As part of Reuters new Green Business section, we have chosen a diverse group of companies to serve as a proxy for the emerging green technology sector. Over the coming months we’ll be discussing each of them at length, and rebalancing our portfolio to reflect trends in the industry.

Dozens of the world’s top movie, television and music stars showed off their green cred on Saturday night at a Hollywood-style fundraiser honoring the Natural Resource Defense Council’s 20 years in Southern California.
The event at Beverly Hills’ Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel was a who’s who of Hollywood environmentalists, including actors Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert Redford, [...]

To keep the swine flu from spreading, California public school students are being told to practice what they have dubbed the “Dracula Sneeze.”

Norway’s finance minister wants to ban sales of gasoline-powered cars from 2015. Is that a good idea?

Caps on smart-grid stimulus funds, Al Gone on the moral imperative of climate change action, and a bike-powered Earth Day conference.

With government money flowing in and traditional industries fading fast, 2009 is set to be a watershed year for green business. Reuters News and Venture Capital Journal have selected five decisionmakers who will help to decide the course of technology, energy usage and climate change in the years to come.

It might not be a sin to be zealous. But I have to admit I have a sometimes-unfortunate habit of over-doing things. I offer this as a health warning to anyone planning to read beyond this point.
Perhaps it’s nothing to be proud of and fear not: I am not on any kind of a crusade [...]

 The Walt Disney Co rolled out a new look and mission for its North American Disney Stores in an Earth Day celebration designed to reposition the chain it bought back from The Children’s Place last year as a “light education” destination, Jim Fielding, president of Disney Stores Worldwide said.
 Disney reacquired the 225 stores after Children’s Place fell behind on a pledge [...]

In honor of Earth Day on Wednesday, environmental Web site GreenDaily.com has named singer Mariah Carey the “least green celebrity.” What did Carey do to deserve the dis? She was quoted as saying that she flies her personal trainer from St. Barts in the Caribbean to New York to keep her on a workout regimen.
The AOL-owned GreenDaily.com created the [...]

The California Department of Public Health is alerting health-care providers that two children in Southern California, a 10-year-old boy and a 9-year-old girl,  have been diagnosed with a strain of swine flu that has never been seen in the United States.
“Although both of these children have fully recovered, we are investigating the illnesses and working to identify any [...]

“Biochar” backlash questions carbon burial benefits of ploughing charred plants into the soil

The Obama administration’s move to declare climate-warming carbon pollution a danger to human health was quickly hailed by environmental groups and leading liberals as a long-overdue shift from the Bush era and a historic first step toward regulating greenhouse gas emissions.
In making the announcement, Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lisa Jackson said that solving the problem would [...]

Among U.S. religious groups, white evangelical Protestants are the least likely to believe that human activities are contributing to climate change, according to a new survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. You can see the numbers, based on a broader 2008 poll, here.

Overall the Pew Forum found that a plurality, or 47 percent, [...]

Is the Kyoto Protocol an economic millstone? Russian data suggests not.

There is no doubt that Californians made themselves clear on Thursday when they gathered to tell U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar that they had had enough of offshore oil drilling and were ready to turn their attention to solar, wind and other renewables.