Constantine: spending wisely Sitting in his London office, Mark Constantine appears to enjoy the publicity generated by his decision to fund anti-aviation pressure group Plane Stupid.  Earlier this month they staged a sit-on on the runway at Stansted Airport which grounded hundreds of flights.

Together with his wife, Constantine is the majority owner of Lush, a chain of 600 cosmetics shops in 44 countries with an annual turnover of GBP144 million.
>>Keep reading “Maverick millionaire”

The Taipei Times published the first interview with Nobel-prize winner Steven Chu since his appointment as President-elect Obama’s energy czar. In it, Chu forecasts “a gradual crash…predicted to accelerate.”  He says “we have to immediately start decreasing the amount of energy we use.” And he lays into powerful tech business United Technologies, as a case study of profligate incompetence.

That transcript  is followed by an old interview from Reuters wire which is very revealing of Chu’s point of view and his rational embrace of eco-principles that will be reflected from day one in his new post. ”
“If I were emperor of the world,” he told Reuters last year, “I would put the pedal to the floor on energy efficiency and conservation for the next decade.”

Here are the transcripts, but first, Steven, if you are reading this, we’d love to interview you — anywhere, any time.
>>Keep reading “Steven Chu Interviews”

Dive, dive, dive Alex Barnard knows Dumpster diving.

He got about half his food digging through supermarket trash last summer while he was living in New York City.

All the furniture in his Princeton University dorm room came from things other folks threw away.

Even his favorite pair of jeans - Banana Republics - were scrounged up from somebody else’s garbage.
>>Keep reading “Dumpster diving”

It seems that the “green” (or brown) movement is growing faster and faster. It used to be the realm of unwashed hippies, tree huggers and other so called “degenerates” who lived off the grid, in the wild, on the fringes of society.

Lately, I keep reading about how more mainstream people are jumping in, purchasing solar panels, adding passive solar rooms, collecting rain water. I read about people who build $300,000+ green homes, that price doesn’t include the price of the land it sits upon! It’s all fine and dandy for those who have lots of readily available cash sitting around, or worse, they get loans to bankroll their ubergreen homes.
>>Keep reading “Off Grid - On The Cheap”