Today is World Refugee day. A day to focus worldwide attention on the the estimated 40 million people world wide uprooted by violence and persecution. But there is also a new kind of refugee. The climate refugee. In the words of Antonio Guterres, UN High Commissioner for Refugees:

Climate change and environmental damage lie behind increasingly frequent natural disasters with dramatic human consequences. Different models of the impact of climate change all present a worrying picture of human displacement. East Africa offers a stark example. All predictions are that desertification will expand steadily, making it difficult for people to earn a living and provoking further migration. All of this is happening in the absence of international capacity and determination to respond.

Continue reading Climate change refugees…

How much water does a leaky faucet waste? A lot, especially when you add up all the tiny droplets.

According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS) a small drip has a volume of about 0.33…

How much water does a leaky faucet waste? A lot, especially when you add up all the tiny droplets.

According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS) a small drip has a volume of about 0.33…

Divine Chocolate is a delicious Fair Trade brand that has established a competitive presence not just in Fair Trade chocolate, but in the entire chocolate market in the UK and, now, in the US. The…

Gamesa, a Spanish wind turbine manufacturer, has hammered out its first-ever U.S. union contract with the United Steelworkers (USW). Workers at two Gamesa facilities in Pennsylvania voted to approve…

Scorecard.org, a project of Green Media Toolshed, has been nominated for a Progressive Source Award in the category of Most Innovative Advocacy Tool. This is the first year for the Progressive Source Awards and the goal is to recognize organizations that are using the Web to effectively spread their messages with provocative videos, arresting homepages, and informative resources to motivate, educate, and inspire.

The awards are hosted by a new NYC-based firm called Progressive Source Communication. Voting ends on Monday, June 25th, so if you have a moment, please vote for the Scorecard site!

You can vote here.

Thanks for your support!

As regular readers of GO know, the world of green technology is moving forward at a blinding pace. Every week (shoot, sometimes every day) brings many exciting stories about breakthroughs and…

At last, the climate revolution is getting — well, consumer-friendly.

Today marks the launch of Climate Counts, a new nonprofit initiative to rate major consumer brands on their climate commitments and performance.
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(Posted by Joel Makower in Climate Change at 2:19 PM)

Art by Chris Jordan depicting the 2 million single use bottles used in the U.S. every five minutes. Though it's unusual for someone living in the US, as a general rule, I don't buy foods that…

We find ourselves, as I wrote a bit ago in an essay called The Empire of Crime, without a contemporary sense of our immediate surroundings or much of a model for a working future. This lends an air of surreality to our thinking. Like the hero of William Gibson’s story The Gernsback Continuum, we are shadowed by visions of a future not our own: Mercifully, the whole thing is starting to fade, to become an episode. When I do still catch the odd glimpse, it’s peripheral; mere fragments of mad-doctor chrome, confining themselves to the corner of the eye. There was that flying-wing liner over San Francisco last week, but it was almost translucent. And the shark-fin roadsters have gotten scarcer, and freeways discreetly avoid unfolding themselves into the gleaming eighty-lane monsters I was forced to drive last month in my rented Toyota. And I know that none of it will follow me to New York; my vision is narrowing to a single wavelength of probability. I’ve worked hard for that. Television helped a lot. Indeed, we’re irrationally hung up on the past’s visions of the future. Check out Gareth Branwyn’s photo tour of steampunk hobbyist artifacts: Retro-futurism is all… (more)

(Posted by Alex Steffen in Imagining the Future at 11:03 AM)