Engineers at Yale have just come up with a simple yet amazing way to utilize energy from low-temperature heat waste.

Power plants consume loads of energy and, in turn, produce alarming amounts of waste and pollution. While environmentalists typically focus on renewable energy methods so that no waste is produced to begin with, converting those byproducts into something useful is an equally sustainable practice.

Yale engineers recently revolutionized the sustainable biofuel industry by figuring out how to “capture” low-temperature heat waste, before it becomes “waste,” according to Yale’s website. 

Opposition to the TTIP spans Europe. (Photo: Garry Knight/flickr/cc)

Published on Friday, May 22, 2015 byCommon Dreams |Deirdre Fulton, staff writer

Report details how corporate lobbyists mobilized to stop the EU from regulating hormone disrupting chemicals known to have significant health and environmental impacts

Under pressure from the U.S. and agrochemical industry lobbyists and amid ongoing negotiations for a controversial trade deal, the European Union dropped planned rules that could have led to the banning of 31 pesticides containing hazardous chemicals, a new investigative report has revealed.

The probe, led by the Brussels-based research and watchdog group Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) and French journalist Stephane Horel, exposes how corporate lobby groups like the American Chemistry Council, CropLife America, and the American Chambers of Commerce, mobilized to stop the EU from taking action on hormone (endocrine) disrupting chemicals (EDCs)—known to have significant health and environmental impacts.

Published on Monday, April 13, 2015 by Common Dreams | byRyan Zinn

'Compared to large-scale industrial farms, small-scale agroecological farms not only use fewer fossil fuel-based fertilizer inputs and emit less GHGs, including methane, nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide (CO2), but they also have the potential to actually reverse climate change by sequestering CO2 from the air into the soil year after year.' (Image: Fair World Project)

Record-breaking heat waves, long-term drought, “100-year floods” in consecutive years, and increasingly extreme superstorms are becoming the new normal. The planet is now facing an unprecedented era of accelerating and intensifying global climate change, with negative impacts already being widely felt. While global climate change will impact nearly everyone and everything, the greatest impact is already being felt by farmers and anyone who eats food.

When we think of climate change and global warming, visions of coal-fired power plants and solar panels come to mind. Policy discussions and personal action usually revolve around hybrid cars, energy-efficient homes and debates about the latest technological solutions. However, the global agriculture system is at the heart of both the problem and the solution.

Researchers in Pennsylvania have discovered that the prevalence of radon, a radioactive and carcinogenic gas, in people's homes and commercial buildings that are nearer to fracking sites has increased dramatically in the state since the unconventional and controversial gas drilling practice began in the state just over a decade ago.

Both odorless and tasteless, radon is a naturally-occurring gas released from bedrock minerals beneath the ground and is found in millions of homes across the country. However, in a study published Thursday in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives,scientists compared the results of state-wide radon testing in Pennsylvania to find a significant correlation between unusually high levels of the deadly gas in some buildings (mostly residential homes) and the proliferation of fracking in certain areas of the state.