15 Green Buildings

Green building has grown up, from a tiny movement of hands-on idealists to an increasingly mainstream business sector that erects...

U.S. tries to sentence eco-activists as terrorists, and more

Read the news items highlighted in this week’s podcast: Trouble With a Capital B Murdoch, She Wrote Or Are You...

The energy policy that kicks ass and gets too little support

As this story in the WaPo makes clear, one of the more controversial measures in the House energy bill is...

Environmental peacekeeping runs into authoritarianism

My friend and colleague is in jail. Unjustly.

Her name is Haleh Esfandiari, and she is a grandmother. In early May, she was thrust into solitary confinement in Iran's Evin Prison with a single blanket. She hasn't been allowed to meet with her friends, family, or lawyers since then. This picture shows Evin Prison nestled within the leafy northern suburbs of Tehran at the foot of snowcapped mountains, but the prison has none of the bucolic qualities that the image suggests. "Notorious" is the ubiquitous descriptor.

Haleh's "crime" is doing what we do every day here at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C.: provide a safe space where scholars, policy-makers, and ordinary men and women can learn from one another through open, nonpartisan dialogue on today's most pressing issues. Or at least we thought it was safe.

Solar that doesn’t need direct sunlight

Solar that doesn’t require direct sunlight: [G24i] uses nano-sized titanium crystals, which turn sunlight into electricity in a process similar...

A guest column from K.C. Golden

This is a guest column from KC Golden, Policy Director for Climate Solutions, a Northwest-based nonprofit focused on tackling global...

Putting iron in the ocean

The risky idea of dumping iron into the ocean to promote plankton growth has been around for a long time. The reasoning: more algae blooms, more CO2 absorbed. But many scientists think that by the time the algae dies, rots, and release methane and nitrous oxide, it will worsen the greenhouse effect. Even most supporters think it should be studied before being tried. The IPCC is expected to dismiss this particular idea as speculative and probably counterproductive.

But Planktos corporation, backed by Silicon Salley, has decided to go full speed ahead experimenting with it -- to hell with possible side effects. They are simply going to dump iron into a 10,000 square kilometer patch in the Galápagos -- one of the most delicate and important ecosystems on the planet.

An interview with Tom Kiernan of the National Parks Conservation Association

A moment of reflection at Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve. Photo: Richard and Robin via flickr Every...

Oh what a relief it biz

The United States Climate Action Partnership, the group of corporations calling "on the federal government to quickly enact strong national legislation to require significant reductions of greenhouse gas emissions," just doubled in size (PDF):

With its new members, USCAP companies now have total revenues of $1.7 trillion, a collective workforce of more than 2 million and operations in all 50 states; they also have a combine market capitalization of more than $1.9 trillion.

The big news is that General Motors has joined the list: