Activist Tim DeChristopher's sentencing is scheduled for today. He could go to prison for as many as 10 years. Congress is still hard at work cutting funding for all manner of environmental programs. With the West out as a customer, Iran is selling its natural gas to Iraq and Syria. An Australian company wants to build a 2,625-foot solar tower in Arizona that would produce 200 MW of energy, plus providing a nice physical challenge to any oversized gorillas in the area. (It would be twice as tall as the Empire State Building.) Visit Yellowstone National Park now, while there’s …

Yale Environment 360 asked a series of environmental thinkers, activists, and policymakers what they think of Barack Obama's record on the environmental record so far. The overwhelming response was that they didn't think very much of it at all. Here’s climate writer and activist Bill McKibben: President Obama hasn't yet caused "the rise of the oceans to begin to slow" or "the planet begin to heal," and since that was his promise, I guess it's been a less-than-stellar record … He put some decent money into the stimulus plan for green energy, and then he largely seemed to lose interest, …

California's Butte College has a 928-acre wildlife refuge. It promotes ride shares. It uses goats for landscaping, and worms for composting. It has LEED-certifiable buildings. And now it's going off the grid -- the first college in the country, the school claims, to be energy independent. The school added 15,000 panels to its existing 10,000 for a total of 25,000 panels on the ground, on rooftops, and in covered parking areas. Together, they generate 4.55 MW of energy -- more than the school needs for its own energy uses. That’s despite the fact that the school operates its own water …

Chris Drury, a British artist, created this sculpture, entitled Carbon Sink: What Goes Around Comes Around, to express the idea that (JUST POSSIBLY) Wyoming's coal industry and its contributions to climate change had something to do with the explosion of pine beetles in the state. (Warmer winters have allowed them to thrive.) The sculpture happens to be installed at the University of Wyoming, which receives just a tiiiiiny bit of funding from the coal industry, like only a couple million dollars. If the university's leaders thought principles of academic freedom and artistic expression would give them a pass on this …

Oak Ridge, Tenn., a city with a long history of living alongside nuclear industries, will be processing nuclear waste from Germany. They’ll be taking on almost 1,000 tons of material, and the shipments could start coming this year. NPR reports: Radioactive residue left over from the process will be sent back to Germany for disposal, but opponents have voiced concerns that the U.S. will become the world's radioactive waste processor ... "When you're starting to talk about managing the rest of the world's waste, the German waste looks like the beginning of what could be a large flood of material …

Melting Arctic ice is releasing banned chemicals like DDT, which were trapped there back when they were legal. Post-tornado clean-up in Joplin, Mo. is going slowly. Can water heaters store energy captured by wind turbines and solar panels? A startup called GridMobility thinks so. We all know that wind turbines can kill birds, but what if there's a high risk that those birds could be bald eagles? Then you've got a problem. First of all, you could get in big trouble with the feds if an eagle falls prey to your turbine, but second of all the symbolism is terrible. …

It's tricky to talk about the link between heat waves like the one half of America is suffering under and climate change. But climate scientist Peter Gleick does a good job. He writes: Not only is it hot, it's hotter than it used to be … It's going to get even hotter. A lot hotter. Global warming is causing or worsening some of the extreme weather we're seeing. This influence of climate change on some extremes, including especially heat waves and heavy precipitation and some kinds of storm and flood events must no longer be waved away, swept under the …

Stuck in a heat wave? Can't afford A/C? Too bad: Groups that dole out government assistance for cooling have had their funding cut and have turned away up to 80 percent of applicants. Today's the first anniversary of the climate bill's death. Atlanta loves trees! It charges $1,000 to chop one down. But drought, storms, invasive species, and natural causes get to kill trees for free, and they’re are all contributing to a large-scale die-off. A federal agency created new rules for constructing interstate power lines. The rules should help wind and solar power get to markets. Anyone whose flight …

A group of Montanans, Idahoans, Oregonians, and Washingtonians struck a blow against ExxonMobil and its push to extract carbon-soaked oil from Canada's tar sands this week. The Northwesterns weren't upset about the environmental impact of the tar sands, exactly, but they were upset that an Exxon subsidiary wanted to haul oversized loads of oil-extraction equipment from the Port of Vancouver, Wash., over small winding highways in environmentally valuable areas, to the Canadian border. They asked a judge to stop the company from using those roads. And on Tuesday, he did, finding that Montana government officials working with the company had …

Baltimore is an old, industrial city with old, car-focused transportation infrastructure. But add a little Zipcar in, and Baltimore residents suddenly get a lot more gung ho about walking, biking, and taking the bus. Zipcar's only been in Baltimore a year, but according to a survey conducted by the City of Baltimore, its members stopped driving as frequently. Eighteen percent gave up their private cars, and almost three-fourths said they'd be less likely to buy a car going forward. (It probably doesn‘t hurt that Baltimore is not the safest place to live: if your car is a Zipcar, you can …