Water

NYC Climate Change Plan/shutterstock

New York City’s new resiliency plan is an impressively comprehensive overview of the potential impacts of climate change on every key sector, from physical infrastructure to essential services and networks and insurance.[read more]

drought on the horizon?

The current drought pattern may be the costliest U.S. natural disaster of 2012 and 2013. Its damage estimates could be near $200 billion, making it the country’s costliest natural disaster – even more costly than Hurricane Sandy.[read more]

Belo Monte dam

In Brazil, hydropower is king. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, a whopping 79 percent of Brazil’s electricity came from hydropower in 2010.[read more]

communities/shutterstock

With fracking already underway in 30 states and advancing at a breakneck speed, safeguards have not been adequate to protect communities, public health or the environment.[read more]

climate change and water

Experts from around the world have gathered in Bonn, Germany to “synthesize major global water research achievements in the last decade and help assemble the scientific foundations to articulate a common vision of Earth’s water future."[read more]

Arctic Ocean acidification

After three years of ongoing research by an international team of scientists, a study commissioned for a first-ever comprehensive assessment of Arctic Ocean acidification was presented last week.[read more]

energy innovation inspiration?/shutterstock

The idea of an “artificial leaf” sounds simple enough: Take a small, cheap, light-collecting device the size of a typical leaf, dunk it in a quart of water, and use solar energy to generate enough hydrogen gas for powering a small fuel cell.[read more]

hydropower in China

Reuters reports that China’s environmental ministry has okayed the construction of a new hydroelectric dam on the Dadu River in the Sichuan province, which when completed will be the country’s largest.[read more]

natural gas well entrance

Just released federal government draft rules for fracking fail to protect people from harm. Instead the rules protect the oil and gas industry from having to follow strong public health and environmental standards.[read more]

climate change future?

Terrorism seems to be the only actionable trigger in our leaders' minds. Perhaps we need to brand Mother Nature a terrorist to provoke action on climate change?[read more]

Belo Monte controversies continue

The latest installment of the saga has been the expulsion of journalists from the site where they would cover the latest protest by indigenous activists who have brought the building of the dam to a halt.[read more]

overpopulation/shutterstock

We seem to be headed for collapse, because humans’ growth is so far out of line in relationship to that of other species. In addition, there are many other limits, including the cost of oil extraction and availability of fresh water.[read more]

rendering of Belo Monte Dam

Large hydropower projects are the bedrock of clean energy production, by virtue of their sheer size and reliance upon natural rainfall. But climate change's effects on rain patterns could affect new hydropower projects.[read more]

desertification

Drought and desertification have become increasingly pressing problems for a growing number of countries. The UN estimates land degradation costs between 3-5 percent of global agricultural Gross Domestic Production.[read more]

ocean temperatures/shutterstock

The average amount of energy the ocean absorbed each year over the period 1993 to 2008 was enough to power nearly 500 100-watt light bulbs for each of the roughly 6.7 billion people on the planet.[read more]