The question of how to engage Americans on pressing environmental issues is a perennial one. Arguably, environmental activist groups haven't made much traction. After more than 35 years since the birth of the modern environmental movement, the major green nonprofits cumulatively engage only 3...

For all the arguments made by the opponents of nuclear power -- that it is uneconomical, unsafe, a potential boon to terrorists, poses waste-disposal issues, and all the rest -- nuclear's biggest threat may come from...

Dow Chemical announced last week that it would develop new technologies and solutions "for creating safer, more sustainable water supplies for communities around the world."

The announcement, part of Dow's 2015 Sustainability Goals, included a pledge to develop technologies focusing on desalination;...

Who killed the electric car? Who cares? It's history!

What's far more interesting is who's working to bring electric cars to life. Despite the hype and buzz created by the recent debut of a passionate documentary film examining the life and premature death of...

The 2006 rankings of America's "most sustainable cities" were announced last week -- released, with more than a little irony, at a mayors' conference in Las Vegas -- and as usual they fomented a feeding frenzy for local media. Reporters in and...

It was barely six weeks ago that Time magazine warned us to "Be Worried. Be Very Worried" about climate change. The planet's climate, said the magazine, is "booby-trapped with tipping points and feedback loops, thresholds past which the slow creep of environmental...

If you do nothing else environmental this Earth Day week, watch this movie. It may be the most important four minutes you'll spend.

The assignment was this: You've got four minutes to get millions of busy, information-overloaded citizens concerned about climate change...

What's the "sticker price" to the climate of that new car you're considering buying? Katherine Probst would like to help you answer that question.

Probst, a senior fellow at Resources for the Future, has proposed a "global warming performance" label that would appear on...

My colleagues and I at Clean Edge have just released our fifth annual Clean Energy Trends report, showing the remarkable growth trajectory clean energy has taken -- and will continue to take.

In this year's free, downloadable report, Ron Pernick, Clint Wilder,...

The Worldwatch Institute has taken on the corporate establishment in the March-April issue of its monthly magazine, Worldwatch. As you'd expect from Worldwatch, it's a clear-eyed view of the greening of companies. But it also points up the relatively myopic perspective that nonprofits typically have of...

This week, Wall Street Journal columnist Joseph White opined that "hybrid mania is about over," noting that some consumers apparently are deciding that these energy-efficient vehicles aren't, as it turns out, the greatest things since the horseless carriage. On the same day, over at the New...

The 2006 Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations, the second annual such rankings, has just been released at the World Economic Forum conference in Davos, Switzerland. The list was compiled by Corporate Knights and Innovest Strategic Value Advisors.

I was critical...

The online world has been aflutter of late with talk of "Web 2.0," a suite of tools and technologies that define the next-gen Internet. You likely already know them: Web-based applications (where the software lives online instead of in your computer); online content-sharing communities...

The notion of "sustainable consumption and production" continues to be one of the more persistent and vexing challenges on the sustainability front. The challenge, of course: how to balance global consumers' seemingly infinite needs, desires, and aspirations with the planet's decidedly finite resources. Aligning...

Recently, after 15 years, I ceased publication of my monthly publication, The Green Business Letter. The reason, simply put, had to do with closing one door before opening others -- which I expect to do in 2006.

Dharamsala, India -- My wife, Randy Rosenberg, is an independent art curator and consultant to museums, companies, and institutions. For the past 18 months, she has been curating a major exhibition titled The Missing Peace: The Dalai Lama Portrait Project.

The exhibition...

'Tis the season for giving -- and, for some, avoiding conspicuous consumption.

There's a way you can accomplish both.

I'm always pleased and humbled this time of year to receive the Alternative Gifts International catalog, which is filled with opportunities to...

If government policies won't lead to aggressive action on climate change, maybe the insurance industry will.

It seems to have gone largely unreported in the U.S., but in the past week, two developments have shaken the largely staid world of insurance. On Tuesday, preliminary estimates...

At last: we now know what's "Beyond Petroleum."

That moniker, as you well know, has been energy giant BP's tagline since 2002, when the company formerly known as British Petroleum, and then BPAmoco, changed its corporate name to BP plc. The "Beyond Petroleum" tagline has been so successful that I've...

I've just been given a sneak peek at the findings of the 2005 "Green Gauge Report," and it has implications for anyone seeking to promote sustainability, climate action, green consumerism, clean technologies, or any other worldchanging product, service, or cause.

Since 1990, the Green Gauge has...