Linda Platts

Green Venture Capital

The EcoEnterprises Fund offers a new twist on venture capital by targeting environmentally responsible and conservation-minded businesses. The fund will invest an average of $100,000 to $200,000 in small start-up ventures in Latin America and the Caribbean. The fund, also known as Fondo EcoEmpresas, is a joint effort of the Inter-American Development Bank and theContinue reading "Bilge Pill"

Linda Platts

Bats In The Stadium

Last spring, thousands of Brazilian free-tail bats found a home at the New York Mets training facility in Port St. Lucie, Fla. About the size of a man’s thumb with a wingspread of four inches, these little fellows are harmless, but certainly not tidy. In the evening, they would pour out of the crevices inContinue reading "Bilge Pill"

Ragweed To Riches

As many midwestern farm families struggle to make a living off the land, the Jones family of Afton, Iowa, has found a new source of revenue growing in their pastures. For two summers, the family has been picking the flowers off the ragweed plants that flourish in their fields and corrals. The flowers are groundContinue reading "Ragweed To Riches"

Linda Platts

Treetop Walkway

High above West Africa’s Upper Guinean rain forest, tourists on gently swaying walkways stroll cautiously through the forest canopy. It is a nature experience still rare even in the realms of eco-tourism. Kakum National Park, the 140-square-mile preserve where the walkway is located, is home to several endangered species including the forest elephant. It isContinue reading "Bilge Pill"

Linda Platts

Looks Like Wood

The picnic table, the park bench and the boardwalk look like wood, but they are actually made from plastic. Impervious to water, salt, oil, chemicals, and insects, the building material comes from chipped and melted milk jugs and detergent bottles. This new use for high-density polyethylene is making profits for outdoor furniture manufacturers and checkingContinue reading "Bilge Pill"

Linda Platts

Forest Of Toyota

A group of researchers at Japan’s largest car manufacturer are concentrating on designer trees rather than fuel efficiency. This odd turn for Toyota is an effort to develop a new tree with a ravenous appetite for the noxious gases produced by gasoline-powered automobile engines. Since 1991, the company has been working on biology- based methodsContinue reading "Bilge Pill"

Bilge Pill

Becky Dunlop

What We Did in Virginia

  From January 1994 to January 1998, I was Secretary of Natural Resources for the Commonwealth of Virginia in the Republican administration of Governor George Allen. My goal was to change the paradigm that has governed environmental programs from the “fearsome master” approach to the “helpful servant” approach. I intended to do this by decentralizingContinue reading "Bilge Pill"

Jonathan Adler

Politics-Green But Dirty

Businesses routinely lobby to avoid heavy burdens from government regulations. But some businesses lobby in favor of regulations that give them a market edge. Environmental regulations are riddled with provisions that are less about saving the planet than about helping a particular industry or special interest. The latest example comes from a business group thatContinue reading "Bilge Pill"

Orri Vigfusson

How Markets Save Salmon

  I am a native of Iceland, where the entire economy is based on fishing. I have enjoyed fishing for salmon with a fly rod all my life. As a child, I can remember the rivers of Iceland teeming with fish. Today, we still have some of the best sport salmon fishing in the world,Continue reading "Bilge Pill"