Saudi Arabia has long been a wealthy country because of its enormous oil reserves. But the kingdom also is rich in sunlight, and it now promises to invest over $100 billion to develop 41 gigawatts of solar electricity by 2032. The plan could eventually transform Saudi Arabia from the world’s largest oil exporter to a leading innovator of solar energy and technologies.

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Post tags: "clean energy", "solar energy", carbon emissions, Middle East, oil and gas, renewable energy, saudi arabia, solar, Solar Power, solar thermal

The US Department of Energy, with backing from the oil industry, has successfully tested a new method to extract untapped natural gas from frozen crystals of methane hydrate, buried in ocean sediment and permafrost in Alaska’s Arctic. Some experts claim that this energy source could provide several hundred years of energy, and they want to tap it using a method which requires carbon dioxide to be injected into the ground. Any form of drilling in the Arctic raises serious questions about extracting fossil fuels in an environmentally sensitive region, but proponents claim that the drilling techniques have a low ecological footprint.

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Post tags: Alaska Arctic, Alaska Drilling, Arctic Drilling, carbon emissions, Climate Change, Conoco Phillips, global warming, Methane Crystals, methane emissions, Methane Hydrate, Natural Resources Defense Council, us department of energy

There’s been a great deal of buzz lately about palm oil — the edible oil largely sourced in Indonesia and Malaysia from the fruit of the oil palm, which can also be used to make biofuels. The Environmental Protection Agency recently refused to designate it as a biofuel, as it does not meet the agency’s greenhouse gas requirements laid out in the 2007 Renewable Fuel Standard. Indeed, the release of carbon dioxide from the process of oil palm farming and oil extraction has placed Indonesia as the world’s third largest emitter of greenhouse gases. But the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and agencies representing Indonesian and Malaysian palm oil interests are lobbying the EPA to reverse its decision on palm oil derived biofuels. Meanwhile the Washington Post cited claims from some opponents that the palm oil biofuel ruling could be the “EPA’s most important climate-change decision of the year.”

Read the rest of EPA to Rule on Whether Greenhouse-Gas-Emitting Palm Oils Can be Used as Biofuel

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Post tags: biofuel production, biofuels environment, canopy loss, carbon emissions, deforestation, environmental protection agency, epa, green energy, indonesia deforestation, indonesian borneo, malaysia deforestation, methane emissions, national academy of sciences, palm oil, peatlands loss, renewable energy

Cutting back on packaging can yield huge environmental benefits by reducing materials while cutting carbon emissions from transporting needlessly bulky goods. With this in mind, UK Supermarket Chain Sainsbury’s just introduced a new slimline toilet roll. Sainsbury’s slimmed-down cardboard tubes are set to reduce the supermarket chain’s carbon emissions by an impressive 140 tons each year.

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Post tags: 20 by 20 sustainability, carbon emissions, cardboard tubes, green products, household products, packaging reduction, paper products, paper recycling, product redesign, sainsbury's environment, slimline toilet roll, sustainability plan, toilet paper, toilet roll, toilet tissue

Read the rest of The World’s 6 Most Pressing Environmental Issues

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Post tags: alternative energy, canopy loss, carbon emissions, Climate Change, deforestation carbon, Earth Day 2012, energy issues, environmental destruction, food security, food wastage, fossil fuels, fuel efficiency, global warming, renewable energy, tree planting, water pollution, water scarcity

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Post tags: alternative energy, bee population, Biodiversity, canopy loss, carbon emissions, Climate Change, deforestation, deforestation carbon, earth day, Earth Day 2012, energy issues, environmental destruction, extreme weather, food security, food wastage, fossil fuels, fsc certified wood, fuel efficiency, global warming, great pacific garbage patch, oceanic dead zones, overpopulation, Pollution, recycling, renewable energy, rising sea levels, tree planting, water pollution, water scarcity

Today the EPA finally introduced long-delayed regulations requiring natural gas companies to utilize technologies that reduce or eliminate the emission of smog-forming volatile organic compounds (VOCS) from fracking. The rule will be rolled out in two stages – the first of which goes into effect in 60 days, and will require newly fracked or refracked wells to use either flaring or green completion technologies to control their emissions. From January 1, 2015 on, all new fracking ventures will be required to use green completion methods, whereby gases which can have devastating health impacts when released are instead recaptured to be be treated and sold. The rules will also apply to new drilling for oil.

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Post tags: air pollution, carbon emissions, clean air act, environmental protection agency, flares environment, Fracking earthquake, Fracking Environment, Fracking Smog, fracking water, gas drilling, gas flaring, green completion, hydraulic fracturing, natural gas, oil exploration, reduced emission completion, volatile organic compounds

Mexico is poised to become the second nation in the world (behind Great Britain) to pass sweeping climate change legislation that calls for dramatically reducing carbon emissions over the next four decades. Last week, Mexico’s Chamber of Deputies (its House of Representatives) voted to approve a new General Law on Climate Change by an overwhelming margin of 128-10. To become law, which appears quite likely now, the law must pass the Mexican Senate and be signed by President Felipe Calderón.

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Post tags: binding climate law, carbon emissions, climate bill, Climate Change, climate talks, energy policy, General Law on Climate Change, global warming, Mexican congress, Mexican government, mexico, President Felipe Calderón, renewable energy, United Nations

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Post tags: BREAAM, carbon emissions, Climate Change, copper, Daylighting, eco design, feilden clegg bradley studios, green design, Hive, indigenous plant species, natural ventilation, sustainable design, the hive, UK, UK-CIP, Worcester, Worcester library

Now your eco-conscience can rest a little easier when you need to ship documents around the world – FedEx announced today that it will make its FedEx Express envelope carbon-neutral with the launch of a new carbon offset program. The move is part of FedEx’s broader EarthSmart initiative, which was created to encourage environmental responsibility within the company. The FedEx Express envelopes were already made of 100-percent recycled content, but now the company says that all carbon emitted from shipping a FedEx envelope will be offset through investments in renewable energy projects and forest conservation.

+ FedEx EarthSmart

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Post tags: carbon emissions, carbon offset, Carbon-Neutral Envelope, earthsmart, envelope, fedex, FedEx Envelope, mail, recycled paper, shipping

A Carbon Trust survey of 2,800 18-25 year-olds in six countries has yielded some pretty startling results: 88% of respondents in China would “be more loyal to a brand if they could see it was reducing its carbon footprint,” compared to just 57% of US and 55% of UK participants. Furthermore, “83% of young people questioned in China say they would be more loyal to a brand if they could see it was reducing its carbon footprint,” and 60% of Chinese respondents said they would stop buying a product if its manufacturer refused to commit to measuring and reducing its carbon footprint.

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Post tags: cap and trade, carbon emissions, china enviroment, consumer influence, corporate social responsibility, environmental protection agency, green business, sustainable business, the carbon trust, tom delay

Climate change deniers often sing the frustrating song that carbon dioxide emissions are harmless, but a groundbreaking study by scientists at Harvard, the University of Wisconsin, and Oregon State University has produced a paper which the authors claim to be the first to “definitively show the role carbon dioxide played in helping to end the last ice age.” CO2 concentrations rose from 185 parts per million to 260 ppm over the roughly 10,000 years during which the last ice age ended, according to Physorg. Compare that with our man-made emissions, which have raised CO2 concentrations by the same amount in the past two centuries alone, and we all have something to be very concerned about.

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Post tags: atlantic currents, carbon dioxide, carbon emissions, CO2 concentration, CO2 emissions, deglaciation causes, global warming, harvard university, Ice Age, jeremy shakun, melting ice caps, oregon state university, rate of carbon dioxide concentration, University of Wisconsin

While many of the conversations regarding Apple today will center around the launch of the iPad 3, the Natural Resources Defense Council has taken to its blog to attack the computer giant over its plans for its new Cupertino campus. The proposed Foster+ Partner-designed campus impressed us with its expansive glass facades and significant commitment to renewable energy sources, but the NRDC’s Kaid Benfield all but directly calls for a boycott of Apple products in light of its violation of “the most basic tenets of smart growth and walkability in the sprawling, car-dependent design of its new headquarters.”

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Post tags: "sustainable architecture", apple, apple campus, apple inc., carbon emissions, cupertino campus, Foster + Partners, Natural Resources Defense Council, renewable energy, retrofitting suburbia, silcon valley, solar panels, Steve Jobs, suburban sprawl

Environmental activists may have counted plans for the Keystone XL being knocked down by the Senate as a major victory, but the fight’s not over yet. As open-pit oil sands mining continues in Canada, researchers from the University of Alberta have found that tar sands mining could cause even greater long term damage to the environment than previously thought as mining companies stand to massively and permanently deplete Canada’s natural peatlands.

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Post tags: alberta canada, carbon emissions, environmental destruction, mining carbon, oil sands, peat depletion, peat importance, tar sands, University of Alberta

A new report from Climate Central presents troubling data to suggest that rising sea levels, a result of global warning, could cause significant areas of the U.S. coastline to be flooded by the end of the century. The report, “Surging Seas: Sea level rise, storms & global warming: a threat to the US Coast” highlights risks posed to Florida and Louisiana, and found that California, New York and New Jersey are also particularly vulnerable to rising tides. Noting that “Global warming has raised sea level about 8 inches since 1880,” the report’s authors found that scientists expect the seas to rise another 20-80 inches by 2100, dependent on the rate that climate change progresses.

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Post tags: carbon emissions, century floods, century storms, climate central, Climate Change, coal pollution, coastal inundation, florida flooding, global warming, louisiana flooding, melting glaciers, national elevation dataset, national oceanic atmpospheric administration, new york flooding, rising tide, Sea Levels, surging seas, urban flooding

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Post tags: "sustainable development", BPA, carbon emissions, coffee, eco-tourism, eco-travel, Fair Trade, green design, green materials, green products, sustainable design, sustainable travel, Travel, water filter, water issues

Every summer New York’s MoMA PS1 gallery blossoms with an amazing new pavilion by an up-and-coming architecture studio, and the museum just announced that the winner of this year’s Young Architects Program is HWKN’s stellar star-shaped “Wendy” pavilion! The brilliant blue building bristles with an array of crystalline points that purify the air while spraying water and blasts of wind, ensuring that the PS1′s courtyard will be the cool place to be once the sweltering summer sun hits its stride. Read on for a closer look!

READ MORE >

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Post tags: Art, carbon emissions, Design, green design, HollwichKushner, hwkn, Long Island City, moma, MoMA PS1, music, NYC, summer, sustainable design, temporary installations, urban art, Warm Up, Wendy, young architects program

If you read Inhabitat, you probably know that we’re big fans of green transportation, but we do think it’s important to see the bigger picture when it comes to electric cars. A new finding from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville shows that electric cars in China have a higher impact on pollution than gasoline vehicles due to the fact that they draw power from the grid (which in China is powered 90% by fossil fuels). We should point out that this study only examined EVs in one part of the world – China – but there is a bigger picture to look at which is the fact that in order for electric cars to eventually become truly sustainable, we need to move towards ultimately powering them with renewable resources.

Read the rest of New Study Finds That Electric Cars in China Using Fossil Fuels Have a Higher Carbon Footprint Than Gasoline Gars

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Post tags: air pollution, alternative energy, alternative transportation, carbon emissions, electric car, electric vehicle, ev, fossil fuels, green transportation, greenhouse gas emissions coal, Pollution, renewable energy

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Post tags: carbon emissions, Design for Health, eco design, Eco-cooking bags, green design, insulated bags, recyclable materials, Recycled Materials, Sarah Collings, save fuel, sustainable design, Unilever, water issues, Wonderbag, Wonderbags

Investors, environmental groups, and academics sent a letter to the Bank of England (which is responsible for keeping England’s economic stability) this week, urging it to assess the risk that carbon intensive investments in the United Kingdom have on citizens and investors alike. Five of the 10 largest companies in the U.K.’s benchmark stock index (the FTSE 100) are high-carbon companies, and the group addressing the letter believes that puts the U.K. at risk financially. The authors of the letter argue that depending on finite, unsustainable resources for investing while the world moves into renewable technology is untenable and poses a threat to everyone affected by investments in those companies.

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Post tags: bank of england, carbon emissions, carbon heavy, carbon intensive, english investments, green investments, investing in green, sustainable investing, sustainable investments, united kingdom