Its yellow-washed, green-shuttered, colonial-era buildings and angular, post-independence "new Khmer" architecture were both, rightly, renowned.

BBC: Phnom Penh��s fast-fading architectural treasures

At the other there is the New Era Hotel, a blank, green, glass tower block.

BBC: China's changing face

South Korea, for example, is generally regarded as a "green" nation these days, but the ERA analysis suggests it's underperforming against its peers.

BBC: Rio: Rating the environmental stars

Architect Sir Norman Foster elegantly combined a refurbished British-era military structure surrounded by manicured green lawns with curved, metal-clad modern hotel buildings and villas that tumble down a hillside to the South China Sea.

BBC: Business trip: Singapore

The Pittsburgh Steelers, Chicago Bears and Green Bay Packers are run like franchises from a bygone era.

FORBES: New York Jets Are Unique Among NFL's Final Four

Despite this economic outlook, the stock markets in the last three months have agreed with the unstated assumptions in the whispers of "green shoots" - that growth is a prerogative of the modern era, that rebounds are always V-shaped and that central banks and politicians have abolished the business cycle that has plagued economic life since ancient times.

BBC: City Diaries: 4 June

Our final table (Green Dividends, above) looks at an assortment of potential winners in an era of costly oil and penalized carbon.

FORBES: Magazine Article

And in its spare time, the quartet recorded some of the era's most enduring instrumental riffs (notably 1962's "Green Onions, " which grew out of a spontaneous jam).

NPR: Masters of the Groove Get Loose and Propulsive