Mobilizing and re-focusing the global economy towards investments in clean technologies and 'natural' infrastructure such as forests and soils is the best bet for real growth, combating climate change and triggering an employment boom in the 21st century.
Courtesy United Nations Environment Programme

In Texas, the State has a law, that every city will "Review the feasibility of using alternative energy". The State mandates that if it is feasible, that cities in Texas will utilize alternative energy, in "new buildings, rennovations and expansions". Solar is feasible in many cases, for long term repayment. But on average, solar, with current technology requires 20+ years to recapture the investment required to purchase and install it.
By Ben B. Boothe Sr., Environmental Solutions

Research carried out at MIT's Alcator C-Mod fusion reactor may have brought the promise of fusion as a future power source a bit closer to reality, though scientists caution that a practical fusion powerplant is still decades away.
Courtesy Massachusettes Institute of Technology

HOME ENVIROSENSE

CITY & COMMUNITY EFFORTS

The period between Thanksgiving and New Year’s is a time for celebrations, family gatherings, gift-giving and parties. Unfortunately, it’s also a time when families generate a lot more trash than they normally do--as much as one million extra tons of solid waste is generated nationwide each week during the holiday period.
Courtesy California Waste Management Integration Board

Housing Minister Margaret Beckett set out the UK Government's proposals for making all new homes zero carbon from 2016.

More than 25 per cent of the UK's carbon emissions are produced by our housing, and with the Government committed to reducing carbon emissions by 80 per cent by 2050, both existing and new homes must become more carbon efficient.
Courtesy Communities and Local Government

GLOBAL FRONTIER

BACK TO NATURE

New technologies will permit rapid decarbonization of the world energy economy in the next two decades, according to a new report from the Worldwatch Institute.
Courtesy Worldwatch Institute

The government of Namibia has taken a bold step to conserve some of the southern Africa nation's unique natural heritage by establishing the Sperrgebiet National Park.
Courtesy Conservation International

GREEN LEADER PROFILE

GS PRODUCT PICKS

George B. Schaller, Ph.D. (born 1933) is recognized by many as the world's pre-eminent field biologist, studying wildlife throughout Africa, Asia and South America.
Courtesy The Indianapolis Prize and Indianapolis Zoo

USB EarthDrive 2.0

A green USB thumb drive! The EarthDrive comes in two sizes a 4GB and an 8GB. The design and casing of the product was maximized to use the most bio-recycled material it could, making this product fully recyclable.

TO YOUR HEALTH

ARTS/ENTERTAINMENT FOR CHANGE

There's probably no better place to practice the environmental awareness credo of "think globally, act locally" than at your local farmers' market.
By Douglas L. Bishop

John Lennon comes to life in a TV commercial for One Laptop per Child [OLPC], a nonprofit organization whose mission is to help provide every child in the world access to a modern education. The video broke nationwide on Christmas Day.
Courtesy One Laptop Per Child

BOOKS FOR THOUGHT

ECO PHOTO & WORD OF THE MONTH

Silent Spring, released in 1962, offered the first shattering look at widespread ecological degradation and touched off an environmental awareness that still exists. Rachel Carson's book focused on the poisons from insecticides, weed killers, and other common products as well as the use of sprays in agriculture, a practice that led to dangerous chemicals to the food source.
By Rachel Carson

My Secret Blue Paradise, The Similan Islands, Thailand.


senescence — The aging process. Sometimes used to describe lakes or other bodies of water in advanced stages of eutrophication. Also used to describe plants and animals.