Fred Krupp is president of the Environmental Defense Fund. The views expressed are his own. It's as though three mammoth challenges facing America are intertwined like the strands of a rope: reducing our dependence on Mideast oil; creating new American jobs from clean energy; and reducing pollution responsible for climate change. Together, those strands are a lifeline to the future. While the House of Representatives passed comprehensive energy and climate legislation last summer, polarization has created gridlock in Washington, paralyzing most major legislative initiatives, including clean energy. But a new, tripartisan partnership has emerged in the Senate that offers a hopeful way forward.
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Reverse graffiti is a type of street art that effaces – not defaces – public property. That’s right, the taggers or “scrubbers” that practice this art form actually remove filth from their canvases instead of adding it to create their imagery. We’ve been following reverse graffiti for a long time now, but a new sampling [...]
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The Economist is running a 6-day poll on whether or not governments should support and try to create green jobs. It pits Van Jones (see: Van Jones is Back; NAACP: Van Jones is an American Treasure; Van Jones rejoins American Progress to lead Green Opportunity initiative; Van Jones: “Will all Americans have a fair shot at America's fair share?”) as a proponent of green jobs against Andrew P. Morriss who thinks the federal government should not be so involved in stimulating green jobs or proactively engaging in a clean energy future.

The main quote for Van Jones: “In a world of precarious energy supplies, mounting climate concerns and a global race for clean-energy jobs, Andy Morriss suggests that Americans should sit back and leave our energy security solely to the magic of the marketplace.”

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California has just completed a landmark effort to assess the state's worst-case tsunami danger. Now emergency response officials, and even some planners, are considering how to keep the state's coastal populations safe.

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