Going green is good for business. Hanes makes eco-friendly underwear. Frito-Lay puts its Sun Chips into biodegradable bags. Target has recycling bins for its customers. Wal-Mart is building more energy-efficient stores, using more alternative fuels in its trucks and reducing packaging. P&G has not only come out with green products like Tide Cold Water detergent, it’s also finding uses for its byproducts and leftovers that previously went into landfills. For example, Clairol hair color ingredients make tires shine and materials in Pampers diapers and Always maxi pads absorb industrial leaks and spills. Even the earnings of green companies are greener.

Zero Motorcycles is another company that’s going green. The combination of small, high-powered, military torpedo motors and lithium batteries made the 2010 Zero S possible. It’s an electric, freeway-legal motorcycle than can go 67 mph as is. Because these cycles weigh two-thirds as much as conventional gasoline motorcycles, they are easier to handle. A Zero S costs $10,000, but driving it costs about a penny a mile and it can be recharged using conventional electric outlets. What it doesn’t have is the conventional, deafening roar. The silent electric motor fights air pollution, as well as noise pollution.

PACT, a company in Berkeley, California isn’t going green. It started green. PACT makes underwear that’s available in many styles. Each pair is designed by an artist to reflect a specific social or environmental organization and 10% of the profit from each pair sold goes to that organization. The underwear is made in Turkey, where sustainability is possible. Everything from growing the organic cotton to completion of the product is done within a 100-mile radius. The company’s motto is “Change starts with your underwear”. Obviously, this company believes in going green “from the bottom up”.

Unfortunately, clean air seems to be less green. Although the Environmental Protection Agency has said air pollution dramatically decreased between 썆 and 2010, science writer Eli Kintisch believes that clean air increases global warming. Greenhouse gases – like CO2 – warm the planet by absorbing heat reflected up from the ground. However, aerosols – like oven cleaner – cool the planet by making clouds more reflective, thus blocking sunlight. Because breathing aerosols is unhealthy and because they dirty the environment, we need a healthy, clean aerosol that can be put into the upper atmosphere. We need green technology – not pollutants – that will “take our breath away”.