Despite climate deniers’ attempts to slow progress with the “Climategate” brouhaha, the rest of us are hoping the negotiators in Copenhagen will come up with some kind of road map that will lead to positive change. But even under the best outcomes, the focus in Copenhagen will be on emissions,...

It’s been a bad week for dams – and a very good one for the world’s rivers.

In Queensland, Australia, river protectors thrilled to the news today that their long fight to Save the Mary River from the ravages of a large dam is, finally, over. The nation’s...

The world is greening its electricity supply at a fast (if not fast enough) pace. Germany is slapping solar on every building it can, Spain is becoming a world leader in big concentrating solar plants, and the US stimulus package includes a plateload of subsidies for renewables. At the...

California is schizophrenic when it comes to water.

In the past week, we Californians have been bombarded with news about our troubled water system, good and bad.

The most encouraging news comes from the northern part of the state, where a deal has finally been struck to

Africa is the least electrified place in the world. Some 550 million Africans have no access to electricity.

Not only are they living in the dark; many Africans also have a tenuous water supply. The majority depend directly on rivers and lakes for water. Water stress is growing, creeping...

More evidence that dams really are a dirty business.

The world could see an epidemic of "Hurricane Katrina" destruction from storms if dam builders persist in bottling up more rivers. Most of the world's major river deltas are sinking, thanks in large part to dams withholding land-building sediments, a...