Harry Potter to Make Fewer Trees Disappear in His Final Appearance

Here's a cute article on the seventh and last Harry Potter book, which Scholastic will publish using greener methods than the last six books in the series. Scholastic received a lot of criticism, especially from Greenpeace, for not using enough recycled paper in the production of the sixth Potter book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

Scholastic, Inc., U.S. publisher for the popular novels about the boy wizard who battles the forces of evil while attending Hogwarts Academy, worked with the Rainforest Alliance to develop a plan to print the newest Harry Potter novel on paper certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC).

Perhaps this is another thing I can add to the list of reasons why I love Harry Potter.

Bank of America Launches $20 Billion Environmental Initiative

Bank of America Corp., the nation's largest retail bank, will spend $18 billion on commercial lending and investment banking for "green" projects over the next decade, company officials announced Tuesday.

The Charlotte-based bank said it will spend another $2 billion for consumer programs and on efforts to reduce its own impact on the environment.

While it's great that big corporations are making efforts to be environmentally friendly and promote environmental consciousness, I'm a little concerned that they're just capitalizing on popular trends in order to sell their products. The news piece also points out that they've started a new credit card program:

This year, Bank of America costumers will be able to sign up for a credit card program that will contribute a portion of every dollar spent to greenhouse gas reduction projects.

I guess it's good as long as it's helping the environment, but (and my one of professors brought this up in a similar situation concerning efforts to green my school) what happens when it's no longer "hip" to care about the environment? Will companies such as Bank of America implement such strategies then?