Is the Wall Street Journal at war with itself? We’ve recently given the paper some credit for its evolving coverage of all things ‘green.’ In March of this year, Alan G. Robinson and Dean M. Schroeder debunked “conventional wisdom” that might suggest a company’s costs rise as its environmental impact falls, explaining that going green can be highly cost effective. Earlier this month, WSJ editors chose to lead with this headline: “It’s Time To Cool The Planet.” In the article, Jamais Cascio proclaims, “if we’re going to avoid climate disaster, we’re going to have start getting a lot more direct. We’re going to have to think about cooling the planet.”

But in an opinion piece offered last week by WSJ columnist Kimberly Strassel, the skeptics were once again given full voice. Strassel points to a climate-change bill in the Australian Parliament that may get killed due to what she calls the “growing number of Australian politicians, scientists and citizens [that] once again doubt the science of human-caused global warming.”

“Among the many reasons President Barack Obama and the Democratic majority are so intent on quickly jamming a cap-and-trade system through Congress,” Strassel writes, “is because the global warming tide is again shifting. It turns out Al Gore and the United Nations (with an assist from the media), did a little too vociferous a job smearing anyone who disagreed with them as “deniers.” The backlash has brought the scientific debate roaring back to life in Australia, Europe, Japan and even, if less reported, the U.S.”

She continues,

“The number of skeptics, far from shrinking, is swelling. Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe now counts more than 700 scientists who disagree with the U.N. — 13 times the number who authored the U.N.’s 2007 climate summary for policymakers.”

Granted, this is an opinion column, and therefore not a work of journalism, but Strassel’s suggestion that Inhofe- of all people- is uncovering “the collapse of the ‘consensus’” strains credulity. The WSJ seems in conflict with itself, as its journalists begin to report on the reality that, as this global trend towards green innovation and sustainable business continues, the U.S. will either be buying it or selling it. Meanwhile, opinion columnists like Strassel insist that this “unconvincing green science” will do nothing for us but risk job losses. Which side prevails?

Our friends at Brighter Planet have created a fun (and green) tribute to the Michael Jackson. A throw back to VH1’s ‘pop-up video’ series, the above version of MJ’s early 90s hit “Black or White” music video provides the viewer some eco tidbits related to the visuals. For example, when the King of Pop is doing his thing on the Statue of Liberty, BP tells us that, while this NY landmark used to generate a lot of CO2, “since 2006, windpower has provided its electricity, avoiding an estimated 6000 tons of C02 per year.” When George Wendt’s character gets blown out of the roof by his guitar playing son (Macaulay Culkin) and flies through the night sky, BP explains “flying at night produces more than double the emissions of daytime flights.”

Nice work, guys! As the “Man in the Mirror” used to say “if you wanna make the world a better place take a look at yourself and make a change!” Shamon, indeed!

When one thinks of the Wall Street Journal, “environmental advocacy” doesn’t leap to mind, but, it seems, the paper has come around on the issue of climate change. In its ‘Environment’ section earlier this week, the WSJ offered this headline: “It’s Time To Cool The Planet.”

As one critic of the Journal noted in January, the paper often uses quotation marks around certain terms to, in effect, suggest that term is misleading. “A 2007 editorial on climate change complained that “political and media activists attempt to stigmatize anyone who doesn’t pay homage to their ’scientific consensus.’” As a matter of grammar, if not as a matter of fact, this is perfectly clear: The Journal believes no scientific consensus on climate change exists.”

Still, there it was in print on Monday, June 15th. In the article, Jamais Cascio proclaims, “if we’re going to avoid climate disaster, we’re going to have start getting a lot more direct. We’re going to have to think about cooling the planet.” Cascio explains that “many of us who have been watching this subject closely gone from being skeptics to advocates. Very reluctant advocates, to be sure, but advocates nonetheless.”

Policy makers have failed to meet the challenge. As a result, if we want to avoid an unprecedented global catastrophe, we may have no other choice but to reduce the impact of global warning, alongside focusing on the factors that are causing it in the first place. That is, while we continue to work aggressively to reduce the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere, we also need to consider lowering the temperature of the Earth itself.

He then advocates so-called ‘geoengineering‘ as a “more deliberate manipulation of the environment;”,

On a global scale, industrial activity for the past 150 years or so has changed the Earth’s atmosphere, threatening to raise average world temperatures to catastrophic levels, even if we were able to stop releasing carbon into the atmosphere immediately…

Geoengineering mainly takes two forms: temperature management, which moderates heat by blocking or reflecting a small portion of the sunlight hitting the Earth; and carbon management, which gradually removes large amounts of carbon from the atmosphere (as opposed to simply reducing the amount of additional carbon we’re releasing into the atmosphere). Temperature management is the more likely course of action, as it has the advantage of potentially quick results, while carbon-management techniques that would have a global impact might take decades or centuries to show results…

We can’t let ourselves slip back into business-as-usual complacency, because we’d simply be setting ourselves up for a far greater disaster down the road. Our overall goal must remain the reduction and then elimination of greenhouse-gas emissions as swiftly as humanly possible. This will require feats of political will and courage around the world. What geoengineering offers us is the time to make it happen.

As we suggested earlier this week, it’s possible that we’ve reached some sort of tipping point, that maybe we’ve moved towards a place where even Rupert Murdoch-owned companies acknowledge the need to love tomorrow TODAY!

[full WSJ article]

For those of us who work towards a more sustainable future- and, thankfully, that’s a quickly growing demographic- the challenge is in opening our eyes to the gravity of our situation while maintaining a healthy dose of optimism. With all the doomsday reports, it’s sometimes difficult to see our way out of the mess we’ve created.

I once asked Roger Lang, a remarkable conservationist and entrepreneur out in Montana, whether he thought of optimism as a vital component of the environmental movement.  “I don’t think so,” he replied. “I have dark days when I’m convinced developers will pave all these beautiful open spaces. But I think these bouts of pessimism actually keep me engaged- pure optimism is synonymous with naivete. I think to be dedicated to conservation means you better have a good appreciation of the challenges, or else you’ll be blind-sided by them.”

A new study by researchers at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies provides, perhaps, the right balance of realism and optimism. An analysis of 240 independent studies, it found that most polluted or damaged ecosystems worldwide can recover within as little as 5 to 10 years “if societies commit to their cleanup or restoration.”

The Yale researchers studied seven ecosystem types and their recovery from man-made disturbances (logging, mining, oil spills, overfishing, industrial pollution…) and natural disasters (hurricanes, cyclones…). They found, for example, that forest ecosystems recovered in 42 years on average, while ocean bottoms recovered in less than 10 years. While the damages to these ecosystemss are serious, the researchers see the results as an indication that “if societies choose to become sustainable, ecosystems will recover. It isn’t hopeless.”

The study does conclude that about 15% of damaged ecosystems are beyond recovery. But the researchers suggest that, as bad as things are,  “speculation that it will take centuries or millennia for degraded ecosystems to recover” is, in general, wrong. Holly Jones, one of the study’s co-authors added, “we recognize that humankind has and will continue to actively domesticate nature to meet its own needs. The message of our paper is that recovery is possible and can be rapid for many ecosystems, giving much hope for a transition to sustainable management of global ecosystems.”

[Sources: Yale University, Jeff Kart- Clean Technica]

As a follow up to our post last week about a Memphis-area Burger King declaring on its signage that “Global Warming Is Baloney,” it’s worth sharing Leo Hickman’s conversation with the marketing director of the BK franchise-owner responsible for the signs, Mirabile Investment Corporation.

One of our favorite journalists and a features editor for the UK’s Guardian, Hickman wanted to see if he could get more information from both MIC and Burger King Corp on the growing controversy.  Burger King Corp was quick to tell him “the statement that was posted on several restaurants’ reader boards in the Memphis area and the view expressed by the franchisee on this issue does not reflect Burger King Corp.’s (BKC) opinion or view.” He then reached out to MIC’s marketing director, J.J. McNelis, and, as he explains, his phone call proved to be “one of the more memorable calls [he's] made as a journalist.” It was clear he was dealing with a rogue franchisee.

Hickman writes,

Chris Davis, the Memphis Flyer writer, had said that his calls for a quote had remained unanswered. So I decided to see if a little English charm could draw the evidently coy MIC out of its shell and, to my surprise, I was patched straight through by the operator to J.J. McNelis, MIC’s marketing president. What proceeded was one of the more memorable calls I’ve made as a journalist…here, for your delectation, is the full transcript of the call I had with the soon-to-be-legendary J.J. McNelis. As another well-known burger chain would probably say, we’re lovin’ it:

Me: How does your company react to this story?

McNelis: We’ve certainly observed what’s been going on. A quick answer to what our reaction is would most accurately be described as amusement.

Me: Why do you say that?

McNelis: It’s pretty amusing the amount of fervour that some of the people bring to their arguments on this issue.

Me: People who believe in global warming?

McNelis: No, people on all sides.

Me: Where did these signs come from? Was it the managers in each restaurant that put them up?

McNelis: I don’t have those details.

Me: Have they all come down now?

McNelis: I think so. It’s the best I can tell.

Me: BK Corp issued a statement saying that ‘global warming is baloney’ wasn’t their view and that they had asked you to take them down. Is that your understanding of it?

McNelis: I can’t speak for them. I would think they would run from any form of controversy kinda like cockroaches when the lights get turned on. I’m not aware of any direction that they gave the franchisee and I don’t think they have the authority to do it. The franchisee can put on a sign whatever he wants.

more…

Click here to watch the World Wildlife Fund’s effective (and affecting) new video. According to the WWF, 1,000,000 plants and animals could disappear within the next fifty years. Almost 1,000,000 square kilometers of ice field has melted in the last thirty years. 250,000 hectares (roughly 618,000 acres) of tropical forest disappears each week.

Aside from the vid’s message, we enjoyed director Matthieu Jacobs‘ aesthetic and sound production.

To raise awareness about what he calls “undoubtedly the greatest challenge of our age,” Prince Charles has launched a new video about the Prince’s Rainforests Project. Along with a supporting cast that includes Harrison Ford, the Dalai Lama, Daniel Craig, Robin Williams, Joss Stone, Pele, his sons- Princes Will and Harry- and a couple of frogs (Kermit and the project’s mascot, a digitially-created frog, created by Framestore, the effects team behind The Golden Compass), Prince Charles explains that now is the time to leverage “global determination for change on a vitally important issue”.  “Our aim,” he explains, “is to build an online community to call, from the bottom up, for urgent action to protect the rainforests, without which we will most certainly lose the battle against catastrophic climate change.”

As Harrison Ford suggests, “what happens in the rain forest has an immediate and powerful effect on our lives. I believe it is our moral responsibility to protect the environment, to save what we can of the planet’s resources for future generations and our children.”

For more info on the Prince’s initiative, visit the project’s site.

It’s that time again. Time to celebrate the planet, to think about ways to live greener, for television networks and our favorite shows to highlight their green initiatives. But is it as important as ever, as some have suggested? If, as Rick Bass argues in his piece for Grist, “carbon dioxide concentrations are nearing the point-of-no-return of 360 parts-per-million—at some point beyond that, the eggshell of a globe we call home might ignite into a giant ball of flame, simply from the belch of one more cow,” don’t we need more than one day a year?

Since it’s inception in 1970, Earth Day has been an important springboard for activism. But that conversation is no longer confined to the activist fringes. “Going green” has gone mainstream, and thankfully so. Of course, a lot of work is left to be done. Celebrants of the first Earth Day must have imagined a cleaner world in 2009 than the one in which we find ourselves today. But there are many fewer corners of the world where green thinking hasn’t taken root, to some degree or another.

We’ve seen companies like Seventh Generation, Patagonia, Whole Foods, Wal-Mart even, help set their industries on a course towards greater sustainability. Every major brand is addressing its environmental message- some more authentically than others, admittedly. In less than a second, a Google search of the word “sustainability” produces nearly 30 million results. Green blogs abound, and green design has become more about economics and aesthetics than about preaching.

Are we through the tunnel? No, of course not. But haven’t we reached the tipping point where we’re ready to engage on this issue every single day, not just on April 22nd? So, we’ll happily celebrate Earth Day today, but just as sex shouldn’t be reserved for Valentine’s Day, turkey for Thanksgiving, Harry Potter costumes for Halloween- ok, maybe that’s ok- we think it’s worth having this conversation every day!

Brighter Planet Forward from Brighter Planet on Vimeo.

As a follow up to our One Degree TV post about Brighter Planet, we thought we’d share a recent video those guys made. It’s a great summary of how we can each lower our carbon footprint. Three things to consider: 1) have a sense of what your carbon footprint is by taking an inventory of your daily habits. 2) reduce your carbon footprint. Once you’ve have a sense of those habits, tweak them (lower the thermostat when you leave the house, unplug applicances when they’re not in use…). 3) offset what you can’t reduce. It’s not always possible to avoid activities that result in carbon emissions. Check Brighter Planet’s site for more on that, and watch our ‘What’s a carbon offset‘ video.

[note: we'll be featuring posts from our friends at Brighter Planet on a regular basis, so check back for more bright ideas]

Tata Motors, India’s largest automaker, has unveiled its highly anticipated new car, The Nano. Touted as “the people’s car,” the Nano will be available for under $2000 (100,000 rupees) and, according to Tata Motors, will revolutionize the way 1.1 billion Indians get around. While the global auto industry watches closely to see how this might reshape the car biz, critics suggest that for such a small car it represents a giant missed opportunity.

It’s a car, you say. A giant missed opportunity? And why are people calling it an environmental disaster? Normally, a car that gets 55.5 miles-per-gallon and emits less carbon than most motorcycles is welcomed as a good thing for the environment. After all, few of the cars being released this year in the U.S. get anything near 55 mpg. But this car is not so much a step forwards as it is a step sideways. Put another way, it’s being touted not for advancing the technologies of tomorrow but for making the technologies of yesterday ultra-cheap.

That’s the disappointment. If this is such an industry-changing event, it’s a double whammy. First, its success could spell a paradigm shift away from expensive alternative technologies in favor of making current technologies more affordable. Second, it might mean millions more cars on the streets of a developing country already plagued by pollution, congestion and an overwhelmed infrastructure.

Oh, and the Nano is expected to make its US debut in two to three years.

Four years ago, Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger argued “that global warming was an unprecedented ecological challenge that would lead to the death of environmentalism.” That proposition sparked a heated debate, with many eco-activists quick to reject it as irresponsible and…well, wrong. But in an opinion piece in today’s SF Chronicle, the authors suggest that we are now living in a post-environmental era. The authors point to Obama’s recent “State of the Union address,” in which the president “called for the most far-reaching program ever proposed by an American president to remake America’s energy economy - with hardly a mention of the environment.” Check out the full article, it’s a fascinating read. Here’s a bit of their argument:

“today, environmental organizations have largely relegated images of polar bears and melting ice flows to the back pages of their magazines. Green jobs and clean energy investment are the eco-ideas of the moment.

It was never realistic to have expected pollution regulations and carbon taxes to drive a global energy modernization project of the scale necessary to transform the global energy economy. We did not invent the personal computer by placing a “market-based cap” on typewriters nor create the Internet by taxing telegraphs and fax machines. To the contrary, government investment was largely responsible for bringing these revolutionary technologies, and a raft of others, into our lives. This included not only funding research and development at universities and national laboratories but also directly procuring and deploying cutting-edge technologies that were not yet ready for broad commercialization.”

Today, there’s an estimated 1 billion cars on this planet. As Daniel Sperling explains in his book Two Billion Cars: Driving Toward Sustainability, there’ll be roughly twice as many in 15 years, with that number expected to triple by 2050. You think there’s smog in Los Angeles now!?!

So, we welcome news of a joint international agency effort to produce a ‘roadmap towards greater global fuel economy’ that would halve greenhouse gas emissions from cars by 2050. The ‘50 by 50′ Global Fuel Economy Initiative (GFEI) attempts to show how annual savings of six billion barrels of oil and 2 gigatonnes of CO2 is achievable through an ambitious world wide program.

The campaign is the result of a partnership between the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), International Energy Agency (IEA) International Transport Forum (ITF) and FIA Foundation- a British nonprofit which promotes environmental protection, road safety and sustainable mobility.

Jack Short, Secretary General ITF said: “We already have the technology and the means to get us on the road to making our cars 50% more fuel efficient – all that is needed are coordinated efforts and actions from both industry and governments.”

David Ward, Director General FIA Foundation said: “This initiative can have a huge impact on the motoring public. Through tax incentives and information campaigns it would help encourage consumer demand for more fuel efficient cars. This is not an agenda for some point far off in the future. Our 50% fuel efficiency target requires us to change direction and take important actions right now.”

Some good quotes, but not a ton of specifics. We’ll keep an eye on whether ‘50 by 50′ can convince governments and car-makers, as well as drivers, to rally behind these measures (whatever they are, exactly).

Two posts in one week on Green Mountain Coffee! That’s an LTT first, but this is an initiative that’s worth highlighting. GMC is making four separate grants, each for $200,000, payable over 5 years, to support work on reducing climate change. There will be one grant in each of four focus areas:

- Threats to Coffee-Growing Communities
- Transportation-Related Emissions
- Building Political Will
- Empowering Individual Action

The “Changing Climate Change” competition is a hefty investment for a company of any size- turns out GMC is killin’ it!- and it’s a meaningful commitment that goes beyond eco-branding. Check out JustMeans.com for more info about submissions.

“The answers to our problems don’t lie beyond our reach. They exist in our laboratories and our universities, in our fields and our factories, in the imaginations of our entrepreneurs and the pride of the hardest-working people on Earth.”

“Over the next two years, this plan will save or create 3.5 million jobs. More than 90 percent of these jobs will be in the private sector, jobs rebuilding our roads and bridges, constructing wind turbines and solar panels, laying broadband and expanding mass transit.”

“We know the country that harnesses the power of clean, renewable energy will lead the 21st century. And yet it is China that has launched the largest effort in history to make their economy energy efficient. We invented solar technology, but we’ve fallen behind countries like Germany and Japan in producing it. New plug-in hybrids roll off our assembly lines, but they will run on batteries made in Korea.”

“Well, I do not accept a future where the jobs and industries of tomorrow take root beyond our borders, and I know you don’t, either. It is time for America to lead again.”

“But to truly transform our economy, to protect our security and save our planet from the ravages of climate change, we need to ultimately make clean, renewable energy the profitable kind of energy.”

“So I ask this Congress to send me legislation that places a market-based cap on carbon pollution and drives the production of more renewable energy in America. That’s what we need.”

This was supposed to be another step towards a new era of NASA missions, turning the focus from the cosmos and back towards our own planet. The exciting new NASA satellite designed to track carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere failed to reach orbit on its launch yesterday morning. The Orbiting Carbon Observatory (pictured above in an artist rendering) never separated from the Taurus XL rocket and took a quick (and unexpected) dip in the Pacific Ocean near Antarctica. A $278 million goof.

As Kenneth Chang explains in his NY Times piece, “scientists had hoped the new data, covering the entire planet, would help them improve climate models and better understand the ‘carbon sinks’ like oceans and forests and that absorb much of the carbon dioxide.” Annual variations in levels have confounded experts, and understanding these ‘carbon sinks’ is seen as a key in explaining why “in some years, all of the excess carbon dioxide disappears; in some years, all of it stays in the air.”

For anyone who sees the abstract value of an agency like NASA, it’s hard not to be disappointed. You can hear the doubters gaining steam: What was the point of going to moon? What’s the  real value in aiming for Mars? These aren’t unreasonable questions, especially when our economy is pulling a Titanic (minus the Leo-Kate love story and the gagillion $ box office). C’mon, NASA, no more $278 million “my bads,” please!

Thanks to the Daily Show- a phrase I find myself saying a lot- I have a good book to read on my travels through California this week. Daniel Sperling, a Professor of Civil Engineering and Environmental Sciene and Policy at University of California, Davis and Director of the university’s Institute of Transportation Studies, joined Jon Stewart last week to discuss his new book, Two Billion Cars: Driving Toward Sustainability. As the above video shows, Sperling spent a few good-natured moments trying to provide some serious answers to some typically irreverent questions. In the book, authors Sperling and Deborah Gordon describe a future, 15 years from now, when the world will have close to 2 billion cars. Given that greenhouse gases are already creating havoc with our climate with an estimated 1 billion cars, the set up for very troubling consequences is obvious.

Sperling and Gordon describe the challenges that we (as a country, the leading emissions culprit, and as a planet) face and the solutions that are most likely to work. The authors reveal our greatest obstacles- “the resistant auto-industry, dysfunctional oil markets, short-sighted government policies, and unmotivated consumers.” The authors look at solutions (mix of advanced bio-fuels, electric vehicles, fuel-cell hybrids), expose some fool’s gold (corn-based ethanol), and point to the role of government as a necessary component- they single out California’s leadership in promoting aggressive emissions standards.

GreenBiz pointed us towards the California Green Innovation Index, created by Next10, an independent organization focused on innovations and empowering Californians to improve the state’s future. While most of us know that Cali leads on many renewable and sustainable fronts, the report has a lot of interesting bites:

One area that the state leads in is registration of alternative fuel vehicles. From 2006-2007 the registration of new and used alternative fuel vehicles jumped 36 percent, topping 100,000 for the first time ever in a year.

Rich will be “on tour” in CA this week, so stay tuned for some info on local difference makers.

Green Biz: California’s Green Innovations: Steady Momentum, Plenty Work to Do

A great article in the New York Times’ about Shai Agassi and his company Better Place, who are trying to build a charging infrastructure for electric cars to succeed. While he is catching on in Denmark, Japan, and his home country of Israel, the US will prove to be a tougher sell, even with many electric cars in the pipeline.

The New York Times: Mapping a Global Plan for Car Charging Stations

Better Place

The Shepard Fairey invasion continues. The WWF’s Earth Hour is mobilizing to get everyone to flick off the lights for an hour on March 28, 2009 at 8:30 p.m., local time “to make a global statement of concern about climate change and to demonstrate their commitment to finding solutions.” Where this poster is available, though, remains to be seen.

Via High Snobiety, GOOD

Snowfences are a common sight in the Rocky Mountain west. Used primarily to minimize the amount of snowdrift on roadways and for avalanche control, these wooden structures are starting to find a new, unlikely home…in Whole Foods and Bass Pro Shop locations.

Centennial Woods, a Wyoming based company, has reclaimed over 5 million feet of Wyoming snowfence, preventing as much as 9,000 tons of CO2 emissions that would have resulted from its disposal and destruction. Whole Foods, Bass Pro Shop and others are using the company’s reclaimed wood as design features in their stores across the U.S.

Because of decades of exposure, the wood is extremely durable material that requires little maintenance, designers say. “Designers, architects, and builders tell us they absolutely love the texture, patina, character and strength of our reclaimed Wyoming snowfence,” says John Pope, CEO of Centennial Woods. “We plan to continue to cultivate partnerships with professionals who seek naturally beautiful, healthy materials with a truly green pedigree.”

For more info, check out the article on Sustainable Life Media’s site.

This time next week, we’ll be emerging from our turkey comas. Ah tryptophan! My favorite of the essential amino acids! Thanksgiving is, for my money, the best holiday of the year. It’s one we all share- as Americans- and, without the stress of having to find the right presents, the focus is food, family and gratitude. But the holidays can also present certain challenges to sustainable living. For starters, Thanksgiving is the busiest time of the year for US travelers. With all that travel, shopping, cooking and eating…it’s a holiday that produces a lot of waste.

With a few tweaks to your normal routine, it’s possible to save time, money and waste this Thanksgiving. Often, simply being conscious of your consumption guides you towards responsible decisions. According to the Nature Conservancy, an estimated 96 billion pounds of food are discarded nationally every year, 5 million tons of trash during the holiday season alone. So, maybe if no one really finished your homemade pumpkin pie last year, make less this time around! I know, I know, you mistakenly put in a cup of salt instead of a cup of sugar, but, seriously, back away from the stove…!

What’s our point? Well, while some green sites might suggest things like a vegan menu, we know, in reality, you’d probably get expelled from all future family events for a stunt like that. And why drastically change one of the greatest days of the year? As you’re thinking about Thanksgiving, consider all the little decisions that go into the day, and then consider tweaking them. Carpool to your Aunt Barb’s house, or, if you’re flying somewhere, consider offsetting the carbon (roughly $12 for a cross-country flight), where possible buy products with less packaging, and don’t forget the best part of Thanksgiving…leftovers!

While the question with solar is always “How much?” some nano-engineering students at RPI have developed an anti-reflective coating to make solar cells capture the full light spectrum - 96% to be precise - from all angles, sunrise to sunset. An amazing breakthrough, especially if it allows current panels to be upgraded, and be introduced into the market swiftly. Clean Technica call it a “solar power game changer.” Read more there:

Clean Technica - Rensselaer Researchers Nano-Engineer Solar to ‘Near Perfect’ Efficiency

Is it just me or have things at NBC really taken a turn for the better since they hired Jack Donaghy as the Head of East Coast Television and Microwave Oven Programming? NBC, and its parent company GE (a subsidiary of the Sheinhardt Wig Company), is “going green” again.

All this week, the network is profiling environmental issues, sustainable organizations and the efforts of those making a difference to the planet. In a repeat of last year’s initiative, the hosts of the Today Show are heading to “the ends of the earth,” to explore climate change. In a dramatic live broadcast last year, Ann Curry reported from the South Pole, Al Roker from the equator and Matt Lauer from the Artic Sea. Once again, NBC is offsetting the carbon footprint of its traveling hosts. In addition, the Today Show will be offering a host of segments focused on educating viewers on greening their daily habits, such as “It’s Easy Being Green: 7 Ways to help the planet.”

NBC’s “Going Green” web site provides still more environmental pearls of wisdom. One of the offerings is “Jay’s Green Garage,” where Tonight show host Jay Leno profiles some innovations in green vehicles and sustainable car care. Here’s a video of Jay learning about Honda’s Natural Gas Civic. more…

It’s a familiar refrain here at Love Tomorrow Today: optimism is an important part of what shapes our views on sustainability. No good and necessary change was ever achieved by a fatalist. But just as important is a balanced, sober assessment of the state of things. We need to know just how bad things are (or will be without appropriate action) in order to make the right choices for tomorrow. A new World Wildlife Fund (WWF) report offers just that and suggests the short-sightedness of the government and private sectors that contributed to the recent global financial meltdown should stand as a warning to help avoid a similar (and more devastating) ‘eco credit crunch.’  According to the Living Planet Report 2008, the Earth’s natural resources are being used up to 30%  faster than they can be replaced in a reckless environmental spending spree.

The report offers a caution to world leaders that they must consider the problems of depleted ecosystems in the same way they have coordinated efforts to revive financial institutions.

more…