(De)Funding the Green Revolution: A story in Politico last week covered how environmental foundations are reconsidering their funding of climate groups. Greentech Media's Rob Day weighs in with some interesting thoughts: "By reactively pulling back so hard on funding, environmental foundations are basically pulling the rug out from under many organizations that are only now hitting their stride. Foundations need to take a venture capital mindset. No early-stage VC thinks it'll take only two years to get their latest bet up and running and proven out. This is especially true for membership-driven organizations, which take a few years to start getting momentum."

Speaking of the glacial pace of climate policy, there are reports emerging that the EPA may delay by a few months putting into action its planned emissions rules for power plants.

Ranking Carbon Services IT Firms: Verdantix has just published its Carbon Services Benchmark report, ranking the internal strategies of 14 companies, from Accenture to Wipro to IBM, on their own internal carbon management efforts. We'll have more on this report later today.

Breaking Down Bioplastics: Mary Catherine O'Connor, who we've been fortunate to work with off and on over the years (notably on the State of Green Business Report 2011), has just published a great article on bioplastics in Earth Island Journal. She lays out the dizzying complexity and frustrating lack of forethought in the world of bio-based, semi-compostable, and at-times-recyclable plastics.

A Parade of Gender Bending: The American Chemical Society's "Chemical & Engineering News" magazine has just published a five-part series on BPA, specifically on the health and environmental controversies of the plasticizing chemical. CE&N has been doing in-depth environmental stories on chemicals for a little while now, and the series is good and perhaps more balanced than you'd expect from the ACS. I take issue, though, with the framing of one of the stories in the series, titled "BPA Is indispensible For Making Plastics." Clearly, the rise of BPA-free plastic products means only that BPA is indispensible for making cheap, business-as-usual plastics. You can read our exhaustive coverage of BPA here.

The Big Blue Century IBM turns 100 this month, and eWeek has a profile of the technology giant's first century, including a slideshow of 20 technologies that succeeded and failed.

1 Billion Down, Countless Billions to Go The San Jose Mercury News is reporting that California's e-waste recycling program has recycled 1 billion pounds of e-waste in the last 6 years, or about 20 million TVs and computers. Great progress to be sure, but it's still just a drop in the bucket.

Crowdsourcing Green Lighting Design Inhabitat has just released the 40 finalists in their Bright Ideas Lighting Competition, sponsored by Philips. The contest aims to make (green) LED lighting cool and hip. You can vote for your favorite at the link above.

The Daily 'We're Doomed' Covering environmental news has always been a seesaw of emotions, with some days / weeks / months leaving me full of optimism about our coming age of energy abundance and resource-light existence, and other days / weeks / months having me plan for a Mad Max-like future. Guess which mood this story puts me in: "Carbon release to atmosphere 10 times faster than in the past."