By John DeFore
Proposals to solve the planet’s CO2 woes through sequestering the problematic emissions — pumping them into some hole in the ground where they can’t affect the atmosphere — raise numerous concerns for skeptics. Won’t the stuff leak out, wasting the fortune we spent on sequestering, and leaving us worse off than we would [...]
Tags: Briefs · Energy & Water · Green Enthusiasts & Researchers
By John DeFore
It must be a bittersweet moment to be Darrell Hammond.
Every talk Al Gore gives, after all, continues to prove the Saturday Night Live veteran’s brilliance at honing in on the speech patterns of public figures; if Gore can’t tweak his style after years of mockery, then clearly Hammond caught something elemental.
But in [...]
Tags: Celebrities & Politicians · Headlines · Nation · PEOPLE
By Harriet Blake
An engineering team at MIT has developed a new solar concentrator that doubles as a window and generates more electricity with fewer solar cells than typical solar panels — moving toward the day when on-site solar power might make fiscal sense for homeowners.
Tags: Briefs · Energy & Water · Green Enthusiasts & Researchers · Headlines · Model Projects
By Barbara Kessler
The upside of high gas prices is becoming evident as Americans flock to dealers of small and hybrid cars, revealing that we can, if whacked in the wallet, lower our greenhouse gas emissions.
There’s another silver lining not so readily apparent, but quite compelling. According to researchers at the University of Alabama in [...]
Tags: Briefs · Fuels · Green Enthusiasts & Researchers · Headlines
By Paula Minahan
Peter Pfeiffer doesn’t mince words. His passion for green building takes an almost proselytizing tone at times. And it’s no wonder. The straight-shooting architect has spent the past 30 years at the forefront of the
Photo: Barley & Pfeiffer Architects
Peter Pfeiffer’s green house in Austin
green building movement. The award-winning work of his Austin-based firm, [...]
Tags: Cut Consumption · Green Enthusiasts & Researchers · Home Building · Home Improvements · Model People
By John DeFore
The compact fluorescent bulbs (CFLs) intended to replace standard incandescents aren’t perfect, but one argument against them - that breakage or improper disposal introduces small amounts of mercury (a neurotoxin) into the environment - may soon become less potent.
Tags: Briefs · Cut Consumption · Energy & Water · Green Enthusiasts & Researchers
By John DeFore
Its name, SlurryCarb, may be nauseating, and the procedure itself mightn’t be something you’d want to see first-hand. But a new process touted by Atlanta company EnerTech may be part of the answer to the world’s energy woes, while also disposing of sewage.
Tags: Briefs · Cities & States · Green Enthusiasts & Researchers
By John DeFore
Water boils whenever it reaches 100 degrees Celsius, period — right?
As with many lessons learned in elementary school, the truth is more complex than that, and new research conducted at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York is examining those complexities to come up with some energy-saving innovations that have big ramifications [...]
Tags: Briefs · Energy & Water · Green Enthusiasts & Researchers
By Barbara Kessler
Ever wonder what your neighbors are doing on the green front – what with one fellow dragging four nicely sorted recycling bins to the curb every other week, and another seemingly sitting out the green movement?
So did the Nature Conservancy and the people running the Harris Poll. They collaborated on a poll that [...]
Tags: Cut Consumption · Energy & Water · Green Enthusiasts & Researchers · Headlines · Healthy Ways · SHOP GREEN
By Barbara Kessler
It may not be news to riverside residents of flooded Iowa and Missouri, or to many climate scientists, but the government made it official this week: Climate change means wilder weather.
Tags: Briefs · Green Enthusiasts & Researchers · Headlines
By Harriet Blake
As a LEED-accredited engineer and leader of the sustainable design initiative for AKF Engineers, Robert Diemer is a believer in the green movement. He helps create greener buildings. He takes public transportation to work.
Recently, Diemer took his commitment to an even higher level by becoming the 50,000th member of PhillyCarShare. With the price [...]
Tags: Cars · Green Enthusiasts & Researchers · Greener Businesses · Other Transport
By Barbara Kessler
Golf courses, those oases of green that require lots of water and pesticides, may be able to improve their environmental profile by planting flowers and natural grasses.
Tags: Briefs · Green Enthusiasts & Researchers · Model Projects
By John DeFore
Over the last few years, moviegoers may have come to expect that any documentary pairing scientists and ice caps will be a scare-fest or a sermon — a big-screen effort to hammer home the urgent need to take action countering climate change.
Not so with Encounters at the End of the World, a film that’s drawing glowing reviews as it expands into theaters across the country. Yes, the movie has things to say about the environment — in at least one instance, it even suggests that humankind’s days here are numbered — but it is far from strident, superficially issue-driven, or even political. [Read more →]
By Nima Kapadia
Jobs in renewable energy are increasing worldwide and causing the coal industry to distribute pink slips, according to a Worldwatch Institute study.
The report, written by Worldwatch senior researcher Michael Renner, estimates that 2.3 million people are working in renewable energy jobs - either directly or indirectly. From that number:
By John DeFore
Proposals to solve the planet’s CO2 woes through sequestering the problematic emissions — pumping them into some hole in the ground where they can’t affect the atmosphere — raise numerous concerns for skeptics. Won’t the stuff leak out, wasting the fortune we spent on sequestering, and leaving us worse off than we would have been by cutting CO2 production in the first place?
Researchers led by Columbia University geophysicist David Goldberg think they’re closer to resolving some of those concerns, with a proposal that would address the possibility of leakage on two fronts. [Read more →]
San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral will install a state-of-the-art solar photovoltaic power system 
with the help of $65,000 from Pacific Gas and Electric Company, city and church officials have announced. PG&E said its donation to Grace Cathedral is part of the company’s $7.5 million commitment to increase solar power in San Francisco.
“We’re working to make San Francisco the greenest city in the country, and this kind of partnership is exactly what’s needed to help us reach that goal,” said Gavin Newsom, Mayor of San Francisco. [Read more →]
First branch banking, then online banking, now for act three: Keeping your green in a vault known for its green.
Two Philadelphia bankers with notable environmental experience have announced the formation of e3bank, believed to be the first green “triple bottom line” bank on the East Coast. Everything from the organization’s infrastructure to its product and service offerings will be built upon “the values of people, planet and prosperity,” say Chairman Sandy Wiggins and President/CEO Frank Baldassarre. [Read more →]
By Tom Kessler
Colorado developers have announced what they say is the country’s largest net-zero energy, master-planned community in Arvada, Colo., a suburb of Denver. Geos Neighborhood, which will begin infrastructure construction this fall, will feature 250 residences and can generate enough renewable energy to supply 100 percent of the annual energy needs of the entire community, the developers say. [Read more →]
By John DeFore
Conservation minded farmers might naturally assume it’s wise to get the most out of what’s available; if post-harvest waste material can be used in biofuel production, it seems to make financial and ecological use to sell it.
Not necessarily, according to a scientist at Washington State University who is urging farmers in her region to leave the waste where it falls.
By John DeFore
The collection of world leaders known as G8 may be taking baby steps on cutting greenhouse emissions (the Union of Concerned Scientists called their recent meeting a “sideshow”) with its goal of a 50 percent reduction by 2050 instead of the 80 percent most scientists agreed is needed.
This week Exelon, an electric-energy giant located in Chicago, made that benchmark look even less ambitious with its own boast: By 2020, the company says, it will have cut its emissions not by half of 1990’s level or even by half of today’s, but by an amount exceeding 100% of this year’s output. [Read more →]
Wal-Mart Stores is joining the Global Forest & Trade Network (GFTN), 
World Wildlife Fund’s initiative to save the world’s most valuable and threatened forests. The giant retailer also announced this week that it is moving toward making some of the jewelry it sells meet standards for sustainability and social responsibility. [Read more →]
ROSEMEAD, Calif. — Southern California Edison (SCE) has begun installing solar panels at the first of approximately 150 Southern California commercial rooftops that eventually will make up SCE’s two-square-mile solar generation project — the largest solar panel installation in the world, according to the energy company.
