Few today realize that electric cabs dominated Manhattan's streets in the 1890s; that Boise, Idaho, had a geothermal heating system in 1910; or that the first megawatt turbine in the world was built in 1941 by the son of publishing magnate G. P. Putnam--a feat that would not be duplicated for another forty years. Likewise, while many remember the oil embargo of the 1970s, few are aware that it led to a corresponding explosion in green-technology research that was only derailed when energy prices later dropped.

In other words: We've been here before. Although we may have failed, America has had the chance to put our world on a more sustainable path. Americans have, in fact, been inventing green for more than a century.

Half compendium of lost opportunities, half hopeful look toward the future, Powering the Dream tells the stories of the brilliant, often irascible inventors who foresaw our current problems, tried to invent cheap and energy renewable solutions, and drew the blueprint for a green future.

In contrast to green technologies like solar power and biofuels, which take decades of research and massive funds to scale, big data tools offer a relatively capital-efficient way to use proven technology to better manage resources, fight climate change and get ready for the 9 billion people on the planet by 2050. If there’s no Moore’s Law delivering rapid and exponential progress for things like batteries, and solar panels, why not try to leverage Moore’s Law in a more indirect way for greentech via big data? Here are 5 companies that are leveraging big data to help the planet:

Developed countries are "outsourcing" more than a third of their carbon emissions associated with products and services to other countries, researchers say.

A study of trade data found that some countries in Western Europe have more than half of their total carbon dioxide emissions occurring elsewhere, especially in developing countries such as China.

Exclusive: Watchdog's estimates of reserves inflated says top official

several major corporations have taken inspiration from the open-source software movement and are experimenting with forums for sharing environmentally friendly innovations and building communities around them. The first such effort, the Eco-Patent Commons, was started in January 2008 by I.B.M., Nokia, Pitney Bowes and Sony in collaboration with the World Business Council for Sustainable Development.

Welcome to our new environment data store, a bank of information, facts and figures on today's most pressing environmental issues. We've partnered with organisations including the World Resources Institute to bring you the latest data on climate change, natural resources, conservation, consumption, green living and more.

The Euphrates is drying up. Strangled by the water policies of Iraq’s neighbors, Turkey and Syria; a two-year drought; and years of misuse by Iraq and its farmers, the river is significantly smaller than it was just a few years ago. Some officials worry that it could soon be half of what it is now. The shrinking of the Euphrates, a river so crucial to the birth of civilization that the Book of Revelation prophesied its drying up as a sign of the end times, has decimated farms along its banks, has left fishermen impoverished and has depleted riverside towns as farmers flee to the cities looking for work.

In veel landen leven mensen dit jaar milieubewuster dan in 2008. Dat blijkt uit de ‘Greendex’ van het Amerikaanse National Geographic. Ontwikkelingslanden blijven het veel beter doen dan rijke landen.

Information and communications technologies will become a major source of greenhouse gas emissions but can abate far more of them.

Research by the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) and McKinsey's global energy and materials practice finds that a concerted global effort to boost energy productivity—the output we achieve from the energy we consume—would have spectacular results. Using existing technologies, we could cut global energy-demand growth by more than half over the next 15 years.

Once upon a time, not so very long ago, the thought of anyone but film stars or the wives of plutocrats spending £1,500 on such an item would have seemed absurd. But in recent years, the £1,500 handbag has become almost egalitarian. We have very short memories. It seems almost impossible to remember a time before schoolchildren expected to wear £100 trainers; before eye-wateringly expensive home-entertainment systems, second and third homes, and two foreign holidays a year – before hitherto undreamt of luxuries came to seem like entitlements. Where once we shopped to live, for the past 30 years it has seemed as if we have lived to shop, embracing the philosophy of unbridled consumption and expenditure, a belief in what became known as 'consumer confidence’ – the willingness of ordinary people to spend more than they had ever done before, and more than they could ever possibly afford, lulled by the assurances that we were living in an economy immune to the cycle of boom and bust.

At last a book that comprehensively reveals the true facts about sustainable energy in a form that is both highly readable and entertaining.

Wendy Barnaby was asked to write a book about water wars — then the facts got in the way of her story.

Twitter bots, aggregators, social software, mobile apps - we use these things more and more in our daily routines to make our lives better. But can we also use them to remake our cities altogether? How can these technologies be applied to transform urban spaces, changing them from the centralized, hard-coded things they are today into finely-tuned, fluid, user-operated systems that are efficient, sustainable and fit for life in the 21st century?

Forty miles north of San Francisco, on the site of a former industrial park, work is underway on the ambitious new Sonoma Mountain Village, a 200-acre development that aims to be truly sustainable. The development is America’s first to be certified as a “One Planet Community,” part of an effort to build healthy and sustainable neighborhoods in the UK, US and Canada.

One Amish-man told me that the problem with phones, pagers, and PDAs (yes he knew about them) was that "you got messages rather than conversations." That's about as an accurate summation of our times as any.

In regions where pumping and distributing water requires significant electricity use, policies that lead to reduced water consumption could address climate change more efficiently than requiring businesses and households to use less energy, according to water expert Peter Gleick.

Essay: As the world faces economic turmoil, cleaner energy can create jobs and reignite global growth.

If you're one of those people hoping to change the world in 2009, writer Mark Bittman says you can start by changing what you eat. In his new book, Food Matters, The New York Times food columnist writes about the environmental impact of industrial farming — and how individuals can make a difference by cutting down on the amount of animal products they consume.

I tried a little experiment in 2008: living smaller. I caught public transport only. I got rid of extra lightbulbs. I baked my own bread. I froze my own dumplings. I didn't buy any gadget. I didn't buy any CD. I didn't get a flatscreen TV. No home phone; no home internet; no cable TV; no new art; no gin. I only took one international trip (which was quite important) and two domestic flights (to my dear parent's 80th birthdays) but turned down several work opportunities that involved flying, even though it meant less satisfactory participation at SC34 WG1. I let my passport lapse.

Better Place is working to build an electric car network, using technology available today. Our goals? Sustainable transportation,globa energy independence and freedom from oil.

WattzOn gives you tools to track your energy consumption, compare it to others' and understand its consequences in order to discover how to reduce your role in climate change.

First, there was Carrotmob. This spring, in a not very publicized move, San Franciscan Brent Schulkin (after incubating the idea for some time) went to 22 food & liquor stores in his neighborhood, trying to see which ones would agree to make energy efficiency improvements if he could bring in a lot of customers at an agreed-upon time.

Americans haul 82 million tons of trash to recycling centers each year. But does it pay off—for the environment or the economy? PM has some real answers.

From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world. It'll teach you something, it'll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever.

“De auto is de grootste oplossing van de klimaatverandering, niet het probleem” en “For most people denial is a river in Africa“. Twee curieuze uitspraken van een van de voormalig topmensen van softwarebedrijf SAP, Shai Agassi. Agassi houdt zich tegenwoordig bezig met de/een oplossing van het klimaatprobleem met zijn nieuwe bedrijf Better Place.

Here's the biggest problem: no one yet has any idea what a climate-neutral city would look like or how it would operate. We can't build what we can't imagine, so one of the first orders of business is vision: visions of various ways in which cities could slash their emissions while increasing their prosperity and quality of life.

Het voormalige Nighttown aan de West-Kruiskade is getransformeerd tot een duurzaam pop/cultureel podium en danceclub Watt. De eerste Sustainable Dance Club ter wereld heeft duurzame features zoals een energieopwekkende dansvloer, relax roof en zero-waste bars.

"Big Solar" may take on a whole new meaning if Desertec, the most ambitious solar thermal plan ever conceived, gets funded. Its architects claim they can build a supergrid of concentrating solar thermal plants (CSP) that can meet most of Europe's current

Latest news about new sustainable or eco-ideas

A documentary produced and narrated by Leonardo di Caprio, telling us how mankind's darkest hour (our overexploitation of the planet) can be turned into its finest.

SustainLane.com is the largest community-powered directory of green products and businesses. SustainLane.com allows people to easily find and share reviews on anything from organic milk and fair trade chocolate to eco-friendly clothing and hybrid cars. At

Open-source knowledge base speeds discovery, research and networking with more than 110 best practice documents and a secure directory of participating government officials from over 450 cities, counties and US states.

"The 11th Hour picks up where An Inconvenient Truth left off by drawing the connections between seemingly disparate environmental and humanitarian issues (global warming, deforestation, poverty, globalization, etc.) and defining the space where the viewer

Investigative journalist Mark Schapiro discusses why companies that manufacture hazard-free products for the European Union often produce toxin-filled versions of the same items for America and developing countries.

Around 85 percent of all the buildings that will exist in New York City in 25 years are already standing. 80 percent of the city's greenhouse gas pollution is created by building energy use. So however advanced green building methods become, however energ

Globalization has tended to move heavy polluting industries offshore, away from Europe and North America, and to places like China and Brazil. We still consume the lion's share of the goods these nations manufacture, but the carbon is emitted there, not h

Until the development of water and wind power, humanity burned carbon-based fuels like wood and coal to power our civilization. These very same fuels are now polluting the air and water with heavy metals, ozone pollution, and acid rain.

Here, then, are some of the books that have tweaked our thinking in the last couple years (of course, we think highly of our own book as well)

Het afval dat we lozen verdwijnt niet, er bestaat namelijk geen verdwijnen omdat de aarde een gesloten systeem is. Ons afval lijkt alleen onzichtbaar omdat we het verdunnen met water, bedekken met aarde of weg laten blazen door de wind. Maar uiteindelijk

GreenPrint software eliminates unwanted pages saving paper, ink, money, and millions of trees

Draad over Cradle to Cradel op het Higherlevel.nl forum

Touted by politicians and industry as "green" energy, biofuels come with a high price tag.

As we've noted before, there is a strong relationship between environmental crises and social instability. Similarly, developing world communities with healthy environments and sound practices (from farming sustainably to building greenbelts) often see fa

A call to action for all worldchanging people everywhere.

If John Doerr has his way, greentech will be Silicon Valley's new new thing—and taxpayers will foot the bill.