Weekly Archive for April 8, 2007 : TreeHugger

We often hear statistics on the relative significance of the US building sector to the overall carbon dioxide footprint of the nation. Focusing in a bit more, might there be a big difference between large- and small-cities? Might that difference correlate with density, or building designs, or both? A just-completed inventory of City of New York greenhouse gas emissions indicates the answer could be "yes". The New York Times reports, based on a just released city-run inventory study that, per capita, New Yorkers have a carbon footprint only a third of the national average. Yet, "In sharp contrast to the national average of about 32 percent, the city’s buildings are responsible for 79 percent of the greenhouse gases produced by the city..." This is something that makes intuitive sense just looking at the city skyline. An important policy point is made especially clear by this inventory. The one-size-fits-all, top down approach to goal-setting may not be appropriate. Thinking ahead, making thoughtful comparisons to create acceptable emission reduction policies will become important not just between cities, but also between cities, regions, and industry sectors. For an extreme example, consider whether an aluminum company, headquartered in the US, should become responsible for meeting US-set goals on its overseas operations; or does it instead respond to each nation where its operating sites are based? If so, that could plausibly lead to restriction free zones or, conversely, to impossible targets that would force closure. It cuts both ways, in other words. And, this could happen whether implementation is voluntary or mandatory....

I often complain about Toronto being all talk and no action, particularly when it comes to bikes. The bike lanes are a tooth-rattling mess full of potholes and delivery trucks, and they let the bikeshare program die for want of $80,000 while they can blow $ 100,000 on a whiny advertising campaign. Then I find that perhaps it isn't all talk; things are happening. 1) People who get it are getting elected. City Councillor Glenn De Baeremaeker lives in the outer reaches of the city but bicycles 42 km (26 miles) each way to work at Toronto City Hall, all year round, from a part of town where there are no bike lanes. He takes a circuitous route of residential streets to avoid the killer cement trucks. The Mayor from who we expected so much has promised1000 kilometers of lanes by 2012. Read Profile of Glenn's ride in ::The Star 2) Citizens are taking action. Some have started sending pictures to MyBikeLane, a website where you post pictures of cars and trucks in the lanes....

I pledge that I shall abstain from the purchase of "new" manufactured items of clothing ... that I shall refashion, renovate, recycle pre-loved items for myself with my own hands in fabric, yarn or other medium for the term of my contract. Take the pledge today. Everyone's doing it! Sewing is undergoing a big revival right now, the thrifty desire to recycle, concerns about sweatshop labour and over consumption, as well as a growing online 'craft' community have fueled sites like 'Wardrobe Refashion', a community blog, based in Australia, with participants worldwide. Wardrobe refashion community members have all taken a pledge not to purchase any new manufactured clothing for a set period, instead all clothing must be recycled, renovated, pre-loved, or handmade. All sentiments that we at TreeHugger applaud, check out some of our recent stories and DIY tips ont-shirt surgery, and refashioning the sweaters, check out (trash fashion and re-fashion then get sewing!...

Free in NYC? This ITAC-sponsored April 27th Green Building Workshop in New York looks like something other cities might want. It's designed for professionals in the building construction supply chain: those who design, make, and service "green" building materials, contract furniture, carpeting, paints, lighting fixtures and so on. Its purpose is to help them understand the opportunity to design and market products to the growing market for green buildings. Attendees get a LEED overview, followed by a discussion of five strategies that businesses can use to design greener products. The Curriculum reviews life cycle assessment and green marketing so attendees can learn how to make sure their products will be accepted by potential customers. Thanks to the sponsor, HSBC, the price is right! Pre-registration is required at this link....

Treehugger readers seem to love photos and posts about sexy underwear and bikinis--so let’s try this one--a solar powered bikini. Whilst lying in the sun and baking, you can charge up your cell phone, ipod and digital camera. It comes with a USB drinks cooler—once plugged in it will act as a chiller for your can of organic lemonade. The photovoltaic film panels allow a fashionable fit while supplying the 6.5 volts. Just in case you want to make your own here is how to do it: “the suit is a standard medium-sized bikini swimsuit retrofitted with 1" x 4" photovoltaic film strips sewn together in series with conductive thread. The cells terminate in a female USB connection and whatever circuitry necessary to ensure proper output voltage. (i.e. 5v voltage regulator)”. Not sure what happens when you want to take a dip in the sea… :: Hippy Shopper ...

Perhaps I drink too much beer. I have grown very comfortable with a system where I pay a dime deposit on a bottle and when I want more, I stick the empties in its handy Scarborough Suitcase and take it back to the same place I bought it from. The Beer Store therefore is able to refill 98% of the bottles it sells. When everyone's knickers were in a twist about mercury in CFLs, I wondered why they don't just put a 25 cent deposit on them and have people bring them back. People do have to replace them, just like the beer bottle, so what is the hassle? When I read that 350 million batteries are going into the trash in Canada alone, annually leaking "747 tonnes of lead, which is known to impair intelligence in children; 0.5 tonnes of mercury, which can damage the human nervous system; and 287 tonnes of nickel, 543 tonnes of zinc, and 3,501 tonnes of manganese," I wonder why we can't exchange a dead one for a new one and save the deposit. After all, you need to replace it so if you are careful, you only pay a deposit once. ::the Star...

Having just covered the Village Project in North Carolina, we were delighted to discover another community-oriented organization working towards livable communities, this time on the other side of the Atlantic. URBED (Urbanism Environment Design) is a co-operative regeneration consultancy that has transformed itself into a design practice. Based in Manchester, UK, the group is apparently committed to sustainable urban regeneration and lists its core principles as “urbanism, community, sustainability and design.” The group clearly thinks beyond the usual concerns of planning and design agencies, to include a view of towns as living systems, as evidenced by this piece in a recent newsletter of the Permaculture Association (Britain): ...

While citizens across America will "step-it-up" to urge Congress to take action on global warming, citizens of the Pammal municipality are celebrating the success of another type of waste initiative. Vermi-composting, or composting using worms, is the heartbeat of the "Zero Solid Waste Management Plan", allowing kitchen wastes collected by tricycle to be returned to local gardeners and farmers as fertilizer. Waste reduction also plays a part, as does identifying markets for the glass, plastic and other recyclables separated from the community wastes. M.B. Nirmal, founder of Exnora International, seems to be the force behind the initiative, which is now replicated successfully in several municipalities. The project also relies on Exnora Green Pammal, a voluntary organisation lead by Mangalam Balasubramaniam; Sri Sankara Magalir Mandram, a women's self-help group; and the financial support of a multi-national corporation. ...

Lulu.com, a DIY digital publisher, is calling for submissions for their Earth Day open source e-book, Green Goals: How to Make a Lulu of a Difference. Simply go to the Lulu.com Green Goals website and tell them in under 200 characters what your Earth Day resolution is. Not only will your entry be included in the Green Goals e-book, you will receive one free download of it when Green Goals is released on April 22nd. In addition, Lulu will be making a donation to the Earth Day Network in honor of the participants.
You can check up on what others are submitting by visiting Lulu's Earth Day blog. And, be sure to keep up with our own Earth Day Guide to keep up to date with other Earth Day activities and eco-tips. ...

A basic problem with solar panels is that they are almost always flat. In order to maintain maximum efficiency they have to be directly perpendicular to the sun. So, either we deal with sub-par efficiency through 95% of the day, or we build expensive motor-driven sun-trackers. Jud Ready, at the Georgia Tech Research Institute has come up with another solution. But building solar panels that are basically composed of millions of tiny photovoltaic skyscrapers on a conducting grid. Because the skyscrapers are oriented veritically with gaps between them, photons are readily absorbed and converted to electricity even when the hit the panel at an angle. This also makes the cells perfect for cloudy climates, when the amount of light is the same, but the clouds scatter the sunlight in lots of directions. The photovoltaic material being used in these 3D cells is currently cadmium, which is unfortunately toxic, and less efficient than some other materials, but Ready says that many other light-active substances could be used in the panels. They aren't sure how much the can boost efficiency compared to current panels, but millions of tiny skyscrapers can't be all wrong. ::Newswise...

Change your footprint in a whole other way by taking part in Asics' search for the next hot shoe. Its Fill the Box design competition is seeking innovative footwear designs for future production. The prizes aren't shabby, either: Besides getting to step out in his or her own shoe design and receiving a slew of media attention, the Grand Prix winner also gets €5,000. Two Excellence award winners will receive €500. While this competition doesn't have an ostensibly green angle, we'd love to see eco-friendly designs make the cut. Who knows? You might redefine the way one prominent shoemaker hoofs it in the future. :: Asics Design Competition...

Are you one of the thousands of Americans who will be crunching to do their taxes this weekend? Well don’t forget that this year only the IRS is giving a refund to all of us that had phone service between February 28, 2003 and August 1, 2006. If you’re wondering what it’s all about, check out Refunds for Good, a non-profit website that has an easy to understand, step-by-step instruction about the tax that was charged and how to receive the refund. Refunds for Good also encourages us to take this unexpected refund and donate it to a non-profit in need. With Ed Begley, Jr. and Martin Sheen as spokespeople, the website details a few of their favorites. So don’t forget to check the refund box this weekend and log on to Refunds for Good and put that money to a good cause. ::Refunds for Good...

Even though ours is a joke headline, we're not making this story up. It looks like a new political species, the "neo-climatons" are making a political evolutionary jump, now that Al Gore has everyone, including the Washington DC Beltway Pols, believing Climate Change is real. Via: Ottawa Citizen Online:- "Canadian water is on the table at trilateral talks between politicians, businessmen and academics from Canada, the U.S. and Mexico. A series of private conferences for the North American Future 2025 Project will include the discussion of "water transfers" and diversions, according to the outline for the project, a trilateral effort to draft a "blueprint" on economic integration for the governments of Canada, the U.S. and Mexico." Go read the whole story; but we put some choice tidbits for you below the fold. Meanwhile, does this kind of talk done in private encourage free LeBatts for the southern neighbors? If so, nice. Finally, and as we've pointed out before, this water transfer scenario is highly implausible. Should a mega-drought hit the US, there won't be the time or the resources to pipe blue Canadian water to enough places in the US to sustain existing culture. What might plausibly happen is that dust-bowl style, plenty of thirsty dry jobless US citizens will be making their way north. We're just saying......

Organic food sales have whithered at Wal-Mart, now the giant is backing off… American drivers set a new gas consumption record for April… No clouds in space. The Pentagon is toying with the idea of generating solar power in orbit, and then sending it home… Elle magazine profiles budding greenie Orlando Bloom in the eco-issue… Back to the drawing board: Mercedes’ attempt at a clean diesel, the Bluetec E320, didn’t pass muster in five states… Most Huggable is a daily roundup of some of the most tantalizing stories from Hugg.com, TreeHugger’s user-generated green news site. Why not submit your own green news?...

Here is a politician doing something about climate change. Hillary Clinton has introduced the Zero-Emissions Building Act of 2007 which directs federal agencies to immediately require that all new federal buildings or major renovations reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 50 percent as compared to a 2003 baseline. In 2010, and every five years after that, the emissions reduction level would increase by 10 percent, until new federal buildings become "zero-emissions" buildings in 2030. The legislation would also apply to major renovations of existing federal buildings.

"This legislation sets an ambitious goal of making new federal buildings carbon neutral by 2030," said Senator Clinton. "Buildings account for 40 percent of global warming pollution in the United States, and the federal government should lead the way in developing building designs and technologies to reduce these emissions."

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San Francisco does it again. A few weeks ago the city banned the use of all plastic shopping bags other than biodegradable and recyclable ones. Now, effective June 1, 2007, the law will require San Francisco food vendors who sell prepared food to use compostable or recyclable to-go containers as well. “San Francisco food vendors may no longer use polystyrene foam otherwise known as Styrofoam™ and must use compostable or recyclable disposable food service ware or to-go containers unless there is no suitable product that is within 15% of the cost of non-compostable or non-recyclable alternatives,” an article said. Compostable products include coated and uncoated paper or other natural fiber products and plant-based plastic-like products that are clearly labeled. We know several restaurants, like Mixt Greens, who already uses the products, but we’re interested to see if more cities will take San Fran’s lead. ::SF Environment Related ::Eco-To-Go ::What to Do with Used Styrofoam...

AAANNND THEEEY'RE OFFFF! Eleven turtles, fresh from egg laying, are making a dash from Playa Grande, Costa Rica to their feeding grounds in the Galapagos. Outfitted with satellite tags for the 14-day race, which takes place between April 16 and 29, these intrepid leatherbacks are working a 100-million-year-old tradition. But keep your eye on the clock, sports fans, because this 600-mile sprint may be history in 10 years—90 percent of leatherback turtles have vanished from the Pacific Ocean, tripped up, as it were, by human pressures. Pick your favorite athlete—Purple Lightning, maybe? Or Stephanie Colburtle?—and track her progress towards the finish line via satellite. ...

150,000 tonnes of glass could be saved each year, in the UK alone, if the average food and drink container weight was reduced by 10%. The biggest demand for glass packaging in the UK is from the spirit alcohol industry, which uses over 500,000 tonnes of glass a year. Co-op have been investigating how to reduce the amount of packaging required for these spirit bottles, and are introducing a new, lightweight 298g bottle for it's own-brand whiskey. The design has been developed by Rockware, with funding from the Waste & Resources Action Programme. Bottle 'light-weighting' has been an area of focus for several years, motivated by cost reduction as well as environmental factors. As bottle walls are made thinner and lighter, they must be made relatively stronger at the the same time, as the thinner the bottle wall, the more likely it is to break. :: LOHAS...

Well, the folks in Bloomington, Indiana, are just one sweet example of what people are doing across the country tomorrow as part of Step It Up 2007. On the odd chance you haven't heard yet, Step It Up is a nationwide series of events held tomorrow to raise awareness of global warming and convince congress to cut U.S. carbon emissions 80% by the year 2050! And in Bloomington, they'll be teaming up with the Bloomington Commission on Sustainability to give away 300 CFL's as an opening for their "Change A Light, Bloomington!" initiative on April 14th. All told they'll be putting 40k FREE CFL's into their community, and tying it into the Mayor's Agreement to cut Bloomington's carbon emissions 10% by 2012. So if you're in Bloomington tomorrow, make sure to Step It Up and show up to take a FREE light to stop global warming... And as someone who has taken on his own campaign with CFL's, I can tell you that 40K is A TON of free CFL's... So nice job Bloomington! Please Note: I changed the photo due to an inadvertent mistake when I posted the original. That photo was apparently of a relatively famous piece of modern art located in Bloomington, Minneapolis. But as I recently mistook the giant statue of Balzac at MOMA for one of Chewbacca to the delight of those around me, I believe you can see that my limited experience with modern art probably led to my mistake... This photo is most definitely of Bloomington, Indiana. Enjoy. -k...

Matt James over at ecoGeek has a nice interview with Sean Donahue, spokeman for Dell, on their environmental program. There is some same old, same old here - Dell's Plant a Tree for Me program has been covered extensively - and there a quite a few 'forward looking statements' such as plans to integrate with EnergyStar 4 and moving towards 80 Plus power supplies. Ok, we're all doing that. But there also some fresh ideas. Dell is starting to offer GNU/Linux on factory installs, which will help reduce obsolescence, and there are also some specific recommendations for the most efficient systems that Dell has to offer. These come mainly from the Optiplex and PowerEdge lines. Also, virtualization, a big resource saver, also figures in prominently to their program. Matt remained undecided on their program at the end and fell back to the 'if you don't need it, don't buy it' argument. Barring something truly groundbreaking from a hardware vendor such as, say, six year warranties on all new machines, we will probably be in a holding pattern for some time to come. It's bar raising time....

Nissan and NEC announced today that they will form a joint venture to produce lithium-ion batteries to be used in hybrid and other electric cars. Lithium-ion batteries were once considered too unsafe for use in cars, but are now viewed as a key ingredient making hybrid and electric truly competitive with gasoline-powered cars. Lithium-ion batteries are both lighter and smaller than nickel-metal hydride batteries, which are used in almost all hybrid cars today. Nissan is losing its market share to Toyota and Honda, in the important U.S. market. If Nissan were to produce an breakthrough in lithium-ion battery technology, it could become competitive as a "green" vehicle maker. Still, the venture will have stiff competition from companies like A123Systems and EEStor. :: See also: Nissan to Develop Own Hybrid Technology and EEStor Ultra Capacitors: The Science Explained :: Via ZDNET and Inside Green Tech...

Bread is a staple in most of our diets and everybody loves the smell of a freshly-baked loaf. It’s been around in some form since before recorded history. Around 7,500 years ago in the Stone Age, people made bread-like solid cakes from stone-crushed barley and wheat. Loaves and rolls were found in Egyptian tombs and according to a bread history website you can actually see loaves that are over 5000 years old in the Egyptian section at the British Museum! Bread was also linked to social class with darker breads indicating lower classes and lighter breads, made with more expensive white flours, for upper classes. But have you ever thought about the environmental impacts of your bread? Four researchers at the German-based Institute for Energy and Environment Research (IFEU) carried out a life cycle assessment of 8 different scenarios for the production of 1 kg of bread “considering different crop production methods (conventional, organic), different milling technologies (industrial mill, domestic mill) and different baking technologies (large bread factory, bakery, domestic bread maker).” Their findings conclude that the best option (environmentally-speaking) is organically grown wheat, that has gone through industrial milling and is produced in a large bread factory. ...

As Mike just noted, Sundance Channel is gearing up for the launch of The Green, TV's first all-green block of programming, which starts next Tuesday (April 17). To celebrate, they're offering a free iTunes download of the first episode of "Big Ideas for a Small Planet", all about green fuel options, until April 17, when the episode airs. After April 17, the episode (and each episode that follows) will go for US $1.99 (or you can get a season pass for $19.99). The free episode is here at iTunes; if you miss the free download, you can always tune in to the Sundance Channel next Tuesday at 9 pm to see the episode. ::The Green iTunes download and ::The Green at Sundance Channel...

Yesterday, we mentioned some tips for growing some of your own food, a process that can be tricky, especially if you don't have your own garden or a particularly green thumb. When it comes to strategies that help your garden grow, adding compost is a great way to mulch and add nutrients without using industrial fertilizers (not to mention a good use of food leftovers and other organic waste). Here are some tips and products that can help you compost and help the planet for Earth Day. 1) BluePlanetSMART's globe-shaped composter is faster and more functional thanks to its spherical shape, and is better-looking than a lot of composters we've seen. 2) The Stiga kitchen composting system allows you to inject your fresh kitchen scraps into the bottom of the pile using a lever ram system, which helps the new scraps get composting faster and keeps the stink down. 3) NatureMill's onboard computer controls the mixing and air flow, brewing up delicious compost about every two weeks without funky compost odors or having to hand-turn the mixture. 4) Compostadores is the first (and only, so far) company that we've seen that specializes in domestic composting in Europe. 5) New York City has its own map that shows you where to take your kitchen scraps and organic waste so it can be composted and naturally recycled into rich soil, with tips and tricks for starting compost yourself. 6) San Francisco has incorporated composting into its recycling system, taking food scraps from 2,000 restaurants to make compost, and the city is offering free classes in composting this weekend! 7) Vermiculture (composting using worms) has caught Martha Stewart's eye and you can do it, too, with this Can-O-Worms Condo. 8) Artist Amy Youngs' digestive table gives new meaning to the term "dining table," using worms to compost your leftovers right at the table. 9) The Happy Farmer Kitchen Composter is made from 70% recycled plastic and, according to a TH reader, doesn't smell at all. Happy composting! For more info on greener eating practices, check out TreeHugger's How to Green Your Meals guide and stay tuned for more tips in anticipation of Earth Day....

Sundance Channel premiered The Green in Hollywood. Guess who was there: our very own Simran Sethi (who you've seen on TreeHugger TV, but who has also been on Oprah, Martha Stewart and recently in Vanity Fair), of course. She will co-host The Green with Majora Carter (make sure you watch this TED video). "THE GREEN includes a 13-part series “Big Ideas for a Small Planet” which will help viewers with earth friendly solutions and innovations, as well as a programming featuring folks greening their lives and their businesses." Via ::Ecorazzi....

In summertime, linen is to Italian clothing as pasta is to Italian food - fundamental. This quickly makes sense in the intense heat of the Mezzogiorno – where the practical (brilliant wicking) nature of the fabric is nearly as valuable as its drape, form and style. Thanks to the Italian textile manufacturer Crespi 1797 Italians (and other flax fans) will be able to flaunt beautiful organic linen at the beach. The newly certified fabric will be made from organic fiber and will use heavy-metal free dyes. Establishing Italy’s first certified-organic flax line is not a surprising move for a company that also specializes in crafting hemp and bamboo fibers. Their mission goes beyond environmental sustainability to include economic sustainability for Italy – where they hope to establish the Bel Paese as a leader in the production and design of organic clothing.::Italy Magazine...

We've taken note of a number of solar car projects around the world, but none may be more interesting than the effort presented in New Farmer Films' YouTube video "Infinity Miles per Gallon: Art Haines and his Solar Car." Haines, a mechanical designer, and eight students from the local high school conceived, designed and built a two-speed solar-electric vehicle that carries two people, covers a 15-20 mile range, and achieves speeds of 25-30 mph. And if you think you recognize that shape, you should: the students decided that the Hummer should serve as the model for their car's outward appearance. While the concept probably isn't practical for most drivers, the fact that this working vehicle was even built raises a question asked by the video's producers: if Haines and a group of high school kids can do this, why not major automobile manufacturers? ::YouTube via stilgar at Hugg ...

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Carbon boom is what we mean. Environment California yesterday released a C02 emissions inventory report which compares California to national and regional trends. Many of the conclusions are familiar; but here it is, laid out in one handy resource. An excellent starting point for policy making, going forward. A few excerpts from the executive summary:- "This report examines trends in U.S. global warming pollution nationally and by state and concludes that the failure to limit emissions nationwide has allowed global warming pollution to grow out of control." Carbon dioxide pollution is on the rise....

Wow, our calendars are chock a block with green events across the States over the next two weekends, what with Step It Up's National Day of Climate Action this Saturday 14th and Earth Day taking place next Sunday 22nd - see our special TH Earth Day Guide. We hope all of you, wherever you are, will be getting involved somehow. For those of you in the Chicago area next weekend you are spoilt for choice! Not only are there several Earth Day events going on around the city, but there's also the Green Apple Fest and the first Green Festival of 2007. On it's first visit to Chicago the Green Festival is looking to beat the enormous attendance numbers it saw in Washington DC and San Francisco last year, 25 000 and 36 000 people respectively. With over 300 listed exhibits there'll certainly be no shortage of things to see, buy, listen to and learn about. ...

One would think twice about setting a building next to an abandoned mine shaft, but the Zollverein School of Management and Design takes advantage of it. There is a lot of hot water in the mine that used to be dumped into the River Emscher in the Ruhr Valley. Now the 30 degree C (90F) water is pumped up a thousand metres, put through a heat exchanger, and then circulated through pipes cast the concrete walls, which have no insulation inside or out. Why bother when the heat is free? Designed by SANAA architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, winners of a 2002 international competition. ::Azure Magazine Christine gives tips for visiting the area here...

You have heard of guerrilla gardeners, well now there are guerrilla benchers. Their goal is the same: to improve neglected spaces and add something positive to public life. Only these guys say it with benches. Why? Because London's benches are disappearing. As Agent Bristly Pioneer (as they are called in the movement) says "Once London's streets were lined with them and you could plonk yourself down for a well-earned rest after slogging round the shops. We've found that there is just nowhere to put your feet up anymore". It's partly because of repairs, but more likely because municipalities want to discourage homeless people from sleeping on them or sitting and drinking on them. The stealthy guerrillas decided to take matters into their own hands. They dress up in bright green jackets so that they look like Council employees, drill some holes in the ground, put the benches in, and then sit down and have a cup of tea. The agents are restoring something to community life: a place where where old ladies can sit and chat, workers have their lunch and mothers can rest with the stroller. Watch for them in your neighbourhood, or better still, become a guerrilla too. :: Guerrilla Benching Via :: Time Out...

The river may be so polluted that you can’t let your dog swim in it; the park may be littered with garbage after a weekend or holiday, but for Tel Avivians, Park Hayarkon is their Central Park and a breath of fresh air from the cement and chaos of the city. Despite a decision of Israel’s Interior Ministry to limit construction in the park, reports Haaretz, the Municipality of Tel Aviv has other plans in store: some 155 dunams of land (38 acres) are now being zoned for new projects -- one of which will include public offices. Trees will be cut down, the river will be widened and in total, about 14% of the park’s open space will be gobbled up (dare we say) probably forever. ...

Our head is spinning from all the rotating buildings. Architect Rolf Disch built his own home as a test bed for solar systems. The house tracks the sun, so that its triple-glazed front can face the warming sun in winter and show its well insulated back in summer. The balcony rail is a solar vacuum tube to heat water. Photovoltaics on the roof rotate independently to track the sun, generating four to six times the energy needed for the house, making it beyond zero energy and into "das Plusenergiehaus" or a "Plus-energy House." If that is not enough, there is on-site composting, chemical free sewage treatment and rainwater catchment. The house has been the personal residence of the Architect since 1994. ::Azure Magazine Green Revolution Issue ...

Its hot in Dubai, and everyone wants water view- so Glenn Howells is building "an eco-friendly sustainable design, using solar power to revolve the cylindrical form and recycling water to irrigate the landscaped gardens. The concept for the façade design has evolved through the use of intricate layers and textures that also help to address the extreme heat conditions in Dubai, while providing the residents with energy efficient control of their internal environment. The dual-skin breathing façade creates a dynamic appearance and adds depth to the building with interesting materials including high performance glass with neutral coating and gold screens." We like the line in the advertising: "Awake one day to see panoramic lake views and another day to see beautiful landscapes and the worlds biggest shopping mall" ::Time Residences via ::architechnophilia and ::Dezeen ...

Ben and Jerry’s have teamed up with one of the UK’s leading suppliers of green energy, Ecotricity, to encourage their customers to fight global warming. In an effort to help build more ‘global cooling machines’, the nice folks at Ben and Jerry’s are offering £15 (approx. US$30) in ice cream vouchers to anyone signing up to electricity from Ecotricity. It’s not all pure altruism however, as Ben and Jerry’s have a vested interest in keeping the temperatures down: 'Take it from a couple of ice cream guys, if it's melted, it's ruined!' For details of some of Ecotricity’s high-profile turbine projects, check out our previous post here. ...

This fascinating "trail tree" site contains photos of other trees similar to the malformed one pictured here. When I was a kid we called these things 'outhouse trees.' When I was older and sought less humorous explanations, I thought they might be the result of disease or grazing or of a wind felled tree leaning over a sapling. Now comes this report of an amazing group of people using GPS coordinates and digital camera uploads to network an investigation into whether such "Trail Trees" might be relics of Native American navigational systems. Via The Gainsville Georgia Times:- "Mountain Stewards, based in Pickens County, has embarked on a quest to map all of these "trail trees" in North America, and they're looking for volunteers to report sightings throughout Georgia. "This is a story that has been here for hundreds of years but has never been told," said Don Wells, president of Mountain Stewards...Wells began recording the GPS coordinates of the "trail trees" he encountered. Then he took a compass and began drawing lines between them on a map. "I found that in many cases they formed a route," he said. One such path follows along ridge lines, roughly paralleling the current Appalachian Trail...American Indians would take a sapling, usually a white oak, and cut off the primary stem just above one of the branches so that the branch would become the new trunk." A coring study is underway to age the trees. Maybe they are outhouse trees and the joke is on us. Or maybe not. Check it out some more at the Trail Tree Blog. The full project description is linked from the stewards site. Image credit:- the Hazelwood Trail Tree, in State of Georgia USA ...

It used to be, if you had money you could spend it any way you wanted and people might think you were ostentatious or vulgar, but you could do what you like and say "Because I'm worth it !®". Now, with concerns about climate change, people flip birds at hummers, monster houses, excessive lighting and patio heaters, which spew excess carbon dioxide into our shared atmosphere. In the UK, companies voluntarily take CO2 spewing products like the patio heater off the market, yet in America the suggestion that the Toyota Tundra might not be appropriate for the times brought the response "you can not repeal the laws of supply and demand." or "Toyota, like most any other business, produces things for which there is a proven demand."

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How a 90 year company making organic bedding has managed to avoid the TH radar for so long is a mystery. But it did. Vivetique, although based in Los Angeles are using Earth Day and New York’s 1800mattress.com to launch their new EcoDream mattress. It seems this will make them the first New York City retailer to carry an organic mattress. From the press release it looks like the EcoDream is made from two types of natural latex, wrapped in unbleached, un-dyed and certified organic cotton. All perched upon an “eco-friendly: wood foundation, though we’re unsure what eco-friendly refers to exactly. We did ascertain however that they also offer comforters from what they call Sonoma County Pure Grow Wool. Which apparently means the wool is grown according to organic agricultural practices… “no pesticides on the pasture, no chemicals in the animal feed, use a biodegradable soap for lanolin removal, allow the wash house to recycle the lanolin, and use a land management system for low impact on the environment.” Oh, and the price of the EcoDream in a queen size? $5,000 USD. ::Vivétique, via PR Wire....

The other week we noted, in passing, that Patagonia were playing with more environmentally benign wetsuits. We should’ve linked to their dedicated page, where you can learn more. Like how the neoprene outer is of 80% non-petroleum based ingredients. (Fortune Mag reckoned it was made with crushed limestone but the Patagonia site is coy on that aspect.) The inner lining is a chloride-free merino wool grid bonded to recycled polyester. Kneepads are PVC-free and are said to be more durable and grippier. Coming for both men and women in 2mm and 3mm versions, to span water temps from 48 to 65°F (9 to 18°C). Long and shortie styles, although limited availability just now. ::Patagonia Wetsuits....

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Via MSNBC: -TOKYO - China said Wednesday it will take part in negotiations on a framework for limiting global warming after 2012, when the Kyoto climate treaty expires. In the statement issued after a meeting between visiting Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the two sides expressed "political will" to work towards resolving the climate change issue through international cooperation. "The two sides will ... actively participate in the process on building an effective framework from 2013 and beyond," they said in the document. Image credit: NASA; Chinese dust storm heads into Sea of Japan...

In an effort to urge college students to become part of the movement to stop global warming, this week marked the kick-off of the “Stop Global Warming College Tour” with Laurie David and Sheryl Crow. As we mentioned last month the tour, which began in Texas on Monday, will continue over the next few weeks ending in Washington, DC on Earth Day, April 22nd. David and Crow will visit 10 universities in the Southeastern U.S. and will be giving a 90-minute presentation which will include remarks by David, a short performance by Crow, clips from An Inconvenient Truth, humorous clips from top comedians, and a dialogue with students. Touring in a bio-diesel bus, the pair has already visited Southern Methodist University in Dallas, TX, Texas A&M in College Station, Texas and Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, LA. The other stops on the tour include: visits will include: 4/12 - Loyola University, New Orleans, LA; 4/13 - University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL; 4/16 - University of Florida, Gainesville, FL; 4/17 - Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, TN; 4/18 - Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN; 4/19 - University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, Charlottesville; 4/21 - University of Maryland, College Park, MD and ; 4/22 - George Washington University, Washington, DC. ::Stop Global Warming College Tour Photo Courtesy ::MSN ...

Will six dollars for a gallon of gas turn people off? Maybe, maybe not… City waste streams are getting flooded with disposable cups, and nobody knows quite what to do… Hybrids powering up the grid? PG&E calls it the first-ever demo of grid/automobile energy interchange… Ready for a green office? Well, that’s just great. Here are some simple tips to get things going… San Francisco did it; now Los Angeles is thinking about running plastic bags out of town… Most Huggable is a daily roundup of some of the most tantalizing stories from Hugg.com, TreeHugger’s user-generated green news site. Why not submit your own green news? ...

The latest buzz: The week of June 24 through June 30, 2007 has been designated National Pollinator Week, thanks to the efforts of the North American Pollinator Protection Campaign (NAPPC) and its successful lobbying with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Senate. As part of a national campaign to publicize the rapid and marked decline of pollinating insects and mammals, the NAPPC has also convinced the U.S. Postal Service to issue a series of four pollination-themed stamps this summer, depicting a Morrison's bumble bee, a calliope hummingbird, a lesser long-nosed bat, and a Southern dogface butterfly....

Here's your chance to be famous... In New Zealand. Joanne Mitchell of Television New Zealand Ltd contacted us with a request, and here's what she's looking for: GREEN WEDDINGS: The traditional blushing bride dressed in white seems to be turning green. White weddings may have been the dream of fashionable brides of old, but now the trendiest weddings are seeking to give back to the environment. The 'green' wedding means everything from recycled wedding dresses and guests arriving by bicycle to home grown flowers and locally-produced food. SUNDAY, Television New Zealand’s primetime current affairs programme, would love to profile some couples about to embark on an eco-friendly wedding, for a television documentary. Please contact Joanne Mitchell, Researcher, if you are interested, by email joanne.mitchell@tvnz.co.nz or phone +64 9 916 7227. See also: ::Plan Your "Green Wedding" with Green Elegance Weddings, ::More for your Green Wedding: Flower Petal Confetti, ::Wholly Jo's Ethically Made Wedding Dresses, ::'Nice day for a Green Wedding', ::TreeHugger Picks: Tips for a Green Wedding...

This week’s podcast is an interview with the remarkable Martha Marks, the co-founder of president of Republicans for Environmental Protection, nature photographer, and inspiring optimist. In 1995, along with a small group of women, Marks decided it was high time to revive the spirit of conservation in the Republican Party. She speaks with Simran this week about how political labels have been turned topsy-turvy, how environmental history will judge Bush, and what the business world has to say about global warming. Also, stay tuned for the full-length podcast of this powerful interview. Catch TreeHugger Radio each week on Air America’s EcoTalk, here on TreeHugger.com, or juice up your iPod on iTunes. (listen/right click to download) ::TreeHugger Radio
(Interview conducted by Simran Sethi, produced by Jacob Gordon)...

Imagine discovering a Roman newspaper from, say, 23 August 410 AD. On that day, the Goths had the city under siege. They had already demanded, and had been given, five thousand pounds of gold, thirty thousand pounds of silver, four thousand silken tunics, three thousand scarlet-dyed hides, and three thousand pounds of pepper. Statues were melted down to pay off the barbarians, but the Goths wanted more. In short, it was a difficult spot for the Romans. The very existence of the city, and certainly their way of life, was at stake. So you’d expect their newspapers to betray a bit of uneasiness. That is, you might be surprised to find sections of the paper devoted to winners of the chariot races, or recipes for larks’ tongues, speculation on the next season’s most promising colors. The Goths sacked the city the next day, bringing to an end a seemingly invincible civilization....

British beekeepers are seeing an alarming amount of a disease that is wiping out 50%-75% of some hives in the US and Europe. The condition has been called Colony Collapse Disorder, and DEFRA have described the symptoms as "the total collapse of bee colonies, with a complete absence of bees or only a few remaining in the hive". The disease has been a growing problem in the US and Europe, but until now has not been seen in the UK. Contrary to the claims of keepers, Defra claim that "there is no evidence in the UK right now of colony collapse disorder." Although the causes are unknown, there are many theories, including environmental stress, malnutrition, antibiotic use, pesticides and GM crops. Although the loss of hives is tragic for keepers, the implications for farmers and consumers could also be considerable. Bees are currently used to pollinate crops, and a large reduction in the population could cause crops to fail. ::Guardian...

Bloomberg reports that California's governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, at the Global Environment Conference at Washington's Georgetown University had a message for US carmakers: "I say, Arnold to Michigan: get off your butt and join us. California may be doing more to save U.S. automakers than anyone else. We are pushing them to make changes. If they don't change someone else will, the Japanese will, the Chinese will, the South Koreans will." Of course, Detroit wasn't too happy about that. A US representative from Michigan said that California's fuel economy standards would cost the automakers $85 billion (but, even if that number is correct and not just a scare tactic, how much will it cost them not to become more efficient?), and a spokesman for DaimlerChrysler said that they have been innovating like "never before". Clearly they are not very receptive....

Take California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, MTV's "Pimp My Ride" and an 800 horsepower 1965 Chevy Impala and put them all in the same place, at the same time: what do you get? Did anyone come up with "An Earth Day showcase for green(er) transportation and a hip hop/Governator/green mash-up"? That's right, as part of a very special Earth Day episode airing April 22nd at 1 pm ET/PT, Governor Schwarzenegger visits Xzibit, Mad Mike and the entire "Pimp My Ride" crew at G.A.S. (Galpin Auto Sports), as they transform a '65 Chevy Impala into a mean, clean machine. The old ride will get a new diesel engine, allowing the show an opportunity to highlight alternative fuels and, more specifically, biodiesel; the finished product will showcase to the ability of power, performance and alternative, non-petroleum fuels to work together, and that there is something that every person can't do to help promote green practices and ideas. The special episode will air as part of the thinkMTV year long, 12-step "Break The Addiction" campaign, engaging, empowering, and educating millions of young people to make smart, everyday choices that both improve their life and help curb the impact of climate change and preserve the environment. The episode will also air on MTV2 and MTV Tr3s, and appear on MTV as the kick-off of a "Pimp My Ride" Sneak Peek marathon....

Well, green seems to be the color of the month over at Habbo, a social networking site for kids not so unlike 2nd Life, the massively popular online experience that recently experienced the effects of global warming… First I hear that they’re teaming up with the Earth Day Network on operation Green Teen to educate kids about the environment and sell them eco-friendly furniture, and then when I get there I realize they’ve also decided to sell Crocs as pets! Seems you can be certain to help keep your Croc happy by purchasing some T-Bones (sold individually or in value packages of six), a Crocodile basket because they tend to get “snappy in the morning”, and even a “Marzipan Man”, so just in case your Croc is unusually well behaved you can reward them with a tasty treat shaped like a real man! What will they think of next? I’m not so certain… But I’m definitely excited by the prospects of them selling eco-furniture to kids. Let’s face it, how many kids ever even think of buying a sustainable product in the real world? And how many are truly aware of what the term even means? So the prospect of introducing kids to sustainable furniture online definitely gets me excited… While they’re networking away online, the ones who are picking up their eco-furniture for Earth Day will most certainly be sending the message to everyone else that TreeHugging is cool! Now, of course you’ll have to actually PAY for that eco-furniture, even if it is virtual, so 10% of all eco-furniture purchases go to the Earth Day Network, just in time for Earth Day. And with all of this crazy green stuff going on over at Habbo, I’ve got just one question…. How does a pet croc mix with anyone’s furniture, sustainable or not? ...

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Health care workers know that the workplace procedures and regulations are unique among commercial workspaces: intense might be a fair characterization. An adaptation of Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Green Building Rating System® (LEED®) has therefore been created to accommodate the health care industry's special needs. The latest Green Guide for Health Care is a best practices guide for healthy and sustainable building design, construction, and operations for the health care industry. This publication, Version 2.2, marks the end of the pilot program. Like all voluntary standards, they had supporters (as pictured). Excerpted from the GGHC press release:- "Today, the Green Guide for Health Care, the first and only sustainable design toolkit tailored to the health care industry, launched a new updated version that includes more tips and tools for adding healing design features, energy and water efficiency strategies, and safer materials to the health care setting. To date, more than 10,500 people have downloaded the Green Guide and 115 projects have registered in the Green Guide Pilot Program. The Pilot projects represent more than 30 million square feet of construction by 100 health organizations in 31 states, four Canadian provinces, and China, Guatemala, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Poland. These facilities are integrating the Green Guide’s enhanced environmental and health principles and practices into their planning, design, construction, operations and maintenance. The Green Guide is a voluntary, self-certifying best practices toolkit based on an organizational structure borrowed by agreement from the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Green Building Rating System® (LEED®). ...

Moving generally ranks right up there with a trip to the dentist as far as activities we dread. For a treehugger, that dread may be compounded by the seemingly inevitable amount of waste created: the cardboard boxes, wadded-up newspaper, packing peanuts and/or bubble wrap all tend to go straight to the curb or dumpster once they've served their purpose. Springwise highlights a Southern California company, Earth Friendly Moving, that's trying to lessen the waste created by offering clients a range of "zero-waste" moving products designed either for reuse or eco-friendly disposal. At the heart of EFM's system is the RecoPack, a reusable container made from "...all of those hard-to-recycle colorful plastic bottles from under your kitchen sink, laundry room and garage shelves." They come in a variety of sizes, rent for $1 a week, and the company even delivers them to clients in trucks powered by a combination of biofuel and vegetable oil. Those trucks also double as a "paper mill": the vehicle's engines power an alternator that creates electricity for making the company's Geami Packing Paper at the site of the delivery. Other elements of the Earth Friendly Move include biodegradable Recocube packing pellets and Poopy Pallets made from recycled disposable diapers....

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Fears of water and ground pollution from waste are justified, but concerns about the world being buried under garbage seem a bit excessive, no? Perhaps not if you live amongst the stuff. A recent survey of Chinese citizens by China Youth Daily found that 75 percent of those people polled feared that one day the world will be covered in trash. No wonder: for 23 percent of those surveyed, garbage hills can be seen everywhere in the places they are living. China’s cities generate an average of 120 million tons of garbage annually, a number growing at a rate of 8 percent a year. Garbage fees are not the only answer. Fortunately, consumer awareness-raising campaigns (like Global Village Beijing's new Plastic Bag Reduction Network) are becoming more common. But the trash problem, especially in rural areas, is set to get worse before it gets better. Along the east coast, in recycling meccas like Guiyu (above), much of the trash pile is made up of our shiny stuff (iPods and Powerbooks and phones), sent back to its country of origin in the form of toxic-tinged computer waste. ...

As we are wont to mention, making green food choices is one of the best ways to live a more TreeHugger-friendly lifestyle every day; eating local food is a great way to do this, but certainly no the only way. With spring in full bloom in many parts of the US and the world (and Earth Day right around the corner), now is the perfect time to start thinking about growing some of your food for yourself -- it doesn't get any more local than that -- and you don't have to have a garden or a green thumb to do it. 1) Hydroponic gardening is a great alternative to in-ground growing, requiring less space, dirt and sunlight than traditional gardens. 2) Aeroponic gardening, the waterless cousin to hydroponics, can be even easier: just drop the pod in place and wait a couple weeks for your own indoor garden to grow right in your kitchen. 3) Things like the Hortuba table and the Leopoldo City Vegetable Garden offer space-efficient container gardening for those without a plot in the ground to call their own. 4) You can grow mushrooms just about anywhere, from in a bag at home to your desk at work. 5) You Grow Girl is a great resource for DIY gardening, including tips on growing cascading herb pots in tiny spaces and making beauty products from the plants in your garden. 6) Check out our top five spring gardening tips and top five gardening ideas for more ways to grow more with less. For even more ideas on growing your own food, check out TreeHugger's guide for How to Green Your Meals, take a spin through the food section of our site and stay tuned for more info on getting ready for Earth Day....

Can’t afford one of those nifty ‘futurama’ vertical urban farms that Lloyd was waxing lyrical about the other day? No worries, we do have a cheaper option for you and equally well suited to a metropolitan life. Not only is Dr John Vella an Australia professor in Agricultural Science & Research, but it appears he is a dab hand at entrepreneurship as well. His Home Mini Gardens are sold as one way of growing your food as local as possible—in your own back yard, or on your balcony. Buy the stacking trays (starting at $40 AUD for three), add the mineral mix and seedlings, and water from the top. Presto! Almost instant veggie patch. The trays have a special drip feed that allows water to pass through to plants in lower lower trays, so is mostly self-watering. Not a new idea, but it does seem well executed here. We also read that his uniquely grown seedlings, are “produced as organically as possible ...” On offer are lettuces, herbs and tomatoes, as well as capsicum, broccoli, spinach, leek and more. Plus the soft bodied pest oil recommended is certified organic. :: Dr John’s Mini Gardens....

One of the big complaints that we have heard about compact fluorescents is that they are not dimmable. Our first reaction was, why do you have dimmers anyways? Historically, incandescent dimmers worked through resistance- they lowered the voltage and the dimmer switch got hot, and the light bulb became very inefficient as low voltage barely warmed the filament. The bulb lasted forever but it used as much electricity as if it was running full blast. Then the electronic dimmer was invented, which work by turning the light bulb on and off faster than we can see it, 120 times a second. It is not 100% efficient, which is why dimming your lights 25% reduces your electricity consumption only 20%. And it is no wonder why it causes problems for compact fluorescents, which are not designed for this additional turning on and off of a switch 120 times per second. A more efficient way to vary lighting conditions is to have different circuits; in our house we have two switches in the dining room, one for the central focus on the table and another for the perimeter of the room. Conclusion: Dimmers are wasteful for any kind of bulb, so it is hard to be critical of CFLs for not dimming well, neither do incandescents. More info on dimmers from ::How Stuff Works...

Danielle's Global Warming Bus Tour: I'm Sleeping....Where? by Danielle Lurie The film maker Danielle Lurie is accompanying Laurie David and Sheryl Crow on their bio-diesel tour bus across the States. "Tonight the ladies performed at Texas A & M to an almost-full house. It was a different feeling all around because it was their second show, and we all knew what to expect. Sheryl asked the crowd if anyone drove a Hybrid and one person (out of over 1,200) said yes." Eco-Worrier: Pimp your ride: 10 ways by Anna Shepard 'If you can (as the TV motor show slogan suggests) “transform a rusty minger into a metal blinger” why not do the same with bikes? As well as extending the life of your wheels, jazzing them up can also deter bike thieves.'...

Dr. Richard Gross at Polytechnic University in Brooklyn with bioplastic, which is made from vegetable oils; Hiroko Masuike for The New York Times Here is an idea we like: turn plant oils used to make biodiesel into bioplastics first, make them into food packaging, then instead of throwing it in the garbage, turn it back into biodiesel. The military like it; A soldier generates more than seven pounds of packaging waste per day, and getting rid of the trash requires “personnel, fuel and critical transport equipment.” when instead they could run their equipment on it. Inventor Dr. Richard Gross says that "a gallon of soy oil will yield the same amount of biodiesel whether it is converted directly or goes through an intermediate stage as plastic." (although some energy is lost in reprocessing the plastics.) Imagine if every car at a drive-thru has a device like the Mr. Fusion in Back to the Future where you just take your waste, stick it in and drive away on it. Yum! ::New York Times...

TreeHugger often complains that second homes are problematic, because of the resources consumed getting to and maintaining them. Perhaps a more appropriate option is to have it in your backyard or up a nearby tree. The Times shows a range of tree houses, from the extreme two-storey hotel version, to a 42 square foot bed in the trees, and a 2,000 square foot wheelchair-accessible playhouse. It also has the most obnoxious line we have seen in print that did not come from Don Imus, from a treehouse builder describing his clients: “Of course we can have treehouses; we’re baby boomers, and we can have whatever we want, and we can have it now, and we have a lot of money.” Modest compared to some of the others, Christiana Wyly's 150 square foot guest cottage is built of redwood staves from old olive oil tanks. The stairs are covered with eucalyptus branches. I can't quite figure out the pointy copper bottom, though. ::New York Times TreeHugger has covered its share of treehouses here, here and here....

Sara Remington for The New York Times Mark this down in your calendar: April 19 is National Hanging Out day, which is not about slackers but about hanging out your slacks, a celebration of the clothesline as an alternative to the dryer. Founded by clothesline activist Alexander Lee of laundrylist.org, it champions "the right to dry" which many people do not have due to building regulations and restrictive covenants prohibiting "ugly" clotheslines. Yet clothes dried on lines last longer, smell better and save you a lot of money. There are 88 million dryers in America, and if everyone converted to lines it could reduce residential output of CO2 by 3.3%. “It’s a huge waste of energy to tumble dry your clothes,” said Tom Arnold, chief environmental officer of TerraPass. “It’s one of the simplest things to do to help with global warming.” ::New York Times read Jeffs article: Do Clotheslines lower property values?...

This TreeHugger has always found the idea of patio heaters a little absurd – if it’s not warm enough to sit outside, why not move indoors? It would seem the folks at Wyevale Garden Centres agree. According to Friends of the Earth UK, the leading UK chain has announced that all of its stores will stop selling patio heaters due to concerns over their contribution to climate change. Friends of the Earth climate campaigner Craig Bennett welcomed the move:

"We're delighted that Wyevale has decided to stop selling patio heaters, and urge other retailers to follow suit. Using a patio heater for just one hour can waste enough energy to make 400 cups of tea. Climate change is the biggest threat the planet faces and the responsible thing for companies to do is to stop selling the most polluting products".

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Women's Wear Daily, the bible of the New York fashion scene, has gone green for one issue. With a paper everyday full of news, gossip and celebrity buzz, their acknowledgment of green fashion means it has come above the radar line and into mainstream. WWD (as insiders call it) has done a good job of outlining the players, the issues and has even included some celebrity green girls, including treehugger's own Kyeann Sayer. The tabloid says that green fashion has moved from being associated with tie-dye and hippies; consumers are more ecologically aware and willing to pay for good design that saves the environment as well. It appears that more and more mainstream fashion firms are launching environmentally friendly initiatives. Kenneth Cole has ads that include environmental issues: "Is it me or is it warm in here? — Kenneth Cole." Liz Claiborne, Eileen Fisher and L.L. Bean have all started green lines, in addition to their main business. "Do I envision more green components in our lines? Yes. Do I think all of Liz Claiborne will be green? No," said a senior vice president "It won't be to our competitive advantage”. It is more expensive for manufacturers to go green and some of the difficulties are outlined. Vendors have to commit to organic yarns well in advance. Colours are a challenge when using natural dyes because it is hard to match the batches. Natural fibres may not be as hardy and there is only so much organic cotton available to go around. Going natural adds 30% to costs and this is passed on to customers. ...

Japanese researchers have altered the crystal structure of alumina cement and turned it into a thin, transparent membrane that conducts electricity. It might even be a substitute for rare metals such as indium which is used in plasma and liquid crystal displays, with less environmental damage because the materials are widely available. "Ordinary alumina cement made from a lime-alumina compound (C12A7) has a crystal structure consisting of asymmetric cages, making it a poor conductor of electricity. But by sealing the alumina cement compound along with titanium inside a glass tube and heating it to 1,100 degrees Celsius, the researchers were able to create a homogenized, symmetrical cage structure that conducts electricity like metal." Cement monitors! Heavy stuff. ::Pink Tentacle...

Via Chemical & Engineering News:-"...one of the most puzzling practices of modern agriculture is the addition of arsenic-based compounds to most chicken feed. The point of the practice is to promote growth, kill parasites that cause diarrhea, and improve pigmentation of chicken meat. But Tyson Foods, the U.S.'s largest poultry producer, stopped using arsenic compounds in 2004, and many high-end and organic growers raise chickens quite successfully without them. What's more, McDonald's has asked its suppliers not to use arsenic additives, and the European Union banned them in 1999." Translation: since the 1950's arsenic compounds...mostly Roxarsone—4-hydroxy-3-nitrobenzenearsonic acid... have been fed to chickens to lower parasite infection and diarrhea rates: and thus to increase productivity. The coloration enhancement is probably coincidental side effect. "It is mixed in the diet of about 70% of the 9 billion broiler chickens produced annually in the U.S. In its original organic form, roxarsone is relatively benign. It is less toxic than the inorganic forms of arsenic-arsenite [As(III)] and arsenate [As(V)]. However, some of the 2.2 million lb of roxarsone mixed in the nation's chicken feed each year converts into inorganic arsenic within the bird, and the rest is transformed into inorganic forms after the bird excretes it."...

In this week's Nature, it was brought to light that every living plant around us is an expert at quantum engineering. Much like the idea of vibronic interactions we reported on two years ago, it turns out that plants have evolved their solar energy technology (proteins in photosynthesis) to work at the quantum level. By taking advantage of quantum physics, the plants can achieve amazing energy transport and capture. This is an excellent opportunity for us to practice biomimicry, if we could manufacture materials using the same principles it would open doors not only for solar energy, but also for quantum computing and technologies not yet imagined. Truly world changing science here. The editor's summary is free, but for a more in depth look visit your library for access to the journal. ::Nature...

It's spring, and you have choices: make last year's warm weather clothes work again, or go on a seasonal shopping spree. Alisha Trimble and Sarah Shears can help you with TreeHuggery ways of doing both. First, the duo will show you how to turn your played out fashions into today's looks with how-to sessions on Thursday, April 12, from 5-8pm. On Friday April 13 sip at a 7-8pm reception before catching the 8pm Premier Screening of "NY Fashion with Alisha," a new local access show featuring work of cutting edge emerging fashion designers, hosted by Alissa Smith and Alisha Trimble. Saturday, sip tea and nibble pastries while checking out Claire Stringer's art work from 1-7pm. Throughout all of the events, score ridiculous deals on Alisha's happy, re-fabuloused party dresses. It all goes down at Gitana Rosa Gallery, Williamsburg's "first green gallery." 15% of sales from the space go towards a revolving list of local and national environmental non-profits! ::Gitana Rosa, Alisha Trimble...

It's Vanity Fair, people. We could wax poetic about RFK Jr.'s two articles (one on the Bush administration's environmental decision-maker appointments, another on falconing) or E.O. Wilson's report on the state of the planet. Really, though, we don't get it for the articles. It's all about the activist porn. Page after page filled with rich renditions of "good fight" fighters, including TreeHugger's own green media super heroine Simran Sethi [See pic after the jump. -Ed.], and our friend Summer Rayne looking luscious in a Deborah Milner gown. Stay tuned for a more complex break-down. In the mean time, pick up a copy (Or look at it at the library! We know it's 2 lbs of paper!) and dog-ear your favorite exhibits of Green's staying power. ::Vanity Fair 2nd Annual Green Issue...

A view of the workshop as it appeared last December. In the summer, rainwater from the roof is diverted to the cistern. In the winter, the steeply-pitched roof sheds off excess snow. Building your own home is no small task. It takes time, money, thought, perseverance, and the management of people. It takes research in multiple areas—aesthetics, green engineering, construction techniques, etc. Before committing a year or more of your time, and a chunk of money (even if you are using your sweat-equity to cut down on the cost), it is best to find out what it is like to be a builder before taking the plunge. This can be done by constructing a small structure first. Even if you know you are ready to build your own green home, building a small structure will give you experience in working with the same materials that you will be using for the larger one. ...

We all need guidelines from time to time. Today’s column is the first of three in which I will outline a Plan B budget. Today’s budget examines poverty and population stabilization. For more details you can see Chapter 7 in Plan B 2.0: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble (free online). Many countries that have experienced rapid population growth for several decades are showing signs of demographic fatigue. Countries struggling with the simultaneous challenge of educating growing numbers of children, creating jobs for swelling ranks of young job seekers, and dealing with the environmental effects of population growth are stretched to the limit. When a major new threat arises—such as the HIV epidemic—governments often cannot cope. ...

Drive alone into a gated community in the suburbs, to park in a private, 2-car garage and hole up in a secret internet room. This is what our wealth has bought us, according to activist and author Bill McKibben: Ways to better seclude ourselves. In America, it's lonely being rich. Yet McKibben isn't preaching a simple "money won't bring you happiness" message (though that's a part of it). In his new book, Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future, McKibben is most concerned about our sense of self in a "hyper-individualized world," a world in which we've been conditioned to deprioritize personal connections with other human beings in the pursuit of individual success, monetary or otherwise. That's not to say we should all live in communes, in cramped, shared quarters. In fact, McKibben quickly points out that for some, money DOES buy happiness -- "right up to about $10,000 per capita income." If you're so poor that you're sleeping five to a tiny room, more money and the personal space that can buy may be just the thing to strive for. However, most of us reading TreeHugger (and those who can afford a copy of Deep Economy) face very much the opposite problem. We've bought ourselves too much personal space, too much individual time, too much loneliness. In fact, we've been conditioned to often think of others as "interruptions," impeding on our private space, time, and lofty ambitions....

For most of us, our experience with ecological footprint quizzes is limited to playful pages on the Internet that deliver mind-blowing results. (We’d need five planets to support life on Earth if everyone had my current lifestyle? Yikes!) But the science behind footprinting is painstaking and important stuff. And painstaking science needs lots of funding to achieve its goals. So it’s good news that Global Footprint Network, the non-profit organization that developed the Ecological Footprint tool, recently received the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship, a $1,015,000 award presented for three years. Founded by Susan Burns and Mathis Wackernagel, Global Footprint Network measures and compares human demands on Earth’s resources and the planet’s ability to meet these demands and uses this info to help individuals, communities, countries, businesses, and other organizations create sustainable economies. To date, GFN has 70 government, academic, and business partners, including the city of London, Wales, Switzerland, the European Commission, and Japan. Working with Sonoma County in California, GFN has helped the area commit to a 20 percent reduction in its CO2 emissions. GPT, a large real estate developer in Australia is working to reduce its footprint by 20–30 percent using the Ecological Footprint. The group says it will use the money to invest in core research and to add 15 new national and international government agencies to its group of partners. ...

With Earth Day fast approaching, TreeHugger has created a series of guides (all at a handy new site) full of quick, easy tips and tricks for helping our planet in preparation for the big day. We've mentioned ways to save energy at home before; today we'll take a peek at some of the ways that solar gadgets can help you cut back on electricity use. 1) The Eclipse Solar Gear Hybrid Notebook Case offers the ability to charge laptop computers, something we haven't seen before in solar chargers. 2) If gaming is your thing, check out the Solar Wii hack that lets you go outside and play. 3) Incorporating a little solar into your home is easy and not as cost-prohibitive as outfitting the whole place with panels; this $600 kit will help you take one room off the grid, for example. 4) Solar chargers, from the sleek Solio to this more powerful, folding model will help keep your cell phone, iPod, PDA and other hand-held electronics juiced up without plugging them in. 5) Solar bags like the Voltaic backpack and Solarstyle mini messenger bag give you on-the-go charging with room to keep your gear after it's charged. Check out TreeHugger's How to Green Your Electronics and How to Green Your Electricity for more, and stay tuned for more Earth Day tips!...

One of the most well-known faces in US conservatism, and a possible Republican nominee for president in 2008, called yesterday for conservatives to take action against global warming. In a debate yesterday in Washington D.C. with former Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry, Newt Gingrich retracted his earlier skepticism on global warming and carbon emissions. Gingrich called on his party to step up their efforts and, in politico-speak, apologized for prior inaction, "I'm not going to stand up here and defend our failure to lead." Could this be the start of bi-partisan co-operation on the issue? We sure hope so. :: Boston Globe ...

Chains-Bed . 200x250x280 cm. What is research recycling you may be asking - Stefan Lehner from En-Fer Atelier in the Netherlands designs strangely interesting and beautiful objects using the process of research recycling. He explains that he makes use of objects in new ways but keeps the former function for the new object, thus not only are the raw materials recycled but also development, technologies and knowledge. Stefan obviously loves what he does, and his work employs not only ingenuity but humour too. check out more images of his wonderfully industrial and witty designs after the jump....

If watching the Oscar-winning film An Inconvenient Truth, or reading the book, left you wanting more, a couple of other ways to enjoy former Vice President Al Gore's message of urgency and hope are now available. First, Groovy Green alerts us to a full transcript of the film published online. Writer Michael d'Estries notes

...this is the first time I’ve found a transcript of the film to enjoy. I say “enjoy” truthfully because reading this transcript after watching the film allows for a greater appreciation of the immense scope of knowledge presented over the course of 90 minutes. Didn’t quite follow a certain part of the film and would like to review it? Looking for an exact quote from the film to use against/in support of Gore? It’s all right here.

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If you signed Al Gore’s petition that he brought forward to congress, you’re probably on his email list. And if you’re on his email list, you probably received the news yesterday that Live Earth tickets go on sale this coming Monday, April 16th. The global concert will begin in Sydney on 7/7/07 and will continue across all 7 continents, concluding with a show in the U.S. Also announced yesterday were 16 headliners for the U.S. leg which will take place at Giants Stadium in New Jersey, including: AFI, Akon, Alicia Keys, Bon Jovi, Dave Matthews Band, Fall Out Boy, John Mayer, Kanye West, Kelly Clarkson, KT Tunstall, Ludacris, Melissa Ethridge, Rihanna, Roger Waters, Smashing Pumpkins and The Police. Earlier in the day yesterday, the artists to perform at the London leg of Live Earth, to be held at Wembley Stadium, were also announced, including: Beastie Boys, Black Eyed Peas, Bloc Party, Corinne Bailey Rae, Damien Rice, David Gray, Duran Duran, Foo Fighters, Genesis, James Blunt, John Legend, Keane, Madonna, Paolo Nutini, Razorlight, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Snow Patrol. "We hope the energy created by Live Earth will jump start a massive public education effort,” Gore said. "Live Earth will help us reach a tipping point that's needed to move corporations and governments to take decisive action to solve the climate crisis.” ::Live Earth ...

While the Bush administration has dropped geothermal energy like a hot potato (to the chagrin of American environmentalists), China’s program is picking up steam. Last week, TIME Magazine reported on an “ancient Chinese city [that] might just have the geothermal resources to become the Reykjavik of the East.” (What is geothermal energy? Primer here.) Xianyang, not far from Xian and its famed terracotta warriors, is a regular coal burning bad air nightmare. But it’s now poised for a major change. Designated as “China’s official geothermal city,” in December Xianyang saw completion of the first phase of a massive geothermal heating project. The project is being undertaken by Shaanxi Green Energy, a private sector Chinese-Icelandic/Nordic joint venture. If all goes well, the company’s geothermal-powered heating system will be the biggest in the world, and Xianyang’s air will be a heck of a lot cleaner. As Asgeir Margeirsson of the Icelandic/Nordic side of the JV puts it, “Every day that we utilize geothermal energy instead of burning coal is a good day.”...

Iraq's Mesopotamian marshes once covered more than 15,000 square kilometers, but Saddam Hussein drained them in the 90's. Only 10% of the area remained intact by 2000. After the fall of Baghdad, US scientists found that the marshes were re-flooding, but just how much the area will recover is unknown. It's already clear that there will not be enough water to restore the entire region, and that not all of the native species will return to their former numbers. The flooding was largely due to local farmers blowing up dikes and dams after Hussein's regime ended, and by early 2004, nearly 20% of the drained marshes had been restored. Unfortunately this rapid and uncoordinated flooding has been leeching chemicals into the marshes, causing further damage. Unfortunately, Iraq is currently in a state where conservation is not a top priority, and the region is suffering because of it, the same was true of the oil fires started by retreating soldiers. War is bad news for eveyone, human or otherwise. ::RedOrbit...

Baked ones, that is! They're asking people across the country to hold individual bake sales to help save the whales; and in fact, if you register now they'll even send you a free "Bake Sale to Save The Whales" kit to help make it all happen. The kit includes how-to’s, recipes, fact sheets, petitions, and whale-shaped cookie cutters... They're asking people to focus the events on either the 28th or 29th of this month to have maximum impact on the current administrations stance on whaling policy negotiations through a coordinated weekend of national action. And while the main purpose of the bake sales is to make phone calls, get petition signatures, and generate hand-written letters to the current administration, they also want to raise money for the Greenpeace campaign to save whales. And so they're quick to point out that if it's not possible to get involved on either of those days, somewhere close would be great too.. Which may be a great opportunity for schools to turn an average bake sale into something more educational. Let's face it, while kids probably won't get excited about writing to "The Prez", the truth is that they do get excited about a bake sale; and many of them would probably enjoy a different take on it this late in the school year, especially if they've seen a few already. So why not turn your garden-variety school fundraiser into something that can help educate kids and save the whales at the same time? It could be a great way to make a difference this Spring! See also: ::Mexican Government Protects San Ignacio Lagoon Whales Nursery, ::Hundreds of Volunteers Save Beached Whales in Australia, ::Blue Whale Nursery in Patagonia's Golfo Corcovado, ::Japanese Whaling Under Fire...

A data center is a facility used for housing a large amount of electronic equipment, typically computers and other communications gear. Although they vary in size, a big tech company (a Microsoft, a Google) might have well over 100,000 computers in a single location. Obviously, with all those machines in one place, they use a lot of power. And as the demand for power increases, companies are now on a worldwide seek to find the cheapest, most sustainable supply of go-juice to run their operations. Not surprisingly, there aren't a lot of places left in the world that have enough surplus energy to run an extra 100,000 computers. Iceland, with its massive amount of clean, geothermal power, has recently popped up as a potential candidate and both Cisco and Microsoft are investigating the possibility of establishing server farms in the Land of Fire and Ice. Otherwise, options are limited - forget about running a data center anywhere in the UK, energy is far too expensive there. And Manhattan is out, as there is literally no more room on the roofs for cooling. Sioux Falls, South Dakota might be an option, or maybe Winston-Salem, North Carolina - oops, Google already took that last one....

The furniture and interiors TreeHugger often encounters that offer sleek, modern designs combined with green materials also often comes with a big price tag. This can be discouraging for those of us who want to live green and look good, too; for some, it also perpetuates the stereotype that green stuff is astronomically expensive, which is not always the case. In any event, custom furniture company Viesso seems to have found a good balance: all of their products, including chairs, sofas, tables, beds, benches, accessories and more, are customizable, and each different option (upholstery, cushions, frame, etc.) has several green choices, allowing customers to be as green as they want to. They use fabric and textiles from Maharam and Knoll, natural latex or feather/down filling instead of polyurethane for cushions and wood certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). While it's true that these green options do come at a bit of a premium, this TreeHugger was able to put together a pretty bad-ass looking 96" sofa for about $2300, which is a reasonable deal for a big piece of custom furniture, green or otherwise. Viesso is thinking about going 100% green, but, in the meantime, we're glad to see that they offer the option for those of us who care. Each piece, customizable right on their website, usually takes about three weeks to ship after your custom design is submitted; those in need of instant gratification can cruise their selection of floor models. ::Viesso via ::Design Milk...

We had so much fun last year with these commercials from the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Exxon-funded "free-market think tank" that produces the CO2: We Call it Life" ads. Well we won't have them to kick around anymore; Exxon cut their funding and their president, Red Smith, "sounded like a cornered man" when he spoke before the Senate Committee on Environment last month. According to the Australian, he said: Like a boy forced to apologise for pulling his sister's hair, he ceded grudgingly: "I am happy, for the purposes of this discussion, to accept all the scientific arguments behind their proposals." Hence, he sniffed, "attempts to allege climate denialism in response to my points are ad hominem attacks not worthy of consideration". It's getting hard out there for a global-warming sceptic. via ::Desmogblog Up in Canada, Financial Post humourist Terrence Corcoran has given up on his denier parodies and come out strongly in the camp of Fidel Castro and Alternet against ethanol subsidies. "In the United States and Canada, governments are manipulating the market, issuing mandatory ethanol requirements and subsidizing plant construction and corn production....the great ethanol ripoff is also now playing havoc with the global food system, upsetting prices, production systems and supply chains." As Victor Lazzlo said to Rick: "Welcome back to the fight. This time I know our side will win." ::Financial Post ...

For those whiners who still think compact fluorescents are not good enough for them, perhaps you just don't have the right bulb, or perhaps its all in your head. Popular Mechanics Magazine tested seven CFLs against a 75 watt incandescent for the usual brightness and efficiency, but also did subjective quality testing. "Our subjective data came from a double-blind test with three PM staffers and Jesse Smith, a lighting expert from Parsons The New School for Design, in Manhattan. We put our participants in a color-neutral room and asked them to examine colorful objects, faces and reading material, then rate the bulbs’ performance." The results were surprising; in a blind controlled test, "Even though the incandescent bulb measured slightly brighter than the equivalent CFLs, our subjects didn’t see any dramatic difference in brightness. And here was the real shocker: When it came to the overall quality of the light, all the CFLs scored higher than our incandescent control bulb. In other words, the new fluorescent bulbs aren’t just better for both your wallet and the environment, they produce better light." Read the whole thing by the light of your CFL at ::Popular Mechanics, via ::Groovy Green...

We first learned of Boyarsky Murphy Architects through the amazing conversion of a Wren church spire into an eleven storey flat. They certainly have a knack for tight spaces, for we now learn of their development of a house with only ten feet of frontage, on the site of a former wine vault for a pub next door. It widens out at the rear to 20 feet wide but is still a remakable job of squeezing a lot of living into a tiny space. Tony McIntire of BDonline says that upon entering "The room feels bigger than the small introduction would suggest, and bigger still because the terrace ends not with a panorama, but with a brick wall. You get the benefit of light without the dreariness of gazing out at a particularly vile 1930s apartment building and the container yard of Portakabins that is the back of the local school." and "the house’s steady dedication to getting the job done throws off a rather delightful wake in the form of highly contrasting spatial values, expressed in light and volume alone." ::bdonline Pictures by Hélène Binet...

International Automated Systems, Inc., IAUS , has announced that its "newly developed solar technology costs less now than the World Government's goal for solar power cost per kilowatt by the year 2020. IAUS's unique thin-film solar panels can be manufactured at a fraction of the cost of today's photovoltaic solar panels. IAUS has successfully finished its first high-volume production run." Lucite International just signed a supply agreement with IAUS, indicating that the lens materials will be acrylic. For a description of acrylic sheet polymer properties look here. From the IAUS website:- "It operates on heat and produces heat as a byproduct. This energy can be stored using a chemical regeneration process held in a continuous cycle. This chemical, in turn, is then used to create steam when there is no sun. This unique added process costs significantly less than batteries; so much so, that it offers a reasonable answer to 24/7 solar power." Image credit:- IAUS...

Via the Baltimore Sun:- "A bill to reduce environmental reviews required of wind turbine proposals in Maryland has breezed through the General Assembly, a move lauded by industry leaders pushing for renewable forms of energy in the state. The House of Delegates and Senate passed identical versions of the bill by overwhelming margins Friday. Gov. Martin O'Malley is reviewing the proposed legislation and is inclined to sign it into law, his spokesman, Rick Abbruzzese, said yesterday...Advocates for wind power believe a less cumbersome permit process could jump-start nascent efforts in Western Maryland to build the state's first gust-driven turbines, which are slated to rise to heights of 400 feet across cleared forest." In the interest of preserving Chesapeake Bay vistas, the bill would not ease the permit process for offshore turbines (as pictured), excluding a proposed 600-megawatt offshore wind park -- the biggest such proposed project yet unveiled in the United States . Of course, some tree hugger types are opposing the newly passed bill, "arguing that pollution-free wind turbines will be unsightly and likely harm some of the state's most endangered species." While underlying issue of who gets to participate in major land use decisions is key; so is climate change. Let's see: land use control in a democracy vs climate catastrophe? Hmmm. This debate is likely go on for some time...and spread. Image credit:- Bluewater Wind....

Next time you’re coming in to land in a jet plane, you may find its engines are set to idle. This isn’t as scary as it first sounds, and according to a report in The Age newspaper it is being trialed on commercial jumbos at Auckland International Airport as a method for reducing fuel consumption. According to Lee Jenkins, of Airways New Zealand, the idea of gliding approaches has been around for some time, but has been hindered by the conflicting demands of air traffic control and airport efficiency:

"A key component in this equation is fuel. The airlines have plenty of detail on how their aircraft need to fly in order to burn the minimum amount of fuel, especially on the arrival segment, but traditionally this has been balanced by an air traffic control imperative, driven primarily by on-time performance and runway capacity."

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Yesterday, Mayor Bloomberg released the first comprehensive inventory of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in New York City’s history. The inventory will serve as the benchmark for reducing the City’s GHG emissions by 30% between now and 2030, a target the Mayor established during a speech last December. The inventory release will be followed by a policy speech later this month that will detail specific reduction plans. The analysis found that citywide GHG emissions were approximately 58 million metric tons in 2005, roughly 1% of the nation’s totals. According to the inventory, buildings account for 79% of the City’s emissions. In addition, citywide emissions were reported to have increased by approximately 8% in the last ten years, and are projected to increase by 25% above 2005 levels by 2030. Although GHG emissions have increased in recent years, an estimated 446,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide have been avoided annually through: energy efficiency projects, alternative fuel vehicles, landfill methane recovery, and the conversion of traffic signals to LEDs....

Britain’s retailers and supermarkets have been responding with great speed to their customers’ demands for organic and fair-trade clothing and foods. But the comparable provenance of restaurant food has been ignored so far. Except for the much-lauded few such as Acorn House, the Duke of Cambridge Organic Pub and Konstam, the majority have not made much effort to develop sustainable and environmentally friendly business practices. Which is odd, considering that UK consumers spend more money on eating out than on buying food to make at home. And they are obsessed with labels showing where the food is flown from, produced, grown and under what conditions. A new group, Ethical Eats, has been started to bring restaurateurs together to discuss how they can become more sustainable and at the same time let customers know that they are working hard to do this. Some of the members of the group have already made in-roads: Leon is a little chain that has organic foods on the menu, tries to get 70% of its ingredients from the UK and serves free range chicken. Moshi Moshi, a sushi chain, gets almost half their fish directly from fishermen in south-west England. Everyone acknowledges that there is much more that could be done. A standard logo could be displayed by restaurants that use sustainable practices. These could include recycling, using environmentally friendly packaging, and reducing food transport distances. But it is hard for small restaurants that can’t afford organic and don’t have the time to do all the research. So far they have discussed sustainable fish with Greenpeace and the Marine Stewardship Council. Next meeting is a chance to meet the local producers. :: Ethical Eats Via :: Financial Times...

Douglas Coupland: “Canada Picture No. 3”, 2001. Chromogenic print, size: 46.5 x 57 inches. The Art of Nature Exhibition and Sale of Canadian art inspired by the natural world is part of the Green Living Show in Toronto starting April 27. Including living artists like Edward Burtynsky , Douglas Coupland, and Charlie Pachter as well as Harold Town and Arthur Lismer, a broad range of Canada's best artists' works are for sale, with proceeds to: Environmental Defence,Nature Conservancy of Canada, Ontario Nature,Toronto and Region Conservation Authority and WWF. (World Wildlife Fund Canada) Buy online at ::Art of Nature ...

The date marked in red in everyone's design calendars is fast approaching. The annual Salone del Mobile in Milan starts next week on April 18th. All the cutting edge design world's most influential and powerful will be showing off their wares. Though, enormous and impressive as this international event is, it isn't always the most inspiring for us designer TreeHuggers; searching for needles in hay stacks would be more rewarding! But there are always little gems to be found, if you look hard enough. One of our top recommendations for this year's Salone is the Italian design company Sofar Sonear who will be opening up their first showroom in Milan for the furniture fair. After their success showing at 100% Design in London last year and in Paris earlier this year, Sofar Sonear are now taking their growing collection of sustainably produced high end fabrics, rugs and furniture to a more permanent home. You can visit their new showroom from 18th April at Via Solferino 24, Milano. :: Sofar Sonear...

In an extremely bizarre and ironic twist, fake cities in the popular massively multiplayer game Second Life were submerged by Adventure Ecology to remind folks that there's a real world outside their doors and if Second Life's server farms get flooded, their avatar could face a premature demise. Creating the floods, which covered London, Tokyo and the Netherlands was no simple task. Cities in Second Life are owned by individual players, sometimes hundreds of them, and getting everyone to agree to a date and time for the flood was on par with some of the biggest Step it Up events. Apparently, the Second Lifers took the floods in stride. A few pub-goers just converted their tables to boats and kept drinking their pints, though the topic of conversation had shifted...to global warming. ::Hugg and ::Inhabitat...

You don't necessarily hear "London" and think "culinary extravaganza." Imagine how surprising it was to find the food as engrossing as the fashion during February's London Fashion week (and we don't just mean potato chips). After sampling as many TreeHugger-recommended restaurants as possible, locally-focused Canteen, with all its ingredients sourced from England, and Konstam, which gathers everything from a 100-mile radius, stood out. How could we not draw connections between delectable slow food, and the slow fashion buzz inside the tents? ...

Stephen Colbert thought No Impact Man was challenging the American way of life.

"You can't strangle a seabird these days without hearing from the reduce, re-use and recycle brigade! Meanwhile, this New York family, the Beavans are five months into a year long experiment. No toilet paper! No incandescent bulbs! No disposable razors! Planes, trains, automobiles or elevators or shopping for anything new! Its like Gilligan's Island only completely implausible!

However in the end No Impact Man aka Colin Beavan held up quite well. Entertaining TV at ::The Colbert Report ...

Peak oil will arrive at some point in the future, and we will all have to live with the consequences. What we don't know is when it will happen. One forward looking town in Wales has decided not to sit back and wait for the inevitable, but to be proactive and start planning. Lampeter, in rural Wales, held a meeting last week to plan their 'energy descent', and to start designing an infrastructure that will allow them to start giving up their oil-habit. The meeting was led by Rob Hopkins, the coordinator of the Transition Town movement. This is an organisation that helps towns to arrange for life after oil. There are 20 or so other towns that have signed up, and they have developed various strategies, helped by advice and governance from people like Hopkins. This kind of realistic approach is commendable. Burying our heads in the sand will only make our problems worse. If we run out of oil before we've developed the infrastucture to replace it, then our only alternative in the short term will be energy sources like coal. These are even worse than oil, and will only serve to speed up our decline. The only logical solution is to awknoledge peak oil, no matter how far away it may be, and to plan for it....

Swim for your (second) life! Climate change inundates London, the Netherlands, and Ibiza in the virtual realm… LiveGreen goes deep inside New Belgium Brewery, the Fat Tire beer geniuses… Greenpeace releases its new guide to green electronics, puts Apple in the red… In Wales, a small town decides it’s time to plan its “energy descent…” Global warming tops Yahoo’s search list, even beating prom dresses and how to tie a tie… Most Huggable is a daily roundup of some of the most tantalizing stories from Hugg.com, TreeHugger’s user-generated green news site. Why not submit your own green news? ...

Question: We recently purchased a condo in the Boston area (Somerville, to be specific), and after a winter heated by the existing (gas-fired) forced air heating system we're thinking about looking at alternatives to augment our heating system and hopefully simultaneously reduce costs. [More after the jump.]...

In December last year, a company called Spectrolab has achieved a new world record in solar cell efficiency. By using concentrated sunlight, Spectrolab demonstrated the ability of a photovoltaic cell to convert 40.7% of the sun’s energy into electricity. By contrast, regular solar cells are 12 - 20% efficient. Multijunction solar cells are credited with helping scientists gather much more data than expected on Mars by dramatically extending the extraterrestrial lifetimes of the Spirit and Opportunity space rovers. But they were initially designed for earthbound applications. After proving themselves in space, the high-efficiency cells are finally becoming cost-effective for generating renewable energy back on Earth....

Cosmetics label CARGO has created a new line of botanical lipsticks, exclusive to Sephora. Called PlantLove, the lipsticks have compostable tubes made from corn, a renewable resource. (Some finger-wagging persists around corn-based plastic and fibers, however, because of the use of genetically modified crops.) The paper packaging is infused with flower seeds, so you can plant and water it to sprout a "bouquet of wild flowers," maybe harbor a bee or two....

The National Trust in the UK have come out and said that more should be done to protect the countries peat bogs. Peat bogs store carbon, and if they are allowed to dry out then they relinquish that carbon back into the atmoshpere. All the bogs in England store carbon totalling 20 years' worth of industrial emissions, but some of these bogs are now drying out. According to the BBC website, peat stores twice as much carbon as forrests globally....

Arnold Schwarzenegger is to talk at the Conservative Party conference in the UK, giving a keynote address on climate change. David Cameron, the tory party leader, said; "Governor Schwarzenegger led a dramatic revival of his party's fortunes in California and as governor he has shown tremendous leadership - above all in pioneering measures to protect the environment, reaching out to political opponents in doing so." Although the Governator has made some positive changes since taking position in California, he is still a contraversial figure, being the first commercial customer to purchase a Hummer. He has since bought several more, and has converted one to run on hydrogen. Whether he is a positive or negative force for climate change is not clear, but it will certainly be one of the more interesting tory party conferences in recent years. It's just a shame that flying someone as huge as the Governator uses so much more energy than transporting your average politician....

One of the richest hotbeds of diversity on the planet, coral reefs are also among the most vulnerable to climate change. Spikes of as little as 1 degree Celsius in sea-surface temperatures can kill off the symbiotic algae responsible for the color and nutrition of coral, resulting in a white or "bleached" appearance. And while coral can recover from bleaching if temperature aberrations resolve themselves in less than a month, the stress from sustained high temperatures can cause irreversible physiological damage, along with infections by pathogens that take advantage of the corals' compromised immunity. But although warm temperatures occurring worldwide as a result of global warming is driving fatal epidemics in coral reefs across the globe, some corals, like the Caribbean gorgonian sea fan, aren't taking this lying down (so to speak)....

As Sami noted earlier today, sometimes it’s hard to be a TreeHugger. We worry. We hope. We try to minimize our impact. And then Earth Day comes along and gives us the opportunity to relax, enjoy and celebrate how marvelous our planet really is! The first Earth Day, in 1970, brought 20 million Americans out into the spring sunshine for peaceful demonstrations in favor of environmental reform. This year, many Americans will gather outdoors to enjoy free outdoor concerts in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo and New York’s Central Park on Earth Day hosted by The Green Apple Music & Arts Festival. In addition, the festival includes over 200 performances in New York, Chicago and San Francisco over Earth Day weekend. From April 20th to 22nd music venues across the country will come together to cultivate awareness of environmental issues through the unifying voice of music. For a complete schedule of performances and venues check out the Festival website. Expected to be the biggest Earth Day celebration in the nation, the line-ups are extraordinary. San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park will come alive with performances by legendary Grateful Dead vocalist Bob Weir and his band Ratdog, Stephen Marley, The Greyboy All-Stars, SF native Samantha Stollenwerck and top singer/songwriter Martin Sexton. Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo will present performances by The Blisters, featuring Sam and Spencer, the children of Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, Ella Jenkins, dubbed “the first lady of children’s music”, acclaimed dub producer, Mad Professor, the talented kids from Paul Green’s School of Rock, Todd Park Mohr of Big Head Todd, electronica favorites the Disco Biscuits, and home-town headliners Umphrey’s McGee. More below the fold......

The simple act of planting a tree can mean many things to many people: It can be considered a symbol of new birth and life, a natural form of art, possibly another chore around the house, and even to some just part of another landscaping job that helps pay the bills. But to a child the simple act of planting a tree can serve as maybe the first chance they'll get to care for something in the natural world that will one day grow to be taller than they are, and may well last throughout their lifetime. I think that sends a powerful message to them about their role in protecting the planet, and even our civilization. And while providing a great chance for parents and grandparents to spend some quality time with their children and grandchildren, it also provides them with the opportunity to talk about the need for clean air, providing natural habitats for local wildlife, and even the fact that trees can help store carbon to slow down global warming. Not sure how much your kids think about global warming and the environment? I'm betting a lot more than you imagine, because according to a survey done recently in the UK children named global warming and the environment as two of the top things that keep them up at night. And while I'm certain the media coverage of the issue has much to do with that, kids don't want to sit and wait for the talking heads to finish arguing minutiae... Instead they want to get things moving in a positive direction today. To be honest, I've found the kids in my school to be very much aware that their future is at stake, and that we must change the path we are on to protect it. So this time of year when it's Spring, it's Earth Day, and in most states it's also Arbor Day; you might want to consider planting a tree with a child. It's a memory that will last a lifetime for both of you, and will help ensure a brighter tomorrow for all of us......

The environmental impact of Microsoft's Vista operating system will be large; it is projected that over 10 million PCs will be scrapped as a direct result of upgrading to Vista, and the UK Green Party thinks it will create a Vista upgrade layer that will be identifiable by archaeologists. So, based on this and the limited additional functionality the OS provides, this TH is not changing to Vista any time soon. But there's more - turns out that some systems that are advertised as "Vista capable" (with the sticker) are in fact not capable of properly running Vista. A class is now suing Microsoft over this, alleging that the marketing around Vista was designed to deliberately mislead potential customers. Microsoft has already changed their stance, citing that a 'Vista capable' machine might not be able to run all of the versions (at least five) of Vista out there. If you leaf through almost any PC catalog, you will discover that Vista is almost the sole choice for new PC systems. I don't know about you, but as Robert Cringely points out, you might find it maddening when you buy a system with a 'Vista Capable' sticker on it then discover your graphics or sound card won't work because the driver is not ready, or that it won't run the version with the 'cool' Aero interface. And when you consider that it took 1800 pounds of raw materials to make that computer, one must wonder what the environmental benefits are of vending systems that are obsolete as soon as they are off the shelf....

TreeHugger's Earth Day Guide is now in full swing; there you'll find quick, easy ideas and tips for making your lifestyle a little greener in celebration of the upcoming Earth Day (Sunday, April 22). We've already taken a look at ways to save water in the shower and save water when you flush, so today we'll take a peek at what it takes to save water when you clean your dishes and your clothes. 1) When it comes to dishes, the dishwasher is the more water, energy and soap-efficient way to go. 2) Some TreeHugger-friendly dishwasher-use tips include using the "light" cycle, running it only when full and consulting with Energy Star before purchasing a new one. 3) The GE Profile SmartDispense dishwasher uses only as much soap as it needs, uses less water while maintaining water velocity and pressure; if all Americans used one of these puppies, over 15.5 billion gallons of water a year would be saved -- enough to fill more than 20,000 Olympic-sized pools. 4) For machine-washing your clothes without dirtying the environment, we like LG's steam machine that uses 35% less water, Bosch's Nexxt Washer that sips on just 13 gallons of water per load, and Sanyo's Aqua, that doesn't use water at all. 5) Looking for a new, more-efficient washer? Read our green appliance comparison shopping tips before heading to the store. 6) Check out the WonderWash for an electricity-free alternative to cleaning your clothes. 7) When it comes to drying, it's best to stay away from tumble drying with a clothes line or drying rack; an idea that works great in tandem with something like the Portable Spin Dryer, which uses far less energy than a tumbler and helps get your clothes nearly dry in just a few minutes. 8) Peer into TreeHugger's crystal ball to check out the Washman, a washer/dryer combo that could be the future of laundry. Check out TreeHugger's How to Green Your Water for more tips on saving a little H2O, and stay tuned for more Earth Day tips....

Mariana Betting Ferrarezi and Roberto Hercowitz are the Brazilian designers behind EM2, a firm born in Barcelona and now based in Rio de Janeiro focused in design-solutions for users and companies that include eco-friendly commodities and processes. The design studio emerged in Barcelona more than three years ago, and has had exhibitions in Madrid, Pamplona and Berlin. After four years in Spain, they returned to Brazil last year and since then they’re developed furniture and objects in partnerships with companies like Habitart and Schuster. “We believe in the investigation and development of ecologically correct materials, as well as technology utilization that privileges and respects the environment”, says Hercowitz. The designs shown above are the ‘X’ chair, from certified wood and bonded leather; the ‘Tube’ puff and chair, from recycled cardboard tubes; and the ‘Aiue’ table, from recovered paper and metal. Their website is a little out of date, but shows their designs. Their actual address is R. Prudente de Moraes, 1.441, 301, Ipanema, Rio de Janeiro (21 – 2259 3720). Brazilian designers have always stood out in what comes to eco design: check out our other posts on Brazil by tag or via Google search. ::EM2 Design ::Habitart ::Schuster Thanks Bonnie for the tip! (Additional info via Taste) ...

When Justin posted a biofuel powered hummer the comments weren't pretty. "There's nothing "alternative" in buying uselessly impractical big and/or overly powerful vehicles." The discussion on our Toyota Tundra post about the right of Americans to drive whatever they want continues. AutoNation, America's biggest car dealer, reports that cup holders and audio systems are still more important to consumers than fuel efficiency. David Olive of the Star says "it is too easy to heap scorn on the automakers for failing to embrace the 20'th century. Pogo was right- the enemy is us." The president of Ford said at the Auto Show: "the cars you see here today are what the customers want. The Customers are going to decide, not Ford."

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Financial Times has a two-sentence briefing story on its front page of today which ID's a chainsaw killer that happens to fit the description of many other such culprits. (In other words we don't mean to single out only one company by this example.) Per the story:- "HSBC's annual report has ballooned to such an unwieldy size that the Royal Mail - the UK postal service - has had to limit the number its postmen carry in order to prevent back injuries, the bank said." Said to weigh 1.47 Kg, the massive report is attributable to new and extensive corporate reporting regulations. Whoa..are social and environmental performance reporting requirements part of the problem? We don't know and since no such report is available...no please don't send one!...we are left to speculation. Might be many factors in combination. But the solution is clearly at hand for every publicly held firm, in the form of the Adobe Acrobat Reader and digital "watermarked" portable document format (pdf). For you non-computer savy accountants and corporate investor relations departments here's how it works. You print a nice executive summary to mail out. Pretty graphics: fine. Recipients are referred to an on-line digital version. Embedded into the online summary report narrative are these things called hypertext "links" that "jump" the reader to the appendix tables or graphics being referenced and then back to the summary. And, if the reader were more comfortable with a full hard copy he/she could request one be mailed while online. Perhaps the regulations don't allow for the hard copy-digital hybrid, in which case we think it might be fine then to lobby to fix the system. Image credit: San Diego Union Tribute (by sign up only)....

On the way to hear Patrick McDonough from The Village Project talk last week, this Treehugger got in to a good-natured, but relatively detailed debate with a colleague of his about pedestrian cross-walks. His colleague, a fellow eco-obsessive, made the argument that by using cross-walks you force cars to slow down, and therefore they end up burning more gas. This author’s counter-argument, on the other hand, was that by asserting your rights, you ultimately create a culture that is more pedestrian-friendly than it would otherwise be, and you are therefore facilitating the transition to a greener future. Of course, if everyone is driving hybrids this is further enhanced, as the energy lost in breaking is recaptured for later use, so perhaps you should keep an eye out for the nearest Prius before crossing. But wait! If you wait to cross until a hybrid comes along, are you inconveniencing someone who has made a more ecologically conscious decision, and therefore discouraging folks from doing the right thing? Arrrgggh… Ultimately, we both conceded it was a pretty minor concern in the huge array of environmental challenges facing us, but it did lead us to discussing the weird and wonderful obsessions that we greenies sometimes have. So, fellow Treehuggers, don’t be shy. Why not share your favorite eco-geek musings, or maybe you’d like to shed some light on the great cross-walk debate? Either way, you know where the comments box is… ...

Amy Winehouse is a potato and a winner. O.k., so she's a bit of a drunk too... She came first in the Starchy Gallery's Potato Day competition. Second prize was Mr. T and then there was Bob Marley, Botticelli's Birth of Venus, Britney, Helen Mirren, Dolly and the madness continues on. Held in January, Potato Day celebrates the range and diversity of British potatoes--over 100 varieties in all their glory. As part of the festivities, there was a contest for best-dressed celebrity potato. The top three winning entries are decided by public vote and all the entrants are displayed in the Starchy Gallery--a window in a local art gallery. It's a bit of a comment on the nature of today's celebrity culture as well as an exercise in democracy and, when the chips are down, a place to look for a giggle. :: The Starchy Gallery...

Of course we will see more of this. In the Fraser Valley in British Columbia, which often suffers from air quality problems, greenhouse operators have switched from natural gas for heat to coal, giving new meaning to the phrase "greenhouse gases." The BC Environment Minister, who happens to be the Member of Parliament for the area, is not happy. Mary-Margaret Gaye, executive director of the B.C. Greenhouse Growers’ Association, says natural gas was the ideal fuel environmentally when it was priced right, Gaye says, but new technology can make burning the cheaper wood or coal just as good. “With the new technology that’s available now ... you can get (emissions) down to the same as natural gas,” she says. But then they are just worried about local particulate pollution, not GHG. No doubt the products from the greenhouses are being snapped up in Vancouver as local food. ::Hope Standard...

Notebooks are great but it is hard to keep them cool when there is so little room to move the air around. While Intel and AMD giveth by making cooler, more efficient chips, the video card makers take away by trying to keep up with graphic-intensive software and games, and the manufacturers want to keep making them lighter and thinner. One alternative is to use heat conductive materials for the case, to radiate the heat away. NEC has developed a bioplastic from kenaf that we talked about here and here. What's new is that they have figured out how to give it heat conductivity better than stainless steel, so you now not only compute with your laptop, you can fry eggs on it. Fortunately they have also figured out how to make it fire-resistant with non-toxic fire retardants. And keep you warm and toasty. Remember, men, A study by State University of New York researchers says heat generated from laptops can significantly elevate the temperature of the scrotum, potentially putting sperm count at risk. (Wikipedia) ::Reuters and ::Slashgear and ::Ubergizmo ...

There was a hot and heavy discussion over the use of insulated concrete forms a while back, where I said "with rare exceptions all foundation technologies are pretty gross, primitive and invasive and few systems tread lightly on the landscape." and the consensus of readers was "give me a break." But in fact there are lots of different ways to build that do not require such a massive intervention and disruption of our landscape. For centuries people living near water or in hot climates have built their homes on stilts, like the house in Fort Myers, Florida shown above. Stilts keep you above the flood, above the bugs, and can catch the wind. Kieran Timberlake did a lovely job with them in the Loblolly house for exactly that reason: keep above the flood plain and minimize disruption of the terrain. ...

Sometime ago... a mouse hair's breadth on the scale of climate history... we posted on the topic of whether nuclear power was a sustainable solution to the climate crisis. Short answer: no...not for the centuries it must suffice. Most recognize that building or upgrading nuclear generators is a hugely expensive proposition [think on how many wind farms could be built for the money]. Many know that it takes 10+ years to design, site, and build a nuclear generation plant, and that liability insurance is only affordable if the government underwrites it (unlike any renewable source of electricity). There's always the elephant-in-the-closet issue of rad-waste management. Hold that mayhem, though, because we think plans for using nuclear power to meet the climate challenge will be tested more strongly by other matters. One key vulnerability is cooling water consumption, which would put nuclear power on a collision course with the realities of Roasted World. ...

Since nobody seemed to like my Want/Need glass, as penance I offer the Protect Our Earth glass, each one sawn off the bottom of a bordeaux wine bottle that was "rescued" on the way to the landfill. "Each glass represents a second chance for these bottles to be useful, beautiful objects. The distinct design carries 'Protect Our Earth' in 4 languages: English, Spanish, Afrikaans (South African) and French. The branch patterns are also etched instead of printed with inks, further making these drinking glasses as sustainable as they are beautiful. Perfect for casual outdoor dining or recreating summer warmth indoors during the colder months." Forty Bucks for four at ::Uncommon Goods via ::Product Dose ...

Fellow blogger Geoff Manaugh at BLDG BLOG picked up on a curious phenomenon, the increasingly common brush fires around Los Angeles. So common in the U.S. Southwest these days that the locals don't give it a second thought. According to the latest computer models and reports from the IPCC the drought that has gripped the Southwest for seven years is not a temporary phenomenon- but the new climate pattern. Decreasing precipitation in the subtropics will continue to leave the ground dry, highly susceptible to fires, and could decrease crop yields by as much as 50%. Devastating water shortages are expected. Are we ready for the dry years to come?...

We mentioned Recyclicity before on TreeHugger but it’s about time we give these Dutch promoters of the re-use of waste a little more credit. Rotterdam based Recyclicity is an initiative of the 2012Architects who also founded Superuse, the online pin board of inventive ways to recycle. Fed up with the traditional way of recycling by sorting and chopping up waste into little pieces which often looses the identity and quality of the material and involves a high energy consumption, Recyclicity, whose focus is mainly on architecture and construction, are investigating using waste in its initial state. This results in much less added energy during transport and processing of the waste-material. This design approach can be called re-using and should result in upcycling rather than downcycling. But also from a creative point of view, this way of recycling triggers innovative new uses, ‘will lead to innovative applications in the building-industry and will create unexpected designs’. The online Recyclicity Lab promotes building experiments from waste, collects data and offers a waste-sample collection. There are plenty of inspirational examples on the web site (although currently under construction it seems), of which some are in Dutch only unfortunately but they are all very well photo-documented. You find projects like la Maison Gomme, a functional four-season garden house constructed from re-used wood, car tyres, insulation glass and stainless steel trays, or, the temporary office by Rotar in Brussels which consisted of a pavilion made from waste-materials while using the neighbours walls and support beams for stability. While Superuse has probably taken over showing the latest recycling projects, Recyclicity has an interesting ‘recent offers/components’ section where different waste-materials are on offer. ::Recyclicity ...

This week is Carnival of the Green # 72 and it's being hosted by Philobiblon! So, head on over to this week's Carnival to check out a round up of last week's green news and events, submitted by other bloggers and green sites. To learn more about Carnival of the Green, where it will be and how to host (hurry, we're now booking into 2008!), please click here to link to our previous post. ...

In this video you can see Benjamin Chertoff of Popular Mechanics take the L1X-75 electric car for a test drive. It's made by the Mullen Motor Company and Hybrid Technologies. Some specs: 0 to 60 mph: 3.1 seconds. 600 horsepower (unlike gasoline-powered cars, having more available power doesn't make an EV less efficient when you're not using that power). 100 miles/161 kilometers range (vs. 250 miles/402 kilometers for the Tesla Roadster), 4-6 hours to charge the batteries. Carbon fiber body. $125,000 price tag. Via ::AutoBlog See also: ::Hybrid Technologies to Produce Electric Smart Car, ::Lithium Electric PT Cruiser from Hybrid Technologies. For more on electric cars, see the two Tesla White Papers....

Bus drivers have nicknamed a white cat Macavity after it has started using the No 331 several mornings a week. The feline, which has a purple collar, gets onto the busy Walsall to Wolverhampton bus at the same stop most mornings - he then jumps off at the next stop 400m down the road, near a fish and chip shop.

This story comes from The Daily Mail, a British tabloid, so the source is not the most reliable. But if you've ever seen something like this, let us know in the comments. See also: ::Videos: Baby Duck Feeding Carps, Cute Otters Holding Hands, ::Who Wants to Save the Aye-Aye...

There's more to environmental friendliness than carbon neutrality. And while biofuels certainly promise to reduce our world's carbon emissions, we've got to keep tabs on things like nitrous oxide emissions as well. This is exactly what folks at the University of Colorado and the USDA are doing. Nitrous oxides (NOx) are greenhouse gases and contribute to poor air quality and smog. While all bio-fuels produce less NOx than fossil fuels, some are quite a bit better than others. Gasoline produces 40% more NOx than corn and soy biofuels, 85% more than reed canary grass and 115% more than switch grass. Another, but somewhat underdeveloped source of biofuels, fast growing poplar trees, also hit the 115% mark. So the lesson learned here is that we're just at the beginning of this journey. As cellulosic sources of ethanol become more economically viable, biofuels will become even more environmentally friendly. ::CNet Science Blog and ::ESA Press Release...

The recent issue of TIME Magazine, dated for today, April 9th, is a special double issue that features a large section on global warming. It includes a “Global Warming Survival Guide” with 51 things we all can do to make a difference with an assessment of their impact as well as their “feel-good factor.” Of course many of these tips have been a topic of conversation on TreeHugger over the past few years, such as switching your lightbulbs to CFL’s, turning off and unplugging your computer and electronics, ditching the McMansion and just saying “no” to plastic bags. We’ve also written about planning a green wedding, growing a garden and Zipcar among other several tips in this article. But TIME did bring us a few new ideas that we found worth mentioning:...

This two part video titled "Ahead of the Curve: Business Reponds to Climate Change" (part 1 above, part 2 below the fold) looks at how some businesses are starting to deal with global warming. It is encouraging to see that many of these people seem to get it and that some powerful people who were recently "climate skeptics" have now changed their minds. Lets hope that their actions will match their words and that the rising green movement will be able to influence these businesses and governments fast enough... Collectively, we have a really big carrot and stick. Lets not waste that by sitting at home and watching TV: Use your vote, your wallet, your brain and your heart, make a difference. Thanks to Linton, via Hugg....

Coal-fired power plants are the biggest sources of global warming pollution in the United States. Right now, utilities are proposing the construction of more than 150 coal-fired power plants. If built, these plants would increase U.S. global warming pollution by 25 percent. They would also create other types of pollution, notably mercury. The Wall Street Seven, a group of banks including JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Credit Suisse, Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, and Morgan Stanley, are the major funders for the new plants. Please send a letter calling on these banks to end their support for proposed coal plants and to help finance clean, renewable energy instead. See also: ::Incredible Growth for Solar Power Industry, ::How Much Land to Power The Whole World with Solar?, ::World's Largest Thin-Film Solar Power Plant Opens...

We need desirable, affordable, and fuel-efficient vehicles on the road. Our collective addiction to oil is hurting consumers, undermining the economy, exacerbating international conflicts, damaging the environment, and threatening the health of the planet. But how will we get them? The X PRIZE Foundation, a non-profit with the mission to bring about radical breakthroughs in space and technology for the benefit of humanity, proposes a challenging multi-year competition with a multi-million-dollar cash purse - the Automotive X PRIZE (AXP). Widely known for the $10 million Ansari X PRIZE that successfully challenged teams to build private spacecraft, the X PRIZE Foundation is taking a step toward launching the AXP that will inspire super-efficient vehicles that exceed 100 miles per gallon (2.35 liters per 100km) or its equivalent. Open to the public, AXP teams can be composed of major auto companies or independent innovators but must prove that they are capable of designing and building production-capable, super-efficient vehicles. The contest is already endorsed by TreeHugger friends and contributors NRDC, The Union of Concerned Scientists and The Apollo Alliance....

Exciting news for treehuggers in the Chinese capital – Green Drinks is coming to Beijing, and just in time for spring! We’ve been a fan of Green Drinks for over two years, and since Jacob put out the call and started up a “chapter” in Nashville, TreeHugger has also gotten Green Drinks off the ground in Buenos Aires and Cincinnati. Elsewhere – now including China! – we’re psyched to be in attendance. Green Drinks is an informal opportunity to meet up monthly with others interested in talking green. Tuesday April 10th, come on out to the first ever Beijing Green Drinks: 7-9 pm at Stone Boat Bar. (That’s at the southwest corner of Ritan Park, south end of the lake.) We’re not sure how many do-gooding drinks will be on tap, but bike/walk/[your fave form of transport here] on over to drink a little absinthe or apple martini, make a little history, and – if you’re in the market – maybe even meet your very own treehugging Beijinger for makin’ a little love. (It is spring, after all...) For more info and tips on how to get a Green Drinks started in your neck of the woods, and to find out if yours is one of the 214 cities where the concept has already taken off, check out the website. If you come out for drinkin’ and thinkin’ as a result of this post, be sure to let us know in the comments or at the Stone Boat. And please share your Green Drinks experiences below, wherever you rest your mug!...

A new website called WalkIt is trying to encourage people to walk rather than take public transport or taxis. You enter your start and end points, and the website gives you a map and other useful details. The site told me that walking from my flat to work at a medium pace would burn 326 calories, and that the same journey in a car would output 1.90 kg of carbon emissions. From the site, "We think walking in and around town can be a smart choice. No timetables to keep to, no journey delays, no overcrowding, healthy, green, free, direct, access to services (and sunlight!) en route.". It's London-only at the moment, which makes sense because the city is more complex than US cities (none of this block system for us), so it's harder to get from A to B by foot. In a city where a 400 metre, one way journey can cost £4 ($8), I think that this site will soon gain a lot of users....

Laptops are notorious for not supporting basic hardware changes, like installing a new hard drive or replacing a video card. What that means is that the thing usually gets disposed of as a whole. However, Asus has come out with a laptop that can change, by supporting such standards like HDMI and ESATA. Unlike other laptops, you can replace the components in the C90 yourself with a minimum of tech savvy, and that's good news for the big E as it will prolong the machine's life. By the way, you will notice that the word 'upgrade' is not mentioned in this writeup; that's because it's the wrong term when it comes to computer equipment. Give me a piece of equipment I can change to suit my needs, not one that is an supposed upgrade to something that is better. What could be better than having full control over your machine? ...

Well, a pumpkin would be the perfect eco-friendly device to arrive in at the prom, but with the modern American teenager basically considering it a birthright to arrive in an oversized vehicle that sucks down fossil fuels at an amazing rate and fits 15-20 of their closest friends [Well, that's carpooling, in a way -Ed.], I'm betting that's not happening any time soon... Though there is a movement afoot to trend towards an earth-friendlier prom via the prom dress. That ubiquitous of early summer fashion pieces worn on average for just one evening, and when coupled with shoes and the appropriately gaudy accessories leads to a bill of about $500 for the average teen. ...

A green Hummer eh? Well, ZDNet reports that a biodiesel conversion specialist, Jonathan Goodwin, has retrofitted a Hummer to run on ethanol, hydrogen, biodiesel or natural gas. The car gets the equivalent to 40 miles per gallon. Goodwin's company is an alternative energy start-up, SAE Energy. The company is filling an unlikely niche in the clean tech market: making muscle cars green. He's already converted about 60 H2 Hummers from gas to diesel and about 100 H1 hummers, including a Hummer that can burn the whole menu of clean fuels....

In the midst of dreadful announcements about the effects global warming could have in the landscape, in the weather and species-extinction, announcements like this give a little hope. The Mexican Government announced that 109,000 acres of federal lands surrounding the world’s last unspoiled gray whale nursery at San Ignacio Lagoon in Baja, Mexico would be donated for conservation, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) informed last week. “This is a big leap forward in our ambitious campaign”, said Frances Beinecke, President, NRDC. Beinecke explains, “The decision may be the nail in the coffin of a decade-old Mitsubishi plan to build the world's largest industrial saltworks on the shores of the whale sanctuary: that company had withdrew the saltworks scheme in 2000 but its Mexican partner (ESSA) has always left open the possibility of reviving the scheme. Any such revival has now been thwarted by Mexico's decision to protect the acreage that was critical to the saltworks plan”. Moreover, the announcement was made with big fuzz over a full-day telethon on TV Azteca, one of Mexico's biggest TV networks, which raised $350,000 that will help the conservation alliance buy more development rights around the whale's lagoon. “That's important, because our fight to save the whale's nursery is far from over”, says Beinecke. “San Ignacio Lagoon is still vulnerable to plans for oil and gas drilling, proposed massive high-rise hotels, and schemes for resort marinas and ocean-bound ships”. ...

Via press release:- "...General Motors announced its goal to reduce CO2 emissions from its North American manufacturing facilities by 40 percent by 2010, based on 2000 levels. GM is setting this target as part of its voluntary partnership in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Climate Leaders program. This reduction would equal 4.5 million metric tons and equate to annual emissions from the power consumed by 432,692 U.S. households." By focusing the 40% emission reduction goal on absolute carbon dioxide emissions from US manufacturing sites, General Motors leaves open the question of which techniques "count" toward the goal. Per the press release, carbon dioxide emission reductions in US operations of General Motors, to date, ...25 percent since 2000...were mainly from energy efficiency measures, waste reduction projects, increased use of renewable resources, and so on. Would plant closings or "off-shoring" qualify as emissions reducing measures going forward? Hopefully, what they mean to report on exclusively is the impact of design, supply, configuring, and operating changes at manufacturing facilities. It would be nice if the unit basis for such progress-measuring was defined as a national standard, by industrial sector Then, we would not be left to wonder about such things. Good role for a Federal Government, no? We checked the EPA Climate Leaders website briefly and the only guidance we saw related to public relations. Corrections anyone? Image credit: GM Flint Michigan, USA truck plant. Update: It appears GM is already half way to its goal, with 2000 as the basis year. If that is so, then a better headline would convey how much more progress will be made in meeting a goal being pursued successfully since 2000. Otherwise, its a hummer. Does the 40% header reflect EPA guidance? More questions than answers, still....

While the 2007 major league baseball season is just getting started, it's already clear that a few teams are winners in terms of making the national pastime a little bit greener. The Colorado Rockies have joined that fairly elite group of baseball franchises with the introduction of a 46-panel solar array, built in partnership with Xcel Energy. According to a very brief article at Renewable Energy Access,

The 9.89-kilowatt solar array, installed by Independent Power Systems, will produce over 14,000 kilowatt hours of energy, enough to offset the consumption of the Rockpile LED board over one year. In the walkway just under the system, a flat-panel monitoring system will show fans the real time consumption of the Rockpile LED board as well as the real time energy production from the solar array. Fans will also be able to learn more about solar energy throughout the season at an educational display inside the ballpark.

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Gas stations, with few exceptions, are so corporate and banal. However the business of Moricetown, BC is lumber, so when Moricetown First Nations band of the Wet'suwet'en Nation needed a new gas station, it made sense to build it from wood. Ian Chodikoff of Canadian Architect writes: "the structure is very straightforward. Clad in finished cedar board and comprised of glulam beams and columns, the primary structural system is meant to imply a First Nations post-and-beam architecture. With the exception of the glulam members, most of the wood used in the project was locally produced and harvested. The plywood of the roof sheathing is visible underneath." ...

Just incase you missed the mention on last Thursday's TH Blog Love one of our favourite green design blogs, Inhabitat, has launched a contest to design a T-shirt. In celebration of 2 green style filled years in the blogosphere, (Happy Birthday by the way!), Inhabitat's founder Jill Fehrenbacher has asked all you creative style mavens out there to come up with a design to "to illustrate Inhabitat's mission of green design = good design." The winning design will be printed by T.S. Designs on organic cotton T-shirts, using 100% water-based, environmentally friendly inks. The contest winner will also recieve a $150 gift certificate for the eco-design store Branch and the finalists will each receive a T-shirt and publication on Inhabitat. The brief is "for designs that are creative, cute and incorporate the Inhabitat brand some way - either through our color palette, bamboo imagery, or the Inhabitat logo or mascot (Habby the Inhabitat Owl)." Get designing folks - the deadline for entries is April 20th ::Inhabitat...

Here is a DIY handbag designed by two Italians from Milan that is the essence of hip and simplicity. Take a rectangular sheet of PVC rubber and two notched end pieces, joined by a shoulder strap. Roll it up and you are ready to go. It’s an urban concept and look that comes in a variety of lively and colourful patterns: flowers, maps of Turin, food, 60’s or japanese. Designs are applied digitally to the rubber. The bag comes as a flatpack with simple instructions. Once assembled, it is a cylinder, with a good length shoulder strap and ready for a night or day, on the town. Since the designs are interchangeable, you can have a different one for each outfit. The designers are working on the development of a new eco-series using regenerated PVC. The newest line has designs by 3 Milanese street artists and is sold in limited editions at art galleries only. :: Deego...

Enthusiasts in Japan have hacked their Priuses, and use zen-like driving techniques to get up to 116 miles per gallon (they go 1000 miles on a 13 gallon tank of gas). In Japan they are called "nenpimania", Japanese for "mileage maniacs". Their techniques involve hacking the cars' computer systems, adding special tires, strategically placing tap, cardboard and foam rubber over the engine and grill. They also drive barefoot, and strive to perfect what they call the "pulse and glide" driving method, which requires sensitivity when pushing or releasing the accelerator. Some drivers use only their big toe to push the accelerator. :: Via The Raw Feed and Chicago Tribute. (Note: Photo shows American, not Japanese, Prius hack.) ...

Dutch design house Demakersvan "work with museums, architecture-, furniture- and fashion companies, to commercial brands and self-initiated projects. But wherever the starting point is, challenging and beautiful products are always our aim." They have designed this outside lamp from high end sail fabric, stainless steel, wood. "An outside lamp drawn from our home surroundings. The gently sweeping Dutch windmills were actually perfect generators of their own. With that in mind, we made this lamp. With every breeze it stores energy, enough to enjoy every summer evening until forever. Contemporary vs traditional, art vs functionality. Shaped by its function the big prop spans over one meter on each side. It is a self supporting light source that marks the landscape." ::Demakersvan via ::dezeen...

A victimless steak. A tiny fur coat made in a Petri tube. Worry dolls made from living muscle. Welcome to the world of BioArt, a movement pioneered by two Israeli artist/scientists Ionat Zurr and Oron Catts. Interested in finding a way to merge science and art, Zurr and Catts found a method to their madness in Perth, Australia where they started up one of the world’s first BioArt labs. There they culture living tissue into sculptures and installation art -- most of which is edible and potentially ethically edible. Says Catts in the weekend Haaretz, “In the lab, we grew lab muscle cells on degradable polymers, and we obtained a steak the size of a 10-shekel coin. After 3 months of growth, the polymers disappeared completely, but the problem was that we couldn’t eat the small steak, because the lab didn’t have a license to sell food.” Still in its infancy, or according to Catts, “the stone age,” we predict that BioArt (see more here on Wikipedia), is going to be turning more heads in the coming years. Here is a video on Catts and Zurr's work. ::Here is another article on a living robot, developed by another Israeli artist/scientist. ::Haaretz ...

Sdesignunit is a Korean industrial design firm that is doing some very neat stuff. With the 2+1 chairs and table, the designers say that

"The young singles ratio is getting increase in the society. These people live alone in small apartment in the city. They would like to have multipurpose furniture for using small room efficiently. There are two chairs and on table. Ordinary these are two chairs and table. But When they watch TV. It can be Sofa. And when they go to sleep. It is going to be a single bed."

They also have designed an electric plug with a built in switch, something TreeHuggers have discussed as a way of reducing phantom loads, shown below the fold. ...

We have already covered a North Carolina project encouraging people to design their lifestyles around better transport options here, now we’ve come across a project that aims to make such choices easier. The Village Project is an organization offering advocacy, information and facilitation for designing more people friendly communities in Orange County, North Carolina. We came across them after hearing board member Patrick McDonough speak at a local peak oil event. We were very impressed with his arguments for an overhaul of development ordinances in favor of dense, mixed-use, urban developments, rather than the current practice of separating building types according to use, therefore creating a car (and fossil fuel) dependent culture. Patrick pointed out that when many Americans picture urban density, they think Manhattan, but are surprised to learn that Venice, Italy, actually has an almost identical population density, yet is a much more people- and pedestrian-friendly community. ...

Ralf Schmerberg is one of the founders of Dropping Knowledge, which we recently reported on here. Dropping Knowledge is a pioneering multi-media project aimed at bringing important questions about social, environmental and economic issues into the focus of mainstream society. Ralf recently undertook a global journey with a number of film makers to Beijing, Mumbai, Caracas, San Francisco, post-Katrina New Orleans which resulted in Global Warning, the first in a series of online ‘magazines’. During 15 years as a commercial filmmaker, Ralf created over 50 music-videos and over 200 advertisements for television and cinema, including a pioneering AIDS awareness campaign for the United Nations. Treehugger: What is the core goal of Dropping Knowledge? Ralf Schmerberg: The core goal is to give social change around the world the attention it deserves. We realized how much we get over exposed to the wrong stuff in public life, on TV, and even all over the web. We thought when we started that it is necessary to give social change-related themes more visibility, more networks, more space. Social change needs to come into the middle of society. The big issues have to move out from the corner. So, we do what we can to increase the level of consciousness and awareness. We try to give inspiration for action. But we do not tell people for what; we keep that open to them, so they can make their own choices. TH: Why the focus on questions? ...

Currently, New Hampshire is the only state in the northeastern United States that has not passed some form of renewable portfolio standards legislation. However, that may change soon. Last week, the New Hampshire House voted decisively in favor of a bill that would require electric companies to include a percentage of the electricity they sell from renewable and low-emission sources. The bill will now go before a state Senate committee for review before it is introduced to the Senate floor. New Hampshire governor, John Lynch, had previously established a non-binding goal of getting 25 percent of the state’s energy from clean, renewable sources by the year 2025. The governor announced that he would sign this bill into law. See also ::Minnesota Sets Pace for Renewable Energy and ::Renewable Portfolio Standards... So Far...

We have an entire shelf of books on modern prefab; it starts with Allison Arieff and Brian Burhkart's Prefab, the book that broke the story back in 2002; it continues with Colin Davies' The Prefabricated Home, the important academic review of the history of prefab. Now a place of honour on the coffee table must be given to Mark and Peter Anderson's Prefab Prototypes. They have worked in many different media, some of which are a stretch to call prefab but including panelized 2x4, CNC heavy timber, concrete panels, steel framing, sandwich panels and modular. The work is varied, the drawings are stunning and the photography is beautiful. Prefab means quality: "Central to the potential of prefabrication is the concept of iterative design and prototyping processes. A significant problem with one-off custom buildings is the inability to prototype and refine details prior to final construction. With manufactured products there is the opportunity to invest in research and testing prior to production, amortizing these development costs over a significant production run"- you get it right before you build it. We agree completely with the dust jacket, which says that "as architects, Mark and Peter Anderson have demonstrated that a perceptive and creative approach to prefabrication makes possible affordable, well designed buildings in harmony with their natural and public environments." Coffee table collections are nice, but if you want to go deep, go for Prefab Prototypes: Site-Specific Design for Offsite Construction from ::Princeton Architectural Press...

Actually, we love Will Alsop, we just had to steal that headline from Curbed. He is converting an old power plant on the Hudson River into a museum and restaurant with a 400 unit residential tower on top. Alsop says: “I’m really excited. Not only is this my first building in the US but I have the opportunity to build on a river, adjacent to a world-class city with a client that is enthusiastic about creating a carbon-free building.” Engineer Guy Battle ensures that "In addition to producing its own energy, the building will also have a rainwater-collection system, and the ecology surrounding the site will be restored to its natural state." ::Canadian Architect and ::Architectural Record via ::architectnophilia more images below the fold....

An Electric Motorbike powered entirely by lithium ion batteries has just broken the record for the electric motorbike quarter mile. The bike broke 155 mph and finished the quarter mile in less than nine seconds. Of course, the real story here isn't the 'zero to sixty' numbers, it's the technology behind the bike. The batteries were developed by A123 systems and are already delivering more power more safely than any other lithium ion battery. A123's batteries don't yet have the power density of the Tesla Roadster's batteries, but they're catching up. The batteries in this bike have a good chance of being the batteries that finally start to chip away at internal combustion's stranglehold over the automobile industry. And while this is just a motorcycle that happens to be faster than any other electric motorcycle, the possibilities for the technology are extremely exciting. ::Green Car Congress...

This week Climate Energy and Honda announced that they will bring a micro-CHP (Combined Heat and Power) system to the American market, under the trade name Freewatt(TM). Sales of the Honda-powered generator with warm-air heating system have begun in the Northeastern states, where sales are boosted by the relatively cool climate and legislation promoting net-metering, which allows owners of alternative energy systems to recover costs by feeding electricity back into the networks. Climate Energy promises to continue growth in the American market, adding a hot-water boiler system and other configurations to the product palette. Judging by unexpectedly high reader response to the recent article on the Senertec Dachs, the market is ripe for this technology. ...

Bonnie Alter mentioned the UK eco-garden suppliers Hen+Hammock last December for their gorgeous bird feeder Christmas decorations. Now that the Spring season has sprung and people are looking to get their green fingers working again The Observer Magazine has directed us towards Hen+Hammock's latest sustainable garden products. We love their organic garden salad seeds, the beautiful cotton, bamboo + wood parasol, the recycled rubber planters and the reused hessian coffee sacks which, they say, can be used for garden waste, potatoes and, of course, sack races! Via: Observer Magazine :: Hen + Hammock :: Hen+Hammock Blog...

In light of the most recent report of the IPCC released this week that focused on the effects that we can expect in conjunction with various degrees of warming I thought it worthwhile to do some digging and investigate precisely whom is already most adversely affected by global warming, and what they might be able to do to change their plight. With visions of Hurricane Katrina’s aftermath swirling in my head, I certainly expected to find that the insurance industry and the poor would be among the hardest hit this early in the process. But it surprised me to learn that across the globe, children in particular are the single group facing the worst of its effects head-on today. The reason, as Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change puts it is because "The poorest of the poor in the world -- and this includes poor people in prosperous societies -- are going to be the worst hit," and ultimately because "People who are poor are least able to adapt to climate change." Well, the grim reality in our world today is that children as a social group fall right at the bottom of the economic pile, and that regardless of what part of the planet they come from the reasons are very much the same... Their youth means that they have the least physical, political, intellectual, and therefore economic power available to affect the changes that can benefit themselves. In reality there is very little that any of them can do to change their plight in any way. In fact, they often find themselves fighting for their very survival while the adults around them wage wars over resources that leave them scrambling for scraps to survive. And ultimately, according to Save the Children, a charity in the UK who recently released a report highlighting children’s vulnerability to climate change, up to 175 million children will be affected every year over the next decade by climate-related disasters like droughts, floods and storms. They go on to point out that this is 50 million a year more than in the 10 years prior to 2005 because being society's most vulnerable members means that children are hurt disproportionately, and that millions more will be killed, forced from their homes or hit by hunger and disease due to climate change if we do nothing to stop it....

When researchers at the Thayer School of Engineering, Dartmouth College are not busy creating "scalable, solar-powered, science platforms for the Antarctic", they take their robots out for a bit of snow-surfing. Check some of their cool autonomous solar robots under development. The fellow pictured above with the laptop is snow-surfing at about 5 mph. Here's a quote from the team:

One morning, while taking walking behind the robot and dragging a sled of equipment for quantitatively measuring the strength and cohesion of the snow underfoot, we realized what fools we were to man-haul the equipment ourselves. And, for that matter, how silly even to walk. So, we hooked the sled to the robot and went for a ride. The robot, it turns out, can haul its own weight (nearly 200 lbs.) on a sled and hardly notice it...Snow surfing behind the robot is not very exciting however; it only travels at a slow walking pace.

:: Thayer School of Engineering, Dartmouth College via Zedomax...

We go on about "Less is the New More"- so many of our problems are the result of overconsumption, of building, driving or eating what we want, rather than what we need. That's why we like this glass from industrial designer Inna Alesina- a small hole in the side separates want from need.

"The user would have to be careful while filling the glass and cover the hole with his or her thumb while drinking. Thus one could put a stop to waste (in the global sense) with one's own hands. Want/need glass is a humorous souvenir that addresses a serious problem."

Available for US$24 (each piece hand finished, numbered and signed) from ::Alesina Design via ::Trendhunter...

The March issue of Canadian Architect focuses on architecture for Aboriginal Canada. Projects include the Nk'Mip Desert Cultural Centre by Hotson Bakker Boniface Haden Architects. The main architecture feature is a spectacular rammed earth wall 80 metres (262 feet) long by 5.5 metres (18 feet) high, a wall of this scale has "never been built before as the most prominent architectural element, everything in terms of cultural representation was invested in it. The particular methods of construction, from the formwork to the concrete-soil mix and colour selection, were carefully adjusted to convey a sense of the past, present and future. The notion of longevity was essential, and as Bruce Haden imagines the structure, "one day it will make a great ruin." ::Canadian Architect...

The shop at the Museum of Modern Art in New York does nothing without style, so it is fitting that their bags and boxes should now be made from TerraSkin, (mentioned earlier by Justin here) a paper substitute made from inorganic mineral powder and resin. No trees were damaged in the production of this paper and no water wasted; apparently high temperature is used to melt and dissolve its ingredients. When "left out in nature" it dissolves back to what is basically ground rock in six to nine months. It also is non-porous and takes 20-30% less ink to print on it. While TreeHugger says that no packaging is the best packaging, these look like keepers. Overwrought flashy website at ::TerraSkin via ::Sustainable is Good ...

The 14th of April will see over 1,261 planned events scheduled to occur across the US as part of the most widespread community action to date addressing the issue of global warming. The National Day of Climate Action has been initiated by "Step It Up 2007," a grassroots movement organized through word of mouth, email outreach, and the online community. In Portland, Oregon, between 3,00 and 5,000 people are expected to participate in a mass rally calling on the Oregon legislature to take action on global warming, and this event will be followed by a group of people walking to Salem to hand deliver messages provided by people at the rally. The group will be staying overnight at various churches and with other community groups along the way with small events to take place each night. The group will arrive in Salem on Tuesday, April 17 th, at the steps of the Oregon Legislature to deliver and read the messages. ...

Once again the aviation/climate change debate is hotting up, and once again, the UK is the scene for the latest installment. The Guardian reports that the Institute for Public Policy Research is urging advertising for flights, foreign holidays, and cars to carry cigarette-style advertising warning of the particular product's or service's greenhouse gas contribution:

“Clearly visible messages such as “Flying causes climate change” could put some consumers off air travel in the same way that smokers are deterred by health warnings on cigarette packets, a new report on global warming suggests. In addition to the warnings on adverts and at airports, carbon offsetting charges should be included in flight fares, with passengers forced to opt out rather than opt in, the Institute for Public Policy Research demanded in its latest report.”

...

Where we live, the City government is thinking about charging to take away our garbage. We already recycle like mad, and put out far less garbage per person than most other cities, but as Robert Ouellette points out at ::ReadingToronto, changing how we pay for it isn't the issue.

"All garbage is bad garbage. There is no effective way to rid the environment of our trash. The only real answer is to not make it in the first place."

Chemist and author Paul Palmer goes much farther and suggests that recycling is dead. He says It has "become lazy, relying on yesterday's methods and advancing no new ideas to inspire the public. The practitioners have become used to income derived from the low grade collection of garbage. Their method is to pick away at garbage streams recapturing small amounts of smashed up lowgrade materials. Alternatively they profit by exacting garbage dumping surcharges, resembling guilt taxes, from the dumpers.....The currently operative theory of recycling contemplates the continual, even perpetual collection of garbage and then attempts to find innovative ways to reuse the maximum part of that garbage. In the current jargon, recycling is an end-of-pipe theory. Because end-of-pipe approaches are necessarily inefficient and difficult (since products were never designed for reuse) the best that recycling is able to hold out for in most cases is destruction of products after one use (through smashing, chopping, grinding, etc.) and the laborious recapture of only the bare materials. " ...

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