Treehugger Correspondent Simran Sethi
bring us Grist Magazine’s irreverent awards for everything from the least newsworthy environmental acts to the greenest nudie model (why oh why do I work in radio?). She also takes us to the glitzy, greenish, but still somewhat ominous Shanghai Auto show, and tells us the dollar value of New York City’s trees. LISTEN (8 min)
PG&E Senior Vice President Nancy McFadden is the perfect candidate to serve as one of the new faces of energy giant PG&E– now the type of energy giant that helps the San Francisco Giants go solar. Betsy remembers when PG&E wasn’t exactly eager to do sustainable business, and thus she is thrilled to sit down with Nancy and talk about her background working for Vice President Al Gore and California Governors Davis and Schwarzenegger, and everything that PG&E is doing to run a business that internalizes its effects on the earth and its resources, and that now refuses to take its central position between citizens and resources for granted. LISTEN (11 min)
We’ve often highlighted Clif Bar as a company that defines values-driven business, but it must also be mentioned that if it isn’t fun, they aren’t doing it. LISTEN
In a landmark Earth Day speech Mayor Michael Bloomberg called for New York City to become "the first environmentally sustainable 21st Century City", and proposed a list of measures both modest and controversial that, if fully implemented, could be for big cities what California’s Global Warming Solutions Act Bill was for states. Well, maybe I should say "will be for states." Hopefully! Please!
Sustainable South Bronx‘s Deputy Director Miquela Craytor gives us the view from one of the five boroughs, including one of the problems most important to South Bronx residents, the issue of toxic brownfields. LISTEN (11 min)
Treehugger Correspondent Simran Sethi chats with Betsy about Oprah, the Sundance Channel’s "The Green", and being the new, fresh face of Green Media: "There’s a lot of things that you and I both know, but the reality is that for most Americans it’s still a lightbulb moment to realize how inefficient incandescents are." LISTEN (9 min)
Treehugger Correspondent Simran Sethi
(who appeared on Oprah again today– cool! ) interviews Eco America‘s Bob Perkowitz about what’s wrong with how Environmental Groups are marketing the Environment, tailoring the message for a United States that contains multitudes, and environmentalism as a faith-based initiative. LISTEN (12 min)
Home Depot has really come along way since the late 90’s: their latest in a determined push to operate more sustainably and help their customers do the same is their Eco Options program. Walk inside your local Home Depot, says vice president for environmental innovation Ron Jarvis, and you will find products with the Eco Options label given prominent shelf space, and accompanied by information on the impact (or lack thereof) of the product you’re buying. Stop by April 22nd, and you may leave the store with one the 1 million CFL lightbulbs they’re giving away for Earth Day. Thanks, Ron! LISTEN (8 min)
Clean Air Watch President Frank O’Donnell stops by to parse the EPA Chief Steve Johnson’s latest announcement on the Bush Administration’s efforts to "reduce" greenhouse gas emissions: "The bottom line is the actual volume of emissions continues to grow. The climate and the planet doesn’t care so much about intensity or rates of things, they care about actual volume of pollution that’s effecting the climate." LISTEN (12 min)
But as is often the case in the large bureaucratic confines of the EPA
(where many career environmentalists continue to work diligently for a
green America), there is some good news as well: The EPA at long last
has proposed tougher air pollution standards for new lawnmowers and
other small engines that work off of gasoline. It’s not cars, but this
proposal would make a big impact. Of course, the tried and true method
of conservation is to crack open a beer and let your lawn grow out, in
principled defiance of nagging family members and neighbors. Tell them
EcoTalk gave you permission.
Elizabeth Kolbert’s vivid, intimate accounts of climate change through the eyes of people in the Netherlands, Iceland, and Alaska were initially published in the New Yorker Magazine and later compiled in the book Field Notes from a Catastrophe. Since "Field Notes" was first published, Kolbert has written a stunning piece on ocean acidification, and has profiled one-time boy wonder of the environmental movement Amory Lovins, now 49 years old and still the eternal optimist.
PART ONE (11 min) PART TWO (7 min)
"One of Amory’s basic points is that if you don’t use energy, you’ve
found a new energy source. A barrel of oil we don’t use, is a barrel of
oil found, in a way. If we just made cars more efficient, we would
basically found the equivalent of Saudi Arabia’s oil reserves right
under Detroit."
Here Kolbert shares her thoughts on all that she’s investigated
and reported, not only on climate change but on the political and
social climate of climate change. She’s one of the most valuable
chroniclers of Our time on Earth, and we were thrilled to have her in
our Green Street studio.
Environmental Working Group Executive Director Richard Wiles tells Betsy about digging up the all-too-convenient fact that a contractor hired by the National Institute of Health to judge the risk of toxic chemicals was simultaneously moonlighting for the chemical industry itself. Fortunately, even the current Fed leadership decided that the other foot had to drop on this one: "Some of the principals in this company have a long history of working as expert witnesses for corporate polluters." LISTEN (12 min)