Lori Pottinger

The destruction of the Aral Sea in Central Asia has been called the world's worst environmental disaster. It's not something we should be repeating, especially in a time of growing uncertainty about water resources on our warming planet.

The World Bank has approved a transmission line that will link Kenya's power grid to the controversial Gibe III Dam, which is considered to be Africa's most destructive dam.

It was a bright year for renewable energy in many parts of the world, despite the recession. Global investment in clean energy generation capacity reached a record high of $260 billion in 2011, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Investment in solar technology grew by a third over the previous year.

Carla filming in TemacaAbout a year ago, filmmaker Carla Pataky and I were lugging her heavy camera gear around the rough cobbled streets of Temaca, Mexico, trying to convince busy activists to talk to us for a few minutes as they rushed between sessions at the Rivers for Life 3 meeting. The town was full of beautiful backdrops for the interviews, and dozens of  activists hailing from 54 countries spoke to us about the work they do, the dams they are fighting, and the visions they had for their rivers and communities. From day one, we could tell we were going to have a very hard time making a short film, given the remarkable people and the richness of the stories Carla was capturing on film.

A new report by an Ethiopian with experience in energy planning reveals that the new Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, now planned for the Nile, could be an overpriced, under-performing boondoggle. The report notes that the US$4.7 billion dam will be very inefficient in terms of producing electricity, and therefore a poor investment for a country with high poverty, low access to electricity and recurring hydropower-killing droughts.

Nu River, ChinaThe list of World Heritage Sites is the ultimate “bucket list,” comprised of more than 900 of the world’s most amazing natural and man-made wonders on earth. From the Great Wall of China to Stonehenge, the Great Barrier Reef to the Grand Canyon, these are places of “outstanding cultural or natural importance to the common heritage of humanity,” according to UNESCO, the keeper of the list. They are, in a word, irreplaceable.

Please, ma’am, just put down the aluminum foil and no one gets hurt.ScroogeIt’s a little known fact that this simple kitchen product has a Dickensian dark side. So as you serve your guests canned beverages, “tent” your turkey, cover the yams, or wrap leftovers at the end of the party, keep in mind that the aluminum products you’re using have their roots in a dirty industry – one that frankly deserves a lump of coal in its stocking for how it’s mistreating the planet.The aluminum industry is the world’s largest industrial consumer of electricity, and about half of what it uses comes from hydropower dams. Aluminum companies troll the world looking for big dam projects that can power new smelters, often targeting rivers in ecologically sensitive areas in developing countries, and frequently in places where basic needs for the population’s energy are not yet being met.

Our bus arrives after dark in Temaca. We know we’ve arrived because of messages of struggle scrawled on the old adobe walls. “Temaca Viva! La lucha sigue!” and “Los ojos del mundo están puestos en Temaca.” As forty tired community activists shuffle off the bus, the cool mountain air jolts us awake. A local couple greets us with “De donde es?” Where are you from? The responses stretch the globe: Thailand, Iran, Australia, Uganda, India… The jet lag is almost palpable.

As BP's Gulf oil spill is so tragically demonstrating, once the cows are out of the barn and the oil is out of the well, it's too late to come up with a disaster response plan. We can't afford more BP disasters; it's time to start turning down projects with the greatest potential to create massive environmental catastrophes, and to decommission those that are ticking time bombs.

In a reversal of the animated movie Madagascar, all of the world's Kihansi spray toads suddenly found themselves living in the Bronx Zoo, far from their home at the base of a waterfall in Tanzania. The tiny toads were no match for a dam that destroyed not only their life in the wild, but a beautiful waterfall too. "Maybe the story will have a happy ending," The New York Times wistfully mused. The UN has declared 2010 the Year of Biodiversity as a wake up call on the state of the planet's endangered plants and animals. "The latest data from scientists indicates to us that the loss of species is occurring at anywhere between 100-1000 times faster than has traditionally been the case," says Achim Steiner, head of UNEP.

China has pulled the 2D version of the blockbuster hit, Avatar, from the big screen in what is being billed as cinematic protectionism -- reportedly, to keep its theaters focused on showing a new state-sponsored biopic about Confucius. But many believe there is another side to the story.

Cahora Bassa power lines bypass Zambezi villagersLori PottingerThe world is greening its electricity supply at a fast (if not fast enough) pace. Germany is slapping solar on every building it can, Spain is becoming a world leader in big concentrating solar plants, and the US stimulus package includes a plateload of subsidies for renewables. At the same time, the price of solar technologies have fallen 35% since last year, and new breakthroughs in storing energy from the sun and wind appear to be on the cusp.

Kenyans have more freedom to protest Gibe 3 Dam than Ethiopians. (Photo courtesy Friends of Lake Turkana)We recently received the good news that the African Development Bank’s independent investigative unit (known as the CRMU) registered our request to investigate problems on the Gibe 3 Dam in Ethiopia. Investigations by the CRMU and the similar World Bank Inspection Panel are just about the only way that project-affected people can get recourse for problems caused by Bank-supported big dams and other infrastructure projects. Although we at International Rivers are not directly affected, our request was meant to supplement a claim on the project made by people who will be affected in downstream Kenya by the huge dam. Ethiopian villagers were, we knew, in no position to make a claim against the government-led project.