Canada’s federal government last week announced that it is setting aside some 25.5 million acres of boreal forest and tundra in its remote Northwest Territories province as conservation land off-limits to development and resource extraction.
"A market for low-carbon fuels can produce a rare convergence of business, agricultural, and environmental interests that, if pursued wisely, could represent a "win-win-win" opportunity," promises the report Biofuels: An Important Part of a Low-Carbon Diet, released this month by the Union of Concerned Scientists.
It’s official, the Chevrolet Tahoe Hybrid has been named 2008 "Green Car of the Year" by Green Car Journal‘s team of judges (including several respected environmentalists, among them Carl Pope of the Sierra Club, Christopher Flavin of Worldwatch Institute, Jonathan Lash of World Resources Institute and Jean-Michel Cousteau of the Ocean Futures Society).
We are standing on a balcony outside Iceland’s Hellisheidi geothermal power plant, newly built on the side of an active volcanic mountain in Hengill. It’s pretty cold, but we are wreathed in warm steam that started out in the center of the Earth. Some of the turbines have been humming since 2006, but the plant is still under construction, on its way to producing 300 megawatts of electricity and (beginning in 2009) 400 megawatts of heat energy to warm factories and households.
The U.S. will gain 4000 megawatts of wind power in 2007, doubling predictions.
Longtime environmental champion Peter A. A. Berle died last week at age 69 as a result of injuries sustained during the accidental collapse of a barn on his Stockbridge, Massachusetts property several months ago.
Computer maker IBM has found a way to save money, reduce waste, and contribute to the development of the solar power industry with just one smart innovation—recycling defective semiconductor chips and sending the recovered refined silicon to manufacturers of photovoltaic solar cells.
A recently developed project called Catalog Choice intends to put a cap on the amount of junk in our mailboxes. Just in time for the holidays!
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff last week used his Congressionally granted waiver power to overturn the suspension of construction on seven miles of fence along the American-Mexican border in Arizona.
Environmentalists are overjoyed at news that the House Natural Resources Committee last week approved legislation rewriting the antiquated General Mining Law of 1872. That legislation, originally signed by President Ulysses S. Grant, was designed to promote the development and settlement of publicly owned lands on the American frontier.
