmental […]

As long as GE funds coal, its net impact is far from green

Let me pull a few excerpts from a recent WSJ story on the progress of GE’s much-touted "ecomagination" campaign: “I don’t want to change the economic flow of the company,” […]

New York attorney general subpoenas energy companies over disclosure of coal-plant risks

A new weapon has been brought to bear in the war on coal, and it’s aimed right at the corpulent industry’s soft underbelly: risk. New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo […]

Greenwashing is getting more subtle

This article in Slate got me thinking. I'm usually inclined to believe that any greening of business is good, but it seems like "greenwashing" is getting more subtle, with the media playing right into it with their lavish features on new "green" initiatives, regardless of their content and effectiveness. Take-home point: better government policy is much more significant than any voluntary greening by business. Something we've always known, but always worth a reminder.

Why small may be more beautiful than ever

I spent the afternoon doing something I almost never get to do anymore: read the papers, namely The New York Times and Wall Street Journal. Here are some of the […]

Peter Barnes looks at carbon-capping methods

Peter Barnes has a guest post on the Step It Up blog giving a good brief description of how a Sky Trust would work:

It’s a mistake to view the economy as an abstraction

From a Seattle P-I story comes this gem of a quote about declining housing affordability: "It's going to affect people more so than the economy."

Uh, what's that again? The economic outlook is still rosy -- it's just, y'know, people who are in trouble.

Creative use of wind saves cargo vessels fuel

While sailing ships are unlikely to make a comeback anytime soon for oceanic shipping, adding sails to fossil-powered cargo vessels is definitely "on the horizon." This not-new idea is now compatible with the needs of shipping companies, and the savings make both climatic and economic sense:

Lenders offering mortgages that reward energy efficiency

Shocking news: an element of everyday American life is going green! Yes, now you too can pay off your house with a green mortgage. While many lenders have long had […]