10,000 Bicycles Coming to a New York City Block Near You

Tuesday, January 31, 2012
10,000 Bicycles Coming to a New York City Block Near You

You leave your apartment. A couple of blocks away, there’s a bunch of big, but perfectly good bikes locked into racks. You slide your bikeshare card into a reader next to one of the bikes and the rack releases the bike. You have an appointment about 50 blocks away, so you ride the bike... Read More...

Las Vegas’ Water Ponzi Scheme

Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Las Vegas’ Water Ponzi Scheme

The desert city, Las Vegas, was funding its lavish water system entirely by charging new arrivals to hook up to it. Now growth is down by 94 per cent and the Water Authority is wringing its hands. Read More...

"The Third Industrial Revolution," by Jeremy Rivkin

Monday, January 23, 2012
"The Third Industrial Revolution," by Jeremy Rivkin

For all of us despairing of the future of green technology and an abatement of carbon emissions, there is good news in the form of Jeremy Rivkin’s current book, The Third Industrial Revolution, (Palgrave-MacMillan, 2011). According to Rivkin, a new energy-information paradigm is emerging, and the sooner we adopt I, the sooner we will... Read More...

No Loaves and Fishes: Feeding Nine Billion in 2050?

Tuesday, January 17, 2012
No Loaves and Fishes: Feeding Nine Billion in 2050?

We have recently been told that a billion people go to bed hungry every night, something that is only intellectually conceivable to most Americans. It is also an incomprehensible number. It is astonishingly three times as many people as there are in the entire United States. As things stand now, it appears that the... Read More...

For Want of Water: Drought & Electric Power Generation

Wednesday, January 11, 2012
For Want of Water: Drought & Electric Power Generation

The shortage of water could affect the production of electricity in Texas. Controversy rages over how much, and what can be done about it. Solar, wind and gas loom large. Read More...

Oh, the Hostility! – Of the Automobile Industry Toward Electric Cars

Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Oh, the Hostility! – Of the Automobile Industry Toward Electric Cars

Reading the article by the Times’ car writer Phil Patton on the design of electric cars  in the January 6th issue is déjà vu all over again, as the Yankee catcher Yogi Berra famously said many decades ago. In the article Patton couldn’t contain his contempt for the subjects of his concern. Describing the... Read More...

Two Big New Year’s Resolutions: Ten Ways to Accomplish Them

Monday, January 2, 2012
Two Big New Year’s Resolutions: Ten Ways to Accomplish Them

Forget all those resolutions you’re going to forget about anyway and make two resolutions that could at least change the U S of A, if not the world. I. Stop Wasting Energy.We Americans are among the top nine countries (of 130) in the world, keeping company with oil-rich wastrels like Bahrain and the United... Read More...

10 Easy Environmental New Year’s Resolutions

Sunday, January 1, 2012
10 Easy Environmental New Year’s Resolutions

Here, from an environmental blog, are 10 things you can do to make you more environmentally conscious in 2012 -- if that's what you'd like to be. Read More...

The Cost of Putting the Trouble Back in the Bottle

Saturday, December 31, 2011
The Cost of Putting the Trouble Back in the Bottle

This short article in Business Week highlights the difficulties we face in getting the toxic chemicals and materials we use out of our environment and highlights the importance of recycling. Read More...

China Tackles the Electric Car at the Plug

Tuesday, December 27, 2011
China Tackles the Electric Car at the Plug

China is undergoing electric car technology growing pains, but the industry there has a special ally in the powerful electric companies, which may change the game. Starting with charging stations, the Chinese may yet finesse the technology and dominate it. Read More...

GREEN BOOKS

Water: Our Most Precious Resource: by Marc Devilliers. This highly readable report on the looming global water crisis is amazingly informative on water issues around the world from China to Texas.