Grist points out an article in today’s Wall Street Journal on new companies that offer environmentally friendlier products for sale at fundraisers for schools and non-profit organizations.
As the article observes, selling products that are environmentally (or otherwise) harmful to raise funds for a good cause clearly sends a mixed message. This concern can be elevated [...]

Celsias today highlighted companies that collect waste products and use them to create energy or useful goods through methods that are carbon neutral.
As one of the entrepreneurs quoted in the article notes, “Nature doesn’t make any waste.” When we redesign our processes in a thoughtful way, we can move society closer to the standard that [...]

As energy prices rise, they have an impact not only on individuals, but also on state and local governments, colleges and universities, companies, and organizations of all sorts. In many of these institutions, there is currently little understanding of oil depletion and its far-reaching consequences, let alone a plan for an energy transition. As [...]

The great innovations of the 21st Century will be social. I predict that the solutions to our greatest challenges will emerge through new ways of coming together. Case in point, the Drake Landing Solar Community is a fully integrated housing development that takes solar to the next level. Solar panels channel heat [...]

On the weekend, I posted a piece called Three Ways to Accelerate a Transition to Local Solar Power. In it, I highlighted three noteworthy approaches: local financial incentives, which San Francisco just approved, a solar financing district, which the city of Berkeley is creating, and plans, such as one by Helio Micro Utility, that enable [...]

This past week, the city of San Francisco adopted a new program called GoSolarSF to encourage homeowners and businesses to purchase and install solar panels. Through the program, the city provides financial incentives that, when combined with state and federal tax incentives, can reduce the cost of a typical residential installation from $25,000 to [...]

David Holmgren, who along with Bill Mollison introduced the concept of permaculture, has launched an insightful new website called Future Scenarios that assesses how the climate crisis and peak oil may interact and shape the prospects for humanity.
In exploring the future of energy, Holmgren outlines four possible futures, ranging from a wildly optimistic “techno-explosion” to [...]

CNN is running a story with the provocative title, Is America’s suburban dream collapsing into a nightmare? Its theme is familiar to those who have been aware of the climate crisis, the depletion of fossil fuels, and other converging problems, but has not often been addressed so explicitly in the conventional media. (ABC [...]

I recently read a description of a project called Earth 2100 at Celsias. It asks “environmental enthusiasts, film makers and creative minds” to produce videos that depict what the consequences of the climate crisis, resource depletion, and population growth will be for the remainder of this century if we fail to act. ABC News plans [...]

Each day, it seems, there are more signs of a serious economic downturn. On Friday, the price of crude oil jumped by an unprecedented $10.75 to more than $138 per barrel, with major U.S. stock market indexes dropping roughly three percent for the day. The rise in the U.S. unemployment rate in May was [...]