As 2009 draws to a close we look at Trendwatching’s 10 great macro trends. Forget the recession: the societal changes that will dominate 2010 were set in motion way before we temporarily stared into the abyss. More » Urban culture is the culture. Extreme urbanization, in 2010, 2011, 2012 and far beyond will lead to [...]

“Biochar Will Save the World!” proclaims a group page on Facebook. Popular mechanics writes of an “ancient charcoal” that can “put the brakes on global warming.” More than its prospects as a carbon sink or a fuel, biochar has massive prospects for development (the economic kind) for developing countries and emerging markets. But is it really that simple?

It takes 17 million barrels of oil each year to make water bottles for the U.S. market. That would be enough oil to fuel 1.3 million cars for a year. 37,800 18-wheelers deliver bottled water around the country every week. Manufacturing and filling the plastic water bottles, on average wastes 30-40% of the water involved [...]

Like a modern-day alchemist, Washington, DC-based Envion has developed a system to produce oil from waste plastic. Considering that the price of crude oil is once again on the rise, that’s not unlike turning rocks into gold. Envion, founded in 2004, is keeping the lid on the details of its proprietary technology, but does reveal [...]

By Art Reckinger Irreversibility and Irrevocability tend to be bothersome words. They imply that no matter what is done, there is no return. Global Warming is due to increasing Carbon Dioxide (CO2) and is raising the world temperatures, irreversibly. The world ice masses are melting more rapidly every day, and the melt appears Irrevocable. Susan [...]

A U.N. conference in Copenhagen next month is due to agree a new pact to combat global warming after mounting evidence that human activity is disrupting the climate. The following is a timeline of the discovery of global warming. 300 BC – Theophrastus, a student of Greek philosopher Aristotle, documents that human activity can affect [...]

People often talk as if warming temperatures are the only evidence of human-induced global climate change. But the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere also has increased dramatically. For most of the past 800,000 years, atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations ranged from about 180 to 280 parts per million. Today, it is 387 parts per [...]

CHICAGO (Reuters) – A new type of reflective coating can make solar panels far more efficient, soaking up nearly all available sunlight from nearly any angle, U.S. researchers said on Monday. Current solar panels — which convert energy from the sun into electricity — absorb only about two-thirds of available sunlight. But surfaces treated with [...]