Wednesday, 27 Apr 2005

In a culture so accustomed to casually impugning the intelligence of celebrities, a conversation with actor Edward Norton is a real eye-opener. He talks about the Solar Neighbors program he founded with BP, which installs solar panels on low-income housing in Los Angeles, his family's legacy of green activism, and his disgust with the Bush administration's environmental policies, in a chat with Amanda Griscom Little.

Moot Causes

Bush pushes refineries and nuke plants as solution to high energy prices

Many analysts say high energy prices are the result of inefficient use of non-renewable resources. President Bush does not employ any of those analysts. In a speech today, he will propose to address the "root causes" of high energy prices by, um, increasing the inefficient use of non-renewable resources. His five proposals will likely end up in the energy bill by the time the Senate votes on it. They are: encourage the construction of oil refineries on closed military bases; encourage the construction of nuclear power plants by easing the licensing process and providing federal risk insurance (long live the free market!); increase federal authority -- i.e., decrease state authority -- over the siting of liquefied natural gas terminals; encourage other countries to promote nuclear, "clean coal," and other slightly less polluting energy sources; and allow purchases of cars and trucks running on "clean diesel" to receive the same tax credit already slated for hybrid and fuel-cell vehicles.

Ceci N'est Pas une Wipe

Disposable wipes not just for baby bums anymore

The season of spring cleaning is upon us, and for many Americans that means taking to dirty surfaces with a few -- or a few million -- disposable wipes. With varieties specially made for scrubbing, dusting, disinfecting, and buffing everything from microwaves to granite countertops to leather goods, it's estimated that North Americans used some 83,000 tons of disposable wipes last year. Cleaning-wipe manufacturers, including Proctor & Gamble, 3M, and SC Johnson, say they are just giving consumers what they want -- quick and easy cleaning products. But these throwaway goods are not just adding to landfills, says solid-waste specialist P. Aarne Vesilind; pollution is spewed and fossil fuels are squandered as ever-growing heaps of wipes and other dumb disposables are hauled away from homes to far-off dumps.

Texaco to Ecuador: Have You Tried a Swiffer?

Texaco haunted by dirty legacy in Ecuador

At a ChevronTexaco shareholder meeting today in California, Amazonian community leaders, celebrities, and activists will confront company officials, focusing attention anew on Texaco's messy legacy in Ecuador. Twenty years of oil exploration in the nation left much of the western edge of the Amazon rainforest in ecological ruin and many villagers with unusually high rates of illness. Though Texaco fled Ecuador back in 1992, its joint venture with the nation's state oil company left behind some 600 unlined open sludge pits, compromised or destroyed about 2.5 million acres of rainforest, and released an estimated 20 billion gallons of wastewater directly into waterways. For its part, ChevronTexaco says it took care of the contamination in 1995 when it paid $40 million in cleanup costs to the Ecuadorian government. But locals and enviros estimate that a thorough cleanup would run about $6 billion, precisely what activists are seeking in cases winding through U.S. and Ecuadorian courts.

Gettin' Busy

U.S. business getting with it on climate change

Talk about how the U.S. private sector is taking global warming seriously often flirts with wishful thinking. But we are nothing if not wishful. And flirty. So here goes: It looks like momentum is gathering in the U.S. business community to forthrightly address the issue of climate change. In part due to shareholder and activist lobbying, a growing number of companies are releasing reports on the financial risks associated with warming, including American Electric Power and Cinergy, two of the nation's largest electric-power generators. Just this week, J.P. Morgan Chase, the country's third-largest bank, announced an aggressive climate policy, joining Citigroup and Bank of America. Last month, Duke Energy CEO Paul Anderson called for a federal tax on carbon-dioxide emissions. Exelon CEO John Rowe called for mandatory restraints on same. Says Mindy Lubber, president of Ceres, a coalition of investors and enviros, "Change is slow, painfully slow, so we have a long way to go, but progress is unquestionably being made."