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Why the Planet Needs a Free Press

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by Joel Simon Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev seems to have recast himself as Russia’s Al Gore. In October, at a conference in Venice organized by his World Political Forum, he implored the journalists present to do a better job of reporting on climate change. "We need people to know where we are, and where the world ends," he warned. Roughly translated: if the apocalypse is coming, give us the information we need to prevent it. The journalists pushed back. We pointed out that it’s tough to engage the public on climate change in the midst of the world financial crisis and that covering the story is complex and expensive. Flying a crew to Greenland to get pictures of melting glaciers costs more than $30,000, one Danish TV correspondent said. Meanwhile, drastic newsroom cuts have devastated science reporting and eliminated many foreign bureaus. But the problem goes much deeper. In the most egregious cases, governments have suppressed all information about climate change, the environment, and natural disasters out of fear that it would threaten their political control. Take Burma, aka Myanmar. When Cyclone Nargis plowed into the heavily populated Irrawaddy Delta last May, Burma’s military junta responded by banning all […]

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Green Cities: When Will We See Them?

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40 of the largest cities in the U.S. are actively engaged in reducing their carbon footprints, says the report "Green Cities." The report is based on conversations with leading thinkers and practitioners, says the non-profit, Living Cities, which produced it. "Green Cities" looks at what cities have accomplished and identifies areas in which efforts are falling short. The cities that participated in the survey are: New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Phoenix, Philadelphia, San Antonio, San Diego, Dallas, San Jose, Detroit, Jacksonville, San Francisco, Indianapolis, Columbus, Austin, Fort Worth, Memphis, Charlotte, Baltimore, Boston, El Paso, Milwaukee, Seattle, Nashville, Denver, Washington, D.C., Las Vegas, Louisville, Portland, Oklahoma City, Tucson, Albuquerque, Atlanta, Miami, Oakland, Minneapolis, Pittsburgh, Saint Paul, Cleveland. The most concrete municipal commitment is the U.S. Conference of Mayors Climate Protection Agreement. As of April, 935 mayors representing more than 83.5 million citizens pledged to reduce greenhouse gases 7% from 1990 levels by 2012. Where are cities excelling? An increasing number of cities are using green strategies to advance economic recovery efforts and create green jobs. Where are cities falling short? They aren’t yet connecting low-income people and under-invested urban communities to their greening efforts, which would allow them to […]

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Podcast: Green Week in Review – May 29, 2009

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The Green Week in Review is a podcast, hosted by SustainableBusiness.com News Editor Bart King. It’s posted every Friday morning and is 15-20 minutes long. You can listen to it through your browser or download it to a portable MP3 player. Sign up for our General News RSS Feed and it will be automatically downloaded to your computer’s media player each week. In this week’s show… Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court. The Obama administration reinstates most of a Clinton-era ban on road building in national forests. Highlights from the Major Economies Forum in Paris. An interesting survey given to members of the society of Toxicology Plus, as always, a quick review of top cleantech stories from the week. ++++ Email comments or questions to bart@sustainablebusiness.com.

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