Monsanto named “Best Corporate Citizen”. Who’s voting and for how much?

For the 5th year in a row, CR Magazine, whose focus is on corporate responsibility, has named Monsanto to its “100 Best Corporate Citizens” list for its corporate responsibility performance.

EPA reveals top 10 U.S. cities with most green buildings

Photo courtesy of Energy Star

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, in most cities, commercial buildings are the largest source of carbon emissions.

Northern California Innovators Vie for Angel Investment

Companies are finding they need to expand their innovation efforts to meet consumer demand for greener products and services. And angel investors are eagerly seeking to invest in these kinds of companies.

These two forces collided on April 2^nd at the 3^rd annual Sierra Nevada Innovation Challenge.

Are you ready for Earth Day?

Tomorrow is Earth Day. Now into its 45th year, it’s now celebrated in over 190 countries around the world. There are all sorts of celebrations and festivals scheduled and there will be plenty of fun and information to take in.

New technology effective at filtering ocean plastics without harming sea life

Plastic recovered from our ocean’s gyres

The plastic pollution in our oceans is a killing our marine life. Sea birds, seals and other marine animals and mammals are turning up dead with lots of plastic in their stomachs that they mistook for food. The problem is that so much of this plastic is small fragments, making it extremely difficult to simply scoop up and recover.

Of the more than 200 billion pounds of plastic the world produces each year, about 10 percent ends up in the ocean Plastic constitutes 90 percent of all trash floating in the world’s oceans, with estimates that every square mile of the ocean contains 46,000 pieces of floating plastic. In some areas, the amount of plastic outweighs the amount of plankton by a ratio of six to one.

The top Green Cities in the U.S.

Just read the report listing the top Green Cities in the U.S. I was surprised at a few of the winners, and even more surprised that San Jose, California, with its steadily increasing plan to be more green, didn’t make the list.

Elon Musk – could he revolutionize the lithium battery industry?

Came across a great article today about Elon Musk and his newest venture. The founder and innovator behind Tesla, this visionary entrepreneur continues to expand his vision of what’s possible for American consumers.

Showtime’s new series on climate change is a historic first

One example of climate change – a destroyed forest in the middle of an Indonesian national park

In the television industry, there are numerous “special” networks – those devoted to special broad topics. These include The History Channel and Animal Planet, among others. But until now there has never been even a series that focused on the biggest challenge humans ever faced – climate change.

Showtime has stepped into this gap with its new series Years of Living Dangerously.

Legos with a purpose. They’ve moved beyond the playground

This Braille printer was built using Legos

Legos aren’t just for playing with. They are being used in a surprising variety of ways, for some pretty amazing things.

I recently came across two that definitely have the “wow” factor.

NASA cuts ties to Russia, jeapordizing our space travel

Traveling to and from the International Space Station will now be a big challenge for the U.S.

With the recent Russian annexation of the Crimea, its political ties to the U.S. have become strained, to say the least. Now word comes that NASA, our  preeminent federal space agency, has officially cut its ties with Russia and its space program.

This becomes highly problematic for the U.S. agency since we retired all our Space Shuttles in 2011 and have none at present to replace them. It’s going to take a few years yet for the new  Orion deep-space vehicle to be available and fully operational. And several private companies are still working on creating spacecraft to shuttle humans to the International Space Station.