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New report makes suggestions for sustainable energy future

Coal is the enemy of the human race, but don’t take our word for it: 15 national science academies pooh-pooh the evil black rock in their new report “Lighting the Way: Toward a Sustainable Energy Future.” The report also rah-rahs solar and wind power and energy efficiency, and is warily supportive of nuclear energy and […]

Chuck Norris fact

Chuck Norris does not endorse a presidential candidate. He refrains from killing one. More Chuck Norris facts.

Home lead-testing kits unreliable, says study

If you rushed out to buy a home lead-testing kit when all of Junior’s toys were recalled, hope you saved the receipt: a new study says that over-the-counter kits, usually used to test paint, aren’t reliable for playthings. The Consumer Product Safety Commission put 104 kits to the test and found that 56 failed to […]

Don’t believe the power company hype about coal’s low price

This just in from Restructuring Today ($ub req'd): Sunflower Electric, of the recent Kansas decision not to allow an electric permit because of CO2 concerns, has argued that the decision was a bad idea because it will drive up power prices. But their math is wrong.

Here's a partial excerpt from the RT story:

A decision by the Kansas Department of Health & Environment to deny a coal power plant permit would mean higher power bills for some. That's "an absolute certainty," Sunflower Electric Power told us Friday.

How much higher? At today's prices the firm could pay 1.5¢ for coal versus 8¢ for natural gas.

Uh, no. But this is a mistake that is aggressively and frequently made by our electricity generators.

California wildfires continue to rage

In case you haven’t heard, there are some crazy fires going down in southern California. At the time of this posting, some 400,000 acres have burned, igniting more than 1,500 structures, including some 1,000 homes. An estimated 700,000 people have been evacuated; two have died. The White House has declared a state of emergency, and […]

James Lovelock’s terror masks the same old industrial-era thinking

In the new issue of Rolling Stone, Jeff Goodell has a profile of James Lovelock, father of the Gaia Hypothesis and foremost representative of the OMFG we’re all totally f*cked!!1! school of green thinking: In Lovelock’s view, the scale of the catastrophe that awaits us will soon become obvious. By 2020, droughts and other extreme […]

Envisioning possible green futures helps create a greener future

Peter Madden, chief executive of Forum for the Future, writes a monthly column for Gristmill on sustainability in the U.K. and Europe.

There has been much discussion lately of the need to turn the green agenda from a negative to a positive one. I think that an important part of this is developing some more positive visions of what living in a sustainable future might be like. My organization, Forum for the Future, has set itself this task. Partly because we think the green movement needs more credible and aspirational stories of the future if we are to take people with us. And partly because we become the future that we imagine -- it is to an extent a self-fulfilling prophecy.

So, we are trying to take different parts of the future and imagine what they might look like. We now have a series of projects looking at different aspects of future living.

Our recent report, "Low Carbon Living 2022," asks how might our lives be better if we get the response to climate change right. A low-carbon Britain doesn't have to mean cutbacks and sacrifice. Low Carbon Living 2022 looks forward 15 years and shows ways in which a low-carbon future could deliver: stronger communities, a cleaner local environment, more money, better transport, a healthier lifestyle, and a thriving economy.

Soviet-induced water crises push Eastern European nations to consider solutions

The following is a guest essay from Eric Pallant, professor of environmental science at Allegheny College in Meadville, Pa., and codirector of the NATO Advanced Study Institute on Integrated Water Resources Management. He is reporting from the National Disasters and Water Security conference in Yerevan, Armenia.

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October 19, 2007

I have to hand it to NATO for dishing out money to sponsor Advanced Research Workshops on environmental security. And I must congratulate Armenia for organizing Natural Disasters and Water Security: Risk Assessment, Emergency Response, and Environmental Management. It shows recognition on the part of both parties that security involves more than advanced weaponry. Conference Director Dr. Trahel Vardanian, in a wide-wale pinstripe suit, does not speak English -- but he must have realized how valuable it would be to host this international meeting. Armenia is a country in transition.

At street level, it seems as if half the city is torn asunder by cranes and bulldozers busily replacing the old Soviet cement-block architecture with sparkling new parks, scalloped stone boulevards, broad-windowed import shops, and new Armenian cement-block high-rises. I see 30-year-old Soviet Ladas and glossy new Nissans side-by-side. Young women in tight jeans and heels, gossiping in Armenian, skitter past old women in babushkas and heavy grey sweaters. Their grandmothers are still selling sunflower seeds on the sidewalk.

Yerevan woman selling bread on the street. (Photo: Eric Pallant)

Time compiles list of environmental heroes

Time Magazine has compiled a long list of environmental heroes, including widely recognizable names (Mikhail Gorbachev, Prince Charles, Robert Redford, Al Gore) eco-recognizable names (Angela Merkel, Tim Flannery, Wangari Maathai, James Hansen, Amory Lovins, David Suzuki, Richard Branson), less-well-known folk (anti-poaching advocate Hammer Simwinga, water-purifying savant Abul Hussam, Russian activist Olga Tsepilova), and none other […]

With the Katrina-anniversary media gone, the hard work continues

A version of this piece originally appeared on the Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors website. FEMA trailer camp, Plaquemines Parish, La. Photo: Marni Rosen The many communities of color along the Gulf Coast, be they African American, Creole, Native American, or Vietnamese American, have much in common — and not just because they’re still struggling to get […]