The Greening of the Times

flower.jpgToday’s New York Times has an entire section on "The Business of Being Green" (Times Select), which includes articles on economies of scale in alternative energy, carbon-offset shopping, the possibly endangered practice of truck idling, Danish wind farms, and environmental litigation.

The left-leaning Guardian of London has long made green stories a staple of its news hole, going so far as to have a standing section on "Ethical Living." Maybe the Times is now waking up to the idea that this is an area of ongoing interest to readers — not to mention to advertisers such as Hewlett-Packard (their full-page ad claims "we estimate that for every 12 people who use the power-saving features built into HP computers and monitors, the amount of CO2 saved is equal to removing one car from the road") and Shell ("Don’t Throw Anything Away. There Is No Away"), who have paid the big bucks to have their ads, complete with flower-power graphics, included in the section.

The Business of Green, indeed.

Photo: ijalab on Flickr

ALSO ON STREETSBLOG

Times Says: We Must Pay More for Fossil Fuels

|
The New York Times published an editorial today about "an unpleasant and inescapable truth: any serious effort to fight [global] warming will require everyone to pay more for energy." The piece then goes on to dismiss carbon taxes as politically unfeasible, and discusses the merits of cap-and-trade systems, emphasizing that in order to work, they […]

Why Is Saudi Arabia’s Oil Production Down?

|
We still have three years and nine and a half months to learn who will win the bet between energy investment banker Matthew R. Simmons and New York Times columnist John Tierney over whether oil prices would be above or below $200 a barrel in 2010. Tierney bet "below" because he believes that over the long term, the prices […]

PlaNYC: Foster the Market For Renewable Energy

|
One interesting case study in the mayor’s plan is the real-time pricing of electricity. According to research done at Carnegie Mellon University, Americans would save nearly $23 billion a year if they shifted just 7% of their usage during peak hours to less expensive times – the equivalent of the whole nation getting a free […]

Electeds Go to the Mat for Cheap Gas

|
Desperate to look as if they’re responding to motorists complaints and prayers, state and federal electeds continue to scramble for a quick fix to ever-rising gas prices. In Albany, Senate Republicans have adopted the state gas tax "holiday" as their issue of the moment. Since the largely-ridiculed measure is going nowhere in the Assembly, Joe […]