The New Adventures of Horatio Bootblack

So I was recently asked to share some thoughts on the rise of the B Corporation–or benefit corporation–and their role in relation both to Occupy Wall Street and possible shifts in economic thinking and ideas more generally. What follows is a quick first pass to answer these questions.

In a nutshell, a B corporation is a fairly new classification which is for businesses which are for profit, but have a primary interest in providing social and environmental goods through their business operations, as opposed to a purely bottom-line profit incentive of a traditional corporation. In essence, think of it as a hybrid between do-gooder non-profits and green capitalism with an emphasis on social, environmental and governance issues–what are commonly referred to in the socially responsible investing world as “SEG criteria.” The idea is that B corporations are creating a new business climate that does not prioritizes profit over doing good, but rather highlights companies that are both responsible and profitable. Read More

“A little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion.”

- F. Bacon

Speaking of bacon, a friend recently sent me a really amazing recipe for sweet and spicy bacon coated with Nutella. I know, pretty wild huh.

I can’t verify the yum or yuck factor yet–I’ll be sure to post the results however once I have them. But the whole idea really interested me, as I am a pretty renegade cook, and am always looking for the unusual or the unexpected in food combinations and meals. And this one definitely caught my eye. Read More

I recently ran across a great article on improving your wordpress site over at Yoast, who designed the lovely SEO plugin that many WP users–myself included-use. The tutorial there is stellar, and if you use wordpress, I suggest reading it, as it has all sorts of handy things I did–and did not–even consider, but will now, in terms of running and managing my blog. The one I found the most interesting is the part about the difference between pages and posts, and how they drive different trends in search analytics and the like. Never thought about it, but it makes sense, and another of the website I manage–the USS website–does exactly this.

I’m not going to go into a lot of depth on this post, just highlight a few things worth considering: Read More

GMC's 2012 Yukon Denali Hybrid.

That’s right, a Yukon Denali Hybrid! If that sound like an oxymoron, that’s probably because it is. I happened upon this car while walking to work today, and saw one sitting at a light. The one I saw also had the words HYBRID glazed across the top 8-12″ of the window as well in a blue/grey font, which was what originally caught my attention. I think it was something about seeing a massive hunk of black automotive waste with a huge “HYBRID” label that caused momentary disorientation and confusion. How can that be a hybrid, I though to myself? Read More

After writing about my experience in Belleville recently talking about fracking for gas in Ohio, one of the folks I met there asked me an interesting question, which I want to devote an entire post to, as I think it is an important question, and one that many environmentalists don’t necessarily spend enough time on. The question was this:

Do you think there is enough natural gas being produced without having to introduce this unconventional drilling? I didn’t know we were having a shortage. Natural gas prices are down right now. Why this deep shale gas rush?

These are a couple of ways we might try to answer this, but I want to start with the first, which is that it is difficult to get a firm grasp on exactly how much natural gas reserves exist in the US. As Maggie Koerth-Baker writes at BoingBoing in her post Natural gas and the trouble with estimating fossil fuel reserves: Read More