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They divided the greens and conventional shoppers, and then gave the students a test that tempted them to steal money. The researchers found: The green consumers were more likely to cheat than the conventional purchasers, and they stole more money when asked to withdraw their winnings from envelopes on their desks. This concept of moral license has been demonstrated before, writes Wray Herbert in his blog for the Association for Psychological Science. (W)hen they have reason to feel a little superior, that positive self image triggers a sense of moral license. That is, the righteous feel they have some latitude...

The Greener, The Better Deborah Lambert, March 17, 2010 Although students in Michigan aren’t exactly flying high in the reading and math stratosphere these days, they’ll certainly get the best in green education if the state government has anything to say about it. Back in 2006, the state government mandated a “green school” law, according to NRO.com, which rewarded schools whose programs included at last one-half of the following options: * Making sure their school “has adopted an endangered species animal and posted a picture of it in a main traffic area.” * That students participate in “a planned program...

Households that get their power from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power could see their electric bills go up between 8.8% and 28.4%, depending on where they live and how much energy they use, under a plan unveiled Monday by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Appearing with labor and environmental leaders, Villaraigosa said the proposed increases would ensure that the DWP meets his goal of securing 20% of its energy from renewable sources by Dec. 31. The increased revenue would help pay for new environmental initiatives, including more aggressive conservation programs and a solar initiative designed to create 16,000 jobs....

Scandal: Spain exposed the boondoggle of wind power in 2009, discrediting an idea touted by the Obama administration. In response, U.S. officials banded with trade lobbyists to hide the facts. It was a cold day at the Energy Department when researchers at King Juan Carlos University in Spain released a study showing that every "green job" created by the wind industry killed off 4.27 other jobs elsewhere in the Spanish economy. Research director Gabriel Calzada Alvarez didn't object to wind power itself, but found that when a government artificially props up this industry with subsidies, higher electrical costs (31%), tax...

Despite a federal government assessment that South Haven has “excellent” potential for generating wind power, the Lake Michigan resort community has no rules in place to regulate wind turbines that could alter its skyline. “We know that there is a potential big push for alternative forms of energy like solar and wind,” said City Manager Brian Dissette. “We know that the wind is very good here so we want to have something in place that will balance quality of life with these new technologies.” The city’s Planning Commission in August began to consider a zoning amendment that would regulate wind...

There have probably been environmental hypocrites ever since the first caveman professed his love of wildlife right before going out and slaughtering giant herds of megafauna, but it's never been clear exactly what underlies the hypocrisy. Sure, it's easier to say than to do (to laud walking and carpooling but drive an SUV), and we're all good at exceptionalism (everyone else should cut back on jet travel, but it's really important that I take my private jet to the meeting on climate change). Still, hypocrisy is so rife, there surely has to be more to it. In the case of...

By | Published: Between you and me, Toyota really messed this one up. The company long known for its meticulous quality and, by extension, its meticulous customer care drove completely off the rails in recent years, churning out ever larger production batches, ever faster, even as quality control declined inversely. That led to the recall of more than 8 million vehicles across a slew of Toyota brands. The company did this — and this is where the customer care part gets really murky — only after the failure of what appears to be a Machiavellian effort to silence its customers’...

The Chicago Transit Authority has received a $1.5 million federal grant from the U.S. Dept. of Transportation to construct electrified vehicle stalls that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions and unnecessary fuel consumption. The stalls will deliver electrical power for up to 80 vehicles and provide services such as heating and air-conditioning to vehicles that would otherwise be left idling during overnight cleaning, said a press release from Sen. Dick Durbin's office. The electricity would also help to reduce diesel consumption and emissions from parked buses in Chicago and suburban areas. "The funding announced...will help reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Chicago,"...

Faced with diminishing numbers, a threatening ballot measure and the perpetual challenge of being a small third party in a two-party system, the California Green Party may be fading to chartreuse. But that won't happen if a hardy core of delegates, who gathered in San Jose over the weekend for a semiannual state meeting, has its way. Still, the Greens couldn't even hold the attention of their own members. By Sunday, the meeting had shrunk by half to 40 people. Even its two candidates for governor, Laura Wells of Oakland and Deacon Alexander of Los Angeles, skipped Sunday's talks on...

Here’s a fact you won’t see mentioned in the public policy debate over “alternative” energy: There exists no alternative energy source, no combination of alternative energy sources, and no system of combinations of alternative energy sources that can fully replace a single, coal fired electric plant built with 1930s era technology. Nada. Zero. Zilch. Yet many want to make this group of functionally useless technologies the primary energy sources for our entire civilization.

LONDON — A privacy rights group says that an increasing number of Britons are having microchips and sensors attached to their trash bins. Big Brother Watch says that the number of local authorities fitting their trash bins with sensors that measure weight or other information has risen dramatically in the past year. It warns that the practice could lead to Britons being charged for how much they throw out. Big Brother Watch said Friday that 2 million Britons have electronic chips of some description embedded in their trash bins.

There is a simple test for determining whether something is a resource (something valuable) or just garbage (something you want to dispose of at the lowest possible cost, including costs to the environment). If someone will pay you for the item, it's a resource. Or, if you can use the item to make something else people want, and do it at lower price or higher quality than you could without that item, then the item is also a resource. But if you have to pay someone to take the item away, or if other things made with that item cost...

Despite the debacle of the failed Copenhagen climate change conference last December, the United Nations is pressing full speed ahead with a plan for a greatly expanded system of global environmental governance and for a multitrillion-dollar economic transfer scheme to ignite the creation of a "global green economy."

The Obama administration and its congressional allies have been promising to usher in a green economy that will create millions of new green jobs that "can't be outsourced." Many of those jobs, we're told, will come from wind and solar energy development, but other areas are supposed to benefit as well, including the automobile, construction, and ill-defined "green technology" sectors. These claims are nothing new, though they have grown more Orwellian over time. There's only one problem with all this feel-good blather: It makes no economic sense whatsoever, and where it has been tried most extensively, evidence shows that it's...

You may have heard that the men’s 500-meter speedskating event was delayed for over an hour at Monday night’s Olympics. What you probably didn’t hear was exactly why irate skaters, coaches and fans were forced to sit around waiting for the ice to be prepared. It seems that in their zeal to be “environmentally friendly,” the Vancouver Olympic Committee decided to replace the familiar and decades-proven propane-fueled ice-resurfacers, known to ice-sport fans worldwide as Zambonis, with a prototype electric model. And, as with most business decisions clouded by liberal pressure to “go green,” this turned out to be a bad...

VANCOUVER (Reuters) - The ultra-green sheen to speed skating at the Olympic Oval was dealt a blow on Monday when Games officials said they were bringing in a propane-powered Zamboni to replace a bulky battery-operated ice resurfacer . . . .

What would life in an American city look like if it required its residents go green to combat climate change? Would it be all trees and gardens and bicycles, or would it look more like oppression under Big Brother's green thumb? Cambridge, Mass., home of Harvard University, may be giving the country a glimpse of the answer. Last May, the city officially adopted an order recognizing that there is a climate emergency; but after nearly a year, officials discovered the city's carbon footprint was nonetheless growing worse. Cambridge Mayor Denise Simmons, therefore, brought together nearly 100 activists and concerned citizens...

"I pulled my hand back and said: '...oh, wait. My husband and I both work in the oil industry, which makes our money dirty and unacceptable to your company. I guess I won't be getting anything today.' And with that, we turned and walked proudly out of the store to the amazement of those around us."

Congestion pricing to reduce car travel. Elimination of curbside parking. A carbon tax "of some kind," not to mention taxes on plastic and paper bags. Advocating vegetarianism and veganism, complete with "Meatless or Vegan Mondays." Those are just some of the proposals put forth by the Cambridge Climate Congress, an entity created in May 2009 to respond to the "climate emergency" plaguing the Massachusetts city.

President Obama has spent billions on so-called green job programs as part of the economic recovery and plans to spend billions more. He has repeatedly argued this will create good-paying jobs that cannot be outsourced. But, according to the green groups themselves, these jobs can be highly expensive, often costing well more than $100,000 per job in subsidies and/or tax credits. Just last month, the White House said it was spending $135,294 per job to create 17,000 green jobs. And research commissioned in part by the Sierra Club found that the jobs often pay less than the industry average and,...

Audi car commercial "hits home" for Gavin Newsom and other city dwellersAudi's "Green Police" Super Bowl ad was clearly out to mock environmentalist fervor -- and it hit close to home in greener-than-thou San Francisco. Perhaps that's because it was the brainchild of Audi's advertising agency, San Francisco independent Venables Bell & Partners. Sitting squarely in the "I am white, middle-class man, hear me roar" school of ads, the Cheap Trick-scored commercial suggested a world in which the type of individual decisions that seem meaningless but in the aggregate make a difference are enforced by enthusiastic law enforcement professionals in...

Of the more than $2 billion the federal government has given out to boost the economy and create green-energy jobs, more than three-quarters has gone to foreign-owned companies that dominate the global wind-power industry. This latest finding by the Investigative Reporting Workshop, a nonprofit at American University in Washington, D.C., is illustrated clearly in San Diego County, where about a dozen commercial wind developers have offices. La Jolla is the headquarters for Eurus Energy America, the subsidiary of a Japanese firm that received $91 million in federal stimulus money for a wind farm in western Texas. It plans to apply...

Not sure the point of this ad. All I can come up with is a weak attempt at humor. Here is an interesting comment I ripped from Youtube *I don’t think some of you get it. This is Audi saying, “Look, if you eco-hippies want everything to be environmentally-friendly, here you go. Clean Diesel. But we’re gonna make fun of you and we’re gonna continue to sell R8 V-10s forever.”

A state assemblyman who represents Toyota's North American headquarters in Torrance is so peeved by the automaker's safety problems and its recent decision to close a California plant that he's asking his colleagues to stop buying the Japanese-made hybrid cars. Assembly Rules Committee Chairman Ted Lieu, who is running in June to be the Democratic Party's candidate for attorney general, said he plans to ask the committee on Thursday to reinstitute a "Buy-American" policy when purchasing pool vehicles that the house's 80 members use to get around Sacramento. ... "With the massive safety problems that Toyota is experiencing, I think...

Change often leads to controversy and that is certainly the case in North Carolina where an effort to revamp the state's education system has some people outraged that high school students will not learn enough American history. The formula for teaching American history has been pretty simple. Start at the beginning and go forward. But a new proposal under review in North Carolina threatens to disrupt that standard teaching philosophy. "If our students don't know what happened in world history, and if they don't know what happened in U.S. history from George Washington's presidency all the way up through the...

House committee chairmen from Minnesota and Missouri are floating legislation to block planned EPA greenhouse gas rules. The effort underscores unease among senior Democrats from conservative-leaning states about Obama administration emissions policy. Reps. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) and Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) — who head the Agriculture and Armed Services committees, respectively — introduced a plan Tuesday that would prevent the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from placing limits on heat-trapping emissions from power plants, factories and other sources. “I have no confidence that the EPA can regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act without doing serious damage to our economy,” Peterson...

CHICAGO (AP) - The $8 billion in stimulus cash awarded to 13 high-speed rail corridors across the country may seem like a windfall, but there's a catch. The money isn't enough to finish any of the major projects. State coffers are dry and federal spending is being cut back. So, it's unclear who will pay the rest of the multi-billion dollar bill.

By Mary Ann Ford | mford@pantagraph.com | Posted: Friday, January 29, 2010 9:00 pm | (10) Comments Font Size: Default font size Larger font size NORMAL — Not everyone at Friday’s news conference supported spending $8 billion for high-speed rail. Several people gathered at the Amtrak station held signs and even made negative comments while Sen. Dick Durbin was speaking. They questioned projections of economic growth from high-speed rail spending and the wisdom of spending so much money in the face of mounting state and federal budget deficits. “I’m really upset,” said Jeff Strange of Bloomington. While officials say the...

Critics are pointing to the $54 million in federal stimulus money for the California Wine Train as “silly and short sighted,” and a waste of money. Sixteen times a week, the Wine Train transports tourists from Napa to St. Helena aboard restored dining cars. A champagne dinner costs $129. About 125,000 people ride the train each year. At issue is a complicated story about flood control in Napa. Voters agreed to tax themselves for 20 years to cover the cost of a water diversion project. However, the cost went up dramatically when the owner of the Wine Train, Vincent DeDemenico,...

IMF working on plans for "green fund" - IMF chief31 Jan 2010 01:02:12 GMT Source: Reuters WASHINGTON, Jan 30 (Reuters) - The International Monetary Fund is working on proposals for a multibillion dollar "green fund" to help countries tap funds to deal with the effects of climate change, the head of the institution said on Saturday. IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn told the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that developing countries would need financial help to tackle climate change while rich nations have taken on higher debt in reaction to the global financial crisis. Global talks on a new...

Van Jones, President Obama's controversial former "green jobs" czar, is slated to address a major environmental forum next week alongside speakers from such major corporations as Microsoft, IBM, Yahoo, Intel, Best Buy and the Pacific Gas and Electric Company. Jones resigned in September after it was exposed he founded a communist revolutionary organization and signed a statement that accused the Bush administration of possible involvement in the 9/11 attacks. Jones also called for "resistance" against the U.S. government. Jones is one of 22 speakers at next Thursday's State of Green Business Forum in San Francisco. The day-long event, sponsored by...

President Obama says he will come back to Florida and ride the new high speed rail train connecting Tampa and Orlando once it's completed. Florida is just one of the states, along with California and Illinois, receiving billions in Recovery Act money for the development of a high speed rail line. Joining the President in the announcement was long time supporter of the passenger rail system Vice President Joe Biden. The Vice President joked he was very familiar with riding trains having commuted daily between Wilmington, Delaware and Washington, DC on Amtrak during his many years in the Senate.

A 33-YEAR-OLD man has come off second best after trying to karate chop a moving train at Eagle Junction station last night. A Queensland Rail spokesperson said the man failed to jump onto the moving train about 8.10pm, injuring his head and falling back onto the platform. Police said the man tried to karate chop the train and his leg fell between the train and the platform.

The President's State of The Union Address hyped up Clean Energy and Renewable Power. These three methods of electrical power generation are the most inefficient ways to produce electricity. Wind Power at best delivers it power at an efficiency rate of only 20%. If you got a brand new car full in the knowledge that it was only going to run one time in five, would you be happy? The same applies with renewable power. Enormously expensive and totally inefficient. Why should we be happy about that?

PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil – Leftist activists protesting capitalism at the World Social Forum claimed Wednesday that multinational corporations in cahoots with governments are trying to take control of a new multibillion-dollar market for reducing emissions that cause global warming. They made the accusation on the third day of the gathering of leftists that serves as an annual counterweight to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. "The companies that caused the problems are saying, 'Trust us, we'll get you out of this problem,'" said Pat Mooney, a Canadian expert on biotechnology and biodiversity. "They're saying, 'Don't worry, because we have...

PALM SPRINGS - Unemployed construction workers may be able to get some new jobs fixing windmills and solar panels. College of the Desert opened their new energy training center Wednesday morning. This lonely building near Gene Autry south of Interstate 10 is the future of the Desert's energy industry. Somebody has to train the workers who will fix the increasing numbers of windmills and solar panels here. The College of the Desert is stepping in, opening new classrooms paid by federal stimulus dollars. Larry McLaughlin with College of the Desert says, "East of us in Riverside County, there's going to...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Wind energy could generate 20 percent of the electricity needed by households and businesses in the eastern half of the United States by 2024, but it would require up to $90 billion in investment, according to a government report released on Wednesday. For the 20 percent wind scenario to work, billions must be spent on installing wind towers on land and sea and about 22,000 miles of new high-tech power lines to carry the electricity to cities, according to the study from the Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory. "Twenty percent wind is an ambitious goal," said...

Detroit (WWJ) -- Detroit's homeless not only have a place to stay, they now also have a place to stay in shape. The Green Gym opened at the warehouse of the Cass Community Social Services at 12025 Woodrow Wilson. It is the first gym of its kind specifically for homeless clients. The specially-equipped bikes hooked to a generator will make electricity redirected to the warehouse. One cyclist over an hour's time can create enough juice to power two laptop computers for an hour.

Here’s a warning you can give to your company’s drivers: Beware snow-covered traffic signals. They’re a new problem due to energy-efficiency efforts. Many traffic lights now use LED bulbs instead of incandescent ones. Reason: The LEDs are 80% to 90% more energy-efficient. And that energy efficiency is the problem. The energy wasted by incandescent bulbs was heat. But in winter storms, that heat was melting snow that accumulated on the lights. The LEDs don’t generate enough heat to melt snow, and that’s been blamed for one traffic fatality and dozens of other collisions and injuries. In a storm in Illinois...

LED Lights Don't Melt Snow on Traffic Lights, Hiding Signals From DriversA huge swath of the country is getting snow and it's raised an unusual and potentially dangerous problem for motorists. Communities across the country are converting to LED traffic lights, but these lights don't emit heat, so snow doesn't melt like it would with a regular incandescent bulb. In some cases, Drivers then can't see the signals. During a snow storm last year, Lisa Richter of Oswego, Ill., had a green light and was turning left. But police say a driver in the oncoming lane blew through his red...

The White House announced Friday the awarding of $2.3 billion in tax credits — the money comes from last year’s stimulus bill — to companies to create “green jobs.” The announcement was rather obviously timed to counter the news that the nation lost 85,000 jobs last month and the unemployment rate stayed at 10% — bad news for an administration that once promised to hold unemployment to 8% by the end of 2009.

Here is video of Obama continuing his push for a "green economy," while saying he wants America to be "the leader when it comes to a clean energy future." (Video)Obama said that a green economy is how we will "combat the threat of climate change and leave our children a planet that is safer than the one we inherited." Obama said that "unfortunately" America is being "outpaced" by China when it comes to making the economy "energy efficient."

You know this is gonna be a good car for the environment! It's the one the government wants to build! NOTE: The author of this comic requests that you visit his web site and please refrain from copying the cartoon within this thread. Thanks!

WASHINGTON — Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis today announced nearly $100 million in green jobs training grants, as authorized by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act). The grants will support job training programs to help dislocated workers and others, including veterans, women, African Americans and Latinos, find jobs in expanding green industries and related occupations. Approximately $28 million of the total funds will support projects in communities impacted by auto industry restructuring. Through the Energy Training Partnership Grants being administered by the U.S. Department of Labor's Employment and Training Administration, 25 projects ranging from approximately...

He said people needed to change how they live their lives and called for "ecological responsibility" to be taught in schools.....

BISMARCK, N.D.—North Dakota Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem said he expects the state to file a lawsuit against Minnesota over its plan to tax carbon dioxide created by electrical generation. The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission wants to add a fee of $4 to $34 per ton of carbon dioxide to the cost of electrical generation starting in 2012. The majority of electricity in North Dakota is generated by coal-fired power plants, which emit carbon dioxide. North Dakota officials consider it an unfair tax on electricity produced in the state and say it would discourage its use by Minnesota utilities.

For those who concluded that Marxist Muslim Barack Hussein ObamaHussein Obama would become the global messiah, take a breather. At least thus far the Anointed One at the Copenhagen flop were not mesmerized by the charismatic one. No mob hysteria. No tears streaming down adoring faces. No Oprah Winfreys fawning his every move.

WASHINGTON -- The White House will announce plans Wednesday to provide another $5 billion in tax credits for manufacturers of wind, solar, electric vehicle and other renewable energy products, hoping to leverage at least $15 billion in private investment and create "tens of thousands" of jobs. The expansion would increase three-fold the $2.3 billion available in the Section 48C Advanced Energy Manufacturing Tax Credit program, part of the $787 billion stimulus package enacted in February. That program has been over-subscribed. The additional money could go to applicants turned down when the money ran out.

Has anyone out there bought a bag of Sun Chips lately? The new Frito Lay eco-friendly green bag is really LOOUUUDDDD!!!! I swear it's capable of waking the dead if you so much as breath in its general direction, much less actually touch it or reach inside to get a chip. Anyone who's touched one will know what I'm talking about, since it's very noticeable and unforgettable. I guess the new green strategy is to replace landfill pollution with noise pollution instead?

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama said Tuesday that home insulation "is sexy," his newest appeal for Congress to pass incentives for homeowners who make their homes more energy efficient. "Here's what's sexy about it. It saves money," the president said at a Northern Virginia Home Depot store. He was joined at the outlet by members of Congress representing Virginia and labor and business leaders involved in services to lower use of natural resources consumed by homeowners. Calling insulation the in-thing, Obama's pitch was part of a broader administration push to lower the nation's 10 percent unemployment rate. And it marked...