Blogs & Ecology

Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty announced this week his Green Jobs Initiative for consideration in the 2009 legislative session.

The initiative offers a range of tax incentives for companies that produce renewable energy, manufacture renewable energy system components, or make green building products. The definition of green jobs could also include those in the service sector that support green business or install energy management systems.

Some of the specific elements of the Pawlenty’s initiative include:

Photos via Pro-Idee

Okay. I’m on the fence about this, so I’m opening it up to you all. Are these rechargeable foot warmers a clever way to keep yourself toasty without turning up the thermostat, and therefore keeping your carbon footprint small (har. har.)? Or, are they just another piece of junk in the long list of “Things We Don’t Need”?

We were delighted when Casa Decor, one of the leading interior design shows taking place in cities like London, Miami, Milan, Madrid or Lisbon, chose sustainability as this year’s theme for the Barcelona edition. After more than 38 exhibitions all around the world, presenting the latest in interior design, decoration and art, the Barcelona team has made an effort to motivate this year’s exhibiting designers to go green, under the slogan Pathway to a Sustainable Environment or Rumbo Sostenible in Spanish. But have they managed we wonder?

Photo credit: Getty Images

Are you willing to pay more for a greener magazine? A Heart Magazines survey found that 43 percent of respondents said they would pay more for a rag printed on recycled paper, while 39 percent said they would pay more for a magazine committed to eco-friendly practices.

Meanwhile, 43 percent of respondents said they would stop buying a product they regularly use if they learned that it was bad for the environment. ...

Image credit: GETTY

This article might just surprise you. You are probably expecting to see a wet noodle taken to CEOs of the chemicals industry and some blows to Walmart. But the truth is much more complicated. In fact, the chemical industry CEOs have led some of the greatest advances in green. And although greed may have been one driving factor, many issues subtly play into putting the chemical industry in a leadership position. Greed? Your brain hits the pause button. What is greedy about green?

Even though Lloyd wrote about the Corn Refiners Association ramping up an ad campaign to push back against the rising tide of realization that perhaps our current corn-centered agricultural system isn’t the best thing for our collective health or the environment, I confess that the whole thing wasn’t on my radar until this week, when New York Magazine’s ever popular and ever ...

Photo courtesy of Used Cardboard Boxes

Like all industries, the non-profit sector has its fair share of pockmarks and blemishes. Yet while it seems easy to take unflattering insider accounts from certain industries -- say, the energy and chemicals industries -- at face value, it is much more difficult to fully accept the criticisms made of environmental non-profits like The Nature Conservancy and the Sierra Club, many of which some of us have either worked with or volunteered for in the past.

In Green, Inc., though, veteran...

The Wall Street Journal ran a fascinating piece a couple of weeks ago on the emergence of the reusable bag as the go-to green choice of retailers nationwide – and the eco-disaster these bags represent.

A lot of leading retailers offer reusable bags – they’re the hip new green thing to be doing… and some municipalities (San Francisco) and retailers (Ikea) have taken the initiative to forbid the use of the ubiquitous "disposable" plastic bag.

But at what cost?

Image: Cow with mastitis (Monica Morgan on Flickr)

Photo courtesy of WKTV

Oregon Wild Sets the Record Straight on Timber Industry

The video below is the funniest propaganda I've seen since the infamous "CO2, We call it life" shenegins a couple years ago. It's almost as good as something you might see on The Onion.

In case you're wondering what's wrong with this picture, read on.

MTV’s Environmental Campaign Slams False Green Claims
Whether it’s political greenwash or commercial greenwash, lying, exaggerating or otherwise distorting truths to appear more sustainable than you really are is not something we TreeHuggers take lightly. It would seem that we’...

Solar powered Hello Kitty chargers sound adorable, right? And the little one just has to have every piece of Hello Kitty merchandise there is—it’s part of the collector’s set! She needs them all! Even the overwhelmingly pointless, waste-producing products like this Hello Kitty Disposable Solar Powered Cell Phone Charger.

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The next generation Toyota Prius, due out for the 2010 model year, will offer the option of rooftop solar panels. Produced by Kyocera, the panels are expected to produce no more than about 1 kilowatt of electricity.