Business & Politics

Jimmy Carter in his Famous Cardigan Sweater

At least that is what the Atlanta Journal-Constitution says, and they might have a bias. However they do point out that:

He was right in seeking to raise the fleet auto mileage standard to 48 miles per gallon by 1995. (Even U.S. automakers admitted at the time that they could easily achieve 30 mpg by 1985.) Carter was right in exhorting Americans to turn down their thermostats, even if he did look nerdy in a cardigan while urging us to do so. He was right to encourage fuel conservation by proposing a 50-cents-per-gallon tax on gasoline and a fee on imported oil —- in effect, a floor for fuel prices....

When Lighting Your Water on Fire Isn't a Magic Trick
Jessica Ernst lives in the village of Rosebud, Alberta, East of Calgary. EnCana, a big oil & gas company, is operating close to her house. The photo above speaks for itself. Read on for her story....

Indonesian deforestation with fires in the distance, photo by Billy via flickr

Indonesia, the world’s largest producer of palm oil, and Brazil , one of the most successful places where ethanol has been produced from sugarcane, have agreed to cooperate on sharing biofuel production knowledge.

Quoted at ENN, Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono indicated that Indonesia could learn from the research and dev...

Almost fifty years ago, President Eisenhower and Queen Elizabeth opened the St. Lawrence Seaway, built to generate electricity and open Great Lakes ports to to ocean-going ships. 100 square miles of land, including six villages, home to 6,500 people, were submerged, "sacrificed at the altar of shipping and hydro-electric power," as Peter Gorrie of the Star puts it. Robert Moses on the American side, and Robert Saunders on the Canadian, bulldozed it through.

"In the '50s there was no such thing as protests," Jane Craig of the Lost Villages Hist...

In a practice I can hardly fathom, the Turkish government has been giving 155 million new textbooks each year to students, most of which are thrown into the trash at the end of the year rather than simply requiring they return them for use by next year’s crop of students.

Of course there’s not only an environmental cost to this enormous waste of resources, but an economic cost as well, with the books costing the Turkish public more than $800 million annually.
...

Tesla Electric Roadsters Finally Ship to Customers
As they say, if you never fail, you're probably not trying. It took a long time, and some even lost faith in the young company, but Tesla has now "broken the logjam", in the words of Ze'ev Drori, its president and CEO. Tesla electric Roadsters are now shipping. "Already 9 production Roadsters have arrived in California, another 3 arrive this weekend, and they will keep arriving at the rate of 4 per week" until December when production should ramp up to about 25 per week. There are currently 27 Roadsters in various stages of asse...

Image from hdptcar

Time for another round of good news, bad news. First, the good: According to a weighty new UN report (it's 6,300 pages long and includes submissions from 2,500 experts) uncovered by The Independent, the world stands poised to enter a new era of peace, prosperity and empowerment. Increased democratization, economic and technological advances and medical breakthroughs have the potential to bring millions out of povert...

photo by Tim Duckett

Gordon Brown recently announced that a £100 billion government investment in renewable energy would be “the most dramatic change in energy policy since nuclear power”. Such an investment will allow Britain to generate 30-35% of its electricity from renewables by 2020. Based on recent statements in Paris, we now know more clearly about his commitment to nuclear energy.

New Plants Required to Replace Existing Aging Ones

When Hillside Intermediate began their butterfly garden back in 1997 they probably had no idea that one day it would grow to 7 acres worth of carefully reconstructed wildlife habitat devoted to biodiversity that would earn awards from institutions like the Jane Goodall Institute and National Wildlife Federation. And no one could have predicted the enormous damage inflicted by vandals intent on destroying their hard work, even plugging up the entry to a bluebird box with golf balls and killing the chicks inside.

Of course, there’s often a brighter side when caring, decent human beings work together. And the outp...

In response to our post Why do Republicans hate bicycles? Commenter Michael wrote: "Not to mention that Mayor Bill White (Republican mayor of Houston) is pushing the EPA to make refineries and chemical plants verify their emissions. Of course, considering this piece of news shows a Republican actually being green goes against Treehugger, nothing about it will get posted."

We take umbrage at that; we are not anti-Republican, we are pro-bike and pro-environment and perfectly happy to do EPA-bashing whichever the source. Here goes:

Bill White, the Mayor of Houston, th...

Christian Science Monitor has published a totally charming story about how Dr. Frank E. Fish was inspired to "bio-mimic" a fan blade design, upon viewing a Humpback Whale sculpture in a Boston MA gift shop. There are prospective efficiency gains from re-designed wind turbine blades, also, based on this "discovery". Fish, a biology professor at West Chester University of Pennsylvania, is now using this technology perfected by nature to produce fans with serrated blades that use 20 percent less electricity than traditional models. This finding contradicts conventional designs that strive for the ...

Tesla Motors Gains Credibility
Making cars is hard, and Tesla is trying to improve its luck by hiring Mike Donoughe, a former Chrysler executive who has shown in the past that he can get things done. He will become Tesla Motors' Vice President of vehicle engineering and manufacturing. Mr. Donoughe could have got a job at any car company, so it's a good sign that he thinks the future is in electric cars, and it's also a vote of confidence for young Californian electric car company.

Next Step: Model S
And Tesla will need all the smart people it can get if it wants its

Rocky Mountain Institute cofounder and Chief Scientist Amory Lovins has long argued that it's possible to protect the earth's climate at a profit.

By taking an integrated approach to climate protection, he explained Tuesday night during a talk in Aspen, CO, we can find cost-effective solutions that generate more solutions -- not more problems:...

Mitsubishi's i MiEV Electric Car is Ahead of Schedule
A couple months ago, we got our hands on Mitsubishi's roadmap for its i MiEV electric car. The plan was to lease a few units to fleet customers first in 2009 and then launch it in 2010 (with a focus on Japan, but also in North-America and Europe), but reality is turning out better than even the optimists thought.

Japanese Launch: Summer 2009
The new plan is to launch the retail version of the i MiEV electric car in Japan in the summer of 2009. The reasons are "...

Next Generation Prius to be Made in USA
Toyota has just announced on its blog that the next generation Prius hybrid (certain models of which might have solar panels) will be made in the US, becoming the second Toyota hybrid car made in the country after the Camry hybrid, which is made in Kentucky.

Blue Springs, Mississippi
"As part of a sweeping set of changes that reflect the state of the automobile business in the United States, Prius production will begin here in late 2010 at a brand...

Interface sells carpet to the tune of $1,100,000,000 each year. That is just one reason why the business world listens up when Ray Anderson speaks. Ray describes his ecological awakening as “a spear in the chest,” a wound he has used to both his company’s advantage, and the planet’s. Giving rebirth to 133 million pounds of carpet is just the beginning. Anderson and his design teams are hard at work studying nature’s delicate technologies—like the sticky feet of geckos—to make products better, cleaner, and more beautiful. Here, the founder of Interface share his insights on biomimicry, right-brain thinking, cradle-to-cradle design, and our innate “biophilia.” :...

Corporate Climate Action Pioneers
In recent years, a handful of large corporations have estimated and publicly documented the cumulative carbon "footprint" of their operations. Most firms, however, are waiting...nervously eying pioneering efforts...for the declaration of the corporate environmental "footprint" to become a community standard.

The usual starting point is to sum the Green House Gas equivalent (GHG-e) emissions of manufacturing sites under company control, including contract manufacturing. a.k.a. "outsourced manufacturing." A trickier aspect is to apportion the corporate footprint attributable to joint venture m...

If you’re a college student or recent grad out hunting for a green job or internship there’s a new online community launched by Experience, a career-advice and job search services provider, that’s aimed just at you. In fact, it hopes to help various organizations nationwide hire interns for positions that help support environmental protection and the development of clean energy sources as well.

...

That's "Families Organized to Represent the Coal Economy", saying that coal is "now clean and green with new technologies." Their mission: "to be a unified voice in support of Pennsylvania coal, the families and businesses whose livelihoods depend upon it and the importance of a healthy coal industry to our regional, state and national economies."

Dennis at the Greenwash Brigade says that it's time there were transparent standards "that can compare business practices within sectors (and potentially across sectors...

As Mairi Beautyman pointed out not too long ago, The New School in NYC has been taking significant steps in a greener direction by offering degrees for students in environmental programs taking a holistic approach to design through the Tishman Environment and Design Center.

But now there’s word that they’ve begun a new environmental studies program focused on New York City and the urban environment in a bid to help students prepare to tackle the challenges posed by the reality that experts predict that a majority of the world’s population will live, work and play in large ...

The status of the claimed-to-be secret World Bank report which asserts that 75% of the recent rise in food prices can be linked to biofuels may have to be revised, based on statements from the World Bank.

Only a Working Paper
The Wall Street Journal has quoted Donald Mitchell, author of the report, as saying that the paper was a working paper only and not the official position of the World Bank. Any changes made to the document were done for the...

Marina Rikhvanova, Co-chairwoman of the NGO Baikal Environmental Wave, was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize for Asia for her on-going achievements in the protection of Lake Baikal, the "pearl of Siberia," in Russia. Founded in 1990, the prize is given annually to six grassroots environmentalists working for change around the globe.

The pristine lake is the largest and deepest fresh water body in the world. Because of its age and isolated location in Siberia, it contains unusual collections of freshwater flora and fauna and 1,700 plant and...

Image via Sparking Tech

We're looking for a full-time blogger who can cover the latest, hippest, greenest gadgets and electronics. We are looking for someone who has in-depth knowledge and passion about this topic, can identify and explore current and emerging trends, un...

photo by Stig Nygaard

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced Monday that the city would spend $2.3 billion to cut greenhouse gas emissions from municipal buildings and operations. The goal is to reduce CO2 emissions 1.68 million tonnes a year from 2006 levels by 2017.

These reductions will be accomplished through improvements to the heating, cooling and ventilation systems of municipal buildings. Repairs to firehouses, police precincts, city offices and courthouses, along with purchases of more fuel efficient vehicles will also help reduce emissions
...

There’s a great new exhibit sponsored by Doubletree Hotels and created by the Arbor Day Foundation that hopes to encourage kids from 2 to 10 to explore the beauty of the great outdoors by giving them an incredible learning experience with trees. Titled “Exploring Trees Inside and Out”, the traveling museum exhibit is expected to reach kids in a number of cities across the U.S. by the end of 2010, but there’s a good chance it’s coming soon to a museum near you....