There's little to debate about the enormous impact our commercial culture has had on our planet. But there is much to debate about how our culture of excess consumerism and materialism can be transitioned into one of more efficient restraint and responsibility.
This week Office Depot, Southwest Airlines, Cricket Communications, and Hewlett-Packard joined the growing market trend against the logging industry's greenwash program, The 'Sustainable Forestry Initiative' (SFI).
What if you woke up one morning to learn that your community had become enlisted to advertise for Coca-Cola? You didn't have a choice. People in neighborhoods across your city were told the same thing. That's basically what happened in the city of Chicago.
Sustainable Forestry Initiative is the best greenwashing that money can buy. That's why so many companies have dropped the SFI label and it's also why the premier green building system, LEED, has refused SFI's many attempts to make SFI certified lumber eligible for LEED green building points.
Allowing large factory farms and other industrial agricultural operations to sell pollution credits to other sources doesn't reduce the overall amounts of poisons polluting our air and invading our watersheds, including the Chesapeake Bay.
The Center's efforts don't really change whether fracking can be done safely. What happens to fracking operators that aren't certified or who violate a performance standard?
Sustainability is a starting point. As a concept it is extremely relevant in our world today and it is by no means trite in that sense. But dialogue about sustainability is crucial to raising awareness and spurring action, and key to transforming our current situation.
I am tired of being told in private that green groups are against biomass, only to find biomass plant after biomass plant subsidized in the name of green energy, and now disguised as "combined heat and power" or merely tossed into existing coal plants.
Send all your eco-inquiries to Jennifer Grayson at eco.etiquette@gmail.com. Questions may be edited for length and clarity.
Well, my greenies, Miss E...
How much human misery and suffering will it take before we finally come together as citizens and incorporate a higher moral ethic into the pursuit of profit once and for all?
The so-called "green economy," which governments, business leaders, and some environmental organizations touted at last month's summit in Rio de Janeiro, is actually a greenwashed economy.
We need a big idea of how things could be better -- a morally compelling, ecologically sustainable and socially just idea that will not just make things a little better for a few, but a lot better for everyone. And we need to get active.
Despite all the hype about fuel efficient cars and the future of alternative fuels, there are few things more harmful to the environment than cars.
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Two years after the BP oil disaster, I ask for people to help make it right -- in the Gulf and across the country. We have the power to stop BP and the federal government from doing more harm. It is time to exercise our power in our communities.
The American Latino consumer community is a highly skeptical community, generally speaking, but one with deep cultural connections to the earth, to creative reuse and to conservation.
Big companies are discovering that going green does not just mean saving trees, but dollar bills, too. By becoming more sustainable, they are increasi...
Maintaining effective public relations and a positive image with the public are important parts of doing business. But for some companies, this task c...
Advertising could be considered an art of grand hyperbole, but are new car ads the latest brushstrokes on this fanciful canvas or truthful commentary on how far down the road car companies have come to lower pollution?
Hydropower projects need to be based on a balanced assessment of all available options, the full participation of affected communities, strict social and environmental guidelines, and public oversight.
The key issue for any concerned consumer is: Where's the power coming from? Most electricity in the U.S. comes from nuclear facilities or power plants that burn coal or fossil fuels.