Latest Articles
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Which Blair Project?
Blair Launches New Climate Change Group U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair spoke today at the launch of the Climate Group, an international coalition of financial institutions, business leaders, environmental groups, and local politicians dedicated to speeding the reduction of greenhouse-gas emissions. The group will hold a major conference in May, create working groups to discuss […]
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A freshwater expert and author answers questions
What work do you do? I work through a creation of mine called the Global Water Policy Project to promote the protection of rivers and other freshwater ecosystems. My goal is to generate ideas and inspiration to change the way we use, manage, and think about freshwater. How does it relate to the environment? Water […]
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Dispatch from the big annual meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund in Washingto
Colleen Freeman is a policy analyst at Friends of the Earth-U.S. and Peter Bossard is policy director at International Rivers Network. They took part in discussions between environmental and other nonprofit groups and officials of the World Bank and IMF in the lead-up to the institutions’ annual spring meetings held April 24-25. Monday, 26 Apr […]
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Film Flam
Upcoming Climate-Change Disaster Movie Provokes Silliness “The Day After Tomorrow,” a big-budget climate-change disaster flick directed by Roland Emmerich (creator of such visionary fare as “Independence Day” and the 1998 “Godzilla” remake), is due for release on May 28, and it’s got folks on both sides of the global-warming debate all atwitter. Fearing that the […]
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Capital Steps
Venture Capital Investment in Clean Technology Grows Clean tech is hot. Research and development of eco-friendly technologies in water purification, agriculture, transportation, manufacturing, recycling, air quality, and renewable energy such as solar, wind, and hydrogen is drawing a larger and larger share of venture capital. In 2003, total venture capital spending fell by 14 percent […]
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To Well in a Handbasket
Abandoned Oil Wells Vex Southern California Oil wells run dry, and when they do — as many have in Southern California — the looming question is, what do you do with them? The once-booming California oil business hit its peak in 1985, and since then much of the oil has gradually dried up and the […]
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Geoss in the Heouse
Countries Agree to Form Earth Observation Framework Delegates from 44 nations and 26 international groups agreed this weekend to form a global environmental observation system by 2014, to be called — in what we can only assume is a tribute to Douglas Adams’ “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” — the Global Earth Observation System of […]
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Can capitalism be harnessed to solve environmental problems, or is capitalism itself the problem?
When right-wing pundits and corporate flacks compare environmentalists to watermelons (green on the outside, red on the inside), they mean it as a slur. But when eco-socialists look at the wider environmental movement, they see a big green tomato that had better ripen up, and soon. Hybridizing the analyses of Karl Marx with those of […]
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Manana Kochladze strives to protect Georgia from a BP oil pipeline
The Republic of Georgia, which gained its independence after the breakup of the Soviet Union, may be best known to Westerners as the birthplace of Josef Stalin. But this new democracy, bordered by the formidable Caucasus mountains, is also known for its alpine forests, stunning mountain gorges, and clear-running mineral springs. Kochladze. Photo: Goldman Environmental […]
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The Fore Horsemen of the Apocalypse
Golf Courses Aren’t So Green Though the golf industry says it’s been striving to lighten its ecological impact, golf courses are increasingly flashpoints of environmental controversy. According to the Worldwatch Institute, the U.S. is home to some 18,000 golf courses — more than half the world’s 35,000 — covering 1.7 million acres and using 4 […]
