by Jonathan Hiskes. Progress toward a sustainable future may be stalled in the Senate , but there’s a ton of news and interesting research happening at the local level on the broad topic of improving built spaces — cities, towns, buildings, transportation systems, etc. A quick roundup from... 

by Agence France-Presse. NEW ORLEANS, La. — Hurricane Alex disrupted the BP oil spill cleanup effort in the Gulf of Mexico Wednesday as the storm approached the Texas and Mexican coasts. President Barack Obama declared a state of emergency in Texas as Alex strengthened into the first Atlantic... 

by Jonathan Hiskes. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac claimed the first casualty in their attack on a promising clean-energy financing tool when Boulder County, Colo., canceled the latest round of its popular ClimateSmart Loan Program on Tuesday. “We are extremely disappointed by the lack of flexibility... 

by Randy Rieland. Sure, a bird dripping oil is a powerful image. But if you want your political spot to pack a punch, you gotta take it to the next level — say, a politician dripping oil. The Gulf spill, in a perverse way, has been a godsend for the makers of campaign ads — nothing says... 

A consortium of North American and European activists have demanded sweeping changes to the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) after charging that up to one-third of all CERs ever sold may have been illegitimate. The groups are demanding an investigation to determine whether a number of coolant firms... 

“PlanetFest”, the 2nd Annual Southern California Vegan Earth Day celebration, occurred last weekend. It was emceed by Bob Linden and sponsored by Go Vegan Radio (www.goveganradio.com) along with The International Fund for Africa (www.ifundafrica.org). The event included a consortium of live... 

The California Department of Toxic Substances has released a draft of new green chemistry regulations this week, which creates a new statewide process for evaluating the toxicity of chemicals used in consumer products and requires manufacturers to find safe alternatives to those chemicals used in their... 

Richard Reynolds, the author of On Guerilla Gardening shows us some of his latest gardening projects: tulips, sunflowers, strawberries and other illicit gardens in the neglected concrete corners of central London. Also: Get guerilla gardening tips from Richard. Read the original post: Guerillas in... 

6 Questions with guerilla gardening guru Richard Reynolds. Also: Check out these great guerilla gardening photos ! See the article here: Guerilla Warfare on the Garden Plot  Read More →

Tropical Storm Alex was set to strengthen into a hurricane on Tuesday, delaying BP Plc’s efforts to increase siphoning capacity at the gushing oil well in the Gulf of Mexico where some companies evacuated workers. Alex was forecast to move slowly away from the Yucatan Peninsula over southern Gulf... 

Sustainability is the fifth imperative companies have faced since World War II. But, unlike the four preceding imperatives, sustainability requires companies change both how they create value and for whom they create value. The good news for companies? Embracing sustainability can lead to an unexpected... 

by Jonathan Hiskes. It feels like we’re writing about the “very last chance for a climate bill in 2010″ just about every week. Well, Tuesday morning’s White House meeting between President Obama and 23 senators was billed as yet one more last chance to breathe some life into... 

by Randy Rieland. It wasn’t so long ago that a number of Republican senators actually thought happy thoughts about cap-and-trade or carbon pricing — before they got on board with the official GOP talking points and started referring to any climate policy as a “job-killing national... 

Recycling old cell phones pays … and so does shopping around! We compared the prices at three leading used cell phone recyclers to find the 21 phones you can sell for serious cash – $125 or more. Also see how to recycle any type of electronics . See the article here: 21 of the Most Valuable... 

For those without a green thumb, it takes several things to make plants (or algae grow). These are sunlight, nutrients, and water. In the middle of the ocean there is plenty of water and on the surface plenty of sunlight, the problem is lack of nutrients. For almost three decades, oceanographers have... 

Life is confusing. When buying a product one has to consider whether it is green, inexpensive, actually works, and so forth and so on. There is also the life cycle of the product to consider. Is the product beneficial to the environment in the long run? For example, Marcal Manufacturing has just introduced... 

The Greek philosopher Plato has been revered as a great thinker for millennia. It turns out, his writings are even more valuable than we have thought. A science historian at The University of Manchester has cracked “The Plato Code” – the long disputed secret messages hidden in the great... 

Thick oil from BP Plc’s Gulf of Mexico spill washed ashore in Mississippi for the first time as tropical storm Alex moved into the Gulf, posing a threat to the cleanup operation. Alex, the first named storm of the 2010 Atlantic hurricane season, had sustained winds of 45 mph and was about 60 miles... 

by Jonathan Hiskes. The G20 summit wrapped up in Toronto on Sunday without much action on one of its most sensible targets: phasing out wasteful fossil-fuel subsidies. Those subsidies amount to a crazy $550 billion a year worldwide , and the G20 agreed to look at how to rid the world of them last fall... 

by Jonathan Hiskes. Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), who died early this morning at the age of 92, fought for most of his legendary career to keep coal mining at the center of West Virginia’s economy. But in the last few months of his life, he hinted at a remarkable change of heart, speaking out on...