Climate Technology

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  • Alexis Madrigal chats about the crazy greentech history you’ve never heard

    This is the first in a series from my conversation with Atlantic tech channel editor Alexis Madrigal about themes and stories from his new book, Powering the Dream: The History and Promise of Green Technology. DR: What were the first glimmers of the book? AM: It was about 2007. At the time, Bruce Sterling had […]

    David Roberts Technology

  • Debunking myths about free-market environmentalism

    Money makes the world go … green?Cross-posted at The PERColator, a project of the Property and Environment Research Center (PERC). A recent post on Grist attempted to dismantle the intellectual foundations of free-market environmentalism — the application of markets and property rights to solve environmental problems. But far from toppling a burgeoning movement within modern […]

    Shawn Regan Technology

  • Nissan Leaf, meet Ford Pinto

    There were two interesting cars parked on my street this week. One was a Nissan Leaf (see my test drive video here). The other was a Ford Pinto. The Pinto was one of the forerunners of today’s small hatchbacks. It had bucket seats with a hand brake between them, a back seat that folded down, […]

    Biodiversivist Technology

  • How wiring the developing world can help save the planet

    Envaya helps people in Africa build ultralight websites, on the ultracheap.Like most equatorial countries, Tanzania is feeling the impacts of climate change. Malaria is spreading to areas at ever-higher altitudes. Lake Victoria, which feeds the Nile, is retreating. The rainy season is starting later and getting shorter — last year, the typically four-month season lasted […]

    Amanda Little Technology

  • Crowd-sourced radiation maps put the hivemind to work for public health

    Map: RTDN.org and Google Maps What if Foursquare were good for something? It might look a little like this. Crowd-sourced maps of radiation in Japan allow anyone with a radiation detector to log their reading, resulting in real-time information with potentially as many data points as there are users. RTDN.org, put together by Portland's Uncorked […]

    Jess Zimmerman Technology

  • PG&E to let customers disable their smart meters — for a price

    Over the past year, a revolt against the rollout of utility Pacific Gas & Electric’s smart meters has swept through Northern California as some customers claimed the devices’ wireless transmission of electricity data was harming their health. In response, city councils in a number of cities tried to ban their installation. On Thursday, PG&E, acting […]

    Todd Woody Technology

  • Giving clean energy developers cash works better than tax credits, stupid US policy notwithstanding

    One of the great undercovered aspects of U.S. energy policy is the fact that most of it happens through the tax code. That’s one reason it’s so unbearably lame. Why do we do energy policy this way? There are many reasons, but a big one is that decades of conservative agitprop have made it almost […]

    David Roberts Technology

  • California going to sh*t — for green electricity

    This is an opportunity we want to go down the drain.Recession-wracked California is truly going down the toilet. For green energy, that is. In a gift to headline writers everywhere, the California Energy Commission on Wednesday handed out nearly $1 million to fund an experimental project to convert what it politely refers to as “biosolids” […]

    Todd Woody Technology

  • New David Koch building gets energy upgrade — courtesy of the climate program he loves to hate

    Image: Positioning GreenCross-posted from Positioning Green. Billionaire conservative financier David Koch doesn’t know it, but the cutting-edge energy-saving technologies included in a brand new $211 million research lab that bears his name were partly funded through a government program to reduce global warming pollution. It happens to be the very same program under a blistering […]

    Jon Coifman Technology

  • We CAN Do Something About Tsunami Devastation

    The ferocious tsunami that devastated Japan’s coast is a tragic reminder that we have an uneasy relationship with our oceans. While we can’t prevent earthquakes, we can minimize at least some of the damage from tsunamis on American shores by dealing with climate change and rising ocean levels now. March 20th marked the beginning of […]

    Terry Tamminen Technology