Jad Mouawad
...Americans are increasingly recognizing that the effects of carbon emissions on global warming are a serious problem, but there are no rules in the United States regulating heat-trapping gases comparable to those that most other developed countries have adopted under the Kyoto Protocol. Some United States businesses, though, are responding for a variety of reasons anyway: to satisfy customers or shareholders who worry about the environment, to improve their public image or to drive down their energy costs. In addition, some states and local authorities have stepped in to try to curb their contributions to global warming.

For Timberland, while it shares the concerns over global warming, it's mostly a matter of dollars and cents. As Mr. Swartz put it: "What idiot will leave costs on the table? I hope it's our competitors. I get paid to create value."

But reducing carbon emissions is no easy task.

Scientists, economists, environmentalists and a growing rank of business leaders warn that corporate America needs to move more quickly or it will face the consequences: higher energy prices, a potential cost for carbon pollution and, eventually, products that will have trouble competing globally because other countries are reducing emissions.

The United States is responsible for a quarter of all the carbon dioxide sent into the atmosphere each year. It has not ratified the Kyoto Protocol, the treaty on climate change that went into effect last year for more than three dozen countries in Europe and elsewhere, that set targets and timetables for cutting emissions.

If consumption of fossil fuels continues at today's pace, the Energy Department predicts that carbon emissions in the United States could rise to more than eight billion tons by 2030 — 38 percent above current levels — as energy use keeps growing.
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The Greener Guys (U.S. business & global warming)