Stories tagged "environment"

Today marks a new year and a new chapter in the global battle to combat carbon emissions. Utility companies across the eastern seaboard are lining up for the rights to carbon emissions. The new market called The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (REGGI) is the beginning of a global trend in green politics. To explain all of this is Edward McBride, the energy and environment correspondent for The Economist, he joins John and Adaora from London to answer what is the price of used carbon?

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A little over a week ago more than one billion gallons of wet coal ash spilled after a retaining wall ruptured forty miles west of Knoxville. Initially authorities didn't realize how much of eastern Tennessee was actually covered in the semi-toxic sludge. More than one billion gallons of coal ash have spilled through the valley adjacent to the Kingston Fossil Plant and now Tennessee Valley authorities have to figure out how to get rid of it and clean up the state. Josh Flory from the Knoxville News Sentinel just returned from the spill site. He joins John and Adaora from Knoxville.

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Listen to Meaghan O'Neill's suggestions for greening up your holiday cleanup.

Nationwide, there was a lot of focus this year on how to green up your holiday season, and with good reason: Half the country is broke, the atmosphere is falling apart, and many of us are plain done with the stress of running ourselves ragged to buy gifts that nobody really wants just so we can fulfill the tradition of giving and receiving. At TreeHugger and Planet Green, we offered dozens of solutions to Christmas-as-usual, hundreds of green holiday gifts, and even recipes to make your holiday a little brighter and lighter.

One of the main things we talk about is dematerializing the holidays; that is, choosing gifts that are small, experiential, or consumable, such as tickets to a ballet, a spa gift certificate, or donations in your giftee's name. Still, there's much to be said for the cheeriness of holiday décor and thoughtful gift-giving, but when the gifts are unwrapped and the tree comes down, the question remains: What to do with all the stuff that's literally littering our homes?

In the United States, our waste stream increases by about 25 percent between Thanksgiving and New Year's, bringing the total amount of stuff we toss out to more than 25 million tons. With landfills being one of the top sources of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, it pays to pay attention to how to we dispose of the extraneous stuff we gather at this time of year. With that in mind, here are 10 solutions for dealing with post-holiday clutter...

1. Mulch that tree. If you've chosen to use a live tree this year, make sure it's disposed of properly. If your city doesn't have a curbside pickup program, find out where you can deliver it so it can be mulched or used for landscaping, not landfill. For info about your area, check out Earth 911.

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Ater the presents are opened and the Christmas parties are over, take a moment to think about restoring homes back to order. But before stuffing the wrapping paper into a trash bag, or tossing your Christmas tree to the curb, listen to Meaghan O’Neill, the founder and editor of Treehugger.com, for suggestion to green up our Christmas cleanup.

Read Meaghan's 10 tips for recovering from holiday clutter.

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Has the urgency of climate change dimmed since the global economic crisis? Or is it a potential economic stimulus? Environomental engineer David Greene from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory discusses the other global concern that will dominate Barack Obama's administration in the coming years.

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With a fixed amount of water on earth, a growing population means the competition for water is increasing.

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The price of gas is dropping, but statistics show Americans are clocking fewer miles on the road.

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» Video: "America's Disappearing Forests" (The New York Times)
» "Bark Beetles Kill Millions of Acres of Trees in West" (The New York Times)

"If you stand on a mountaintop in Colorado you can look in every direction and see dead trees. It is everywhere."
--Jim Robbins on the impact of pine beetle infestations

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"We can't ride the bucking bronco of day-to-day oil prices to determine our strategy."
-- Van Jones, author of "The Green Collar Economy"

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The largest children's study ever undertaken in the United States kicks off in 2009. Researchers plan on tracking 100,000 kids from the womb to the age when they can legally crack open a beer. Scientists hope 21 years worth of hair, urine and environmental samples will reveal why the incidence of childhood disease is on the rise.

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Alaska’s North Slope is barren tundra, shrouded in mystery for those people who don't live or work there. It's also where we get more than 15 percent of domestic oil. Writer Jeanne Marie Laskas is one of the few people to penetrate the tight-knit world of roughnecks — the men who bring the oil up out of the ground. The Takeaway talks with Laskas about her singular experience documenting the lives of North Slope oil workers.

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Van Jones, author of “The Green Collar Economy,” explains how to save the world and the economy one green job at a time.

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Ten northeastern states have formed a coalition to check global warming. David Biello, an associate editor at Scientific American, explains the cap-and-trade greenhouse gas reduction program.

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NASA monitors Greenland's Jakobshavn glacier via satellite and is interested in the enhanced mass loss. In August, a team of scientists set out to investigate if water that pools on the glacier’s surface reaches the ocean. NASA Program Manager Seelye Martin explains how a team of 90 yellow rubber ducks were employed in this mission.

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Making environmentally friendly dining decisions can be a challenging and cumbersome proposition. When it comes to responsibly choosing fish, it just got easier with the development of a phone-friendly service, Fish Phone, that advises you on the sustainability of your fish of choice.

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This afternoon in New York City, Nobel laureate Wangari Maathai and former Vice President Al Gore will answer questions about deforestation and rainforest preservation at a private roundtable moderated by Dan Rather. Maathai discusses those issues and explains what the United States can do to help preserve tropical rainforests.

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Electronics are getting smaller, but they are still a big problem when it comes to the environment, from the chemicals that go into making them to the toll they take on the planet when we throw them away. What should green consumers look for when purchasing a gadget?

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Thomas Friedman argues "that we are going from a world of a billion Americans to a world of 2 or 3 billion." And "in a world that is hot, flat and crowded, clean technology is the next great global industry." Pulitzer Prize winning author Thomas Friedman explains the challenges and possibilities facing America and the need for a green revolution.

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