Ted is always looking for ways to minimize his ecological footprint. Professionally, Ted is working to gain the skills necessary to turn his passion for sustainable development into action, as an entrepreneur or financing sustainable businesses.
Ted studied economics and international business at Saint Louis University’s campus in Madrid, where he graduated Magna Cum Laude and was honored as the Distinguished Student in International Business for his class. As the founder and president of the SLU Madrid Business Club, Ted focused the club’s activities on sustainability.
While working for commercial real estate multi-national Jones Lang LaSalle’s Madrid office, Ted strove to implement sustainable practices both within the firm and for its clients. He proposed and designed an Environmental Sustainability Action Plan for JLL Spain. Green Building and Environmentally Sustainable Development remain a passion for Ted: he believes that the intersection of sustainable infrastructure and sustainable attitude is where we’ll find a sustainable society.
Ted currently works for a private equity firm in Madrid, learning skills that he hopes to apply to finance Environmentally Sustainable Development in the United States and around the world.
Tracy is the CEO and Founding Partner of Technical Green - a green industry career site focused on clean tech and green research and development.
Tracy's professional experience are in the recruitment advertising and non-profit sectors and she has for many years maintained a sustainable lifestyle.
Marie Oser is a best-selling author, columnist, and host/producer of VEG TV. A vegan lifestyle expert, and environmental advocate with a focus on nutrition and its role in disease prevention, Oser specializes in creating original gourmet recipes with a solid nutritional bottom line.
Many prominent medical and nutrition professionals endorse her work, including Dr. Colin Campbell, Professor Emeritus, Cornell University and principal researcher of the groundbreaking CHINA STUDY, and Neal Barnard, M.D. founder and president of Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine in Washington, DC.
Marie is president of VEGTV, Inc., a video production company producing content for TV and new media. VEGTV streams hundreds of lifestyle videos to more than 1,000 sites globally. In her role as Director of Product Development at Smart Planet Kitchen, she has created, Marie Oser’s Lean & Green, a new line of vegan and Fair Trade Certified products. Marie has appeared on CNN, ABC, National Public Radio, QVC, WUSA, WNBC, KCAL, KOVR, Home & Garden Television (HGTV), FINE LIVING, TECH TV, and Discovery Channel.
Vegetarian since 1971; vegan since 1990, Marie left a career in TV advertising to pursue her interest in food, health, and nutrition. Born and raised in Philadelphia, PA, she studied psychology at St. Joseph’s University. Marie is a gourmet cook and organic gardener living in California, writing her 5th book and hiking every day with Travis, her Yellow Lab companion.
Cherl Petso is the Associate Editor at Disaboom.com, an online magazine for people with disabilities. Her writing expertise includes articles about the environment and sustainable living, and vegan/vegetarian issues. A vegetarian for 16 years and a recent vegan, Cherl is passionate about animal rights and issues. She enjoys writing about simple ways to lessen the impact on the Earth.
Cherl recently moved to Denver, Colorado from Bellingham, Washington. She enjoys hiking and hanging out with her puppy.
Nathanial Manning works for the Clinton Climate Initiative (CCI) as a Regional Analyst for Asia. He focuses on two programs for CCI, the Green Building Retrofit program and the Waste Management program. Nathaniel recently graduated from Brown University as an Environmental Studies Masters student, specializing in sustainable design and international carbon policy. Nat also completed a Bachelor of Arts in World Religions at Brown, focusing on the philosophy of ethics and the intersection between religion and politics. He is completing his Masters thesis on clean-technology-transfer within the UN's carbon credit mechanism (the CDM), which allows developed countries to invest in carbon mitigating technologies in developing countries with the purpose of promoting sustainable development.
Nathaniel has a long history of involvement in environmental development work ranging from waste-to-energy entrepreneurial ventures to designing sustainable homes for the Guatemalan chapter of Habitat for Humanity, to working for a tidal energy engineering firm in Singapore. Nat's passion is in how intelligent innovative solutions and technologies can be applied to create a sustainable and free world. When Nat thinks of the word "green" he does not just think of the word "environment" but how we as humans can design systems and solutions that create win-win situations.
Robert Cowin is a political consultant for environmental NGOs. His nomadic childhood reveals a world-class carpetbagger, but he masks as a Texan-New Yorker hybrid. Formerly with the National Environmental Trust (now the Pew Environment Group) in DC, he’s spent time on Capital Hill advocating for Kyoto ratification, clean air, renewable energy technology, and green energy policy.
Robert has also worked on marine conservation issues, directing the Conserve Our Ocean Legacy coalition in the Mid-Atlantic States which successfully worked to help strengthen and reauthorize the Magnuson Steven’s Act. He now happily lives in Southern California, flying back east often as he finishes his Masters in International Relations at Tufts University’s Fletcher School.
Dayanti Karunaratne is a freelance journalist based in Canada's capital city, Ottawa.
Since graduating from Carleton University's journalism program in 2006, Karunaratne has worked on the news desk at the Port Hope Evening Guide, the Ottawa Citizen, and the Molokai Times. Karunaratne's writing appears in the Ottawa Citizen, Ottawa Magazine, the Globe and Mail, and other lifestyle publications.
Heather O'Neill is the founder of Eco to the People, a green living blog.
Before founding Eco to the People, Heather O’Neill wore so many hats in the field of journalism that even the Queen Mother would envy her collection. She has worked as the managing editor of a beauty trade magazine; as a copy editor for an online tech magazine; as the associate editor of a city magazine and as a newspaper reporter and columnist, and as the senior editor at the popular online newsletter ecofabulous.
Her work has appeared in many publications, including Parenting, Alternative Medicine, Natural Solutions, Marin Magazine, Greenwich Magazine and HOME.
Heather earned a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from California College of the Arts. She lives and works in San Francisco.
Unfortunately, McCain’s vision of a new green economy isn’t exactly …well, green. While he does recognize the positive economic benefits of creating green jobs and investing in renewable technology, the centerpiece of his “green” economic platform is building 45 new nuclear power plants by 2030 with the eventual goal being 100 new nuclear power plants. While this will indeed create hundreds of thousands of new jobs, it’s hard to call them green jobs. After all, while nuclear energy is virtually carbon neutral, what to do with radio active waste remains an unanswered question. Still, McCain includes a cap and trade system as part of his green energy plan, and nuclear power is the major part of bridging the gap between electricity demand and the reduction of fossil fuel-based electricity production.
Another important part of McCain’s plan for a new green economy is “clean coal”. A variety of environmental organizations will tell you that there is indeed no such thing, and if we are going to get real serious about cutting greenhouse gas emissions, “clean coal” can’t be a large part of the solution. Still, the development of “clean coal” technology will create some jobs, especially with government tax breaks, subsidies, and other incentives. But McCain calls for a measly $2 billion a year for clean coal research and development and that’s not likely to spawn a significant amount of employment. “Clean coal” will reduce carbon emissions (by how much and whether it will make enough of a difference is a matter of debate) .
McCain is a supporter of “The Lexington Project” which is focused on the goal of U.S. energy independence. While not perfect, one of the truly green initiatives of the Lexington Project is a $300 million cash prize for the first company that can create a zero emissions automobile battery. This is a great market-based way to create jobs and help jump-start the US economy. If this idea is replicated to address a host of energy technology development challenges this could indeed be the type of stimulus needed to grow the new green economy. McCain also supports incentives for flex fuel development, wind and solar, as well as a $5,000 tax credit for the purchase of zero-emission vehicles. These measures are also positive steps in creating green jobs, and rewarding the tax payer’s wallets for being energy efficient.
McCain touts offshore drilling for oil and natural gas as another important part of his energy policy, and while this definitely isn’t an environmentally friendly idea, McCain likes to talk about how the oil platforms off the coasts will provide vital habitat for marine life, and poses no threat to the environment. He basically sees it as an environmentally safe and healthy practice, so it’s in affect become part of McCain’s green energy policy. Drill baby drill will create new jobs, but they’re only temporary.
So when we take a closer look at McCain’s plans to grow the new green economy, we can’t help but notice that much of those plans are focused on shifting fossil fuel-based forms of energy production to carbon-neutral forms of energy production with other environmental consequences. Also, there’s heavy emphasis on expanding domestic development of fossil fuel resources. While some of his market-based approaches to green technology development should be successful in creating green jobs, it needs to be expanded in order to maximize the economic benefits derived from creating mini green Manhattan projects all over the country. McCain’s vision for a new green economy is one where domestic energy production is far more important than environmental sensitivity, and many of the jobs created by the McCain plan won’t be green jobs. His plan to grow the green economy is mostly just an energy plan with incentives to move towards more green approaches.
Tomorrow, we’ll take a closer look at Barack Obama’s plan for a green economy.
Stay current on the latest policies and progress government is making on addressing green issues. Find out what is going on off-camera and in the discussion chambers of government. Advocate your thoughts and ideas.
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Unfortunately, McCain’s vision of a new green economy isn’t exactly …well, green. While he does recognize the positive economic benefits of creating green jobs and investing in renewable technology, the centerpiece of his “green” economic platform is building 45 new nuclear power plants by 2030 with the eventual goal being 100 new nuclear power plants. While this will indeed create hundreds of thousands of new jobs, it’s hard to call them green jobs. After all, while nuclear energy is virtually carbon neutral, what to do with radio active waste remains an unanswered question. Still, McCain includes a cap and trade system as part of his green energy plan, and nuclear power is the major part of bridging the gap between electricity demand and the reduction of fossil fuel-based electricity production.
