Green Options

Author, activist and eco-crusader Bill McKibben visited the Colbert Report last night to bring attention to the 350 campaign to limit carbon emissions and the October 24 day of action in support of the goal.

Americans used more solar, nuclear, biomass and wind energy in 2008 than they did in 2007, according to the most recent energy flow charts released by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

The Department of Energy on Thursday released the details of a new $2.3 billion manufacturing tax credit, enacted earlier this year as part of President Obama’s stimulus package.

Millions of nuts, bolts, pieces of metal and carbon, and whole spacecraft from thousands of missions and launches form an orbiting garbage dump spinning around the Earth at speeds up to 22,000 mph.

After the recent collision between a Russian and U.S. satellite, concern for the growing hazard of space junk is becoming even more acute within the international space community. In recent months, NASA and the European Space Agency have both diverted resources into monitoring space debris and researching ways of mitigating and—some day—removing it.

The fragile ecosystems of the Eastern Himalayas have been proven to harbor incredible biological diversity in recent years — a diversity now threatened by global climate change, a new report finds.
A new report (pdf) by the WWF, The Eastern Himalayas: Where Worlds Collide, describes more than 350 new species discovered in the last decade including 244 plants, 16 amphibians, 16 reptiles, 14 fish, 2 birds, 2 mammals and at least 60 new invertebrates. But all of the species discoveries made in the Eastern Himalayas in the last decade may be overshadowed by a rapidly changing climate.

“These exciting finds reinforce just how little we now about the world around us,” said Mark Wright, WWF’s conservation science advisor, adding that the Eastern Himalayas are a region of extraordinary beauty, with some of the most biologically rich areas on the planet.

President Obama announces $2.4 billion in grants to speed the manufacturing and deployment of the next generation of batteries and electric vehicles
As part of the $787 billion stimulus package approved in February, Congress agreed to include $2 billion in research and development grants for advanced battery technologies, and today, speaking in Elkhart, Indiana, the President announced that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will fund 48 new advanced battery and electric drive components manufacturing and electric drive vehicle deployment projects in over 20 states.

The President said the announcement marks the single largest investment in advanced battery technology for hybrid and electric-drive vehicles ever made.

This week, I’m headed to Red Rocks in Colorado, for four nights of music from Phish, at what is arguably one of the greatest outdoor music venues in the United States. And I will, at some point or another, be thinking about the New Deal.

I’m well aware that poring over the details of cap and trade can be a little boring. But thanks to the folks at Auto-Tune the News, all that has changed.

Palin’s chain of independent clauses may have sounded a little disjointed to the untrained ear, but not to William Shatner.

Twenty-five workers holed-up in the Vestas facility on the UK’s Isle of Wight for about a week now may have saved their jobs if a proposed deal is agreed upon by both parties - but only if they happen to work in the offshore research division.