Currents

Everybody loves Al Gore this week, after he shared the Nobel Peace Prize on October 12 with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Except for climate naysayers, that is.

The California-based nonprofit Rainforest Action Network (RAN) launched a new campaign last week, trying to influence financial sector powerhouses Citi Group and Bank of America to shift their investments away from coal and other dirty-energy projects and toward clean energy alternatives.

China, maker of 70 percent of the world’s lightbulbs, has followed Australia’s example and agreed to phase out incandescent light bulbs in favor of more energy-efficient compact fluorescent lights (CFLs).

At age 33, activist Julia Butterfly Hill is already an icon of the environmental movement. In 1997, she lived in a 180-foot tall, 600-year-old redwood named Luna for 738 days.

As part of its larger push to green all of its operations, Wal-Mart has teamed up with the nonprofit Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) to measure the amount of energy used—and greenhouse gases emitted—throughout its entire supply chain, not just at its own facilities.

A study by University of Colorado researchers published last week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows a definitive link between fertilizer and pesticide run-off from farms and ranches and horrible deformities in frogs.

Boston, home of the "Freedom Trail," a collection of historical sites from the city’s colonial days, offered freedom of a different kind at the AltWheels Festival, held at City Hall Plaza the weekend of September 28 and 29. A tour around the booths gave visitors a vision of energy independence, with a healthy dose of activism, politicking, veggie wraps, barbeque, folk rock and quirky concept cars thrown in.

The Worldwatch Institute last week released "Vital Signs 2007-2008," its annual rundown on environmental trends shaping our future—and the news is not good. Only six of the 44 environmental trends the organization tracks were positive developments, with 28 categorized by Worldwatch as "pronouncedly bad."

Environmental Defense, CERES and Friends of the Earth joined with foundations, concerned investors and state officials from across the country in filing a landmark petition last week asking the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to require publicly traded companies to assess and fully disclose their financial risks related to climate change.

Environmentalism and yoga practice are joined by more than language and posture: they share an underlying philosophy. But the journey from yoga’s current place of reverence has been a bumpy one: in the early 20th century, yoga practitioners were accused of running "love cults" and were subject to xenophobic backlash and jail time.