by Jeffrey Bennett
One reason we use energy so lavishly today is that the price of energy does not include all of the social costs of producing it. - President Richard Nixon, 1971
Politics have turned upside down. As the quote from President Nixon reminds us, protecting the environment was on...
The nation's largest baby food makers face a lawsuit by an environmental group aimed at forcing them to alert consumers that some products contains low amounts of lead.
The case scheduled for trial Monday will determine whether they should put warning labels on products sold in California.
Gerber ...
Adopting "clean technology" doesn't have to cost the earth, whether you're a large global enterprise or a local shop, but it could ensure the long-term survival of your business.
As the population continues to grow, the demand for food, water and energy will rise by as much as 50% by 2030, says the...
While more than half (53 percent) of all companies in the S&P 500 Index and Fortune 500 published sustainability reports in 2011 — up from 19 percent the year before — companies in the US are less likely to obtain third-party assurance than their global peers, according to a report by the Global...
The big rigs rattling past smokestacks sure don't make this Chicago roadway look like the greenest street in America.
But their tires roll over smog-eating pavement, the streetlights run on solar and wind power, the sidewalks were made with recycled concrete, and shrub-filled "bioswales" keep storm...
By Codi Yeager-KozacekCircle of Blue
When it became clear last August that crippling heat and dryness would severely curtail U.S. corn production, prices for the grain shot to record highs. Now, eight months later, consumers in the United States are looking at a 3 to 4 percent inflation rate for fo...
An oil pipeline rupture on March 29 poured thousands of barrels of heavy crude petroleum into the streets of Mayflower, Ark., focusing the environmental debate over the Keystone XL oil pipeline back on the risks of spills.
It was fears of a devastating spill in the environmentally sensitive Sandhil...
Two Midwest startups in the clean-tech sector walked away with $100,000 apiece in a one-day fast-pitch event before an audience and a panel of judges. Four others were awarded cash prices too.
LuminAID, a Chicago-based startup that developed a low-cost, solar-powered inflatable lighting device, won...
We’ve all heard about rising sea levels and the possibility of more frequent, stronger storms. But oyster death? The Post’s Darryl Fears on Monday highlighted one of the many consequences of carbon dioxide emissions that scientists are only just beginning to detect — and most Americans have probably...
One quarter of the US' rivers and streams have fish with elevated mercury.
At least our rivers don’t light on fire anymore. Inspired by a well-publicized fire on the Cuyahoga River in 1969, the passage of the Clean Water Act in the US led to huge reductions in water pollution. Despite those positiv...
Which is more important, pandas or pinot? Researchers say that is a question conservationists and wine-growers will have to answer in the coming years as climate change sparks a hunt for cooler places to grow wine grapes, even if those places are home to sensitive animal populations.
Already, big p...
Concerns about air quality are drifting in with the arrival of warm weather.
Monday marked the renewal of what the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources considers “ozone season,” observed through daily air quality forecasts in urban areas.
Officials say it demands more attention in ...
When President Barack Obama convenes his cabinet in the White House’s Roosevelt Room, one might be left with the impression that defenders of our oceans are rather pointedly underrepresented. The Department of Commerce, which oversees the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, has...
The American public has slowly awakened over the past several years to the creep of genetically modified and genetically engineered crops into the food supply.
Now a provision in a bill signed into law Tuesday by President Barack Obama has thrust GMOs into the spotlight, pr...
Harrison Ford would like you to know that should our mistreatment of the planet lead to our demise, the natural world won't stop to grieve.
"Nature doesn't need people, people need nature; nature would survive the extinction of the human being and go on just fine, but human cu...
Environmentalists and green marketers are always talking about “saving the planet.” Buy this car, this laundry detergent, or this light bulb and you will help save “the planet” or “nature” or “the environment.” Jenny Price, for one, wishes they’d stop.
Price is an activist, historian, and s...
