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Environment and Natural Resources - USA

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National Organizations & Programs

• Federal Government 
• The United States Department of Agriculture provides leadership on food, agriculture, natural resources, and related issues based on sound public policy, the best available science, and efficient management. 
• The United States Department of Energy ensures America's security and prosperity by addressing its energy, environmental and nuclear challenges through transformative science and technology solutions.
• The United States Environmental Protection Agency is an agency of the federal government of the United States charged with protecting human health and the environment, by writing and enforcing regulations based on laws passed by Congress.
• The United States Department of the Interior protects America's natural resources and heritage, honors our cultures and tribal communities, and supplies energy to power our future.  
• The United States Environmental Protection Agency primarily protects human health and the environment. 

• Think Tanks / Research Centers
• The Brookings Institute is a nonprofit public policy organization based in Washington, DC. Their mission is to conduct high-quality, independent research and, based on that research, to provide innovative, practical recommendations.   
• The Brown University: Center for Environmental Studies is aimed at educating individuals to solve challenging environmental problems, both at the local and global levels. CES also works directly to improve human well-being and environmental quality through community, city, and state partnerships in service and research. 
• The Carnegie Mellon University Climate Decision Making Center is dedicated to studying the limits in our understanding of climate change and its impacts. They are developing and demonstrating methods to characterize these irreducible uncertainties and creating decision strategies and tools that incorporate such uncertainties. The center's research focuses on the real-world problems confronted by insurance managers who face financial risks from climate change and low-carbon technologies; forest, fisheries and ecosystem managers in the Pacific Northwest and Canada; Arctic-region decision makers trying to balance cultural lifestyles with modern economic development; and electric utility managers facing large capital-investment decisions in the face of climate risks.
• The Carnegie Mellon University Institute for Green Science is a research, education and development center in which a holistic approach to sustainability science is being developed. The research of the Institute is focused on the pollution reduction component of green or sustainable chemistry.
• The Columbia University Earth Engineering Center for Sustainable Waste Management (EEC) helps identify and develop the most suitable means for managing various solid waste research, and disseminate this information by means of publications, the web, and technical meetings. The guiding principle is that responsible management of wastes must be based on science and best available technology and not on ideology and economics that exclude environmental costs.
  
• The Energy Biosciences Institute (EBI), largest public-private partnership of its kind in the world, was created in 2007 to address one of the 21st Century's greatest challenges - finding a technological solution to the problems associated with climate change, global warming, and the rising price and diminishing supplies of carbon-based fossil fuels. The partner institutions - the University of California, Berkeley; the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; and the international energy company BP, which funds the research - are addressing bioenergy concerns on several fronts. Their 10 year, $500 million quest seeks sustainable, environmentally friendly plant-based fuels to join a balanced portfolio of responsible, renewable energy sources.
• The Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) is a San Francisco Bay Area scientific partnership led by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and includes the Sandia National Laboratories (Sandia), the University of California (UC) campuses of Berkeley and Davis, the Carnegie Institution for Science, and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). JBEI's primary scientific mission is to advance the development of the next generation of biofuels - liquid fuels derived from the solar energy stored in plant biomass. JBEI is one of three U.S. Department of Energy Bioenergy Research Centers (BRCs).
• The Institute for Policy Studies is a progressive multi-issue think tank. The Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) has served as a policy and research resource for visionary social justice movements for over four decades. IPS believes that we all have the right to clean air, land, water, and food. Additionally, they believe that we have a responsibility to keep the planet habitable for future generations of humans and other living things. IPS scholars monitor the negative role of the World Bank and other international financial institutions in climate-altering fossil fuel investment. They also collaborate with international efforts to keep the alternative economy and energy movements focused on truly sustainable solutions.
• The Iowa State University Bioeconomy Institute is an outgrowth of the Bioeconomy Initiative -- a campuswide effort, launched in 2002, to investigate the use of biorenewable resources as sustainable feedstocks for producing chemicals, fuels, materials, and energy. Under this umbrella, BEI has engaged: 160 faculty affiliated members, 29 departments in all seven colleges. and 20 research centers and institutes.
• The Princeton University Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment supports a vibrant and expanding program of research and teaching in the areas of sustainable energy development, energy conservation, and environmental protection and remediation. 
•  The Princeton Environmental Institute is the interdisciplinary center of environmental research, education, and outreach at Princeton University. PEI draws its strength from 90 members of the Princeton faculty, representing more than 25 academic disciplines, whose research and teaching focuses on the scientific, technical, policy, and human dimensions of environmental issues.  
• The Purdue University Center for the Environment synergizes relationships between faculty from many disciplines, industry, the public, and the government to respond to environmental challenges.
• The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis. 
• The Rocky Mountain Institute is an independent, entrepreneurial, nonprofit think-and-do tank. RMI's efforts take three main forms: transforming design, busting barriers and spreading innovation. 
• Second Nature is a organization dedicated to creating a sustainable society by transforming higher education. They accelerate movement toward a sustainable future by serving and supporting senior college and university leaders in making healthy, just, and sustainable living the foundation of all learning and practice in higher education. Second Nature works with over 4,000 faculty and administrators at more than 500 colleges and universities to help make the principles of sustainability fundamental to every aspect of higher education.
• The Solar Electric Power Association (SEPA) is an educational non-profit organization dedicated to helping utilities integrate solar power into their energy portfolios. With more than 850 utility and solar industry members, SEPA provides unbiased utility solar market intelligence, up-to-date information about technologies and business models, and peer-to-peer interaction. From hosting national events to one-on-one counseling, SEPA helps utilities make smart solar decisions.
• The University of California Berkeley Institute of the Environment is a leading environmental research center, with over 300 faculty members and thousands of students with research interests in the nexus of environmental science and policy. The Berkeley Institute of the Environment (BIE) is a university-wide unit that brings together and helps enhance these diverse campus programs and research units in new and innovative ways.
• The University of California Berkeley Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory is a unique new research, development, project implementation, and community outreach facility based at the University of California, Berkeley in the Energy and Resources Group and the Department of Nuclear Engineering. RAEL focuses on designing, testing, and disseminating renewable and appropriate energy systems. The laboratory's mission is to help these technologies realize their full potential to contribute to environmentally sustainable development in both industrialized and developing nations while also addressing the cultural context and range of potential social impacts of any new technology or resource management system. 
• The University of California Davis Air Quality Research Center facilitates research on the scientific, engineering, health, social and economic aspects of gaseous and particulate atmospheric pollutants. 
• The University of California Davis John Muir Institute of the Environment supports innovation and discovery aimed at solving real-world environmental problems. The institute's faculty are committed to strengthening the scientific foundation for environmental decision making through collective entrepreneurship, a team-oriented approach that recognizes the complexities of environmental problems and the societal context in which the occur. The John Muir Institute of the Environment champions science and technological innovation, provides campuswide leadership, hosts centers and projects, and seeds research and educational initiatives to solve real-world environmental problems.
• The University of Maryland Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center works to enhance our understanding of how the atmosphere, ocean, land, and biosphere components of the earth interact as a coupled system and the influence of human activities on this system.
• The University of Washington Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean (JISAO) fosters research collaboration between the University of Washington (UW) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). JISAO's research is at the forefront of investigations on climate change, ocean acidification, fisheries assessments, and tsunami forecasting.
  

• National Associations / Advocacy 
• The BlueGreen Alliance is a national, strategic partnership between labor unions and environmental organizations dedicated to expanding the number and quality of jobs in the green economy. 
• Clean Air-Cool Planet (CA-CP) is a leading organization dedicated solely to finding and promoting solutions to global warming.  

• The Sierra Club has been working to protect communities, wild places, and the planet itself since 1892. It is the oldest, largest, and most influential grassroots environmental organization in the United States. Its founder, John muir, appears on the back of the California quarter.

• Environmental Justice and Climate Change Initiative: an organization, whose goal is to educate and to activate the people of North America towards the creation and implementation of just climate policies in both domestic and international contexts.           

• The National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) is widely considered the nation's most effective environmental action group, combining the grassroots power of 1.3 million members and online activists with the courtroom clout and expertise of more than 350 lawyers, scientists and other professionals.

• Save Our Environment is a collaborative effort of the nation's most influential environmental advocacy organizations harnessing the power of the internet to increase public awareness and activism on today's most important environmental issues. 

• It's Getting Hot in Here: t’s Getting Hot in Here is the voice of a growing movement. A community media project, it features the student and youth leaders from the movement to stop global warming and to build a more just and sustainable future.
• The New Community Project - global warming resources. Living more sustainably with the earth and more fairly with its people--that's the mission of the New Community Project. Join us as we provide experiences that change us, resources that challenge us, and a community that gives us hope.
• Community Food Security Coalition: The Community Food Security Coalition (CFSC) is a North American coalition of diverse people and organizations working from the local to international levels to build community food security.
• Slow Food USA: Slow Food USA seeks to create dramatic and lasting change in the food system. We reconnect Americans with  the people, traditions, plants, animals, fertile soils and waters that produce our food. We seek to inspire a transformation in food policy, production practices and market forces so that they ensure equity, sustainability and pleasure in the food we eat.

• Other 
• Climate Progress:  An Insider's blog of Climate Science, Politics and Solutions
• Green Community Technologies:   Green Community Technologies was developed by YELLOW WOOD ASSOCIATES, INC. Yellow Wood is a consulting firm providing specialized services in rural community economic development since 1985. Yellow Wood’s services include economic research, market analysis, strategic planning, facilitation, program development and evaluation. Yellow Wood provides training programs in community capacity building and how to develop indicators and measures of community progress. Yellow Wood’s clients include cities and towns, non-profit organizations, federal, state and local governments, educational institutions, citizens’ groups, and foundations.
• The Nation is an independent news source dedicated towards making an earnest effort to bring to the discussion of political and social questions a really critical spirit, and to wage war upon the vices of violence, exaggeration, and misrepresentation by which so much of the political writing of the day is marred.
• The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) is the first market-based regulatory program in the United States to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Ten Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic states have capped and will reduce CO₂ emissions from the power sector 10 percent by 2018. States sell nearly all emission allowances through auctions and invest proceeds in consumer benefits. 

Research Reports / Policy Analysis

• Ameliorating The Effects of Climate Change With Organic Systems - Several studies have shown that organic farming systems are more resilient to the predicted weather extremes. Organic systems have achieved higher yields than conventional farming systems in weather extremes such as floods and droughts because of their superior water use efficiency and improved soil structure. Their higher soil humus levels give them better water holding capacity.
• American Solar Energy Society's report: Green Collar Jobs in the U.S. -  Economic drivers for the 21st Century.
• As Brazil Fills Up On Ethanol, It Weans Off Energy Imports - An analysis of the cost-effective alternative to gasoline that Brazil has come up with.
• Circulating Levels of Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) and Carotid Atherosclerosis in the Elderly - Increased circulating levels of pesticides classified as, "persistent organic pollutants (POPs)" have been associated with myocardial infarction. Because myocardial infarction is an atherosclerotic disease, they investigated, in a cross-sectional study, whether POP levels are related to atherosclerosis.
• Food Prices: Rising incomes in Asia and ethanol subsidies in America have put an end to a long era of falling food prices - A report on the consequences particular environmental subsidies have on world food prices.
• Food: The Silent Tsunami - This article deals with the radical increase in food prices globally and suggest particular policy changes to help alleviate the problem. 
• The Difference Engine: The beef about corn - An article about recent agricultural subsidy legislation relevant to environmental policy.
• The Ethanol Decade: An Expansion of U.S. Corn Production, 2000-09 - A report by the USDA's Economic Research Service.  
• The Impact of Ethanol and Ethanol Subsidies on Corn Prices: Revisiting History - A report on alternative fuel policy and its impacts.
• The Impact of Ethanol Use on Food Prices and Greenhouse-Gas Emissions - A Congressional Budget Office report on the impacts of Ethanol.
• Who Turned Out the Lights?  Your Guided Tour to the Energy Crisis - An entertaining, accessible, and refreshingly nonpartisan take on energy and environment. 

Statistical Data

• Annual Energy Outlook 2012 Early Release Overview - a document evaluating a variety of trends and issues that could have major implications for U.S. energy markets.
• BP Energy Outlook 2030 Booklet (January 2012) - a study identifying long-term energy trends and projections for the world energy markets in 2030, taking account of the potential evolution of the world economy, policy, and technology.
• Comparative Switchgrass varieties: a case study in Western Nevada - This is a study analyzing the crop yields of different switchgrass varieties under varying fertilizer and irrigation test variables.
• Costs for Producing Switchgrass for Biomass: a case study in Southern Iowa - This is a case study on the economic viability of this crop under a variety of circumstances.
• Oil Market to 2030: Implications for Investment and Policy (December 2011) -  A key study analyzing the projected affects of supply and demand in the oil market.
• Environmental and Energy Data Book 2011 

Miscellaneous

• SolutionsU Database for Stories on Agriculture, Fishing & Forestry, Environment, Science: SolutionsU™ connects educators and students to credible news stories about responses to society’s toughest challenges, and to the tools that help them incorporate those stories in their teaching and learning.
• The Conversation - The Conversation is a nonprofit, independent news organization dedicated to unlocking the knowledge of experts for the public good. We publish trustworthy and informative articles written by academic experts for the general public and edited by our team of journalists. 
• NextCity: Thousands of city planners, designers, placemakers and urbanists like you read Next City every day to learn about the leaders, policies and innovations driving solutions in cities. Next City believes change is happening and makes it our job to find it. Signing up for our newsletters is the way most readers stay informed on the issues that matter. 

Funding Opportunities

• ClimateWorks:  The ClimateWorks global family of organizations works in the nations and economic sectors with the highest greenhouse gas emissions. Our work focuses on enacting policies that reduce these emissions through three general policy areas: 1) Energy efficiency standards, 2) Low-carbon energy supply, and 3) Forest conservation and agriculture. 
• The Kresge Foundation is primarily interested in mitigation investments focused on reducing energy use in buildings and accelerating the adoption of renewable-energy technologies. Their adaptation investments support the development of strategies and resources that promote resilience to climate-change impacts in human and natural systems.
• The MacArthur Foundation supports creative people and effective institutions committed to building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world. MacArthur's conservation grantmaking aims to preserve ecosystems and species and to promote development that respects the environment.