Green Options

An article in the March 28 New York Times contained some pretty unflattering remarks about compact fluorescent light bulbs.  Since the bulbs were never given a chance to speak in their own defense, I guess it’s up to us fluorescent bulb-huggers to speak for them.  So, here goes.

Why isn’t Nobel prize-winning economist Paul Krugman the Secretary of the Treasury? More and more people are starting to ask that question. Jonathan Mann, the creator of Rock Cookie Bottom, writes a song every single day; last week he wrote this catchy and moving plea to NY Times columnist Krugman to come to the aid of our nation’s scorched and pillaged economy .

Image credit: Max Whittaker for The New York Times

The Sacramento Municipal Utility District experimented with a revised version of its electric bill statement, introducing a distinct feature that compares the owner’s use of energy to that of her/his neighbors. Efficiency is the goal; neighborly competition the motivation. The visually quantitative nudge persuaded some recipients: “When the Sacramento utility conducted its first assessment of the program after six months, it found that customers who received the personalized report reduced energy use by 2 percent more than those who got standard statements.”

In the world Islamic fundamentalism, most of us believe that terrorism is brought about by religious bias. But the terrorist might in fact have an economic motive. It is abundantly clear that he who risks and often sacrifices his own life in the very act of creating terror does not have a personal economic motive however it is likely that he is motivated to destroy economies. Wealth, abundance and prosperity after all symbolize the ‘evil’ that the Islamist sees as [...]

Billionaire American entrepreneur T. Boone Pickens is optimistic that the Obama administration will bring the United States’ energy infrastructure into the new millennium by implementing his plan for energy independence.

After eight long years there is finally a cause for hope here in the United States. George Bush may still be in office, but right now all America’s problems are President-Elect Obama’s to solve (see Obama Recession, thanks Rush), but he seems ready for them.

It was a glorious summer for the giant of oil giants. Record prices for petroleum and so record prices at the pump unsurprisingly have retained ExxonMobil’s righteous crown as the most profitable company in the world: $14.8 billion in profit this past quarter.

According to the New York Times, Exxon has exceeded $10 billion in profit in nine of the last 12 quarters. Earlier this year, in the second quarter, the company posted a then-record profit. In the third quarter, Exxon reaped an increase of nearly 60 percent beyond that, setting yet another record while dropping its production by 8 percent for the quarter.

It’s official, according to the New York Times, the bailout proposition has been rejected by the House of Representatives. The Dow Jones just plunged more than 400 points and America is standing up for itself as the bastion of free market economics!

According to the New York Times, “supporters of the bailout proposal had argued that it was necessary to avoid a collapse of the economic system, a calamity that would drag down not just Wall Street investment houses but possibly [...]

First the New York Times, now the BBC!  Today, Eco Child’s Play’s Kristen Chase and myself were featured on the BBC’s program “World Have Your Say“. The topic was “Would you stop having children to save the environment?“  I was invited to join the conversation with John Guillebaud, professor of family planning at University [...]

The Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco will ask voters to change the name of a sewage treatment plant on the coast to the George W. Bush Sewage Plant.  The New York Times explains:

Reagan has his highways. Lincoln has his memorial. Washington has the capital (and a state, too). But President Bush may soon be the sole president to have a memorial

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In case you didn’t see it, Eco Child’s Play was featured in this weekend’s New York Times. In a piece called “Blogging Against Barbie“, Dan Mitchell wrote:

When greenwashing is aimed at adults, environmentalists generally find it annoying and sometimes — if it is sufficiently transparent — amusing. But when children are the targets, the environmentalists find it infuriating. So when Mattel recently issued a news release promoting

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