21st Century Citizen

Highlights from the 100+ feeds we follow:

• Realclimate.org has come out with another great post describing why additional CO2 in the atmosphere is a problem. It’s a bit technical, but useful if you’re interested in the science behind global warming.
• Continuing a trend I’d like to discuss in more detail sometime, the ‘incentive travel’ company Innovative Incentives, Inc. released the news today that it’s arranged with carbonfund.org to purchase carbon offsets for the incentive travel rewards that companies purchase for their employees. Exactly how earth-friendly can you make flying a person half way around the world to a resort so they can party for a week? Maybe this will make them feel better when they wake with a hangover…
• In Selling Biofuel to the Rich Is Just a New Phase of Brazil Colony, Brazilian blogger marukuwato compares the current biofuels mania in Brazil to earlier periods of colonization. “In this context,” he says, “the role of Brazil would be to furnish cheap energy for rich countries, which represents a new phase of colonization.”
• Blogger a seigel over at Energy Smart brings us a letter today that he wrote to Consumer Reports Magazine taking them to task for not considering energy consumption as one of the criteria in their recent comparison between Plasma and LCD TVs. To me, the lesson is this: Take action when you see something like this. A letter to the editor of Consumer Reports could change their evaluation criteria for products — which could help change the thinking of their readers. And that’s a small action that could yield big results.
• The blog Sustainable is Good brings us news today that Target stores have pushed their suppliers to use more environmentally friendly packaging. We as consumers need to continue to push retailers to make these changes. Target seems to be following the leadership of Walmart in this area.
• Another thoughtful post from Marc Gunther in defense of carbon offsets.
• Sustainablog helpfully points out the obvious in this post: States Leading the Way on Renewable Energy Standards

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