Author name: Scott Cooney

Scott Cooney (twitter: scottcooney) is an adjunct professor of Sustainability in the MBA program at the University of Hawai'i, green business startup coach, author of Build a Green Small Business: Profitable Ways to Become an Ecopreneur (McGraw-Hill), and developer of the sustainability board game GBO Hawai'i. Scott has started, grown and sold two mission-driven businesses, failed miserably at a third, and is currently in his fourth. Scott's current company has three divisions: a sustainability blog network that includes the world's biggest clean energy website and reached over 5 million readers in December 2013 alone; Pono Home, a turnkey and franchiseable green home consulting service that won entrance into the clean tech incubator known as Energy Excelerator; and Cost of Solar, a solar lead generation service to connect interested homeowners and solar contractors. In his spare time, Scott surfs, plays ultimate frisbee and enjoys a good, long bike ride.

VP Pick Paul Ryan voted against the stimulus before he requested it, 5 times, for his district

Paul Ryan Loves Government Spending (via Red Green & Blue) If there’s one thing Republicans love, it’s federal government spending.Β  Their other great love is keeping up a continuous echo chamber around the idea that federal government spending is the source of all evil in the world, that Obama’s stimulus package didn’t create a single

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Midwestern farmers, facing drought, see a future in wind farms

The worst drought in recent history is making life uncomfortable for many farmers across America’s grain belt. While the diminishing supply of corn has sent the prices of corn skyward, livestock farmers and those farmers not lucky enough to have a crop at all this year have really suffered. Some progressive farmers have already diversified,

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Loca-vesting

The local first movement has a new frontier: locavesting.Β  Friday’sΒ stronger than expected jobs report showed several indications of economic growth. Every sector grew, including construction, manufacturing, and agriculture. Image what would happen if we could actually drive investment capital to Main Street! One way to make that happen is embodied in a term I heard

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Mitt Romney announces his first policy plan if elected President

With attacks on his record as a vulture capitalist seeming to have an effect, and after his “Listen and learn” trip to England and Israel that was supposed to make him look presidential, but instead turned into a “insert foot in mouth” trip, GOP nominee Mitt Romney’s popularity appears to be waning. He managed to

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Economic and environmental progress on the Big Island of Hawaii

“Sustainability is about living with aloha” Β  -Mayor Billy Kenoi Geothermal energy, wind, sunshine, good soils, and a great aquifer system have the Big Island of Hawaii feeling good these days. Billy Kenoi, mayor of Hawaii County, touted the county’s accomplishments in a recent speech at the TechConKona Conference, in which Paul Hawken keynoted. ‘The

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When will the impacts of climate change become “news” again?

It’s hard to avoid the news of climate change these days. There are epic heat waves. There are power outages. There are droughts. Huge floods in MinnesotaΒ and Wisconsin. Record number of storms in the Gulf of Mexico this year. Crazy wildfires in Colorado and Utah. But yet…where is this all in the national debate? Aside

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Irish Pubs create culture and community–why doesn’t America have something similar?

Say what you will about the Irish. Being half-Irish, half-Italian, I think I’m fair game for most appropriate and inappropriate cultural jokes. But the Irish (whose economy is finally recoveringΒ after having been lied to by their media) have something that is hard to explain, that binds their culture in a way that few other countries

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Factory farms fight public health, safety, and cruelty legislation…but not the factory farms affected by the law?

In a groundbreaking move toward corporate social responsibility, the United Egg Producers of the United States is teaming up with the Humane Society to push for regulations of its industry making the particularly cruel battery cages with which most chickens are factory farmed illegal. Regulatory attempts like this are often stonewalled by the industry associations

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Apple reconsiders its plan to withdraw MacBook from third party eco-label EPEAT

Apple today announced that it might have been just kidding when it previously announced plans to withdraw its Macbook from evaluation by the green IT label EPEAT. Apple’s popularity among designers, artists, and young entrepreneurs might give you the impression that its products are, as the company says, “the world’s greenest lineup of notebooks.” The

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What do small businesses think of regulations?

Besides taxes, the most frequently used franken-word in economics is likely regulations. The specter of increased regulations is often thrown around by polluting companies, their lobbyists, and the politicians they support in order to swing public opinion away from environmental and health protections. It works, but I think mainly because it’s a word that most

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Green Jobs are “Additive”, not simply replacing other jobs

Green entrepreneurs account for critical green jobs creation. This is not to be understated, as not all jobs are created equal. Think about the recent announcement that Airbus is building a large manufacturing facility in Alabama. Yes, this creates a lot of jobs in both the construction of the plant and the ongoing operations at

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The Green Economy has changed national politics: Virginia and West Virginia case studies

Virginia and West Virginia, as little as five or ten years ago, were reliably supportive of their respective party’s presidential candidate. The politics of clean energy seems to have changed both states’ political tune, with Democrats picking up the 13 electoral college votes in Virginia from Republicans, and ceding the 5 electoral college votes of

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Poll shows jump in optimism on economic outlook: other results mixed

The most recent poll measuring economic outlook among Americans shows about a 21% jump since the poll was last conducted. In October 2011, only 39% of Americans said they thought the economy was going to be better in a year than it is now. The most recent figure is 60%. The poll, conducted June 28-July

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Survey finds major growth in green jobs

Major survey finds 508,000 clean economy jobs created in the Pacific Northwest. Experts believe that 1.03 million net new full-time equivalents can be created by continuing the clean economy path by 2020. The jobs include clean tech engineers, machinists, installers, and other “boots on the roof” jobs, energy auditors, organic agriculture specialists, local food manufacturers,

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Why Not Privatize Highways?

Congress has apparently reached a bipartisan agreement on a transportation bill that includes $109 billion to support the nation’s roads, bridges, and railways. 1.9 million jobs hung in the balance, and the political bickering delayed the bill’s passage several months, but the real question is…why subsidize highways at all? If we were to sell off

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Supreme Court Overturns Montana Challenge to Citizens United

The amount of money flowing into this year’s election has awed many an observer, this one included. With 3 men committed to raising $500,000,000 to defeat President Obama, it’s hard to see how this can accurately be called a democracy anymore. Citizens United is largely to blame. It was the Supreme Court case that allowed

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