Looking for the perfect gift for your radical, left-wing activist nephew? Greenpeace has just the product for you: a free downloadable board game called “Deepsea Desperation” that pits oil industry versus Greenpeace for control over deapsea oil reserves.
According to the Greenpeace website, the game is for two players, or teams of …
Business
Climate: Richard Branson Has a War Plan for Decarbonizing Global Business
The UN climate summit will begin in Cancun, Mexico on November 29 with, um, slightly less ambitious goals than last year’s doomed mega-meeting in Copenhagen. Though analysts are hoping that the Cancun meeting could provide some useful progress on specific issues like avoided deforestation and climate aid, few people expect the summit …
Will Britain sell off its public forests?
One of the major environmental challenges today is the task of convincing many developing economies in the tropics to protect their forests. But some countries up north in the developed world may soon understand how difficult it can be to strike a balance between economic pressures and arboreal conservation, at least according to a …
Venture Capital in Europe
Day two of the European Future Energy Forum in London and today I wanted to get a sense of the state of venture capital investment in cleantech and renewables in Europe. Specifically, how does it compare to the U.S?
Before he took the stage for a panel discussion titled “Low Carbon Financing in Europe—State of Play” I caught up …
The Future of Energy in Europe
I just spent an interesting morning at the European Future Energy Forum in London. The opening panel debate—titled “Movers and Shakers”—included representatives from European governments, industry and NGOs. A full line-up can be found here.
The conversation was fast-paced but seemed to orbit around what will happen if the next …
Climate: Business Sends a Message on Global Warming
I’m at the Mexico City airport now—at the Chili’s actually, eating a way-too-big for one person basket of chips—leaving the B4E Climate Summit. After Al Gore’s keynote speech yesterday afternoon, the conference organizers divided the audience into five sectors: transport and logistics; energy and utilities; food, water and …
Climate: Can Business Stop Global Warming?
I’m in Mexico City for the next two days, attending the B4E Climate Summit. B4E is conference speak (and text message speak) for business for the environment, and it’s a meeting that brings together sustainability experts at major corporations from around the world—Siemens, Coca-Cola, McKinsey—to discuss how business can become …
Niger Delta Oil Spills in Spotlight
With the world’s gaze focused on the dangers of oil spills, attention turned this week to a relatively overlooked environmental calamity: oil spills in Ogoniland, a part of Nigeria’s Niger Delta. If the BP rig disaster was a geyser, the spills in Ogoniland have been a slow bleed
Don’t Print This Blog Post!—the losing fight for paper conservation.
Please don’t print this blog post! Ach, who am I kidding, paper conservation is a losing battle. Don’t believe me? Check out this survey of 1000 employees in the UK conducted by consultancy firm Loudhouse on behalf of Japenese manufacturing giant Kyocera.
Inflight Recycling: Still Up in the Air
I was on a Qantas flight in eastern Australia last week when a flight attendant handed me what looked like a fancy barf bag. It was, in fact, not a fancy barf bag, but a fancy recycling bag, in which I was instructed to place everything that was not a can, plastic cup or a bottle. The idea is that the flight attendants collect and …