We need green visions for less carbon and poverty---but also for more fun and joy. At a time when ecological destruction is more dire than ever, the work of protecting the planet depends on dreamers just as much as of scientists, activists, public officials and business leaders.

Suppose your relationship is falling apart and you want to save it. To find the best counsellor, you might search online or ask your friends. It’s no different in agriculture. The rational response to any food or farming dilemma is to test and compare different options to see which is most effective as a solution.

Any long-term solution will require “decarbonizing” the world energy economy – that is, shifting to power sources that use little or no fossil fuel.

A new study finds that renewable energy can make a major and increasingly cost-effective contribution to alleviating climate change.

Replacing an old incandescent light bulb with new LED lighting might seem like an insignificant way to reduce energy consumption. It’s a simple step, but an effective one that shouldn’t be overlooked.

Coal, oil and gas sectors warned that trillions of dollars of assets could be stranded if a global agreement on limiting climate change is reached at the UN summit in Paris.

California’s byzantine water system and crushing drought are leading farmers to extraordinary measures as they try to keep themselves from running dry. On a warm March afternoon, farmer Cannon Michael walks alongside wheat fields adjacent to his house in Los Banos, in California’s Central Valley. Most of these fields won’t be watered again this year.

The researchers say their act-now, save-future-costs model not only demonstrates the dangers of underestimating the cost of future climate change, but is the first one to emerge from a purely market-based approach. The considerations do not have to be based on moral judgements about sustainability and the wellbeing of future generations.

Scientists and engineers in Scandinavia reveal new plans to harness the huge potential of waves to produce commercially viable renewable energy.

So many older women are inheriting farms that some experts believe training them in land conservation may be society's best bet in protecting the food supply. In Iowa alone, women own about 14 million acres of farmland, which is significant because the health of the nation’s soil is crucial to the productivity of its farms and in feeding a growing population.

The announcement that a pioneering wave farm off Perth has started generating electricity is an exciting and welcome development. The project, developed by Fremantle-based Carnegie Wave Energy, features two buoys, 11 m in diameter, below the sea surface (with a third to follow).

Cities may only occupy about 2% of the world’s habitable land, but they are big drivers of global climate change. Cities are usually hotter than rural areas, and get referred to in the jargon as “urban heat islands.”

Straw is cheap, good for the environment and an excellent insulator. So why don’t we see more straw houses? Unless we suddenly stop eating bread or cereal it’ll keep being produced anyway, and the excess straw in the UK alone could build a new city each year.

It’s been almost two decades since a new nuclear plant opened for business in the United States. But that’s about to change as construction wraps up on the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Watts Bar Unit 2 (WB2) plant.

The U.S. nuclear power industry’s three-step: Revival, long goodbye or state-aided life support. Everybody loves a comeback story. If you like the U.S. nuclear power industry, it’s a Michael Jordan-type gallant return. If you don’t like nukes, it’s more of a Gloria Swanson gruesome comeback in Sunset Boulevard.

In a few months, we will mark the five-year anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The accident released millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, causing extensive impacts on the marine ecosystem, wildlife habitat, and the fishing and tourism industries in Louisiana and other Gulf states.

China has now overtaken the European Union as the largest new market for solar power as the industry becomes one of the fastest growing in the world.

In this red state, publicly owned utilities provide electricity to all 1.8 million people. Here's how Nebraska took its energy out of corporate hands and made it affordable for everyday residents.

Over the past five years the world has seen a dramatic fall in the cost of solar energy, particularly rooftop solar panels or solar photovoltaic power. It is now a real alternative and considerable player in the power markets.

Keeping nuclear waste safe costs billions of dollars a year, but what to do with it in the long-term is still no nearer being resolved.

Researchers in Los Angeles find that saving money is not the most powerful message in persuading people to reduce the amount of electricity they use.

A battery that could treble electric car mileage and cut costs is among the innovations moving closer to reality on the frontiers of science.

Germany cut emissions and boosted renewables last year, but critics say CO₂ reduction targets can’t be met unless it closes coal-burning power stations.