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Green Banks Offer Mega-Bank Alternative

e3bank was recently featured as a green investment in our green investing newsletter, Progressive Investor. At a time when people have lost faith in financial institutions, there’s a push toward taking your money out of banks that are "too big to fail" and re-investing it in community banks and credit unions. Besides everything you’ve heard about the big banks during the past year, most have miserable environmental and social records, and finance environmentally destructive projects like coal plants. Among the hundreds of community banks are a handful of green community banks, all of which offer you "banking with your values" by investing in local communities, offering personal relationships, and often better interest rates on checking accounts. They channel your funds into projects that build healthy communities, helping small businesses and investing in affordable housing. Thanks to electronic banking you can deposit and move funds with any bank, anywhere. Keep the minimum amount necessary for a free checking or savings account at a conventional bank that has lots of ATM machines. Or write a check from your community bank to the conventional bank once a month to cover your cash needs. Most credit cards are issued by the mega-banks – you […]

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Overlooked Non-CO2 Strategies: 50% of Climate Warming

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"While the Copenhagen accord negotiated in the closing hours by a small number of heads of government, including China, India, and the US, is a disappointment to many-in process, form, and content-others will see the full engagement by heads of government as a milestone in climate policy," says Durwood Zaelke, President of the Institute for Governance & Sustainable Development. "The true value of the accord depends on the follow-up." A key aspect of follow up, says Zaelke, is the "fast, forgotten 50% of warming caused by non-CO2 gases and aerosols – black carbon, methane and hydrofluorocarbons. Carbon cuts are essential but won’t result in cooling benefits for up to 1,000 years. Not only do non-CO2 pollutants make up half of warming, they are the half that can be solved quickly. Cutting non-CO2 sources of pollution can reduce the risk of passing temperature tipping points for abrupt and irreversible climate changes. Fast action on non-carbon pollution could offset as much as 40 years worth of CO2 emissions, and delay the time when dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system would otherwise be reached. The 2009 G8 Leaders Declaration commits to fast-action on black carbon and hydrofluorocarbons; the 2009 North American Leaders […]

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