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Filed under: Government/Legal, GM

Wednesday was a busy day for General Motors CEO Ed Whitacre by anyone’s definition. He started the day with a trip to The General’s Fairfax plant in Kansas to tell the world that GM was paying off the remaining $5.8 billion in government loans five years ahead of schedule and to announce a $257 million investment for a pair of plants. After the announcement came a trip to Washington to meet with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Michigan delegation from Congress.

There was no way for Whitacre to rock a Chevy Malibu from Kansas to Washington in a couple hours, so Big Ed instead chartered a flight to our nation’s capitol. You may remember what happened the last time an automaker CEO flew into Washington. It wasn’t pretty. So instead of using a private jet on company funds, The Detroit News reports that Whitacre busted out the check book and paid for the flight to Washington on his own dime. Given the fact that Big Ed received a $158 million retirement package from AT&T (and part-time use of a private plane), we’re guessing the trip isn’t going to break the bank.

We’re a long way away from knowing whether Whitacre is as good an automotive CEO as he was a telecommunications chief executive, but the early returns show that the burly Texan at least pays attention to history.

[Source: The Detroit News | Image: Steve Fecht/General Motors]

GM CEO Whitacre paid for own charter flight to D.C. originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 22 Apr 2010 10:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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There’s preambular language in the New START nuclear arms accord with the Russians that touches on Russia’s unease with America’s planned system for European missile defense. It’s non-binding and it’s extremely opaque. (“Recognizing the existence of the interrelationship between strategic offensive arms and strategic defensive arms, that this interrelationship will become more important as strategic nuclear arms are reduced…”) A raft of Obama administration officials, up to and including the president, have personally vouched for the treaty’s lack of constraint on the missile defense system. Earlier this week, Lt. Gen. Patrick O’Reilly, the head of the Missile Defense Agency, testified that the treaty, once ratified, will not restrict his missile-defense development. At all.

You would think that the verifiable absence of an actual objection to the treaty would remove political obstacles to it and win over converts. If you think that, you’re probably not Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), who gave a breakfast crowd at the National Defense University Foundation a whole bunch of — irony of ironies — unverifiable objections to New START. They culminated in this:

“More important to me, the Obama administration negotiators were disingenuous at best in the way they described the wording on missile defense, and some would go further than disingenuous to describe what they did,” Kyl said. “And what did we get out of the Russians in return? They will go down to levels [of nuclear arms] they were heading toward anyway. They tied one hand behind our back on missile defense, and we did nothing to address the Russian advantage in tactical nuclear weapons. So we’re going to have a very robust debate on whether or not the United States is better off with this treaty. Personally, I’m not sure the treaty is worth what we give up.”

On the Russian advantage stuff, the Obama administration plans to negotiate another treaty after New START gets ratified, to cut the arsenals even further. So be charitable to Kyl and give him that. On missile defense, the briefest of inspections of the treaty refutes Kyl’s substantive point. This is what the treaty actually says about missile defense:

For the purposes of this Treaty… a missile of a type developed and tested solely to intercept and counter objects not located on the surface of the Earth shall not be considered to be a ballistic missile to which the provisions of this Treaty apply.

Right there! In black and white! The treaty doesn’t restrict missile defense! Explicitly! There’s even more:

Each Party shall not convert and shall not use ICBM [intercontinental ballistic missile] launchers and SLBM [submarine-launched ballistic missile] launchers for placement of missile defense interceptors therein. Each Party further shall not convert and shall not use launchers of missile defense interceptors for placement of ICBMs and SLBMs therein. This provision shall not apply to ICBM launchers that were converted prior to signature of this Treaty for placement of missile defense interceptors therein.

Who’s the disingenuous one here?

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Just a couple quick updates before I publish the regularly scheduled article for the day…

Live Blogging Updates from PrimalCon

1. We are less than 24 hours from the inaugural PrimalCon – the ultimate Primal Blueprint experience! I wish the entire Mark’s Daily Apple community could make it out, but for those that can’t you’ll be able to get a taste of PrimalCon through MDA. The Worker Bees and I will be live blogging the entire weekend so check back tomorrow, Saturday and Sunday for text, photo and (maybe) video updates straight from the conference.

If you aren’t coming to PrimalCon 2010 start making plans from PrimalCon 2011 now. We’ll be announcing details later this year!

The Primal Blueprint Cookbook Offer Set to Expire

2. The Primal Blueprint Cookbook 72-hour special offer is coming to a close in a little over an hour and a half (expires at 10 am PST).

This is your final chance to take advantage of the 20% discount, so if you haven’t grabbed a copy for and your friends act fast!

An enormous thanks to everyone that has pre-ordered a book. Self-publishing is no easy task, but the support from this community makes it much easier. Grok on!

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Related posts:

1. PrimalCon 2010 Announcement: Sit, Stand and Walk Like Grok
2. Top Ten Reasons to Pre-Order The Primal Blueprint Cookbook
3. Announcement: New Recipe Theme for the Cookbook Contest

Kevin Grandia is broadcasting a bunch of Earth Day interviews on ClimateTV starting at noon EDT.  You can get the background on this at Desmogblog.  I will be on live at 1:30 if my Skype connection works — never done an interview this way before.  Here are all of the guests you can see:

Dr. Andrew Weaver, a climatologist at the University of Victoria and author of Keeping our Cool: Canada in a Warming World.

Josh Dorfman, author of The Lazy Environmentalist: Your Guide to Easy, Stylish, Green Living and star of Sundance Channel’s TV series The Lazy Environmentalist.

Maggie Fox, CEO and President of Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection

Erin Carlson, Director of Yahoo! Green

Kate Sheppard, Environmental Reporter for Mother Jones Magazine

JW Randolph, Legislative Associate for Appalachian Voices, a West Virginia grassroots organization fighting to end the practice of mountain top removal

Phil Radford, Executive Director of Greenpeace USA

Cliff Schecter, political columnist and author of The Real McCain: Why Conservatives Don’t Trust Him—And Why Independents Shouldn’t

Katharine Hayhoe, climate scientist at Texas Tech University and author of A Climate for Change: Global Warming Facts for Faith-Based Decisions

Nate Byer, Earth Day Network’s 2010 Earth Day Campaign Director

Nick Miller, Founder, President and CEO of Xool Labs, Executive Producer of ClimateTV
ClimateTV will also be airing an online broadcast premiere of the award-winning documentary No Impact Man starting at 3:30pm pacific, 6:30pm eastern. The screening will be followed by a live interactive panel discussion with special guests Jennifer Prediger, also known as “Ask Umbra” on Grist.org, David Beers, founding editor of The Tyee.ca, Kim Thee, ClimateTV host and Kevin Grandia, yours truly

This post is part of the IT Innovation series, sponsored by Sun & Intel. Read more at ITInnovation.com.
Of course, the content of this post consists entirely of the thoughts and opinions of the author.

We’ve discussed in the past the differences between invention and innovation — where invention is the creation of something new, and innovation is the actual process of putting it into practice. We’ve pointed out that the patent system is supposed to encourage the latter (innovation — as seen in the command that the system “promote the progress”) but in practice tends to promote the former at the expense of the latter. The problem is that people who aren’t that familiar with the process of innovation think that the two things are the same. But, in reality, innovation is an ongoing process, whereby people have to keep trying out different ideas to make something useful. Anyone who’s built a business learns this quickly: the original idea is usually meaningless by the time anything successful comes around. Real innovation is a process of continually trying out new ideas and tweaking them slightly until you figure out what really attracts the market’s attention. Studies have shown that real innovation is this kind of ongoing process, rather than the “flash of insight” concept pushed by patent system supporters.

Of course, when innovation is an ongoing process, patents tend to hold back that process. That’s because they make it so that only one player in the field — who perhaps is not the one best equipped to innovate — gets to run that process. Everyone else is held back. It also slows down the pace of innovation, since without competition, the patent holder has less incentive to keep trying out those new ideas to find what works best. As we’ve learned for years and years, competition breeds innovation — but the patent system is designed to cut out competition for no particular reason.

Defenders of the patent system will often claim that the more socially beneficial result is for competitors to come up with something completely new, rather than building off the work of others. However, there is little evidence to support this particular interpretation. In fact, most research into true innovation shows that it is much more efficient for all parties to have access to as many possible solutions as possible — and holding back those options results in sub-optimal social results.

Yet another new study has shown this to be the case. Some researchers ran a contest of sorts, where they asked various people to submit “programs” in a contest to produce the best results:

A group of researchers set out to answer this question, and published their results in Science last week. To tackle the issue, the researchers set up a computer-based tournament based on Robert Axelrod’s ‘Prisoner’s Dilemma’ competitions in the late 1970s. In this type of tournament, entrants submit computerized strategies that compete against each other in a virtual world. Individuals, or “agents,” with the most successful strategies survive and reproduce, while less successful strategies die out.

In each round of the social learning tournament, automated agents could choose from 100 behaviors, each of which returned a certain payoff. The payoffs changed over the course of the tournament, simulating changing environmental conditions that might render a behavior more or less useful. In any round, agents could make one of three moves: use a behavior they already knew (Exploit), use asocial learning to test a new behavior by trial-and-error (Innovate), or learn socially by watching a behavior that another agent was performing in that round (Observe). Out of the three possible moves, only Exploit resulted in a payoff; the two learning moves would only return information about how profitable the behavior was in the current environmental conditions. Social learning was especially costly; if Observe was played when no other agent was performing a novel behavior, the agent learned nothing.

The results, however, showed that the runaway winners of the contest were those that used “social learning” the most. In other words, they were the ones who took what, on the face of things, appeared to be the most “costly” move — and focused on what was working best for others and then using it successfully themselves. In other words, yet again, we see that the strategies that make the most sense for the greatest output tend to be those where participants in a market have the ability to copy others. Now, this upsets those who may have come up with the results first, but as other studies have shown, it’s rarely the exclusivity of patents that leads to that invention in the first place. So if you don’t need exclusivity to invent, and a more open solution of copying leads to greater overall output and social benefit… what, exactly, is the reason for creating these kinds of monopolies anyway?

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The Lancia and Chrysler branding decision, which was announced yesterday during Fiat’s 5-years business plan presentation, ended months of speculation and debate on how the automaker would market the combined lineup across Europe. Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne said that all Lancia and Chrysler vehicles sold in continental Europe will wear the Lancia badge, while the Chrysler badge will only be used on Lancia and Chrysler cars sold in the UK and Ireland.

“The Lancia brand will be most impacted by the Chrysler alliance as the two ranges will be fully integrated into a new full-liner brand,” Fiat-Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne said.

Fiat chose to predominately use the Lancia brand because consumer study shows that in Europe Lancia cars could command a higher price than Chrysler.

Lance sales grew 9.2 percent to 112,000 in 2009, while Chrysler brand sales decline 60.2 percent to 11,500 units.

2010 Detroit: 2009 Lancia Delta based Chrysler:

All Photos Copyright © 2010 Omar Rana – egmCarTech.

– By: Omar Rana

Source: Automotive News (Subscription Required)

The Daily Green received more than 400 pitches for Earth Day, to give readers one window on the marketing blitz that Earth Day has become, at least in some quarters.

There are Earth Day hotel deals. There are to-go coffees that generate a few pennies for environmental causes. There’s advice for celebrating Earth Day at home, in the kitchen, and even in your cubicle. There are companies announcing new sustainability initiatives, companies telling you to celebrate Earth Day by cleaning up after your dog with a biodegradable “poop bag,” and companies giving out condoms to raise awareness about endangered species (it’s true).

There are star-studded fundraisers and charitable auctions. There are iPhone apps, websites, festivals, eco-fairs, and stream cleanups. There’s a new super green fish guide to take the mystery out of choosing safe, sustainable fish. There are many tips lists that each include one thinly veiled product pitch. There’s great programming on television with an environmental theme (why was there never an “It’s Earth Day, Charlie Brown” special?). There’s a carbon pawprint calculator for your pets.

Some of these are worthy, some just marketing. Rather than list all of them, we are encouraging readers to do something that matters this Earth Day.

The Daily Green’s Heart of Green Awards just celebrated some exceptional individuals who are helping green go mainstream. Our Lifetime Achievement Award winner, Ted Danson, gave an inspiring speech, in which he urged people to do something very simple this Earth Day (or any day): Become educated, and become an international activist.

Signing a petition, donating a few dollars to a cause, or learning about a major environmental issue is about the most important thing individuals can do this Earth Day. So we are highlighting some of the worthy causes you could join.

Happy 40th birthday, Earth Day!

 

Join the national call to action on comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation
The NRDC, which is lead by The Daily Green’s 2009 Heart of Green Lifetime Achievement Award winner France Beinecke, is leading an effort to tell Congress that Americans want to take action on climate change.

So write a letter to your representatives, sign the NRDC’s petition, or join the Climate Rally on April 25.

 

Support the Safe Chemical Act
Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ) has just introduced a bill to reform chemical regulations in the United States, so that the health effects of the 80,000 chemicals introduced into commerce in the last 50 years or so will be more thoroughly tested before Americans are exposed. It’s a cause that our 2010 Heart of Green Award winner Dr. Philip Landrigan supports.

Sign this Environmental Working Group petition in support of the act.

 

Buy a ticket for Clearwater’s Great Hudson River Revival
Clearwater is one of the oldest environmental organizations working on clean water, environmental justice, and healthy fisheries on the Hudson River. Its annual Revival event features a full weekend of music, along with a healthy does of activism. It’s inspiring, and the money benefits a very worthy cause. Plus, Pete Seeger, the group’s founder, is awesome.

Tickets range from $40-80 at www.clearwaterfestival.org.

 

Volunteer locally
It’s National Volunteer Week, as well as Earth Week, so get out and do some good in your community.

The Earth Day Network is a good place to start to search for local initiatives.

 

If you have another worthy nonprofit cause, put it in the comments below.

 

More from The Daily Green

• 2010 Heart of Green Awards: Photos, Profiles, and Video
• 6 Facts and Myths About Organic Foods
• 10 Endangered Vacations
• Gone In Our Lifetime – 11 Recently Extinct Creatures
• 15 Easy Ways You Can Actually Help the Environment

Reprinted with permission of Hearst Communications, Inc

Um homem e uma mulher, após uma noite num barzinho, resolvem ir para a casa dele para ficarem mais a vontade…
Uma dose aqui, uma outra dose ali e a mulher resolve tomar a iniciativa dizendo, com voz melosa:
– Me faz mulher!
O homem, então, diante do olhar sedento da mulher, tira a roupa vagarosamente . Uma vez com suas roupas na mão, ele diz para ela:
– Tome! vá lavá-las!

Tony Hawk’s moving from riding to shredding. Following an unplanned and premature confirmation from Tony Hawk himself, Activision has officially announced that the next Tony Hawk game is called Tony Hawk: Shred.

Bears have been getting burned trying to bet against this market, which has made fools of everyone.

At this point, your gut might be to go short, but all the carcasses on the side of the road have scared you off.

To this effect Waverly Advisors has put out a note on the spread between the S&P 500 futures and Russell 2000 today futures.

They note:

“Small caps have outperformed large caps by a wide margin during the past 4 quarters and, despite some undeniable positive economic developments and declining yields on low-grade corporate debt, we currently see them as richly priced from a historical perspective (including the typical sustained outperformance during economic recovery periods).   In brief,  we see a substantial portion of the current spread between large and small cap US equities as a function of increased speculative appetite that can rapidly moderate in the face of macro headwinds. “

 “Tactically, the spread appears overextended from a historical perspective and we are initiating a position here cautiously.   As with all mean-reversion plays, the goal is to leave sufficiently wide parameters between legs as we scale into our position.”

Again, this is not a directional bet on the market, but a bet on the reversal of this overextended situation that could pay off even if the market doesn’t turn around, but will likely pay of big if the market does turn around.

Join the conversation about this story »

Aired April 21, 2010
By Chris Hurst, KNDU TV


KENNEWICK, Wash.–  It’s been a rough month for Randy Dorn, elected for and praised because of his work to eliminate the WASL.

After his DUI in March, he’s been actively trying to polish his tarnished image. But is he doing all he can, or is there more he can do to teach students and help his career for the future?

In a new public service announcement, Dorn admits his guilt and also warns students on the dangers of drinking and driving, just in time for prom season.

But is he doing all he can to show he’s made a mistake? Some say he’s not going far enough.

“I think what he’s done is he’s tried to in some respects explain away the condition, by talking about how he just barely went over the alcohol limit and how it doesn’t impair his capacity to serve publicly,” says Columbia Basin College political science professor, Gary Bullert.

Part of the problem experts say is Dorn is not only an elected public official, but in charge of our children’s education, meaning character is even more important.

“I would say that its probably in the “C” to “D” range if you wanted to grade the superintendent. He’s in a kind of special relationship because of his role in education,” he says.

In an age where politicians have become increasingly synonymous with scandal, election consultants think he’s at least on the right track.

“It’s important go get out front very early and to be forthright and forthcoming with the whole situation,” says Sean McGrath, a consultant for political candidates [for full disclosure, he is also the current general manager for the Tri-Cities Fever.] “He appears to have done that, to be in the process of doing that now.”

“Going green” is becoming a way of life in many places. Your office doesn’t need to be an exception.

Fortunately, it’s easy to integrate some simple routines into your workday that will help lessen your impact on the Earth.

Bonus: most of them will end up saving you money, too.

From switching to non-disposable kitchen supplies (no more buying paper cups in bulk), to turning off lights whenever possible (lower electricity bills), these new routines will help you cut down on waste and your office costs.

Click here to see 11 simple ways to go green at your office >

See Also:

• How To Cut Your Company’s Tech Bills
• 5 Creative Ways To Cut Your Office Space Costs
• The 10 Tech Essentials Every Small Business Should Have

Only print when absolutely necessary

Choose eco-friendly office supplies — you can find green versions of many common ones, such as toner, ink, and lightbulbs

Turn equipment off at night

Recycle your old equipment and furniture instead of throwing them away

Back up your data virtually — using options such as external hard drives or cloud computing — instead of on paper

Upgrade your hardware components instead of getting completely new computers

Be diligent about turning off lights when a room is not in use

Encourage telecommuting when possible

Use non-disposable kitchen supplies, such as coffee mugs and glasses, instead of plastic or paper

Use daylight — instead of the office lights — whenever you can

Set up a recycling station and encourage everyone to recycle their cans, bottles, and paper

Now, don’t miss…

How To Cut Your Company’s Tech Bills >

Join the conversation about this story »

Within a mile of the U.S./Mexico border, agents from both countries are in the midst of a politically sensitive operation that for the first time has Federales training with American officers. For my eight years covering this story here in southern Arizona this has been a question asked more than a few times, why isn’t there more cooperation and training together? Well, now there is an answer and we found that answer in Nogales, on the U.S. side.

The paint pellets snapped against the plywood targets echoing through the massive warehouse. Three Mexican police officers dressed in blue, lined shoulder to shoulder, sweep their rifles 180 degrees from left to right, following english and spanish instructions. American agents dressed in green are standing with them, providing instruction and demonstrating stances. An interpreter makes sure everyone is on the same page, as this close combat training continues throughout the day. Eventually agents from our side explain how to approach a building and then get in safely by providing cover on all sides, the Federales tell me they have never been shown any of this before.

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So far about 50 Mexican police officers have completed this three-week course and there are plans for the U.S. to help train several hundred more. Not only is this new found cooperation helping save lives of fellow law enforcement south of the border, it is also building new found lines of communication and friendship between the law enforcement international brotherhood. Now as one Federale tells me, “I know of a face and a name on the other side of the fence, maybe somebody I can call.”

Tom Pittman from the U.S. Border Patrol agrees and says, “There’s always been cooperation, but maybe tense cooperation, if you will but we’re getting to know each other as people.”

It’s a politically sensitive alliance intended to save lives and possibly lead to the creation of a Mexican counterpart to the U.S. Border Patrol.

Inside the wherehouse we see agents use M-4 rifles where the lower receiver is exactly like the one used in the field, but the upper receiver is a bit different and modified to shoot paint pellets for training purposes. The Federales are also being shown ways to detect contraband in hidden compartments, ATV practice racing across the Sonoran Desert and how to provide first responder medical aid in the desert.

According to Tom, “We’re very excited to do it, we’re helping brother cops that don’t have the opportunity, or haven’t had the opportunity yet to get this type of training, so we’re happy to help fellow cops stay alive, that’s for sure !”

Martin Crutsinger, AP Economics Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — The head of the International Monetary Fund says that the debt crisis in Greece is serious and there would be no “silver bullet” to resolve the issue in an easy manner.

IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said that negotiations with the IMF over conditions for a support package were just beginning and would take some time to come to a resolution.

But Strauss-Kahn told reporters that the IMF was not considering some type of restructuring of Greek debt that would make holders of the debt accept something less than full value for their loans. That worry has roiled markets in recent days.

Join the conversation about this story »

While quark is a term that you’ll hear in some physics textbooks, it is also one that you’ll find in some cookbooks – one that comes with a very different meaning. Quark is a type of soft, fresh European cheese. It is easy to make comparisons with other dairy products, since it is similar to many other types of cheeses, but definitely unique. It is hard to find in the US but with the ever-growing popularity of cooking as a hobby, it is now appearing in more specialty markets than before, and some US dairies are even producing their own.

Quark is smooth and creamy, with a consistency similar to that of thick, greek-style yogurt or sour cream. It’s flavor is somewhere between ricotta and sour cream, with a bit of a tang to it. It is probably most similar to the popular French fromage frais, although quark is of Eastern European origin and produced in a slightly different way. The exact consistency and flavor of quark will vary slightly from producer to producer.

The reason why quark is so popular in international cookbooks is that it is extremely versatile and low in fat. It holds up very well to heat (unlike yogurt) and can be used any number of ways. For instance, it can be substituted for sour cream, yogurt and even for cream cheese in many recipes, from baked goods to quiches to dips, and because of its consistency will add a richness to dishes even though it is low in fat. If you see it in your local specialty grocery store, it is worth picking up a container to experiment with and try incorporating it into some of your own recipes.

Ex-American Idol Kelly Clarkson’s upcoming concert in Indonesia will go down without the sponsorship of an Asian cigarette giant following protests from fans and anti-tobacco groups.

In recent days, Kelly’s Facebook page has been flooded with fans begging her to reject the cigarette sponsorship, saying she is sending the wrong message to kids. This as anti-tobacco groups rallied against the singer for using her image to sell products — which kill 200,000 people every year in that nation where more than 60 % of the population smokes.

On Wednesday, Kelly penned a statement to fans remarking that she was surprised to learn that billboards announcing her April 29 concert in Jakarta were being heavily promoted along the logo of the popular cigarette L.A. Lights.

“I think the hardest part of situations like this is getting personally attacked for something I was completely unaware of and being used as some kind of political pawn,” Clarkson charged, calling the debacle a “lose-lose situation.”

Despite her disappointment, the “Breakaway” star — who noted that she is not a smoker and does not advocate it — said it was too late to get out of the deal with tobacco brand and grudgingly stated that the show would go on with controversial sponsorship.

“I refuse to cancel on my fans,” she wrote in a posting on her blog.

Thanks to some work from her promoters — she won’t have to.

Promoter Adrie Subono has announced that his company has reached a “final agreement” with cigarette company Djarum, the maker of LA Lights, and the sponsorship had been cancelled.

“There will be no (LA Lights) media promotion at the Kelly Clarkson concert,” he told The Associated Press Thursday.

The New York Times: Pollution before the first Earth Day was not only visible, it was in your face: Cleveland’s Cuyahoga River caught fire. An oil spill fouled 30 miles of Southern California beaches. And thick smog choked many cities’ skies. Not anymore.

On Thursday, 40 years after that first Earth Day in 1970, smog levels nationwide have dropped by about a quarter, and lead levels in the air are down more than 90 percent. Formerly fetid lakes and burning rivers are now open to swimmers.

The challenges to the planet today are largely invisible — and therefore tougher to tackle.

”To suggest that we’ve made progress is not to say the problem is over,” said William Ruckelshaus, who in 1970 became the first head of the Environmental Protection Agency. ”What we’ve done is shift from the very visible kinds of issues to those that are a lot more subtle today.”

Issues such as climate change are less obvious to the naked eye. Since the first Earth Day, carbon dioxide levels in the air have increased by 19 percent, pushing the average annual world temperature up about 1 degree Fahrenheit, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

”We’ve cleaned up what you can see and left everything else in limbo,” said Kathleen Rogers, president of the Earth Day Network.

Improvements took shape in the form of the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and changes in the way businesses treat the environment, said Denis Hayes. Those reforms, he added, grew out of the first Earth Day, an event Hayes helped coordinate.

”It is the most powerful, sweeping, society-wide change America has had since the New Deal,” Hayes said. ”The air is cleaner despite the fact that we have twice as many vehicles traveling twice as many miles.”

Nancy Sutley, head of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said progress in the past 40 years is about more than just laws. It’s also about innovation that made cleaner cars. And that innovation, Sutley said, ”is going to be the answer for tackling climate change.”

No place illustrates progress more than the Cuyahoga River.

Cleveland’s main river used to periodically catch fire. On June 22, 1969, trash and an oil slick ignited. The river burned for half an hour, drawing national attention to water pollution nationwide.

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