WASHINGTON – As he campaigned for the U.S. presidency in 1952, Republican candidate Dwight D. Eisenhower argued that he would seek to bring “security with solvency” to the American people.  Eisenhower realized that the challenges posed by the Soviet Union could too easily stress America’s finite resources and a strategy to face that threat consider [...]

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WASHINGTON—Slowly but surely, climate change is opening up the Arctic. Greenland’s glaciers and ice fields are melting, sea ice around the North Pole is decreasing each year, and the huge permafrost areas of Russia and Canada are beginning to thaw. This has led to widespread speculation of a Great Game-style scramble for the region’s abundant [...]

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The enduring image from last week’s UN conference on climate change in Durban, South Africa, was of negotiators “huddling” in full view on the plenary floor to come up with the form of words that allowed the final deal to be reached. The negotiators are in shirtsleeves, visibly tied at the end of talks that [...]

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BRUSSELS — Expectations are low at the beginning of the 17th annual United Nations conference on climate change that began this week in Durban, South Africa. The European Union and the United States have assumed contrary positions and even disagree over what would constitute a successful outcome. But, behind the talks, and despite that standoff, [...]

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The avalanche of media coverage of the Department of Energy’s roughly half million dollar loan guarantee to Solyndra, a solar technology company that ultimately went bankrupt, has distorted what urgently needs to be a healthy debate on policy options to dramatically increase private sector investments in clean-energy technologies.  The real question is not aboutwhether governments [...]

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WASHINGTON—Earlier this week, according to the U.N. Population Fund, the world’s population surpassed 7 billion. With the global economy in recession and the impacts of a warming climate increasingly apparent, this new milestone comes at a time of enormous strain and has significant implications for the world’s natural resources, its economy, and of course, its [...]

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WASHINGTON—Beltway insiders always love a scandal, and the bankruptcy of solar power cell manufacturer Solyndra Inc. makes for a good one. Solyndra received over $500 million in loan guarantees from the U.S. Department of Energy under a scheme to provide financing to promising companies in the renewable energy sector, before going bankrupt last month. President [...]

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By Mark Allegrini and Kate Ritterspach This summer, the issue of food security in sub-Saharan Africa has been thrown into cruelly sharp focus. The United Nations reports that over 3 million Somalis (almost half the country’s population) are in need of food aid, and the U.S. Agency for International Development claims that over 12 million [...]

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WASHINGTON — Germany’s decision last week to phase out nuclear power has sharpened the differences between Europe and the United States on energy policy. Democratic Senator Jeff Bingaman, a senior voice on energy policy in the U.S. Congress, led the chorus decrying that removing nuclear power from the energy mix would undermine global efforts to [...]

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By Tamar Shapiro and Thomas Legge WASHINGTON — On May 15, Richard M. Daley stepped down as mayor of Chicago. With his retirement, his city lost its chief executive of 22 years, but America also lost one of its most environment-friendly local leaders.  With the failure of the U.S. Congress to pass comprehensive climate and [...]

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