Green burgers

Newsweek's cover story this week was 10 Big Green Ideas to accompany their rankings of the 100 greenest companies in America. Their 10 ideas are:

1. Make a greener burger. Switch to sustainable beef production that doesn't cut down the Brazilian rainforest.

2. Invest in the improbable. Khosla Ventures goes for the improbable ideas, expecting 90% failure. But that 10% will pay off well.

3. Get out of the Gulf. We don't get enough oil out of the Gulf of Mexico to make environmental problems worthwhile.

4. Catch a wave. Waves and tidal forces can be harnessed to generate electricity.

5. Hug a nuke. There's still a lot of energy in "depleted" uranium.

6. Turn smoke into rocks. Use the CO2 coming out of power plants to make cement.

7. Drink your garbage. Mine landfills for recyclables and methane. Turn sewage into drinking water.

8. Hire a microbe. In the same way that microbes make beer and cheese they can also combine sunlight and carbon dioxide to make a substitute petroleum.

9. Shout it out loud. Ma Jun has been demanding that American companies in China reduce their pollution.

10. Lighten up. Use greener light bulbs. This is something each of us can do.