In his new book, "Reinventing Fire," Lovins creates a system for powering a 21st century civilization without using 20th century methods.

The idea driving Fiberforge isn't fuel. It's lighter cars. "Anything that needs to be moved from Point A to Point B would use less fuel and less energy to accelerate it, move it, and decelerate it if it were lighter," says Jon Fox-Rubin, President & CEO of Fiberforge. "And that's really where the Fiberforge process is aimed at creating affordable structures that are lighter in weight."

We stand at the cusp of a significant paradigm shift.

We have been building towards a transformational tipping point, where natural capital will eventually be valued alongside financial capital. While progress has been steady and promising for the last ten years, the widespread fundamental change we've been hoping for still lies ahead.

Years ago, there was a  bumper sticker, "Trees are America's Renewable Resource." And yes, you can regenerate a harvestable forest in 20 years or so: a nanosecond compared to the millions of years necessary to create fossil fuels.
Read More »

The National Design Awards, adminstered by the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, are the most prestigious in the U.S. The 2009 winners were just announced. Some of them you may have heard of, others you probably haven't unless you're a designer: