Since 1988, Brazilians have cleared more than 153,000 square miles of Amazonian rain forest, devastating the environment and driving global climate change forward ever faster. Recently, however, Brazil has changed its course, reducing the rate of deforestation by 83 percent since 2004. At the same time, it has become a test case for a controversial international climate-change prevention strategy that places a monetary value on the carbon stored in forests.

Last winter, a wave of mass demonstrations suddenly broke the surface calm of Russian politics.

The warnings of The Limits to Growth were far more prescient than Bjørn Lomborg suggests, argue several critics, including two of the book's authors.

Forty years ago, the Club of Rome produced a best-selling report warning humanity that its escalating wants were on a collision course with the world's finite resources and that the only way to avoid a crash was to stop chasing economic growth. The predictions proved spectacularly wrong. But the environmental alarmism they engendered persists, making it harder for policymakers to respond rationally to real problems today.

Coal combustion is the largest source of carbon dioxide emissions on the planet. But the fuel isn't going away anytime soon, since demand for it is ballooning in the developing world. So instead of indulging in quixotic visions of a coal-free world, policymakers should focus on supporting new technologies that can reduce how much carbon coal emits.

Reining in pollution would thus accomplish two goals, while finally getting countries such as China and India into the climate-change business.

Recent advances have made wind and solar power more competitive than ever. Still, governments must redesign their policies and help renewables slash costs.

Blake Clayton says Wall Street is not to blame for high gas prices.

Nearly 90 percent of the world's economy is fueled every year by digging up and burning about four cubic miles of the rotted remains of primeval swamp goo

Michael A. Levi says Republicans and Democrats alike have touted the energy sector as the key to solving the United States' employment problems. They are both wrong.

The world cannot let the March disaster at Japan's Fukushima power plant scare it into forgoing the benefits of nuclear energy—a cheap, reliable, and safe source of electricity

No state with serious oil wealth has ever transformed into a democracy.

Saudi Arabia and other OPEC members have long maintained large oil reserves to limit volatility in oil prices.

Thanks to technological advances, in the past few years, vast amounts of natural gas -- particularly shale gas -- have become economically viable.

Clean-energy technology is expensive and the United States is spending far too little on developing it.

Three new books about water agree that the world is facing serious water crises but have very different ideas about how to address them, especially when it comes to deciding what roles the public and private sectors have to play.

The economic crisis did not alter the deep structural changes already in global energy markets.

Growing demand for energy in developing countries and calls for greener energy worldwide are putting unprecedented pressure on the global energy system.

The Copenhagen conference won't solve the problem of climate change once and for all. Rather than aiming for a broad international treaty, negotiators should strengthen existing national policies and seek targeted emissions cuts in both rich nations and the developing world.

Little attention has been given to reducing emissions of the light-absorbing particles known as "black carbon" or the gases that form ozone--even though doing so would be easier and cheaper and have a more immediate effect.