I just discovered this clean energy podcast by Tom Raftery of Spain. At about 11 minutes, in Tom makes some comments on my hydrogen article. He mostly supports my debunking of the hydrogen economy, although he does give a good example of how hydrogen creation can be useful in certain situations, such as storing excess power generation from wind production.
“The conceit that corporations must be treated identically to natural persons in the political sphere is not only inaccurate but also inadequate to justify the Court’s disposition of this case.” – Minority Opinion by Supreme Court Justices Ginsburg, Breyer and Sotomayor.
News outlets and the blogosphere are abuzz with reactions to Thursday’s Supreme Court decision that will allow corporations to fund political campaigns. The ruling, which overturns decades of legal precedent and legislation limiting the ability of corporations to influence the outcome of elections, may have broad implications for the political process in the U.S. News of the decision has drawn criticism from both the right and the left, many voicing the opinion that dramatically increased rights for corporations will significantly diminish the ability for individual citizens to have their voices heard.
In his weekly address, President Obama said, “I can’t think of anything more devastating to the public interest,” he said. “The last thing we need to do is hand more influence to the lobbyists in Washington or more power to the special interests to tip the outcome of elections.” Congressman Alan Grayson (FL) has already introduced legislation to combat the policy change. His “Save Our Democracy” Reform Package contains several strong measures, including a 500% excise tax on corporate contributions to political committees, and on corporate expenditures on political advocacy campaigns.
Although some claim that this most recent ruling will have only a limited effect on the political process, the decision certainly re-confirms the doctrine of granting constitutional rights, originally reserved for flesh-and-blood U.S. citizens, to corporate entities, which have held the dubious status of “legal persons” with rights since 1886, when another Supreme Court decision accorded it to them. This unexpected action by the Court re-opens the debate about about the wisdom of affording corporations such rights, and what effects this all has for sustainable business.
Earth2Tech has posted an interesting article which takes a look at some of the predictions made for green transportation at the beginning of the decade, and how close those predictions were to reality. While the decade started out with a lot of promise, corporate interests and politics slowed that down, only to see green vehicles come back strong as the economy weakened:
We entered the 2000’s with rules in California requiring automakers to offer EVs, but by 2003, state regulators changed the rules and many automakersdropped EV initiativesand focused on gas guzzlers. But here we are nearing the end of 2009, and automakers are now investing heavily in electric vehicles, natural gas cars are gaining traction in high places, and hydrogen cars are about as far off as ever.
The verdict? Despite some movement, Natural Gas Vehicle adoption and High-Speed Rail are still a long way off, while the Hydrogen Economy is nowhere to be seen. Electric Vehicle adoption also has many more obstacles to overcome than originally predicted. Just about the only thing that the pundits got right was that Hybrid Vehicle technology would be a bridge to EV adoption.
Ever since I was a kid, when my father used give me Matchbox cars he bought on his way home from work, I’ve been crazy about cars. So I was extremely excited to have the opportunity to speak with Simon Saba of Saba Motors, whose EV vision is something any gearhead can get jazzed about: to deliver an exotic electric sports car with a price tag of under $40,000, that will have the looks and performance of cars costing 10 times as much and is environmentally friendly to boot!
It has been three years since the release of AlGore‘s Oscar-winning documentary “An Inconvenient Truth”. Yesterday, Katie Couric sat down for an exclusive interview the former Vice President in advance of the release of his new book, Our Choice.
In the interview, Mr. Gore talks about the potential impacts of climate change, the need for sustained action, the importance of reducing dependence on foreign oil, and the benefits that can be realized in the process. He also addresses questions about his most vocal climate change critics.
The following are highlights from the interview, or you can watch the full show on the CBS News website.
Clip 1:We’ve Got To Act
AlGorespeaks about the key to solving the climate crisis is having a strong grassroots consensus, and how many people are beginning to stand up.
AngelPoints, Inc. is a Sausalito, California-based software company whose mission it is to make it easier for large organizations to communicate, organize and measure their employee volunteer efforts. Their initial products, available since 2001, have mainly focused on corporate fundraising efforts, and are used by some of the world’s largest companies, like Toyota, eBay, Intuit and Hilton.
Ford Motor Company may not be the first name that comes to mind when you think about large corporations that are committed to sustainability. After all, the company is one of the oldest and largest industrial corporations around, and produces many of the large SUVs and trucks that are at the center of the current climate controversy. So it may be surprising for some to learn that the company actually has a very extensive sustainability strategy in the works.
For the sake of transparency, it should be mentioned that I am an occasional contributor to TriplePundit. We all know what we need to do to make our companies more environmentally friendly: use less energy, water, and paper, travel less and make less garbage. But yeah, it’s easier said than done especially if you’re in a carbon intensive business like manufacturing or energy production. What’s the company without a lot of time or expertise to do? Well, hire someone, of course! Who do you hire, and how do you know what to look for? Here’s the lowdown on the biggest and smallest players in the newest consulting game and how to separate the wheat from the formerly-unemployed-newly-rebranded “Sustainability Consultant.”First, you need to know what you are looking for. Different consultants have different kinds of expertise:
Sustainability Strategy
These are the guys to hire in 2 situations: first, you don’t even know what you need to know. They can advise you about all the different options available to make your business more sustainable and help you set sustainability goals. Second, these are the folks you want if you have made a lot of basic improvements like installing low flow faucets and energy savings devices, set the copier to default to double sided, and you’re looking for a way to integrate your sustainability initiatives into your overall business efforts. Because this step can seem a bit nebulous (what am I actually getting for my money?), this is the place to either take a personal recommendation (3P’s are at the bottom of the post) or go for the name. Many consultants are also writers of well regarded books on sustainability, like Hunter Lovins and Andrew Winston. In addition to being respected by their peers in the sustainability community, these folks have their own brand to protect, so they are going to do their best to make sure your company is well taken care of.
Above: U.S. Hikes, a live data table by Factual.com: Click & Scroll to view & edit data.
“Decisions. They are made every day. Some are made on the fly such as when a low fuel alert prompts me to stop at the nearest gas station. Some are more considered, involving detailed research and analysis, perhaps on the Internet or consulting with friends or experts. And others are made for us, by our friends and family, or our government. An important question is: are we all, given the data available to us today, making good, well-informed decisions? One thing is nearly certain, if your data isn’t accurate and accessible, a good decision isn’t likely to follow.” - Factual, Inc. CEO Gil Elbaz
…a hitherto obscure macroeconomist who died over a decade ago. Many economists had never heard of him when the crisis struck… But lately he has begun emerging as perhaps the most prescient big-picture thinker about what, exactly, we are going through…Minsky was one economist who saw what was coming. He predicted, decades ago, almost exactly the kind of meltdown that recently hammered the global economy.
Minsky basically believed that the conservative fiscal stance which comes in the wake of a financial collapse, such as the Great Depression, would inevitably sow the seeds for the next crisis decades down the road. The main ingredients are time and short human memories, “Instability,” he wrote, “is an inherent and inescapable flaw of capitalism.” The article compares Minsky’s view to the one held by mainstream economics, that capitalism is self-regulating and self-stabilizing, known as the Neoclassical Synthesis.
“The conceit that corporations must be treated identically to natural persons in the political sphere is not only inaccurate but also inadequate to justify the Court’s disposition of this case.” – Minority Opinion by Supreme Court Justices Ginsburg, Breyer and Sotomayor.
Ever since I was a kid, when my father used give me Matchbox cars he bought on his way home from work, I’ve been crazy about cars. So I was extremely excited to have the opportunity to speak with Simon Saba of 
Ford Motor Company may not be the first name that comes to mind when you think about large corporations that are committed to sustainability. After all, the company is one of the oldest and largest industrial corporations around, and produces many of the large SUVs and trucks that are at the center of the current climate controversy. So it may be surprising for some to learn that the company actually has a very extensive sustainability strategy in the works.
We all know what we need to do to make our companies more environmentally friendly: use less energy, water, and paper, travel less and make less garbage. But yeah, it’s easier said than done especially if you’re in a carbon intensive business like manufacturing or energy production. What’s the company without a lot of time or expertise to do? Well, hire someone, of course! Who do you hire, and how do you know what to look for? Here’s the lowdown on the biggest and smallest players in the newest consulting game and how to separate the wheat from the formerly-unemployed-newly-rebranded “Sustainability Consultant.”First, you need to know what you are looking for. Different consultants have different kinds of expertise:
