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  • How to turn raw sewage into profit

    For most people, having a open stream of sewage running past your backyard is a problem, not an asset. That how Keshav Tavre, who lives in Bhiwandi, India, saw it, until he decided to set up a homemade filtration system. With a series of walls and layers of soil, he was able to filter the sewage until it was clean enough to use to grow crops. Later, he sold water commercially do local dye industries.

  • Renewable Energy Keeps Growing: Earth Summit in Rio provides an opportunity for even more action

    Several new reports released over the past few days show that renewable energy keeps growing, with more countries implementing policies or incentives to spur renewable energy deployment.  The studies found that renewable energy accounted for $211 billion in new investments in 2010 – an increase of 32% from the previous year.  Next year at the […]

  • International: The UN Clean Development Mechanism's Growing Coal Scandal

    When is the last time you were paid for NOT showing up for work? Or better yet, got a bonus for doing the exact opposite of what you’re supposed to? That’s exactly what the backers of massive coal projects are asking the Clean Development Mechanism Executive Board to do when they apply for carbon credits. […]

  • Industrialized countries are now losing the clean energy race

    Developing countries now lead investment in clean energy -- representing about $72 billion in spending in 2010, versus $70 billion in rich countries.

  • Get yourself sterilized and win a free car

    India has a massive and worsening overpopulation problem -- the country has added 181 million people in the last 10 years. So health officials in the state of Rajasthan are trying to lure people into voluntary sterilization by taking advantage of one of humankind's biggest weaknesses: expensive sh*t. In a three-month program that they hope will attract 30,000 eager non-breeders, officials are offering cars, motorcycles, televisions, cash, and other incentives for people to put their junk under the knife.

  • The Struggle Against India's Coal Rush

    As the Sierra Club reaches out to activists, we hear common themes of violence, corruption, intimidation, toxic pollution and economic ruin emerging from coal affected communities worldwide. For example, after seeing pictures of coal affected communities in the United States in a recent workshop, a colleague from India kept uttering “that’s Singrauli.” Whether its thousands […]

  • An Indian boom city grows without planning, at its peril

    In Gurgaon, gleaming residences, malls, and office buildings are like islands unto themselves.Photo: iamgurgaonYou hear a lot of people talking these days about small government. About letting the free market drive development. About how city planners are trying to do some kind of sinister social engineering. About how the feds and the states should just […]

  • Critical List: Hurricane Adrian rises; Romney’s climate change problem

    Here we go: first hurricane of the year. Wild elephants killed one person in a rampage through an Indian city. Poor guy, but also, poor elephants! They were probably only there because their habitat is shrinking. Obama's meeting with the heads of oil-rich African states. Romney believes in climate change, but not in doing anything […]

  • Critical List: Arizona wildfire spreads; Roundup causes birth defects

    The wildfire in Arizona is now the second-largest in the state's history and is growing. Enviros are turning on Obama. Former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt said yesterday the president hadn't parried Republican attacks and lacked vision on the conservation. And this was in advance of a speech he's giving today that fleshes out this argument. […]