EPA | Sea Change Radio

Articles Tagged ‘ EPA ’

The Community-Building Power of Wind

July 16th, 2008

Juhl Wind Development

When it comes to renewable energy, wind is taking the lead–at least at this stage of technological development. But what’s the best model for developing it? Should we follow the centralized utility model with big wind farms set up in a few places — offshore Massachusetts or the state of Texas — and then send the juice over wires to power homes and businesses far away? That’s the dominant model in the US. Or should we follow the community-owned wind power model, where the people using the power have a financial stake in it, too? Maybe a healthy mix of both would be best. Today, CWR co-host Francesca Rheannon speaks with Dan Juhl of Juhl Wind Development, which is helping communities around the country develop locally owned wind power cooperatives. The company has developed about 140 megawatts — or several hundred million dollars worth — of community-based wind projects. Francesca met him at the Sustainable Energy Summit at the University of Massachusetts in June. And Rheannon speaks with journalist Elizabeth Kolbert. Her recent New Yorker article, “The Island in the Wind,” profiles the Danish island of Samso, known internationally as the “renewable energy island” because residents get most of their power from windmills they cooperatively own.

Juhl Wind Development

Community-Based Energy Development

Dan Juhl interview transcript on SocialFunds: “It Takes a Village to Raise a Turbine: Making the Case for Community-Owned Windpower”

Sustainable Energy Summit

Complete interview with Dan Juhl

Elizabeth Kolbert

Elizabeth Kolbert: “The Island in the Wind”

CWR Headlines:

–The US can achieve 20 percent energy from wind by 2030 with help from GE and T. Boone Pickens
Updates: –European parliament votes to include aviation emissions in Emissions Trading Scheme
–EPA report links climate change to human health risks, but Bush blocks GHG emissions regulation under Clean Air Act

New Generations in Sustainability

July 9th, 2008

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Tim Cohen-Mitchell

Each generation reinvents the world inherited from the previous generation. A new generation is inheriting a wounded planet and a dysfunctional economy. Youthful energy seeks to heal our world and revitalize our economy using new strategies and adapting existing tools. Today, we focus on new generations in sustainability. First, we hear from Tim Cohen-Mitchell of the Young Entrepreneurs Society in Orange, Massachusetts, from a presentation he made at the recent Pioneer Valley Sustainable Investing Summit that Corporate Watchdog Radio helped organize. Then, CWR co-host Francesca Rheannon speaks with Jeremy Daw about the BioTour, an initiative brainstormed by an enterprising group of 20-somethings at Burning Man, an annual art event and temporary community based on radical self expression and self-reliance in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada. The BioTour is about to embark on a journey across the US in a biofuel bus to raise awareness on sustainability.

Young Entrepreneurs Society

Tim Cohen-Mitchell’s complete presentation and Q&A

BioTour

Burning Man

CWR Headlines:

–WWF to G8: “Your Climate Solution is ‘Pathetic’”
–Senate May Subpoena White House for Ignoring EPA Carbon Warnings
–Toyota Responds to Report on Labor Abuses on Prius Production Line

CWR ViewPoint: read (thanks to our partner CSRwire for posting the text of CWR commentaries)

Robin Giampa tells about Timberland’s trendsetting use of social networking sites like Facebook and YouTube to advance its corporate sustainability initiatives.

Timberland’s Earthkeepers

Francesca and Bill ain’t exactly spring chickens, but we’ve got a lot of youthful energy, so we’re joining this trend in linking social networking with corporate sustainability by launching CWR pages on Facebook and MySpace this week. Thanks to our new intern, Tom Hartmann-Boyce, an international affairs student at Skidmore, for getting those pages up and running. Check out our website for links to these pages, and join us there as “friends.”

CWR’s MySpace page

CWR’s Facebook page

The Myth of Clean Coal

July 2nd, 2008

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Don't Get Burned Leslie Lowe

Utilities and coal companies are pushing to open over a hundred new coal-fired power plants in the US. But activists, investors, communities, consumers, and scientists are pointing to financial, regulatory, environmental, and social risks that far outweigh the potential benefits of coal. And they are pulling back the veil from the myth of clean coal, exposing that king coal is a naked emperor. Carbon capture and storage, the key to coal’s “clean” claims, has years of technical and economic hurdles to cross. Leslie Lowe, director of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibilty’s Energy & Environment Program, speaks with us today about the risks of committing to a future of new coal plants.

Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility

ICCR Report: Don’t Get Burned: The Risks of Investing in New Coal-Fired Generating Facilities

New York City Comptroller letter asking Department of Energy to review tax-exempt status of bonds for new coal plants

CWR Headlines:

–Airlines Flying to and From Europe Will Have to Pay for Emissions
–Coal plants get thumbs up — and thumbs down
–Leading Climate Scientist calls Coal and Oil CEO’s Criminals
–Clean coal gets a boost from the US Dept of Energy

James Hansen Congressional testimony: Global Warming Twenty Years Later: Tipping Points Near

CWR ViewPoint: read (Thanks to our partner CSRwire for posting text of CWR commentaries.)

Yochi Zakai

Yochi Zakai of Co-op America points out that clean coal is dirtier than it’s cracked up to be. He comments on the recent Georgia court ruling against a new coal plant proposed by Dynegy, and Co-op America’s ongoing activism aimed at that company and others in the industry.

Co-op America “Stop the Coal Rush” Campaign

Bob Monks: ExxonMobil Exemplifies Corpocracy

June 25th, 2008

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Corpocracy
The ExxonMobil annual shareholder meeting this year carried high expectations from shareholder activists. Members of the Rockefeller family, descending from the founder of the Standard Oil monopoly that splintered into Exxon and Mobil, attended the meeting to support four different shareholder resolutions on corporate governance and climate change. Of these four, the resolution supported by most Rockefellers asked the company to split the CEO and Board Chair positions. Today’s CWR guest, Bob Monks, has filed this resolution at ExxonMobil since the early 2000s. His struggle to hold ExxonMobil accountable exemplifies the broader struggle to hold corporations accountable described in his new book, Corpocracy. Monks is co-founder of Institutional Shareholder Services, The Corporate Library, Lens Governance Advisors, and a former Labor Department official in the Reagan Administration.

Bob Monks’ Website

Corpocracy: How CEOs and the Business Roundtable Hijacked the World’s Greatest Wealth Machine — And How to Get It Back

Web extra: Bob Monks chats with CWR co-hosts Bill Baue and Francesca Rheannon about the US presidential candidates’ ability to take on corpocracy. Listen

CWR Headlines:

–ExxonMobil loses appeal to Supreme Court on human rights abuse case

CWR ViewPoint: read (Thanks to our partner CSRwire for posting text of CWR commentaries.)

Longtime shareholder activist Steve Viederman presented this statement at the ExxonMobil Annual Meeting in May 2008 to introduce resolution 19 asking Exxon to adopt a renewable energy policy. He filed the resolution along with other individuals, families, foundations and religious orders, joined by 20 institutional investors worth over $740 billion in combined assets, including Exxon Mobil stock valued at more than $8.6 billion.

Steve Viederman Bio

The Climate of Transportation

June 4th, 2008

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

John Olver

Today CWR takes you to a conference at the intersection between climate change and transportation held last week at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. There, climate scientists, engineers, government officials and activists gathered for a “Climate Change Think Tank” to brainstorm solutions to the problem of transport accounting for some 30 percent of carbon emissions. CWR co-hosts Francesca Rheannon and Bill Baue spoke with Representative John Olver, chair of the House Appropriations Sub-committee on Transportation; Paul Brubaker, head of the US Department of Transportation Research and Innovation Technology Administration; Michael Replogle of Environmental Defense Fund; and Jeff Brown of RideBuzz.org, a regional ride-sharing initiative.

Climate Change Think Tank Symposium

–Senate Debates Climate Bill, US Companies Prepare for Carbon Price–culled from the following sources: US power firms risk value hit over climate
Deutsche Bank raises 2008 EUA forecast to 40 euros
Senate to take up climate bill
Bush would veto U.S. climate change bill
US emissions bill a “first step”: UN climate chief
–Chevron profits shadowed by human rights complaints
CWR Greenwash Exposé Headline:
–ING Video Trumpets Green Initiatives, Omits Opposition of Climate and Toxics Resolutions

Declining Energy Resources Spur Increasing Global Conflict

May 7th, 2008

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Michael Klare

CWR co-host Francesca Rheannon speaks with Hampshire College Professor Michael Klare about his new book, Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy. Klare defines the term “resource nationalism,” whereby access to energy increasingly drives global politics. For example, the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline runs from the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean Sea, through Georgia, thereby circumventing Russia. In the interview conducted last week, Klare predicted possible conflict over energy access between Russia and Georgia, ensnaring the US. As this episode of CWR was in production, Georgian officials announced they are “very close” to war with Russia. Klare ends the interview suggesting renewable energies as a solution for diverting energy access from conflict to peace.

Michael Klare: Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy

Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline

May 6 Reuters article: “Georgia says ‘very close’ to war with Russia”

Complete interview with Michael Klare on Writer’s Voice

–Dock Workers Close West Coast Ports in Iraq War Protest
–EPA Official Ousted While Fighting Dow
–Shareholders Target Over 50 Companies on Toxic Product Concerns

Jodie Van Horn of the Rainforest Action Network analyzes biofuels, which divert agriculture from food to fuel, spurring food riots globally and driving deforestation.

Rainforest Action Network Biofuels Campaign

Business Ethics Network

From Peak Everything to Resilient Communities

April 28th, 2008

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Richard Heinberg

CWR co-hosts Bill Baue and Francesca Rheannon speak with peak oil expert Richard Heinberg, senior fellow at the Post Carbon Institute and author of The Party’s Over, Powerdown, The Oil Depletion Protocol, and, most recently, Peak Everything. CWR caught up with Heinberg during his northeast speaking tour, where he is addressing local officials in the Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts where Corporate Watchdog Radio originates. In the absence of federal leadership addressing climate change and peak oil, Heinberg has turned his attention to creating resilient communities, and he proposes 10 steps to create local disaster response plans to prepare for peak oil as well as environmental and economic collapse. While the data Heinberg presents paints a dire picture, he also advocates for hope and optimism as a strategic response to existing and impending crises.

RichardHeinberg.com

Post Carbon Institute

–Coalition of Immokalee Workers Petitions Burger King for an Extra Penny a Pound for Tomatoes
–JPMorgan Chase Aims for 20 Percent Carbon Reduction
–Climate change could spark century long World War

Field Report from the UN Investor Summit on Climate Risk

March 26th, 2008

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

CWR co-hosts Francesca Rheannon and Bill Baue attended the conference, hosted by investor-environmentalist coalition Ceres and its Investor Network on Climate Risk. Rheannon speaks with British Telecom Pension Scheme Trustee Donald MacDonald about the impact of war on climate change and what institutional investors can do to address it.

Alisa Gravitz

Baue speaks with Co-op America CEO Alisa Gravitz about its multi-tiered approach to address climate change through member company actions, investor advocacy, and consumer activism. And Ian Gray of Ceres speaks with McKinsey Global Institute Director Diana Farrell about its new report on energy efficiency. We also excerpt highlights from the presentations by Harvard Professor and Woods Hole Research Center Director John Holdren outlining the current science on climate change and AFL-CIO President John Sweeney placing climate change in the social context.

Institutional Investor Summit on Climate Risk

McKinsey Global Institute report: The Case for Investing in Energy Productivity

John Holdren presentation: Global Climatic Disruption

John Sweeney speech

CWR Headlines: Over a quarter of Fidelity fund shareholders support genocide-free resolution.

Investors Against Genocide

Investors Against Genocide webpage on Fidelity resolution vote

19 March 2008, Associated Press: “Fidelity Holders Defeat Investment Limit”

19 March 2008, Reuters: “Fidelity funds reject genocide-linked proposal”

Activist Investors Promote Genocide-Free Mutual Funds

February 27th, 2008

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

CWR co-hosts Bill Baue and Francesca Rheannon speak with Eric Cohen, chairperson for Investors against Genocide and Tim Smith, senior vice president at Walden Asset Management and immediate past chair of the Social Investment Forum, about the campaign promoting targeted divestment by mutual funds from companies supporting the Khartoum regime in the Sudan.

Smith, who helped pioneer the practice of shareholder activism encouraging companies to adopt more sustainable and responsible practices as a founder of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, discusses the novelty and efficacy of engaging mutual funds, which has rarely been practiced until now.

Eric Cohen

Cohen explains the strategy in-depth, noting that the SEC upheld its validity after mutual fund giant Fidelity challenged it legally. He also cites a 2007 survey in which 71% of respondents said that mutual fund companies should take into account extreme cases of human rights abuses when investing overseas, rather than make their investment decisions on economic criteria alone.

edited transcript of this interview on SocialFunds.com

Investors against Genocide

Fidelity Confirms Vote on Genocide-free Investing

Walden Asset Management

Social Investment Forum

Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility

July 5, 2006 edition of CWR: “Sudan Divestment”

May 22, 2007 SocialFunds article: “Fidelity Divests Large Chunk of Sudan-Related Holdings”

July 21, 2006 SocialFunds article: “Filing Resolutions at Mutual Funds: The Next Frontier for Shareowner Activism?”

March 9, 2006 SocialFunds article: “Sudan Presents Investment Risk as Genocidal Regime and State Sponsor of Terrorism”

June 1, 2005 SocialFunds article: “Students and States Seek to End Genocide in Sudan Through Divestment Campaigns”

December 10, 2004 SocialFunds article: “Divesting From Genocide: A Conversation with Eric Reeves of the Divest Sudan Campaign”

December 14, 2004 SocialFunds article: “Divesting from Genocide: More Conversation with Eric Reeves of the Divest Sudan Campaign”

The State of Green Business 2008

January 30th, 2008

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Joel Makower

CWR co-hosts Bill Baue and Francesca Rheannon talk with GreenBiz.com founder and executive editor Joel Makower about the first annual report on The State of Green Business, which GreenBiz.com released today on January 30, 2008. The report identifies the top ten green business news stories of 2007, and also introduces the GreenBiz Index, a collection of 20 indicators ranking the progress of green business practice as “swimming,” “treading,” or “sinking.”

SocialFunds.com article transcribing highlights of this interview

GreenBiz.com

State of Green Business 2008

Joel Makower’s Blog: Two Steps Forward

“The Six Sins of Greenwashing”

“The Six Sins of Greenmuting”