News Forum Archives: November 2005
The Biofuel Dilemma
By Jamais Cascio
WorldChanging.com
November 26, 2005
Biofuels such as biodiesel may prove to be a useful transition technology for the move away from fossil fuels and into the Bright Green world. While they currently cost more than fossil fuels, a new process from the Tokyo Institute of Technology may bring down production costs dramatically. But attractive as they are, biofuels pose some sticky problems. Fortunately, a solution may be at hand.
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Core Evidence That Humans Affect Climate Change
Ice drilled in Antarctica offers the fullest record of glacial cycles and greenhouse gas levels.
By Usha Lee McFarling
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
November 25, 2005
An ice core about two miles long the oldest frozen sample ever drilled from the underbelly of Antarctica shows that at no time in the last 650,000 years have levels of the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane been as high as they are today.
The research, published in today’s issue of the journal Science, describes the content of the greenhouse gases within the core and shows that carbon dioxide levels today are 27% higher than they have been in the last 650,000 years and levels of methane, an even more powerful greenhouse gas, are 130% higher, said Thomas Stocker, a climate researcher at the University of Bern and senior member of the European team that wrote two papers based on the core.
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Catch a Wave
The ebb and flow of corporate eco-consciousness
By John Elkington and Mark Lee
Grist Magazine
15 Nov 2005
We remember a certain look businesspeople used to struggle to hide when confronted with their first real-life environmentalist. It was as if they had been presented with an alien life-form—a creature from some green lagoon. Some felt threatened, no doubt, but others were genuinely perplexed, curious, sympathetic even: “What made you one of those?” they would probe. In reply, they might hear about an experience or revelatory moment that suddenly made the world look very different, spurring action.
Eat, Sleep, Work, Consume, Die
By Tony Long
Wired News
Nov. 10, 2005
Say you live in Greenwich, Connecticut, during, oh, the early 1850s. Your older brother left home a few years back to try his luck in the California gold fields. Like the vast majority of those who risked everything to go west, he came up empty. Now he’s stranded, working in some dive on the San Francisco waterfront, pulling steam beer for the other would-be millionaires nursing their dashed dreams.
You take quill to parchment (OK, you have paper, but it’s pitted with wood pulp) and write him a letter.
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British to help China build ‘eco-cities’
Frank Kane
Sunday November 6, 2005
The Observer
British engineers will this week sign a multi-billion contract with the Chinese authorities to design and build a string of ‘eco-cities’ – self-sustaining urban centres the size of a large western capital – in the booming country.
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What Is Organic? Powerful Players Want a Say
By Melanie Warner
The New York Times
November 1, 2005
Customers at McDonald’s restaurants in New England are about to get something a little different when they order coffee. Through a deal with Green Mountain Coffee Roasters and Newman’s Own, McDonald’s will soon be serving a coffee that comes from organic beans and is certified Fair Trade because it meets higher standards in the treatment of coffee workers.
The move, while still a test in a limited region, reflects a much broader trend: The growing interest among large food companies in offering organic foods along with their standard products.
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