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Books I liked in 2014
For my last blog post of the year, I’d like to share with you some of the books that I enjoyed reading in 2014. I made a conscious effort this year to do less work-related reading, which isn’t always...
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Brainstorm Green, RIP
Bill Clinton at Brainstorm Green in 2009 In 2007, Andy Serwer, the managing editor of FORTUNE, where I was then a senior writer, asked me to work with the magazine’s conference division to create a...
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Healthy junk food? Hey, why not?
Let them eat kale is not a recipe for solving America’s obesity crisis. Trust me. I’ve tried kale. I like Indian food, Thai food, Vietnamese food, Mexican food. I like spinach. But kale? It ain’t...
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A modest proposal for big green NGOs
Here’s an idea for big environmental NGOs that work with corporate partners: Kindly recommend to those partners that they raise their voices in Washington in support of the EPA’s proposed coal plant...
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A rank ‘em and spank ‘em study on packaging
A Dunkin Donuts–with throwaway cups–opens in Beijing Twenty-five years after McDonald’s, working with the Environmental Defense Fund, agreed to get rid of foam clamshells for its burger–in what is now...
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Impact investing with The Nature Conservancy
Impact investing is said to be a growth business. Loosely defined, impact investing is the practice of putting money into a business or nonprofit, with the expectation of generating social or...
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Who lobbies for the outdoors?
Increasingly, I’m struck by the power of conservative business lobbies in Washington, including the US Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and the American Petroleum...
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Green business, and its limits
Last week, Sierra Magazine, the magazine of the Sierra Club, published my story headlined The 100% Club, about the impressive commitments that a growing number of big companies are making around...
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Bug bites
In a comprehensive 2013 report, the UN’s FAO declared that the time has come to unlock “the huge potential that insects offer for enhancing food security.” The reaction was predictable. “Of course the...
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Google: Much more than an Internet company
It’s hard to imagine life without Google–not just the search engine, but Gmail, maps, calendar and cloud storage. I could give up Twitter, Facebook and (reluctantly) Amazon, but Google and Apple are...
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Nonprofit Chronicles: my new blog
Call me a contrarian. I read this just the other day about writing on the web: Blogging?—? I mean, honey, don’t even say the word. No one actually blogs anymore, except maybe undergrads on their first...
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Keeping a close eye on all the world’s forests
Deforestation in the Andes Corporate commitments to protect forests are numerous. Unilever says it is “determined to drive deforestation out of our supply chains.” The giant paper company Asia Pulp and...
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Sparking sustainable aquaculture
On a recent visit to Cambodia, I visited a poor fishing village not far from Siem Reap where thousands of tiny forage fish, pulled from a large freshwater lake called Tonle Sap, were left to dry in the...
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With friends like these, who needs enemies?
Back in January, I wrote a blog post headlined A modest proposal for big green NGOs that suggested, in what was intended to be a helpful way, that the Environmental Defense Fund, the World Wildlife...
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How “evil” Monsanto aims to protect the planet
Iowa cornfield shows signs of erosion and fertilizer runoff. Climate Corporation aims to help farmers use fertilizer more efficiently. Photograph: Charlie Riedel/AP Monsanto has been called one of the...
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One hundred low-cost tools for global women
A microfinance circle outside Hyderabad, India In a gorgeous new large-format book called 100 under $100: One Hundred Tools for Empowering Global Women , author and activist Betsy Teutsch spotlights,...
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Ceres and the “inside” game
It’s been 45 years since the first Earth Day, and, as I was reminded when reading this brief history, some 20 million Americans — one in 10 of us — participated on April 22, 1970. That took organizing....
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Gap’s Kindley Walsh Lawlor has a daunting job
Nearly 20 years after retailers like Gap, Nike and Levi Strauss agreed to take a modicum of responsibility for the health and well-being of the workers who make their apparel and shoes around the...
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Catching up, “creating” jobs and coffee pods
I’m just back from a wonderful vacation in Italy, and spending this week at the Sustainable Brands conference in San Diego. To my surprise, I see that I haven’t posted here in more than a month....
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Ramez Naam, ecomodernist
Ramez Naam I was introduced to a set of ideas known as “ecomodernism” back in 2009, when I read Stewart Brand’s book, Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto. Stewart, the founder of the...
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