Stories by Mark Fischetti

The Drillers Are Coming: Debate over Hydraulic Fracturing Heats Up

Companies and regulators are squaring off over the controversial technique that yields natural gas but threatens to pollute freshwater supplies

Predictive Modeling Warns Drivers One Hour before Jams Occur

Traffic avoided: Software uses road sensors, GPS and historical traffic data to predict congestion

Celebrate Earth Day: Buy! Buy! Buy!

A casual spin last night through the pile of ads inserted inside my local Sunday newspaper made it clear to me that the best possible thing we all can do this week to honor Earth is to shop till we drop...

Bill McKibben, Challenged: Is Zero Growth Really Necessary?

Is Earth past the tipping point?

Biodiversity loss. Land use. Freshwater use. Nitrogen and phosphorus cycles. Stratospheric ozone. Ocean acidification. Climate change. Chemical Pollution.

Breaking the Growth Habit: A Q&A with Bill McKibben

If humankind is to survive, it must change society's economic model from relentless, unbridled growth to maintenance of wealth and resources

Will the Clean Tech Bubble Burst?

BOSTON—Economic bubbles are now famous, and the collapse of the dot-com business a decade ago made the bursting of bubbles infamous. A panel of experts here at the Going Green East conference yesterday ended up in a lively, entertaining and, at times, contentious debate over whether the growth of so-called clean tech--renewable energy and environmentally friendly technologies--has entered the bubble stage, if that bubble is bursting...or if a bubble has ever existed.Lucky for anyone reading these words, the conference organizers at Always On videotaped the panel and have already posted it online for viewing...

Will the Internet make us stupider?

Few observers, in 2000, would have foreseen Facebook being a ubiquitous presence on the Internet in 2010. Even fewer would have felt comfortable predicting whether some phenomenon like it would be “good" or bad” for human interaction, or for society's use of the English (or any other) language, for that matter...

Co-location could make algae biofuels affordable

Hope for Copenhagen: Campaign inspires public to call for climate action

Intolerable beauty: Plastic garbage kills the albatross

The Tesla Roadster is a rocket. And all-electric, too

Better Materials Could Build a Green Construction Industry

Construction material entrepreneurs discussed efforts to create more environmentally friendly cement and other building products at a conference in California.

Green Role Model: Metro Taxi Is Driven to Save

How a Denver company changed its fleet to help save money, and the planet

Turbines Spin in Antarctica

Wind power comes to tundra research stations

Bold Strokes Needed Now to Save Climate

Scientific American Earth 3.0 Managing Editor Mark Fischetti introduces the June 2009 issue

Old Circuit Boards Hit the Road

Green Role Model: Boston's Macallen Building

This condominium complex puts a new slant on urban development

The Mind Behind the Web

Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web and continues to shape its frantic evolution. He's neither rich nor famous, which is fine by him

Facts about the Web's Creation

Everything you ever wanted to know about the Web's first days