In a speech at the National Urban League on Thursday, President Obama talked about the importance of getting students enthused about education and the particular importance of science and mathematics education.

Well, there is no better example of how to generate that kind of enthusiasm—all the while helping to make renewable-energy vehicles more practical—than the recently completed (more…)

Ample blame exists for the demise of climate legislation in the U.S. Senate, from President Obama’s lack of political courage, to the environmental community’s overly ambitious strategy, to Republican intransigence. A way forward exists, however, to build on the rubble of the Senate’s failure to cap carbon emissions. (more…)

North America and Europe are typically viewed as the leaders in the green building marketplace. Collectively, they have thousands of commercial and residential properties certified under an alphabet soup of programs such as LEED, BREEAM, and HQE. However, the Chinese market is catching up quickly—with the force of the Chinese government behind it. (more…)

Yesterday was a great day to be in Colorado. First, I toured a Federal Railroad Administration facility–the work the FRA crew is doing there really deserves its own blog post, so stay tuned for that one next week.

Then, I learned about an exciting new municipal bike-sharing program in Denver (more…)

Not so long ago, consumers seemed to like energy efficiency just a little bit more than going to the dentist. Clearly that has changed, as evidenced by the recent run on appliance and home retrofit subsidies in several states.

Greens are no longer alone in swooning over front loader washing machines and (more…)

On Monday the International Energy Agency (IEA) released its latest country report on France. These reports are generally issued every five years.

Although France has not been immune to the global economic downturn, the climate change plan known as the Grenelle de l’Environnement is still considered by the IEA as having “many positive provisions”.

Indeed, the government is willing to cut by a factor of four the country’s carbon dioxide emissions by 2050 (compared to 1990 levels). (more…)

Empty rhetoric. That’s the verdict on the recently established New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) from Geoff Bertram and Simon Terry in their searching book The Carbon Challenge: New Zealand’s Emissions Trading Scheme. It is something of a cautionary tale for others contemplating such schemes. (more…)

RIP, Energy Bill: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced he didn’t have the votes to pass a climate-change bill that puts a price on greenhouse gases. With that statement one of Obama’s major campaign promises crashed to earth, along with hopes for slowing global warming or using cleantech to jump-start the U.S. economy. In place of a real energy bill is an (more…)

On Tuesday, we hosted a lively forum at the White House, which brought more than 130 stakeholders– civilian and uniformed officials from the Department of Defense (DOD) and our armed services, policy makers from the Department of Energy (DOE), think tanks, and business entrepreneurs – together for a discussion on the importance of clean energy for our (more…)

The renewable energy sector is providing green jobs to many Canadian lawyers busily working on contractual issues, regulations, and financing that derive from the growing industry.  Many solar and wind firms already in the final stages of initial projects are looking to solidify their positions as leaders in the marketplace.  John Goetz of business & litigation law firm, (more…)