The Aptera is not like any vehicle on the road today. It's made with ultra-light (but superstrong) composites, and it has just three wheels to reduce its weight still further. It also has a funky shape—a cross between an insect and a flying saucer—that was designed in the computerized equivalent of a wind tunnel to minimize drag. By next year the car will be available in two models—one hybrid electric and the other purely electric, which can be plugged into any outlet—"even a solar carport," says cofounder Steven Fambro.
Not that a $30,000 two-seater that requires eight hours of recharging will be everyone's ideal car. But Fambro isn't worried. He's presold 1,300 Apteras without spending a dollar on advertising (although he's selling only in California at first to minimize distribution and repair issues). "It's selling itself," he says. "And $100-a-barrel oil doesn't hurt." Are you listening, GM?
8. Stoves for the masses: Inefficient cooking methods are not a trivial problem.
Some 2 billion people in the developing world cook in rudimentary stoves or over open fires. Either way, most of the heat escapes into the air rather than warming the food. Efficient stoves could slash the amount of fuel they use, decreasing emissions and deforestation, too. "A family of five can use three tons of wood a year for cooking," says Columbia University engineer Vijay Modi. "If that family saves one ton of wood per year, that can translate into more than a ton of CO2 saved every year for that family alone." But such stoves have to be cheap, durable and attractive, as well as efficient. A Colorado company called Envirofit International has three new stoves that fit the bill, and the Shell Foundation is investing $25 million to help send 10 million of them to India, Africa and Latin America.
9. New roots for old crops: Perennials could have advantages over annuals.
Modern agriculture, with its nitrogen-based fertilizers, has enabled the Earth's population to swell from 3 billion in 1960 to 6.6 billion today. But agricultural chemicals are contaminating groundwater, and with each plowing and reaping, the world loses millions of tons of fragile topsoil. That's why Wes Jackson's staff at the Land Institute is crossbreeding important crops like corn, wheat, sorghum and sunflowers with wild relatives to create perennials instead of annuals. They are hardier, requiring fewer chemicals, and with the elimination of tilling, he says, "we could take agricultural soil erosion to near zero."
10. Democratize green: Ecofriendly products need to go mainstream.
As long as green products are the exclusive domain of the wealthy, the benefits will be limited. That's why Adam Werbach, global CEO for Saatchi & Saatchi S, is working with major corporations to green their mainstream brands. Take Tide Coldwater, which is formulated to wash clothes best in, well, cold water. "It's a breakthrough product," says Werbach. "If everyone changed from washing laundry in hot water to cold, that alone would meet nearly 8 percent of the United States' Kyoto targets"—that is, if we'd actually signed the protocol.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
10 fixes for the planet - page 2
5. Plastic solar cells: Lightweight and inexpensive, they could be very practical.
Alan Heeger, professor of physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara, loves the traditional solar panels on his roof. "Every day, when the sun comes up, my electricity meter runs backwards, as I sell electricity to the grid," he says. But a system as large as his can cost upwards of $60,000. That's why Heeger is developing so-called plastic solar cells—inexpensive photovoltaic nanochips, 500 times thinner than a human hair. Unlike standard silicon chips, which are synthesized at high temperatures, these cells can self-assemble at room temperature on a flexible plastic film. The film can be bonded to almost any surface, forming a thin coating of solar cells that can be tapped for energy.
Heeger won the 2000 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for developing such materials. He went on to co-found a company called Konarka Technologies, which will bring the first small-scale applications to market later this year. Think of handbags coated with flexible solar cells ("as you walk around, it could charge your cell phone") or tents painted with solar cells, for electricity while camping. "The fact that you can fold it or roll it up shows the cells are very lightweight," says Heeger.
But there's a catch. His chips at present convert only about 5 percent of sunlight (versus 15 to 18 percent for standard solar panels)—and only from the visible part of the spectrum. Ted Sargent at the University of Toronto is developing chips that can harvest an additional 4 percent from the infrared portion. With a combination of plastic cells like these, you could start to get close to useful strengths of 10 to 15 percent. When that happens, the impact could be widespread. "There are a billion or more people with no electricity," Heeger says. "A small system, producing less than 100 watts of electricity, would change their lives, giving them light to read and study or power for a radio and a small TV." And there would be no harmful emissions or moving parts to break down.
6. Climate counts: You can vote with your dollars to support green companies.
Gary Hirshberg is constantly looking for ways to make his organic-yogurt company, Stonyfield Farm, even cleaner. He uses no toxic chemicals, has the largest solar array in New Hampshire and converts yogurt waste into a bio-gas that can be burned rather than turning it into sludge. Now Hirshberg is encouraging others to follow his lead.
Last year he launched a nonprofit and Web site called ClimateCounts.org to rank major corporations, from PepsiCo to Microsoft, on the basis of 22 criteria, including measuring their carbon footprint, reducing emissions and supporting progressive climate legislation. The scores, updated annually, are revealing. Stonyfield Farm itself rated only 63 out of a possible 100 points—and it was one of the top scorers. Apple Inc., despite its hip image, pulled a grade of just 2. "We all have a long way to go," says Hirshberg. But he hopes that consumers will put their dollars behind companies that are trying hard to help the environment. "We have to stop treating the Earth as if it were a wholly-owned subsidiary of our economy," he says.
7. The Aptera: A funky new hybrid-electric car gets 300 miles per gallon of gas.
The dirty secret of automakers, says Jib Ellison, CEO of BluSkye Sustainability Consulting, is that most of the energy used by a car comes from moving the vehicle itself, not the people in it. "That's because cars aren't designed to be as aerodynamic as they could be, and because we have this obsession with heavy vehicles, even though there are now lighter materials that are just as safe," he says. But a prototype car from upstart Aptera Motors in Carlsbad, Calif., could help change all that.
Alan Heeger, professor of physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara, loves the traditional solar panels on his roof. "Every day, when the sun comes up, my electricity meter runs backwards, as I sell electricity to the grid," he says. But a system as large as his can cost upwards of $60,000. That's why Heeger is developing so-called plastic solar cells—inexpensive photovoltaic nanochips, 500 times thinner than a human hair. Unlike standard silicon chips, which are synthesized at high temperatures, these cells can self-assemble at room temperature on a flexible plastic film. The film can be bonded to almost any surface, forming a thin coating of solar cells that can be tapped for energy.
Heeger won the 2000 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for developing such materials. He went on to co-found a company called Konarka Technologies, which will bring the first small-scale applications to market later this year. Think of handbags coated with flexible solar cells ("as you walk around, it could charge your cell phone") or tents painted with solar cells, for electricity while camping. "The fact that you can fold it or roll it up shows the cells are very lightweight," says Heeger.
But there's a catch. His chips at present convert only about 5 percent of sunlight (versus 15 to 18 percent for standard solar panels)—and only from the visible part of the spectrum. Ted Sargent at the University of Toronto is developing chips that can harvest an additional 4 percent from the infrared portion. With a combination of plastic cells like these, you could start to get close to useful strengths of 10 to 15 percent. When that happens, the impact could be widespread. "There are a billion or more people with no electricity," Heeger says. "A small system, producing less than 100 watts of electricity, would change their lives, giving them light to read and study or power for a radio and a small TV." And there would be no harmful emissions or moving parts to break down.
6. Climate counts: You can vote with your dollars to support green companies.
Gary Hirshberg is constantly looking for ways to make his organic-yogurt company, Stonyfield Farm, even cleaner. He uses no toxic chemicals, has the largest solar array in New Hampshire and converts yogurt waste into a bio-gas that can be burned rather than turning it into sludge. Now Hirshberg is encouraging others to follow his lead.
Last year he launched a nonprofit and Web site called ClimateCounts.org to rank major corporations, from PepsiCo to Microsoft, on the basis of 22 criteria, including measuring their carbon footprint, reducing emissions and supporting progressive climate legislation. The scores, updated annually, are revealing. Stonyfield Farm itself rated only 63 out of a possible 100 points—and it was one of the top scorers. Apple Inc., despite its hip image, pulled a grade of just 2. "We all have a long way to go," says Hirshberg. But he hopes that consumers will put their dollars behind companies that are trying hard to help the environment. "We have to stop treating the Earth as if it were a wholly-owned subsidiary of our economy," he says.
7. The Aptera: A funky new hybrid-electric car gets 300 miles per gallon of gas.
The dirty secret of automakers, says Jib Ellison, CEO of BluSkye Sustainability Consulting, is that most of the energy used by a car comes from moving the vehicle itself, not the people in it. "That's because cars aren't designed to be as aerodynamic as they could be, and because we have this obsession with heavy vehicles, even though there are now lighter materials that are just as safe," he says. But a prototype car from upstart Aptera Motors in Carlsbad, Calif., could help change all that.
10 fixes for the planet - page 1
By Anne Underwood | NEWSWEEK
From the magazine issue dated Apr 14, 2008
If Wes Jackson, founder and president of the Land Institute in Salina, Kans., has one complaint, it's what he calls "our deficit spending of the Earth's ecological capital," from oil and minerals to water and trees. NEWSWEEK asked dozens of thinkers for their solutions, from 300mpg cars to using enormous kites to help pull ships.
1. Zero waste: Recycling paper, plastic and aluminum is a start, but, oh, so 20th century.
Eric Lombardi hates waste. "Landfills are like black holes, where resources go in and never come out," says the executive director of Eco-Cycle, a nonprofit recycler in Boulder, Colo. "As the world's population explodes and its resource base shrinks, we can't afford that." Instead, Lombardi wants manufacturers to make most or all of their products fully recyclable, using materials
designed to be recaptured rather than ending up in junkyards. It's not impossible, as companies like Shaw Carpets and office-furniture maker Steelcase are showing. Both make products with stringent C2C Certification, indicating total recyclability—and 40 other other companies, tapping into the green building trend, are doing the same. "Waste is expensive and inefficient," says Lombardi. "It only appears cheap because the market doesn't send bills to industry for groundwater pollution and resource depletion."
2. LED light bulbs: Never mind the cliché, they really might be a better idea.
Now that we've all dutifully stocked up on compact fluorescents, guess what? A new generation of even better bulbs may be on its way. LED bulbs burn just half the energy, last eight times longer and contain no traces of mercury, as CFLs do. The best of the fledgling bulbs is the Pharox from Lemnis Lighting. While LEDs have long been used for colored digital readouts and traffic signals, manufacturers have had trouble making white LED bulbs that are as strong as incandescents. Truthfully, the Pharox isn't there yet. It produces only as much light as a standard 40-watt bulb, and it's hugely expensive ($39.95 per bulb). On the other hand, it consumes a meager four watts, and a more powerful 60-watt equivalent is coming soon. In November, Lemnis partnered with the Clinton Climate Initiative to help bring the bulb to 40 major cities worldwide.
3. Greener fairways: Not all golf courses are bad for the environment.
When Mark Kuhns arrives at work early in the morning, he is greeted by what he calls "my wildlife symphony"—the chirps and squawks of red-winged blackbirds, bluebirds, tree swallows, goldfinches and red-tailed hawks. That might be normal if he worked in a wildlife reserve, but he doesn't. He's director of grounds at Baltusrol Golf Club in Springfield, N.J. Golf courses are infamous for high use of pesticides and water. But Baltusrol is one of 516 U.S. courses (4 percent of the nation's total) that are certified by Audubon International as Audubon sanctuaries. "It takes one to three years to go through the process," says Joellen Zeh, manager of the Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary Program. Courses convert an average of 22 acres of turf grass into wildlife habitat along out-of-play and shoreline areas. "That's 22 acres that don't need to be watered, irrigated, fertilized or mowed on a daily or weekly basis," she says. A survey a few years ago found that 82 percent of sanctuary courses reduced their pesticide use, and when they did have to spray, 92 percent used gentler chemicals. At the same time, 99 percent of managers said playing quality was maintained or improved. Now, if Kuhns hears a complaint about, say, the weedy-looking thistles near hole number seven, he points out the goldfinches clinging to the stalks and eating the seeds. He usually makes a convert.
4. Kite sails: The world's oldest form of propulsion may soon return to shipping.
Any idea how far the largest container ships can go on a gallon of fuel? Try 37 feet. That adds up to 2 billion barrels of petroleum a year. "If the shipping industry were a country, it would be No. 7 in carbon emissions," says Michael Hirshfield, chief scientist for Oceana.
That's why some major shippers are hoping to tap wind energy to help pull their vessels along. They're not talking about traditional sails, which would require rebuilding ships' hulls to withstand forces from a mast. Instead, they're thinking of giant kites—as big as 20,000 square feet in area—that could be attached to the bow of a ship. "They look like parasails," says Hirshfield. "They could be a relatively cheap add-on, without designing a whole new ship." Not that industrial-size kites are simple, either. "When you launch a kite in a park, somebody holds the string and someone else launches the kite," says Dave Culp, CEO of KiteShip in Alameda, Calif. "For a giant kite, you need a robotic arm to pick it up in the wind and let go of it. That sounds trivial until you consider the kite is the size of a football field." And if the wind dies suddenly, you can't have the kite crashing into the sea. A German company called SkySails has developed a fully automated system that appears to have solved these problems without requiring skilled sailors to manipulate the kites. SkySails recently completed a test run on a 10,000-ton ship from Germany to Venezuela and back, saving roughly 20 percent on engine power.
From the magazine issue dated Apr 14, 2008
If Wes Jackson, founder and president of the Land Institute in Salina, Kans., has one complaint, it's what he calls "our deficit spending of the Earth's ecological capital," from oil and minerals to water and trees. NEWSWEEK asked dozens of thinkers for their solutions, from 300mpg cars to using enormous kites to help pull ships.
1. Zero waste: Recycling paper, plastic and aluminum is a start, but, oh, so 20th century.
Eric Lombardi hates waste. "Landfills are like black holes, where resources go in and never come out," says the executive director of Eco-Cycle, a nonprofit recycler in Boulder, Colo. "As the world's population explodes and its resource base shrinks, we can't afford that." Instead, Lombardi wants manufacturers to make most or all of their products fully recyclable, using materials
designed to be recaptured rather than ending up in junkyards. It's not impossible, as companies like Shaw Carpets and office-furniture maker Steelcase are showing. Both make products with stringent C2C Certification, indicating total recyclability—and 40 other other companies, tapping into the green building trend, are doing the same. "Waste is expensive and inefficient," says Lombardi. "It only appears cheap because the market doesn't send bills to industry for groundwater pollution and resource depletion."
2. LED light bulbs: Never mind the cliché, they really might be a better idea.
Now that we've all dutifully stocked up on compact fluorescents, guess what? A new generation of even better bulbs may be on its way. LED bulbs burn just half the energy, last eight times longer and contain no traces of mercury, as CFLs do. The best of the fledgling bulbs is the Pharox from Lemnis Lighting. While LEDs have long been used for colored digital readouts and traffic signals, manufacturers have had trouble making white LED bulbs that are as strong as incandescents. Truthfully, the Pharox isn't there yet. It produces only as much light as a standard 40-watt bulb, and it's hugely expensive ($39.95 per bulb). On the other hand, it consumes a meager four watts, and a more powerful 60-watt equivalent is coming soon. In November, Lemnis partnered with the Clinton Climate Initiative to help bring the bulb to 40 major cities worldwide.
3. Greener fairways: Not all golf courses are bad for the environment.
When Mark Kuhns arrives at work early in the morning, he is greeted by what he calls "my wildlife symphony"—the chirps and squawks of red-winged blackbirds, bluebirds, tree swallows, goldfinches and red-tailed hawks. That might be normal if he worked in a wildlife reserve, but he doesn't. He's director of grounds at Baltusrol Golf Club in Springfield, N.J. Golf courses are infamous for high use of pesticides and water. But Baltusrol is one of 516 U.S. courses (4 percent of the nation's total) that are certified by Audubon International as Audubon sanctuaries. "It takes one to three years to go through the process," says Joellen Zeh, manager of the Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary Program. Courses convert an average of 22 acres of turf grass into wildlife habitat along out-of-play and shoreline areas. "That's 22 acres that don't need to be watered, irrigated, fertilized or mowed on a daily or weekly basis," she says. A survey a few years ago found that 82 percent of sanctuary courses reduced their pesticide use, and when they did have to spray, 92 percent used gentler chemicals. At the same time, 99 percent of managers said playing quality was maintained or improved. Now, if Kuhns hears a complaint about, say, the weedy-looking thistles near hole number seven, he points out the goldfinches clinging to the stalks and eating the seeds. He usually makes a convert.
4. Kite sails: The world's oldest form of propulsion may soon return to shipping.
Any idea how far the largest container ships can go on a gallon of fuel? Try 37 feet. That adds up to 2 billion barrels of petroleum a year. "If the shipping industry were a country, it would be No. 7 in carbon emissions," says Michael Hirshfield, chief scientist for Oceana.
That's why some major shippers are hoping to tap wind energy to help pull their vessels along. They're not talking about traditional sails, which would require rebuilding ships' hulls to withstand forces from a mast. Instead, they're thinking of giant kites—as big as 20,000 square feet in area—that could be attached to the bow of a ship. "They look like parasails," says Hirshfield. "They could be a relatively cheap add-on, without designing a whole new ship." Not that industrial-size kites are simple, either. "When you launch a kite in a park, somebody holds the string and someone else launches the kite," says Dave Culp, CEO of KiteShip in Alameda, Calif. "For a giant kite, you need a robotic arm to pick it up in the wind and let go of it. That sounds trivial until you consider the kite is the size of a football field." And if the wind dies suddenly, you can't have the kite crashing into the sea. A German company called SkySails has developed a fully automated system that appears to have solved these problems without requiring skilled sailors to manipulate the kites. SkySails recently completed a test run on a 10,000-ton ship from Germany to Venezuela and back, saving roughly 20 percent on engine power.
New Green leaders - page 2
South Korea's new president, Lee Myung-bak, is also widely expected to make the environment a top concern of his administration. Lee was born into poverty, rose to the top of Hyundai, the country's largest conglomerate, and presided over Korea's headlong rush to industrialize, a time in which it quickly became a world leader in steel, petrochemicals and other heavy industry. Yet as a politician, it was Lee's efforts to green Seoul during his stint as mayor from 2002 to 2006 that brought him to national prominence. (His signature achievement: a campaign to clean a fetid waterway that had been buried beneath a concrete highway system in the 1970s.) Koreans share these priorities: a recent poll reported that 53 percent think environmental protection is more important than development.
Many Asian leaders, like Lee, still have one foot in the old world where economic growth was the measure of everything. That's especially true in China. By any measure, China's ecosystems are severely stressed, but President Hu Jintao has given signs that he understands how degraded China's environment has become, and that further damage could hobble the economy and trigger social unrest. He has unveiled ambitious policies to promote energy efficiency, created a "circular economy" based on sustainability and recycling, and begun to enact a climate-change policy "that is ahead of many other countries," argues Christine Loh, founder of the influential Hong Kong think tank Civic Exchange.
In rapidly industrializing nations like China, it is local pollution that drives environmentalism, but savvy leaders will need to harness that sentiment to make progress on the No. 1 international environmental issue: climate change. "Climate change is by far the biggest environmental issue of our time, and indeed of any time," says John Holdren, the director of the Science, Technology & Public Policy program at Harvard's Kennedy School. In the past, developing countries dragged their feet on this issue, arguing—not unreasonably—that climate change is a legacy of the West's industrialization, and that they must focus on economic development above all else. But at the Bali climate talks last year, "that really substantially turned around," Holdren says, largely because the effects of climate change are already being felt in the developing world in the form of droughts, storms and melting glaciers. "They're now saying, 'We understand that climate change is already harming us, and that a solution will have to include us'."
Rolling back climate change is a challenge that will test the resolve of today's green heads of state, who are less hard-core environmentalists than realists responding to new political truths. Rudd, for instance, supports logging in his country's old-growth forests—hardly a Greenpeace action item. China's leaders plan to install 30 gigawatts of wind power by 2020, but in 2006 added 90 gigawatts more of new coal-fired plants. That kind of dichotomy is likely to be a hallmark of the Age of Green. Just ask George Bush.
With William Underhill, B.J. Lee, Stefan Theil and Melinda Liu
Many Asian leaders, like Lee, still have one foot in the old world where economic growth was the measure of everything. That's especially true in China. By any measure, China's ecosystems are severely stressed, but President Hu Jintao has given signs that he understands how degraded China's environment has become, and that further damage could hobble the economy and trigger social unrest. He has unveiled ambitious policies to promote energy efficiency, created a "circular economy" based on sustainability and recycling, and begun to enact a climate-change policy "that is ahead of many other countries," argues Christine Loh, founder of the influential Hong Kong think tank Civic Exchange.
In rapidly industrializing nations like China, it is local pollution that drives environmentalism, but savvy leaders will need to harness that sentiment to make progress on the No. 1 international environmental issue: climate change. "Climate change is by far the biggest environmental issue of our time, and indeed of any time," says John Holdren, the director of the Science, Technology & Public Policy program at Harvard's Kennedy School. In the past, developing countries dragged their feet on this issue, arguing—not unreasonably—that climate change is a legacy of the West's industrialization, and that they must focus on economic development above all else. But at the Bali climate talks last year, "that really substantially turned around," Holdren says, largely because the effects of climate change are already being felt in the developing world in the form of droughts, storms and melting glaciers. "They're now saying, 'We understand that climate change is already harming us, and that a solution will have to include us'."
Rolling back climate change is a challenge that will test the resolve of today's green heads of state, who are less hard-core environmentalists than realists responding to new political truths. Rudd, for instance, supports logging in his country's old-growth forests—hardly a Greenpeace action item. China's leaders plan to install 30 gigawatts of wind power by 2020, but in 2006 added 90 gigawatts more of new coal-fired plants. That kind of dichotomy is likely to be a hallmark of the Age of Green. Just ask George Bush.
With William Underhill, B.J. Lee, Stefan Theil and Melinda Liu
The New Green Leaders - page 1
ENVIRONMENT AND LEADERSHIP
The New Green Leaders
The eco-movement is turning governance upside down. Who's winning this brand-new game?
By Barrett Sheridan and George Wehrfritz | NEWSWEEK
From the magazine issue dated May 5, 2008
With less than a year left in office, President George W. Bush will probably never win the Greenpeace seal of approval. He is, after all, the leader who, in one of his first official acts back in 2001, rejected the Kyoto Protocol, keeping the United States from participating in the effort to curb carbon emissions. He also told a skeptical Congress that opening Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling was essential to national security. Lately, however, Bush is turning … well, if not green, then at least lime or chartreuse. In mid-April he announced that the United States would be willing to commit to binding emissions targets. He has also signed into law the first increase in auto-efficiency requirements in three decades and embraced alternative fuels. What is behind Bush's late-term epiphany about the environment?
The answer: public opinion. The state of the environment has begun to loom large in the minds of Americans. In 2007, the Pew Global Attitudes Project found that 37 percent of Americans named environmental problems as a top global threat, a 61 percent increase from just five years earlier. Sensing this groundswell of environmentalism, Bush knows that he risks being labeled in history books as the last major leader to ignore the environmental perils facing the world. The two Democratic candidates for Bush's job, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, as well as the presumptive Republican nominee, John McCain, have all come out in favor of ambitious plans to roll back climate change, including a cap-and-trade program to cut carbon emissions.
The green tilt can be felt not only in the United States. The Pew survey included 46 other nations, and in all but three the environment had swelled in importance between 2002 and 2007. (The laggards were Jordan, Lebanon and the Ivory Coast.) Between 45 and 66 percent of Western Europeans named environmental issues as a top threat last year, as did 70 percent of Chinese. People in India, Brazil and other large developing nations also felt strongly. Chalk it up to the blizzard of doomsday predictions from scientists or Al Gore's PR blitz—either way, it equates to a rising global demand for environmentally sound leaders, and a public that will give them unprecedented support for tackling the thorny problems facing the planet. It should also give fresh impetus to climate talks now underway for a post-Kyoto agreement, which this time around is likely to include China and India.
Leaders that truly want to prove their green worth would do well to look north. In Iceland, a country better known for cod than clean technology, an amazing 80 percent of energy comes from renewable sources like hydroelectric and geothermal power plants. That achievement has been decades in the making—Iceland has long tapped its rivers and volcanoes for electricity. Prime Minister Geir H. Haarde now wants to export his country's success in alternative energy. With government backing, Icelandic companies are taking their expertise in renewables to places as diverse as Djibouti, China and southern California. Although Iceland, with its geothermal reserves and tiny population, may be in a unique position, other heads of state might find an idea or two by looking to Reykjavik.
Still, getting citizens to sacrifice income for the environment's sake will be easier in Stockholm than in Tokyo and London. Although Western Europe and Japan have been far ahead of the rest of the world on the environment, old-fashioned politics still temper the greenest rhetoric. Many of the measures environmentalists are calling for and politicians give lip service to are meeting stiff resistance from lobbyists and entrenched bureaucrats. Whereas Britain's Tony Blair made the environment his calling card, and Angela Merkel has initiated climate-change measures in Germany and the European Union, both Merkel and Blair's successor, Gordon Brown, are struggling to implement their green agendas. Brown has taken flak for his support of coal-fired plants and a new runway at Heathrow airport. Merkel has been reluctant to confront Germany's coal, steel and cement industries over carbon emissions. Nicolas Sarkozy has tried to make himself out to be France's green president, but he's lately run into trouble with environmentalists over genetically modified foods. And Japan's Yasuo Fukuda has made the environment a high priority—it will be on the agenda of the G8 summit in July, which Japan is hosting—though he's been in office too short a time to accomplish much.
The appetite for change is more evident elsewhere, especially in Asia. Australia's recent presidential election highlights the shift in political climate. The vanquished John Howard—the country's second longest-serving prime minister—was famously friendly to industry, defended his country's domestic coal businesses and denounced carbon trading as a "knee-jerk reaction" to global warming. His rival, Labor Party candidate Kevin Rudd, was better tuned to the Zeitgeist: after stumping on the pledge to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, he won by a margin so large the media dubbed it a "Ruddslide."
The New Green Leaders
The eco-movement is turning governance upside down. Who's winning this brand-new game?
By Barrett Sheridan and George Wehrfritz | NEWSWEEK
From the magazine issue dated May 5, 2008
With less than a year left in office, President George W. Bush will probably never win the Greenpeace seal of approval. He is, after all, the leader who, in one of his first official acts back in 2001, rejected the Kyoto Protocol, keeping the United States from participating in the effort to curb carbon emissions. He also told a skeptical Congress that opening Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling was essential to national security. Lately, however, Bush is turning … well, if not green, then at least lime or chartreuse. In mid-April he announced that the United States would be willing to commit to binding emissions targets. He has also signed into law the first increase in auto-efficiency requirements in three decades and embraced alternative fuels. What is behind Bush's late-term epiphany about the environment?
The answer: public opinion. The state of the environment has begun to loom large in the minds of Americans. In 2007, the Pew Global Attitudes Project found that 37 percent of Americans named environmental problems as a top global threat, a 61 percent increase from just five years earlier. Sensing this groundswell of environmentalism, Bush knows that he risks being labeled in history books as the last major leader to ignore the environmental perils facing the world. The two Democratic candidates for Bush's job, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, as well as the presumptive Republican nominee, John McCain, have all come out in favor of ambitious plans to roll back climate change, including a cap-and-trade program to cut carbon emissions.
The green tilt can be felt not only in the United States. The Pew survey included 46 other nations, and in all but three the environment had swelled in importance between 2002 and 2007. (The laggards were Jordan, Lebanon and the Ivory Coast.) Between 45 and 66 percent of Western Europeans named environmental issues as a top threat last year, as did 70 percent of Chinese. People in India, Brazil and other large developing nations also felt strongly. Chalk it up to the blizzard of doomsday predictions from scientists or Al Gore's PR blitz—either way, it equates to a rising global demand for environmentally sound leaders, and a public that will give them unprecedented support for tackling the thorny problems facing the planet. It should also give fresh impetus to climate talks now underway for a post-Kyoto agreement, which this time around is likely to include China and India.
Leaders that truly want to prove their green worth would do well to look north. In Iceland, a country better known for cod than clean technology, an amazing 80 percent of energy comes from renewable sources like hydroelectric and geothermal power plants. That achievement has been decades in the making—Iceland has long tapped its rivers and volcanoes for electricity. Prime Minister Geir H. Haarde now wants to export his country's success in alternative energy. With government backing, Icelandic companies are taking their expertise in renewables to places as diverse as Djibouti, China and southern California. Although Iceland, with its geothermal reserves and tiny population, may be in a unique position, other heads of state might find an idea or two by looking to Reykjavik.
Still, getting citizens to sacrifice income for the environment's sake will be easier in Stockholm than in Tokyo and London. Although Western Europe and Japan have been far ahead of the rest of the world on the environment, old-fashioned politics still temper the greenest rhetoric. Many of the measures environmentalists are calling for and politicians give lip service to are meeting stiff resistance from lobbyists and entrenched bureaucrats. Whereas Britain's Tony Blair made the environment his calling card, and Angela Merkel has initiated climate-change measures in Germany and the European Union, both Merkel and Blair's successor, Gordon Brown, are struggling to implement their green agendas. Brown has taken flak for his support of coal-fired plants and a new runway at Heathrow airport. Merkel has been reluctant to confront Germany's coal, steel and cement industries over carbon emissions. Nicolas Sarkozy has tried to make himself out to be France's green president, but he's lately run into trouble with environmentalists over genetically modified foods. And Japan's Yasuo Fukuda has made the environment a high priority—it will be on the agenda of the G8 summit in July, which Japan is hosting—though he's been in office too short a time to accomplish much.
The appetite for change is more evident elsewhere, especially in Asia. Australia's recent presidential election highlights the shift in political climate. The vanquished John Howard—the country's second longest-serving prime minister—was famously friendly to industry, defended his country's domestic coal businesses and denounced carbon trading as a "knee-jerk reaction" to global warming. His rival, Labor Party candidate Kevin Rudd, was better tuned to the Zeitgeist: after stumping on the pledge to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, he won by a margin so large the media dubbed it a "Ruddslide."
Greenpeace isn't always combative.
ON SCIENCE Sharon Begley Good Cop/Bad Cop Goes Green
On the environment, Greenpeace isn't always combative.
Published Apr 25, 2009
From the magazine issue dated May 4, 2009
The Greenpeace that the public knows has never met an environmental villain that it didn't want to make really, really miserable. So in the group's ongoing campaign to get Kimberly-Clark to stop using wood fiber from virgin forests for Kleenex and other paper products, activists have used a bus shaped like a box of Kleenex to block the entrance to one of the company's paper mills. Shadowing a marketing tour for the company's Cottonelle toilet paper, they have unfurled banners declaring the sites a "forest crime scene." But in 2007 the attacks got personal. As CEO Thomas Falk began a speech to an executive-education program at his alma mater, the Wisconsin School of Business, two Greenpeace activists switched his PowerPoint for theirs. Instead of a primer on Kimberly-Clark's success, the audience saw photos of the Canadian boreal forests that supply the company's wood, with before (lush trees) and after (a clear-cut moonscape) shots followed by a smiling Falk declaring, "It's all business as usual." After panicked organizers ordered everyone out ("There are activists in the building!"), the attendees trooped into a cafeteria where Greenpeace had placed menus for such delicacies as "songbird stir-fry," noting that half the songbird species in North America migrate to the boreal forests that supply Kimberly-Clark. (A company spokesman notes that although it purchases wood fiber from boreal forests, its suppliers are certified by groups that require sustainable practices.) "It's a little like 'Animal House,' but in grad school," says Scott Paul, who directs Greenpeace's Forest Campaign.
The Greenpeace the public doesn't know operates somewhat differently. A decade ago it formed a partnership with a German company to manufacture refrigerators that don't use chemicals called HFCs as their coolant (HFCs are greenhouse gases, now responsible for 17 percent of man-made global warming but on track to contribute as much as carbon dioxide). Greenpeace first got China's largest refrigerator-maker to produce Greenfreeze fridges, then one in Japan, then major Western manufacturers such as Whirlpool and Miele, with the result that 300 million Greenfreeze fridges are in homes worldwide. No sit-ins, no banners, no PowerPoint sabotage was required; just business deals. "If Greenpeace is going to ring the siren saying there is an [environmental] emergency," says Amy Larkin, who directs the group's Solutions campaign of working with businesses, "we better bring the ambulance. I'm proud of my colleagues who are climbing companies' smokestacks to unfurl banners, but we need every kind of action."
Greenpeace can't say for sure that the possibility of smokestack climbing (and worse) makes companies more willing to cave to the group's demands, but "what we hear over and over again, especially after a few drinks, is company people telling us, 'We wouldn't be talking to you if we weren't scared of you'," says Greenpeace research director Kert Davies. Even if the threat is merely implicit, pairing hard-core activism with opportunistic cooperation may be exactly what the environmental community needs right now. The world has been backsliding on climate change for decades, and even a global recession has made hardly a dent in emissions: atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, the chief man-made greenhouse gas, rose 2.1 parts per million in 2008, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported last week, essentially unchanged from the 2.2ppm in booming 2007. And, yes, the Environmental Protection Agency just took the first steps toward regulating carbon dioxide, but if you believe that's going to cut emissions in time and be enough to avert expensive climate change, I have a nice bridge you might be interested in. That means enviros need to go to the sources of greenhouse emissions and offer them affordable, workable solutions. "Given the inertia of industry and the short reach of multinational political agreements, [green groups] should consider inside-out strategies," Cathy Hartman and Edwin Stafford of Utah State University argued in a 2006 analysis, explaining that "inside-out" pairs activism with cooperation.
The good-cop, bad-cop strategy has paid off. Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Unilever have all developed Greenfreeze technology for their vending machines and coolers; Unilever, maker of Ben & Jerry's ice cream, alone has deployed 2 million ice-cream coolers worldwide, including 2,000 in Boston and Washington on a test basis. (The EPA has to rule that the technology is safe and effective—that the fridges keep food cold and don't blow up, for instance—before Greenfreeze coolers can be rolled out commercially.) This year Wal-Mart began using a non-HFC refrigeration system in one of its Canadian stores, and is moving toward implementing the technology in the U.S., where its coolers are responsible for more greenhouse gases than its trucks. Greenpeace also got guitar makers, including Gibson and Fender, to press their suppliers to stop using 250-year-old Sitka spruces from Alaska's Tongass National Forest for the instruments' sound boards. As for Kimberly-Clark, Greenpeace has persuaded 20 colleges and 700 small businesses, such as mom-and-pop grocery stores, not to carry its products, and the company just introduced Scott Naturals, with some recycled fiber rather than just fiber from ancient trees. Score another for the bad cop.
On the environment, Greenpeace isn't always combative.
Published Apr 25, 2009
From the magazine issue dated May 4, 2009
The Greenpeace that the public knows has never met an environmental villain that it didn't want to make really, really miserable. So in the group's ongoing campaign to get Kimberly-Clark to stop using wood fiber from virgin forests for Kleenex and other paper products, activists have used a bus shaped like a box of Kleenex to block the entrance to one of the company's paper mills. Shadowing a marketing tour for the company's Cottonelle toilet paper, they have unfurled banners declaring the sites a "forest crime scene." But in 2007 the attacks got personal. As CEO Thomas Falk began a speech to an executive-education program at his alma mater, the Wisconsin School of Business, two Greenpeace activists switched his PowerPoint for theirs. Instead of a primer on Kimberly-Clark's success, the audience saw photos of the Canadian boreal forests that supply the company's wood, with before (lush trees) and after (a clear-cut moonscape) shots followed by a smiling Falk declaring, "It's all business as usual." After panicked organizers ordered everyone out ("There are activists in the building!"), the attendees trooped into a cafeteria where Greenpeace had placed menus for such delicacies as "songbird stir-fry," noting that half the songbird species in North America migrate to the boreal forests that supply Kimberly-Clark. (A company spokesman notes that although it purchases wood fiber from boreal forests, its suppliers are certified by groups that require sustainable practices.) "It's a little like 'Animal House,' but in grad school," says Scott Paul, who directs Greenpeace's Forest Campaign.
The Greenpeace the public doesn't know operates somewhat differently. A decade ago it formed a partnership with a German company to manufacture refrigerators that don't use chemicals called HFCs as their coolant (HFCs are greenhouse gases, now responsible for 17 percent of man-made global warming but on track to contribute as much as carbon dioxide). Greenpeace first got China's largest refrigerator-maker to produce Greenfreeze fridges, then one in Japan, then major Western manufacturers such as Whirlpool and Miele, with the result that 300 million Greenfreeze fridges are in homes worldwide. No sit-ins, no banners, no PowerPoint sabotage was required; just business deals. "If Greenpeace is going to ring the siren saying there is an [environmental] emergency," says Amy Larkin, who directs the group's Solutions campaign of working with businesses, "we better bring the ambulance. I'm proud of my colleagues who are climbing companies' smokestacks to unfurl banners, but we need every kind of action."
Greenpeace can't say for sure that the possibility of smokestack climbing (and worse) makes companies more willing to cave to the group's demands, but "what we hear over and over again, especially after a few drinks, is company people telling us, 'We wouldn't be talking to you if we weren't scared of you'," says Greenpeace research director Kert Davies. Even if the threat is merely implicit, pairing hard-core activism with opportunistic cooperation may be exactly what the environmental community needs right now. The world has been backsliding on climate change for decades, and even a global recession has made hardly a dent in emissions: atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, the chief man-made greenhouse gas, rose 2.1 parts per million in 2008, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported last week, essentially unchanged from the 2.2ppm in booming 2007. And, yes, the Environmental Protection Agency just took the first steps toward regulating carbon dioxide, but if you believe that's going to cut emissions in time and be enough to avert expensive climate change, I have a nice bridge you might be interested in. That means enviros need to go to the sources of greenhouse emissions and offer them affordable, workable solutions. "Given the inertia of industry and the short reach of multinational political agreements, [green groups] should consider inside-out strategies," Cathy Hartman and Edwin Stafford of Utah State University argued in a 2006 analysis, explaining that "inside-out" pairs activism with cooperation.
The good-cop, bad-cop strategy has paid off. Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Unilever have all developed Greenfreeze technology for their vending machines and coolers; Unilever, maker of Ben & Jerry's ice cream, alone has deployed 2 million ice-cream coolers worldwide, including 2,000 in Boston and Washington on a test basis. (The EPA has to rule that the technology is safe and effective—that the fridges keep food cold and don't blow up, for instance—before Greenfreeze coolers can be rolled out commercially.) This year Wal-Mart began using a non-HFC refrigeration system in one of its Canadian stores, and is moving toward implementing the technology in the U.S., where its coolers are responsible for more greenhouse gases than its trucks. Greenpeace also got guitar makers, including Gibson and Fender, to press their suppliers to stop using 250-year-old Sitka spruces from Alaska's Tongass National Forest for the instruments' sound boards. As for Kimberly-Clark, Greenpeace has persuaded 20 colleges and 700 small businesses, such as mom-and-pop grocery stores, not to carry its products, and the company just introduced Scott Naturals, with some recycled fiber rather than just fiber from ancient trees. Score another for the bad cop.
America Is Stupidly Shutting Out Immigrants. Isn’t It?
People Flows
America Is Stupidly Shutting Out Immigrants. Isn’t It?
By Katie Baker | NEWSWEEK
Published Apr 18, 2009
From the magazine issue dated Apr 27, 2009
Ever since 9/11, the general perception has been that America is over-building walls—both real and regulatory—to keep out immigrants. Horror stories about Indian engineers getting strip-searched as suspected terrorists provoked business leaders like Bill Gates to argue that the U.S. is scaring away talent, to its own disadvantage. Now the storyline has shifted, to focus on immigrants who are voluntarily leaving or avoiding America because the global financial crisis has tarnished its reputation as a land of growth and opportunity.
But the numbers tell a different story. According to a recent study by the Migration Policy Institute (MPI), total migration flows have been steady throughout the current decade, despite tighter background checks and interior crackdowns following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and despite the slowdown of the economy starting in 2007. Every year since 2000, the U.S. has attracted more than 1 million legal immigrants, including more than 1.1 million last year, and another half million illegal migrants. The walls are not as high as we thought.
American immigration may not be as crudely self-defeating as critics suggest. The MPI examination of census data looks at where immigrants come from and found that migration from Europe is down slightly since 2000 and that migration from Latin America has slowed since 2007. But the population hailing from Asia, the continent contributing most to the competitiveness of Silicon Valley, has been rising at an average annual pace of roughly 25 percent, or about 250,000 newcomers in 2008. The Asian arrivals appear to be undeterred by America's faltering economy. While other studies have argued that immigration has slowed with the economy since 2007, MPI president Demetrios Papademetriou says that's not likely: "Nothing's changed in terms of legal, permanent immigration." He also notes that, historically, recessions rarely deter immigrants, particularly legal immigrants. And most Asian immigrants to the U.S. are legal.
Migrants from Latin America are more often illegal, but the crisis has not produced an exodus. According to the Pew Hispanic Center,
from 2000 to 2008 the illegal Latin American immigrant population swelled from 8.4 million to 11.9 million, stalling twice (in 2001 after 9/11 and in 2007) but never reversing. The reason? "People are holding as tight as they can to what they've done here, either legally or illegally," says Papademetriou. "Part of it is: what are you going to go back to? The other part is this eternal human hope that things are going to turn around." While U.S. recessions don't deter Mexican migration flows, recessions in Mexico do encourage them. With Mexico's economy forecast to contract by as much as 2 percent in 2009, the wall going up on the border may be tested severely.
America Is Stupidly Shutting Out Immigrants. Isn’t It?
By Katie Baker | NEWSWEEK
Published Apr 18, 2009
From the magazine issue dated Apr 27, 2009
Ever since 9/11, the general perception has been that America is over-building walls—both real and regulatory—to keep out immigrants. Horror stories about Indian engineers getting strip-searched as suspected terrorists provoked business leaders like Bill Gates to argue that the U.S. is scaring away talent, to its own disadvantage. Now the storyline has shifted, to focus on immigrants who are voluntarily leaving or avoiding America because the global financial crisis has tarnished its reputation as a land of growth and opportunity.
But the numbers tell a different story. According to a recent study by the Migration Policy Institute (MPI), total migration flows have been steady throughout the current decade, despite tighter background checks and interior crackdowns following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and despite the slowdown of the economy starting in 2007. Every year since 2000, the U.S. has attracted more than 1 million legal immigrants, including more than 1.1 million last year, and another half million illegal migrants. The walls are not as high as we thought.
American immigration may not be as crudely self-defeating as critics suggest. The MPI examination of census data looks at where immigrants come from and found that migration from Europe is down slightly since 2000 and that migration from Latin America has slowed since 2007. But the population hailing from Asia, the continent contributing most to the competitiveness of Silicon Valley, has been rising at an average annual pace of roughly 25 percent, or about 250,000 newcomers in 2008. The Asian arrivals appear to be undeterred by America's faltering economy. While other studies have argued that immigration has slowed with the economy since 2007, MPI president Demetrios Papademetriou says that's not likely: "Nothing's changed in terms of legal, permanent immigration." He also notes that, historically, recessions rarely deter immigrants, particularly legal immigrants. And most Asian immigrants to the U.S. are legal.
Migrants from Latin America are more often illegal, but the crisis has not produced an exodus. According to the Pew Hispanic Center,
from 2000 to 2008 the illegal Latin American immigrant population swelled from 8.4 million to 11.9 million, stalling twice (in 2001 after 9/11 and in 2007) but never reversing. The reason? "People are holding as tight as they can to what they've done here, either legally or illegally," says Papademetriou. "Part of it is: what are you going to go back to? The other part is this eternal human hope that things are going to turn around." While U.S. recessions don't deter Mexican migration flows, recessions in Mexico do encourage them. With Mexico's economy forecast to contract by as much as 2 percent in 2009, the wall going up on the border may be tested severely.
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