Philippe Matthews Show Guru Advice, Author Reviews, Tech Reviews, Entertainment News

* Says Canada wasting billions on climate change plan * Says Canada might not meet 2020 emissions cuts goal [More]

Since performing research for my book, Climate Capitalism (written with Hunter Lovins) a few years ago, I have become increasingly convinced that the smart grid has the potential to be one of the "holy grails" in the clean tech revolution. I believe that the smart grid can be the enabling technology that enable all kinds of other low-carbon innovations to flourish

(Reuters) - The American eel, a freshwater fish native to the eastern United States that is born and dies in the open ocean, may be at risk of extinction because of climate change, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said on Wednesday. The agency, which is considering a petition to add the eel to its official list of endangered species, said new scientific evidence, including "statistically significant long-term" declines in the stock of young eels, suggested the snake-like species is in enough peril to warrant federal protection.

People need to move around, but we can do it in a less impactful way with these five innovations. Some are new and some are old, but together they could remake transportation.

A new project from 350.org lets people fill in the blank spots in their city with potential exciting improvements. If you were paying attention in New York this past weekend, you might have noticed signs plastered to telephone poles, buidlings, and fences. They're requesting that something--a green roof, a bike lane, a urban farm--be "inserted" at the site

Over the past four years, John Matthews has been traveling the world to better understand freshwater and climate change issues. He found that poor planning is creating one of the biggest water-related threats.

When environmentalists think about what our future might look like, the predictions are often grim and hopeless; even under the best circumstances, they seem to say, we're still screwed. But what if, by some miracle of human ingenuity, the dire predictions don't pan out and we learn how to efficiently manage our resources?

In preparation for the 24-hour marathon of climate change presentations, the Climate Reality Project has prepared a few short videos to amusingly communicate how dire the situation is. In preparation for Al Gore and adman Alex Bogusky's "24 Hours of Climate Reality," their new organization The Climate Reality Project produced these teaser videos, designed to show us just how close our planet is to a very bad situation.

Though burning natural gas produces much less greenhouse gas emissions than burning coal, a new study indicates switching over coal-fired power plants to natural gas would have a negligible effect on the changing climate. Tom Wigley, a senior research associate at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, reports that if natural gas were substituted for coal in energy production, climate change trends would not slow down and may, in fact, accelerate. His findings are due to be published in the journal Climatic Change Letters

New findings published Tuesday appear to undermine a controversial study - oft-cited by those who downplay the human impacts of climate change - that claimed variations in cloud cover are driving temperature changes across the globe. The analysis confirms - as most atmospheric scientists have long held - that the reverse is true: Clouds change in response to temperature changes.

Irene did less damage than expected, but when the next big storm comes (and it will), cities that have made innovative decisions in how they run operations will be better off. Thankfully, Hurricane Irene turned out to be much weaker than predicted.

A Soyuz rocket recently failed --surprising news, as it's generally considered a rather reliable rocket. In the process it pitched tons of vital food, engineering, fuel and air supplies for the International Space Station into the wastelands of Siberia. And at high speed--the ISS may have to be unmanned for a short interval as a result, despite billions of dollars and decades of effort

By Nina Chestney LONDON (Reuters) - Global concern about climate change has risen only very slightly over the past two years, as consumers have focused on more immediate economic worries, according to an opinion poll published on Sunday. [More]

The future looks warmer for many major cities, that's clear--but perhaps you missed the part where it's also forecast to look wetter. Scientific measurements show that the quantity of rainfall that fell on the Northern Hemisphere intensified in the second half of the 20th century. At least some of that increase can be attributed to anthropogenic climate change, according to a recent study .

Using new satellite data, scientists have plotted exactly how the ice moves around the South Pole, shining new light on exactly how much water is going to flood into the ocean as the ice melts. Antarctica is not just a solid block of ice. It's a living, moving area, where floes slide against each other