Category: Top Story

Top Story

Dems End-Run Boycotting GOP, Vote 11-1 for Climate Bill

Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Democrats quashed a three-day-long Republican boycott and passed global warming legislation today using a procedural move that could undermine support from moderate senators if the bill reaches the floor. Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and 10 Democrats signed off on the climate bill -- without considering amendments -- after trying without success to wait out Republicans.
Top Story

Business in a Box Program Provides Affordable Solar-Powered Products to Help Change Lives

In the developing world, 1.4 billion low-income people lack electricity. They turn to small kerosene lamps, which provide very little light, smell awful, lead to lung problems, cause burns and house fires and damage the environment. The other alternative is cheap batteries, which perform poorly and contaminate local water supply. Both options are very expensive; this demographic spends as much as 17% of income on power!
Energy and TechnologyTop Story

2.5 Million New Jobs Could Be Created with Clean-Energy Investments

The Center for American Progress, alongside the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts, has undertaken detailed analysis of the impacts that strong climate and clean-energy legislation could have on the U.S. economy. It looked at a suite of policies designed to curb CO2 emissions by driving investment into clean energy technology, and assessed their impact on employment opportunities, economic growth and people’s incomes.
BiofuelsTop Story

Biofuels Industry Starts to Take form

On one side of a factory here, workers dump 500-pound sacks of pine chips into a hopper. Deep inside the plant, an 8,000-degree blow torch roars like a jet engine as the chips are processed. At the far end, the workers turn a tap and out pours ethanol, ready for use as a motor fuel. The facility, built by a company called Coskata, is not quite proof that a new era is at hand for American transportation fuels. But with the company claiming it will be able to convert wood waste into biofuel for about $1 a gallon, the plant suggests that day may be drawing nearer.
Climate ChangeTop Story

Saving forests five times better than carbon capture for climate action

WWF Sweden is urging its government – holding the current EU Presidency - to get behind an effective international agreement on halting forest loss as a key and highly cost effective measure on climate change. “Sweden should follow the examples set by its northern neighbors in developing systems to halt deforestation,” said WWF CEO General Lasse Gustavsson. “One Swedish krona to stem deforestation results in the same emissions reductions...