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How to get involved in the fight against climate change

Wondering what you can do? These groups have climate campaigns and info galore — check out their sites, connect with them on social networks, and get involved!   Climate-focused groups   350.org A grassroots group led by author Bill McKibben and born out of the belief that climate change needs a robust social movement behind […]

Fixing food isn’t only about agriculture. Just ask Europe.

Michael Pollan spoke to Newsweek about the new documentary on our industrial food system Food, Inc. In his comments, he made some crucial points about differences between US and Europe that go beyond “food culture”: [T]hey have a better safety net [in Europe]. You can afford to spend 15 to 17 percent of your income […]

Population: Off the radar, not off the map

“The main driving forces of future greenhouse gas trajectories will continue to be demographic change, social and economic development, and the rate and direction of technological change,” according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Special Report on Emissions Scenarios. Two of these drivers – development and technology – have been the focus of a […]

Clean-tech and urban renewal in one fell swoop

Clearer skies ahead for Holyoke?Leslie Adams via flickrTo say that Holyoke, Mass., has seen better days would put you squarely in the running for Understatement of the Year. One of the poorest cities in the state, it is the sort of post-Industrial town that is scattered across New England: crumbling smokestacks, shuttered mills, “modern” housing […]

Hot new clean-tech startups are plug-and-play

You gotta be crazy to start a green-tech company these days, right? Venture funding has fallen off the proverbial cliff since the economy imploded last September, and even established renewable energy companies are struggling to stay afloat until the Obama stimulus cash begins to flow. But it seemed more 1999 than 2009 this week at […]

A tour through Indian energy projects suggests small is beautiful

A local irrigation project in southern India.Courtesy Michael Foley Photography via FlickrGeorge Black has a fascinating story about how India might lift its people out of poverty without torching the environment in the current issue of OnEarth, the magazine run by the Natural Resources Defense Council. Written largely as a travelogue through clean energy innovations […]

Climate-news poem: mustache edition

iwona_kellie via flickrThis time around we start off with a great big phony pactThat came from several green groups who just felt they had to act.A powerful indictment and a plan for moving on, The “Copenhagen treaty” met with no more than a yawn. Was that too rude, to write them off, to say the […]

This White House science adviser thinks America should embrace nuclear power

There are 104 commercial nuclear power stations in the United States today, supplying about 20 percent of the nation’s electricity. No new commercial reactors have been licensed here since 1973. And the last commercial plant to come online, Watts Bar in Tennessee, powered up more than a decade ago, in 1996. That all needs to […]

The best U.S. transit systems you never knew existed

When it comes to public transit in the U.S., there are certain predictable all-stars: the Metro in Washington, D.C., is convenient, efficient, and clean. The anthropomorphically nicknamed El and BART in Chicago and San Francisco are legendary. And everyone knows it’s easier to navigate New York City without a car than with one. But what […]

The case for carbon speed limits

If the earth was a car, it would come with an operating instructions not to drive faster than 350 parts per million of carbon in the atmosphere. Unfortunately, like an unruly teenager, humanity – with the United States in the drivers seat – has already revved up the engine and broken all speed limits – […]