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New "enhanced geothermal systems" (EGS), however, look set to make geothermal a bigger energy generation contributor-and potentially as controversial as shale. The industry may dislike the comparison, but EGS is geothermal fracking.

National Geographic has long been in the business of creating what environmental economists call 'existence value' - getting people to care about the survival of places they know they will never visit in their lifetimes. Now, they're using carbon offsets as part of their strategy to reduce operational emissions while investing in some of the gorgeous landscapes that appear in their pages.

Cities could save a collective $22 trillion and vastly reduce global emissions by embracing green building, better infrastructure and other environmental measures, researchers say. "Becoming more sustainable and putting the world -- specifically cities -- on a low-carbon trajectory is actually feasible and good economics," said Seth Schultz, a researcher for the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group. 

HVAC producers, working jointly with design professionals, are in the forefront of the war on climate change," writes Alex Carrick, chief economist for CanaData, part of Construction Market Data Group. The industry has been instrumental in helping to develop innovative plumbing, lighting, glazing and roofing products to increase sustainability, reduce water consumption and improve air quality.

Extreme heat can kill, as it did by the dozens in Pakistan in May. But as many of South Asia's already-scorching cities get even hotter, scientists and economists are warning of a quieter, more far-reaching danger: Extreme heat is devastating the health and livelihoods of tens of millions more.

In his groundbreaking 1962 opus Capitalism and Freedom, economist Milton Friedman famously claimed that the "one social responsibility of business [is] to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game."