Serengreenity

Failure to confront hard decisions about emissions puts humanity in a box. But we have a way out. Call in the geoengineers. Part three of four.

To avoid an energy crisis, the IEA says the world needs to spend about $10.5 trillion in extra money from 2010 to 2030 to foster new low-carbon energy sources. Expensive, yes. But if the IEA is right, the alternative is far worse.

The Army Corps of Engineers must consider the effects of climate change as it draws up plans for flood control, navigation and other water projects under a new agency policy.

After nearly 40 years of struggling for survival, the brown pelican is coming off the endangered species list. The pelican’s recovery is largely due to a 1972 ban on the pesticide DDT, and conservation groups' efforts to protect its nesting sites and monitor its population.

The brown pelican, listed as an endangered species even before the 1973 U.S. Endangered Species Act existed, is officially back from the brink of extinction, the Interior Department said on Wednesday.

Nearly 40 years after it was pushed to the edge of extinction by pesticide use, habitat loss and hunting, the brown pelican Wednesday was taken off the endangered species list, US Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar said.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is warning that Portland may need to spend up to $147 million more on sewage plant improvements to boost treatment of the sewage/stormwater blend and better safeguard the Columbia River.

Amid increasing gloom that the Copenhagen talks will produce a global climate accord, state and local leaders pushing their own reductions efforts in the United States see only one choice: Proceed.

An array of West Virginia's top political leaders stood shoulder-to-shoulder Tuesday with executives from the state's top coal producers, vowing to form a united front in the face of what they call mixed signals and heavy-handedness from federal mining regulators.

Oil and gas companies and electric utilities over the past two decades have poured $8 million into the campaign coffers of lawmakers on the Senate Finance Committee who could now look to shape climate legislation.

The people of the small Dutch town of Barendrecht are not against pumping tons of carbon dioxide into the ground to fight global warming. They just wish it wasn't right beneath their houses.

Whether river deltas become swamped by rising sea levels will depend on a multitude of factors, including the type of soil and the tectonic action of any nearby plates, say researchers.

Climate change is real but could have a positive impact on the global economy in the short term, according to an international expert on environmental economics.

Economists told a Senate panel on Tuesday that legislation to combat global warming could kill jobs in refining, manufacturing and other industries, even as union and energy company leaders hailed the promise of a new “green” workforce trained in renewable power.

One of the key recruiting tools in conservative activists' push against the climate bill is a recent documentary called Not Evil, Just Wrong. The film styles itself as the latest conservative answer to Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth.

The local food movement isn't nearly as green as you might wish. A 747 air freighter packed with produce will spew roughly one metric ton of carbon dioxide into the air for every 2,000 miles travelled, but the can of beans you get from Africa is likely to have a smaller carbon footprint than the drive you make to the supermarket to buy it.

Global warming has been blamed for the alarming loss of ice shelves in Antarctica, but a new study says newly-exposed areas of sea are now soaking up some of the carbon gas that causes the problem.

As the world heads for tough negotiations over a global climate deal next month, an influential agency has said that current energy policies were not sustainable, and a vast transformation of energy use was required to fend off global warming.

Next month, 192 countries will meet to set targets on carbon emissions. The summit will pit the developed world against the developing world in a last-ditch bid to limit warming to 2C.

U.S. Senator John Kerry said on Tuesday he will try to "outline" a compromise climate control bill before December's international global warming conference, and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon gave an upbeat assessment of Washington's intentions.

Seventh Generation, the green household cleaning products manufacturer, takes on federal regulations governing toxic substances with an ambitious marketing campaign.

A forum in Washington on Tuesday echoed the division that are likely to animate, and perhaps stall efforts next month to hammer out a new climate treaty.

A water heater made by General Electric is believed to be the nation's first commercially available smart appliance. But its smartness is ahead of its time.

With the approach of a conference on a new global climate treaty, discord rules the day. Green Inc. asked business leaders, lobbyists and government officials for their thoughts on the likely outcome.

A new report suggests that British consumers unnecessarily discard $20 billion worth of food and drink every year.

A study by an Icelandic bank assesses the potential for geothermal power development in the United States.

Why the G.O.P. loves nuclear energy and other energy and environment news from around the Web.

With the help of federal grants, universities around the country are turning to geothermal energy for heating and power as they try to cut their carbon footprint.

Zambia and Tanzania are requesting a reclassification for their African Elephant populations to enable legal sales of ivory.

An Oregon State University professor sees the oil industry as a potential model for making groundwater resources last.

A debate over the connection between large-scale concentrated animal feeding operations and the spread of the H1N1 virus is spilling into the mainstream.

The Brazilian government will soon hold its first wind-only energy auction, as the nation tries to diversify its energy portfolio beyond hydropower.

In our fourth installment, Green Inc. readers respond to our post on efficiency, clothes dryers, and the resurgence of backyard line-drying with pictures of their clotheslines.

The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil upset some conservationists when it concluded its annual meeting this week without including greenhouse gas emissions standards in its certification process.

As the nation looks for ways to burn coal without producing so much carbon dioxide, developers, researchers, and environmentalists are looking at underground coal gasification, or U.C.G., with cautious optimism.

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Near downtown Portland, Leftbank Project is looking to build a viable community.

An investment fund focused on energy efficiency launches.

Human health impacts could soon play a bigger role when sizing up building projects.

Green building experts bring EcoDistricts to the West Coast.

Version 2.0 of the Living Building Challenge is launching.

Seattle designer Lucia Athens pinpoints emerging trends in green building.

Seattle plans to test software that creates home-efficiency scores.

A new pre-fab manufacturer opens a California factory.

NASA hoping to create a test bed of cleantech and green building innovation.

A LEED-Platinum building for sale in Portland aims to finance more projects.

Long a ubiquitous part of modern life, plastics are now in everything from diapers to water bottles to cell phones. But given the proven health threats of some plastics — as well as the enormous environmental costs — the time has come for the U.S. to pass a comprehensive plastics control law. BY JOHN WARGO

Extreme weather events caused by a warming climate pose a growing threat to China’s Yangtze River basin, which encompasses Shanghai and some of the most productive agricultural land in the nation, according to a new study. The basin, which cuts through the center of China, has already seen a spike in floods, heat waves, and drought over the last two decades, […]

Exposure to high levels of bisphenol A (BPA), a chemical found in thousands of everyday plastics, appears to cause sexual problems for males, according to a new study. In the study published in the journal Human Reproduction, researchers followed 634 male workers exposed to BPA at four Chinese factories. Over the course of five years, those men were four tim […]

The melting of Antarctic ice has allowed large blooms of tiny marine phytoplankton to flourish, creating a significant new biological sink for carbon, according to a new study by the British Antarctic Survey. Over the last five decades, retreating glaciers around the Antarctic Peninsula have opened about 24,000 square kilometers of open water that has been c […]

The British government has approved 10 new sites for nuclear power stations in England and Wales, calling nuclear power a “proven and reliable” energy source that will help the UK reduce its carbon emissions and become more energy-independent. Just a year after the government lifted a moratorium on new nuclear power generation, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband c […]

The loss of nitrogen from arid soils caused by a warming climate could make the world’s deserts even more inhospitable to plant life, according to a new study by researchers at Cornell University. Using highly sophisticated instrumentation that measures nitrogen in the parts per trillion — and using dark covers to remove sunlight as a factor in the measureme […]

A UK-based renewable energy company has received a $61 million grant from the Australian government to build the world’s first utility-scale wave power project. Ocean Power Technologies will begin construction of the 19-megawatt project in the waters off Victoria in 2010. The project will provide enough electricity to power 10,000 homes. Wave technology uses […]

The solar power boom in Germany, Spain, and parts of the United States has been fueled by government subsidies. But now some U.S. states — led by New Jersey, of all places — are pioneering a different approach: issuing tradable credits that can be sold on the open market. So far, the results have been promising. BY JON R. LUOMA

The Philippine government plans to approve 19 new contracts to develop the nation’s massive geothermal energy resources in the next five months. A top energy official said financial incentives for the development of renewable energy projects could attract more than $2.5 billion in private dollars from domestic and international companies. “Incentives for ren […]

About half of 36 fish stocks in the northwest Atlantic Ocean have shifted north over the last four decades as ocean temperatures have warmed, according to a new U.S. study. Comparing data for dozens of fish stock from 1968 to 2007 — and using ocean temperature records from the same period — researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ( […]

Over the last century, the intensive use of chemical fertilizers has saturated the Earth’s soils and waters with nitrogen. Now scientists are warning that we must move quickly to revolutionize agricultural systems and greatly reduce the amount of nitrogen we put into the planet's ecosystems. BY FRED PEARCE

A 35-mile seismic crack that formed over a few days in 2005 in the Ethiopian desert is evidence of a new ocean in the making, scientists report in a new study. The abrupt formation of the rift, which is 20 feet wide in places, is similar to the shifting that occurs on the ocean’s floor, according to the study in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. Usin […]

Despite growing pessimism that a global climate treaty will be signed in Copenhagen next month, Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, believes a flurry of last-minute negotiations may lead to an agreement, although the U.S. may not initially be a part of it. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, Pachauri expresses […]

With skepticism growing about the chances of reaching a climate agreement next month in Copenhagen, Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, says he is “cautiously optimistic” that a treaty can still be signed. But in an interview with Yale Environment 360, Pachauri says the global community may have to move ahead without […]

With just a month remaining before the Copenhagen climate summit, delegates from 192 countries are meeting in Barcelona to attempt to lay the groundwork for a climate treaty, with some influential figures saying the U.S. must be prepared to make firm greenhouse gas reduction commitments if Copenhagen is to be a success. Connie Hedegaard, the Danish minister […]

Glacial ice atop Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania continues to melt at an accelerated rate, shrinking 26 percent since 2000, and about 85 percent since 1912, according to a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The study’s lead author, Ohio State University glaciologist Lonnie G. Thompson, said melting of this level has not occurred on K […]

Passage of climate change legislation in the U.S. Senate appears increasingly unlikely in the face of divisions among Democrats and stiff opposition by Republicans, the Washington Post reports. Top Democrats have been unable to enlist key Republican lawmakers to support the bill, which would create a cap-and-trade system and gradually cut the level of carbon […]

The European Space Agency (ESA) has launched a 315 million Euro ($465 Million) satellite that will monitor soil moisture, plant growth, and the salt content of sea water, all of which will be useful in tracking environmental changes as the planet warms. The satellite, called SMOS — Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity — has the capacity to measure the water cont […]

As the world warms, how different societies fare in dealing with rising seas and changing weather patterns will have as much to do with political, social, and economic factors as with a changing climate. BY GAIA VINCE

With the addition of a new forest reserve in Manitoba, Canada has now set aside 250 million acres of its vast boreal forest as parks or preserves, prohibiting logging, mining or oil drilling in these areas. The protected areas, more than twice the size of California, represent roughly one-fifth of Canada’s 1.3WikimediaBoreal forest billion acres of boreal fo […]