By John DeFore

Efforts by the World Bank to ease global poverty draw critiques from many quarters, sometimes including the people of those nations the group seeks to help. The latest round of criticism, though, comes from within the bank itself.

A lengthy new report written by the Independent Evaluation Group (”an independent, three-part unit within the World Bank Group,” as the report puts it) studied the bank’s environmental efforts from 1990 [Read more →]

By John DeFore

In another development sure to result in gray hair, if not legal action, for those in the plastics industry, the city of Los Angeles voted this week to ban plastic bags by July of 2010.

The city’s action isn’t a law, though: It will only become one if the state of California fails to adopt a 25-cent fee for plastic bag use that has been proposed but was met with resistence earlier this year. As a result, plastic-bag advocates tell the Los Angeles Times that this week’s vote won’t inspire [Read more →]

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:

• 1 million work in biofuels
• 794,000 work in solar power
• 39,000 work in hydropower
• 25,000 work in geothermal

[Read more →]

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.

[Read more →]

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 →]