Newsweek’s green companies
By Wendell Wendt
The Sept. 28. issue of Newsweek Magazine gives us an exclusive ranking of the “Greenest Big Companies in America.” What is this “greenest” all about?
Almost every business in the world puts some carbon into the atmosphere. Carbon is a substance that causes our climate to become warmer and that could eventually make our planet uninhabitable for human beings.
In Newsweek’s issue a “green” company is one that puts only a small amount of carbon into the atmosphere. Newsweek’s top five green companies are Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Johnson and Johnson, Intel and IBM.
WAO suggests that all readers who are fortunate enough to own some shares of common stock in a business take a look at Newsweek’s list to determine how the company is doing. Naturally, different businesses have different opportunities. A company that mines coal is a “dirtier” business than one that manufactures computers.
WAO also notes that stockholders sometimes have an opportunity to vote their shares for or against a proposition that affects the atmosphere. If you are in that group, vote to keep the air you breathe as unpolluted as possible.
In the same issue of Newsweek, Gordon Brown, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, has an article about the United Nations meeting in December in Copenhagen, Denmark. This meeting will deal with climate change. Brown tells us this is our last chance to form a new international agreement on climate change.
Brown sees the meeting as not only a chance to save our planet, but also an opportunity for great economic growth.
In part his article states, “A strong deal that establishes legally binding commitments to reduce emissions will provided the confidence and certainty needed to underpin low carbon investment ...” By 2015, the global environmental sector could be worth $7 trillion, and sustain tens of millions of jobs. Some areas of growth will be battery design, lightweight building materials, solar power, and carbon capture and storage.
Let’s send our U.S. representatives to Copenhagen, with instructions to cooperate in reducing carbon emissions and to approve the economic changes that will result from a reduction in the amount of carbon we put into the air.
Comments
