Fifteen minutes into what began as a relatively run-of-the-mill interview, Kenny Ausubel drops a bombshell. “I don’t usually make predictions,” he says—the type of statement interviewees consider a cautionary disclaimer, but which reporters tend to gleefully exploit—“but I think probably the next six or so years are the six most important years in the history of human civilization.”

After all the lip service paid to the importance of renewable energy, and after the disaster in Fukushima, Japan, raised awareness of the danger inherent in nuclear technology, investing in clean energy might seem a logical goal for the DOE.

Predictions of a drying Colorado River Basin come often. In 2008, a study published in Water Resources Research predicted that the basin’s two biggest reservoirs would dry up by 2021.

An improbable character is at the center of a debate between environmentalists and La Bajada farmers: the beaver.