Environment

AAMCO, the multi-state transmission and car care franchise people, have launched a new (and first of kind) program to completely eliminate waste at their auto serving centers. Called Eco-Green Auto Service Certification, the program also works on getting customers’ cars more fuel efficient and promotes alternative fuels that many studies conclude are less polluting.

Between 1970 and 1992, Texaco --- now a subsidiary of Chevron --- is alleged to have dumped 18.5 billion gallons of toxic waste into the Ecuadorian Amazon.  Aside from the damage this dumping has exacted on the ecosystem of the Amazon, the indigenous population that lives in the area has been suffering from an extremely high incidence of cancer in recent decades, with little money and few resources to treat their ill. Justica Now!, a short film featuring Darryl Hannah, documents the fight that is going on to this day to hold ChevronTexaco accountable for these crimes.

The business of cell phone charity—turning in used cell phones to recycling companies for a per unit price used for fundraising—is coming under scrutiny as the business is booming. Ecophones, based in Dallas, has already helped 20,000 organizations across the country. The recycling companies claim to keep the phones out of landfills—but many resell them to middlemen or export them overseas where their hazardous waste components are dangerous to foreign workers and environments.

Not all ethical shoppers subscribe to animal rights ideologies that hold the raising and killing of animals for food to be immoral. For many of us, knowing that a cow had enough space to graze, or that an egg-laying chicken wasn't grown in a crowded factory is enough. Others are strict humanists, believing that our moral and ethical responsibilities apply only to ourselves and our fellow human beings. But what if eating meat were just as lethal to our bodies and our planet as it is to the creatures we turn into hamburger?

Steve Jobs, head of Apple, walked on stage at the Macworld Expo with a manila mailing envelope that looked like it had a thin corporate report in it. Opening the envelope Jobs took out the new scintillatingly cool, titaniumed-silver Macbook Air. So thin it fits easily into a mailer, and stuffed with features, the latest invention from Apple wowed the audience and reviewers. And even Greenpeace gave some applause to the Macbook Air, as it marks Apple’s furthest step ever in making its computers green.