Carbon Neutral was 2006’s word of the year (no seriously, it was), and Joel Makower explains why carbon offsets are a good idea, and why simply reducing consumption probably trumps trading sins for halos. LISTEN (12 min)
We can’t imagine life without cellphones, but we don’t imagine our cellphone’s life beyond us. Linda Gabor of Call2Recycle and the Rechargeable Battery Recycling Corporation (RBRC) tells us how to recycle that potentially harmful cellphone battery, and why it might even be the law, depending on where you live. LISTEN (8 min)
Correspondent Frank O’Donnell talks about the 13 states who filed a suit to force the EPA to strengthen particle soot standards and safeguard public health. You’d think we wouldn’t have to ask them to do their jobs.
ALSO: What is the White House giving their friends for the Holidays? Frank tells us here.
PART 1 (11 min) PART 2 (7 min)
EcoTalk is often so busy in the studio cranking out shows full of the politics, science, and lifestyle news that even we some times lose touch with the natural world that keeps us grounded and spiritually guided. Mark Coleman’s illuminating new book is called Awake in the Wild: Mindfulness in Nature as a Path of Self-Discovery. Coleman believes that acknowledgement of oneself as a part of nature is crucial to understanding onself, and facing up to the challenges we all face. LISTEN (12 min)
Sun Microsystems co-founder and venture capitalist Vinod Khosla backs Ethanol. Craig Lewis of RightCycle Enterprises says "Ethanol is not a smart energy solution." Hear both sides here: LISTEN (8 min)
Why did the National Science Teachers Association reject 50,000 free copies of An Inconvenient Truth, but freely show videos created with the backing of Conoco Phillips? NRDC‘s Jon Coifman wonders the same thing. LISTEN (11 min)
Pete Rogers of the Rogers family-owned Organic Coffee Company talks about going organic way back in the mid-90’s, breaking the cycle of poverty in the Panamanian communities who grow their coffee, and seeing through temporary fashion to envision an organic way of life: "The limit is only the people and their willingness to change." LISTEN (8 min)
Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope (pictured right) tells us how the roundtable discussion last week with Al Gore, Senator Barabara Boxer, venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, and Duke Energy Chairman and CEO Paul Anderson came about, and the surprising, exciting things that they all agreed on: "These are the people wrestling with the reality of how we’re going to lick global warming." LISTEN (7 min)
Grist Magazine, the best eco-journalism on the web, just got done with a whopping two-week, 34-part series on Biofuels, and the editor of this groundbreaking piece of work, Tom Philpott, stops by to give us the highlights before he runs out of gas. LISTEN (12 min)
When GreenBiz.com’s Joel Makower is hot to talk about something, you know that you’re about to hear a thoughtful analysis of global green business trends. When we invited Joel over to the studio last week, what did he tell us? "I’ve become fascinated with Wal-Mart. The conversations taking place in Bentonville, Arkansas right now are like none I’ve ever heard before." LISTEN (8 min)