Blogs & Ecology

Before TreeHugger know-it-alls Mike and Matt came along with their more sophisticated understanding of these issues, I spent four years dissing the idea of hydrogen cars or the long-term sustainability of any kind of private vehicle when they need a petroleum powered infrastructure. Nevertheless when I was invited to drive a GM hydrogen fuelled, fuel cell powered electric SUV I couldn't pass it up, and engineer Dick Kauling's boyish enthusiasm for the subject was overwhelming.

The GM auto plant in Janesville, WI is the company’s oldest in the country. Remember that television jingle we grew up hearing about Chevys being the “Heartbeat of America”? I think they were actually referring to Janesville. Opened in 1919, it survived both the Great Depression and WWII. The place is an institution. And according to GM CEO, Rick Wagoner, that institution is going to close by 2010.

Image by Flickr user Scribbling of Night

Crash test dummies are an almost ubiquitous part of the films that various consumer safety institutes like to show us in order to briefly inspire panic and safe driving before we all remember that “The Fast and The Furious” was so much cooler than “Driving Miss Daisy.”

On Thursday, Rick Wagoner, Chairman and CEO of General Motors came to San Francisco to speak about the future of the company and "green" auto technology. It's fascinating to think that not long ago, General Motors was a company beloved by most Americans, a symbol of the innovation, spirit, and the pleasant lifestyle typical of American culture. Today, it is the target of much criticism, when Wagoner must watch his words carefully and bring along a security outfit, for fear of protest.

In light of the news splashed across this week’s papers that the rise in food prices worldwide is forcing genetically modified foods onto the marketplace to cope with demand, one wonders why, exactly, GM foods are perceived to be so bad.

Image from gaymay

With world grain inventories running low, grain buyers who once were choosy are eying GM wheat and corn and rice sources as a cheap way to rebuild inventory. New York Times covers the story in depth. Of course, supporters of GM food can (some did) use famine as an argument to have governments and food distributors drop bans on GM food planting or sale. The logic is flawed.

And a new international assessment of the future of agriculture, released last Tuesday, gave such tepid support to the role genetic engineering could play in easing hunger that biotechnology industry representatives withdrew from the project in protest...

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Source: TreeHugger

It was a year ago that venture capitalist and solar energy

entrepreneur Jan-Olaf Willums appeared at the Cleantech Forum in San

Francisco shortly after taking over Think Global, a Norwegian electric

As long theorized, evidence has emerged that too extensive planting of Bt producing cotton in one setting can result in resistance to Bt by the ubiquitous Boll Worm. So how to mitigate against this? Pay some farmers not to use Bt modified crop seed? Encourage organic cotton farming round and about the Monsanto style plots? The solution seems like it would be a long term challenge if the economic benefits of using Bt producing cotton are high for the farmers.

University of Arizona entomologists looked at data from six experiments to monitor pests in fields sown with transgenic cotton and corn in Australia, China, Spain and the Uni...

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Source: TreeHugger

For Tesla Motors founder Martin Eberhard, getting news of his ouster

was like glancing at the review mirror and seeing one of his electric

Roadster supercars approaching at 130 miles an hour without a sound.

In other words, he was blindsided. "Somebody in the company asked me if I would be leaving at a certain

date and I said, `I don’t think so,' but that turned out to be the

case," Eberhard told Fortune’s Green Wombat.