NewWays for Environmental and Social Change

The nation’s public transportation systems logged a 5.2 percent jump in ridership in the second quarter, according to industry figures to be released Tuesday, as record-high gas prices pushed people to take millions more trips on buses and rail systems.

SHAPLEIGH, Maine - Walk about 100 yards down a well-worn path, past wild berry bushes, and take a left into leafy growth. Just a few more feet into the green canopy, and there they are, jutting out from the earth.
“I don’t even like the sight of them here,” said Liz McMahon, a Shapleigh resident for [...]

North Carolina State University has just been awarded a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to create the National Research Center for Future Renewable Energy Delivery Management Systems— in other words, the Internet for energy.

Coal River Mountain is one of the last mountains left intact in the beautiful Coal River Valley of West Virginia. However, Massey Energy has plans to mine 6,000+ acres of the mountain - or almost 10 square miles.

A new tool is now available for investors looking to buy a so-called “green” building, a property that has environmentally-friendly features like energy and water efficiency and that produces minimal pollution and waste. A new program instituted by the National Association of Realtors(R) has begun certifying brokers as green specialists. Brokers can earn the designation from NAR’s Green Resource Council by taking three days of courses or completing the program online at their own pace.

The people over at Plenty Magazine have put their heads together and come up with a list of the top 20 businesses, 20 people, and 10 ideas that are changing our world.

The decision is part of a plan to make the Eiffel tower and other monuments more environmentally friendly. Tickets and documents in the tower are made of recycled paper, and management claims that all the electricity used comes from renewable sources. It is currently studying a plan to put solar panels on the roof of its restaurants.

The opening of Portland’s The Green Microgym this week seems like a perfect complement to the announcement of M2E’s kinetic charger, which can generate energy from motion. Adam Boesel, The Green Microgym’s owner, doctored up spin bikes with weed whacker motors and truck alternators so that patrons can create energy to help power the 2,800 foot space.

A new report by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Energy Initiative predicts that a 30-50% reduction in fuel consumption is possible in the US over the next 25-30 years. Initially, this will be achieved through improved gasoline and diesel engines and transmissions, gasoline hybrids and reductions in vehicle weight and drag. In the longer term, the study concludes that plug-in hybrids and, later, hydrogen fuel cells may begin to have a significant impact on fuel use and emissions.

State regulators in Colorado have given the green light to plans by Xcel Energy to shut down two coal-powered energy plants in the state, and build one of the world’s largest utility-scale solar-power facilities.

(Photograph by Bob Stefko/Getty Images)

A tidal wave of televisions is headed for the electronics hereafter. As the United States transitions to all-digital TV, the shutdown of analog broadcasting next February actually won’t affect most televisions in the country—87 percent of U.S. television-watching households already get their TV through cable or satellite. Nevertheless, the deadline is [...]

A report by the group ForestEthics estimates that destroying forests to make paper for junk mail releases as much greenhouse gas pollution as 9 million cars. Another way to look at it: Junk mail produces as much pollution as seven U.S. states combined, or as much as heating 13 million homes each winter.

Cash for Clunkers is a generic name for a variety of programs under which the government buys up some of the oldest, most polluting vehicles and scraps them. If done successfully, it holds the promise of performing a remarkable public policy trifecta — stimulating the economy, improving the environment and reducing income inequality all at the same time. Here’s how.

Imagine being able to convert water into a boundless source of cheap energy. That’s what BlackLight Power, a 25-employee firm in Cranbury, N.J., says it can do. The only problem: Most scientists say that company’s technology violates the basic laws of physics.

Newly constructed or tightly sealed buildings, which were built with heating and cooling efficiency in mind, are prime candidates for the so-called “sick building syndrome”. Tenants can experience respiratory irritations, coughing, sore throats and difficulty breathing. Headaches and frequent illness have also been reported in “sick buildings”.

Exxon Mobil Corp said on Thursday it is getting out of the retail gas business in the United States as sky-high crude oil prices squeeze margins.

You’re going to be more secure if there are no nuclear weapons in the world, because if you achieve this goal, you won’t be risking having nuclear weapons blow up in one of our cities.

At the conferences abroad I’ve been attending, it was certainly borne in on me that the notion of a two-tiered world—where some countries can have nuclear weapons and others can’t—is getting less and less acceptable.

Heard of Design 21?
DESIGN 21 is a Social Design Network aiming to inspire social activism through design.  They connect people who want to explore ways design can positively impact our many worlds, and who want to create change here, now.
Social Design Network is itself a collaborative project undertaken by the global design and merchandise company [...]

This group of rebels met one sunny day in April 2004 in the garage of a typical condominium ten miles north of the Golden Gate, determined to roll out a car that could be “fueled” by plugging it into a wall at night with a standard extension cord and run on gas when needed. It was a Toyota Prius when they started and a symbol of an American revolution in automobiles when they finished.

Sure, it’s easy enough for one person to attempt energy self-sufficiency: put a solar panel on your roof, run your car on biodiesel, and you’re halfway there. But how easy is it for an entire town to become self-sufficient?