Weekly Archive for April 15, 2007 : TreeHugger

Guest post by Carla Davis On the frontlines of the green revolution are the foot soldiers. I have become known as "the green lady" since the unseasonably warm days of mid December 2006, by selling renewable energy made from wind and water door to door to small businesses in New York City. The first people to sign up have been creative shops in areas of the Lower East Side, the East Village, Williamsburg, and Park Slope Brooklyn. Initial response to the green energy pitch can go from an excited "I didn't know I could do that!", to a sly "now, how are you going to do that...?", to confusion between electrons and energy drinks as in "we have no more space in our refrigerator", to sighs over landlords who control the utilities. Often the owners are stretched thin, and I am thrilled that so many find the time to grab the bill and make the verification call....

There's a lot of discussion on how to get into the act not just for Earth Day but for the long environmental haul. Lloyd makes a compelling argument that each step counts and that the majority of the folks "want to listen to people who tell them how to live a better and happier life" such as our own Simran Sethi on Oprah yesterday. So what are you going to do to get your voice heard? Well, you might start by plugging in the bamboo tv (having unplugged it to avoid wasting energy feeding the vampires) and then tuning the channel to the Fine Living Network tonight to get ideas from their hour-long special "It's Easy Being Green" -- a show I worked on with Summer Rayne Oakes who is the show's eco-fashion consultant. Also, actor Owen Wilson, Jesse James of West Coast Choppers, and singer Alanis Morissette are among the other eco-friendly revealing how they live green, from their cars to their clothes. Watch a clip here and get show times here. Once you're throughly inspired, we encourage you to get behind the camera yourself and share your own big idea with the world. You still have until April 30th to upload your digital film our sponsor Sundance Channel's Big Idea contest. via:: Susty.tv...

Green Drinks is making its way out west, and is alive and well in San Diego, CA. Last month’s meeting was a coordinated event between Green Drinks and the Surfrider Foundation San Diego Chapter to bring those greenies and those surfers together for their mutual love of a good drink. Roughly 100 people made it out from all over San Diego County. ...

Apparently, the Chinese people are tired of government funds being spent on official public building McMansion equivalents. In response to the many complaints incurred by "luxurious" government structures - and to central government concerns about local corruption - on Wednesday, China's leaders announced that they "will ban the construction of wasteful and extravagant official buildings." Indoor gardens, fountains, atriums, dance stages, and lobby areas higher than a single story are all on the new no-no list. Though government office buildings should still be "stately," officials are now required to "be frugal in spending public money because China is still a developing country." And what if they fail to stick to the cost limit of 4000 yuan (about US$518) per square meter that's been set for ministerial level government office buildings? Or the lower cost limits set for municipal and county-level government buildings? Or otherwise violate the new rules? The edict stipulates that excessive space can be confiscated and sold. ...

Fixing up those old but still good shoes instead of throwing them away is great way to green your wardrobe. Given that shoes have become almost a throw away commodity, with many people owning more shoes than they actually wear, its a good idea to try to extend the life of your shoes instead of buying more and more shoes. There are many standard ways of making your shoes last a few extra miles, re-soling and leather restoration adds extra mileage but what about style, when you simply get sick of how boring they have become or they start to look a little tired? We at TreeHugger are big shoe lovers, just do a search on shoes and see how many pages and pages of stories on sustainable shoes, vegan and handmade shoes there are. There are cork for shoes, worn again funky recycled shoes, check out our favourite 'green' shoes for more....

TreeHugger readers are no strangers to debate on all aspects of sustainability. If you can’t get enough of excited discussions about electric vehicles, arguments about wind turbines, or debates over airtravel (of course!), maybe you should check out the new blog over at the International Herald Tribune. Entitled Business of Green: A Global Dialogue on the Environment, the blog seems largely set up as a catalyst to spur debate. The posts are fairly short and to the point, and essentially introduce the topic, and then encourage comment. Participation levels are low at the moment, but if the list of topics covered so far is anything to go by, including ‘When Will We Panic About Climate Change?’, ‘Faster Trains to a Cleaner World?’, and ‘Who is going to solve the China Question?’, then these guys do seem intent on stirring up some serious, far reaching and comprehensive discussion. We also hope that the International Herald Tribune’s position as a major international newspaper will draw the attention of a wider range of public to environmental issues, and maybe some will even find there way over to TreeHugger. We can only encourage our ever-informed (and opinionated) readers to get involved. Just don’t forget to come back to us when you’re done! ...

Marvin: I think you ought to know I'm feeling very depressed. Trillian: Well, we have something that may take your mind off it. Marvin: It won't work, I have an exceptionally large mind. Trillian: Yeah, we know. Alex Steffen and Dave Roberts have big minds, and they are depressed, and not looking forward to Earth Day. Alex and Sarah at Worldchanging say that Earth Day has “become a ritual of sympathy for the idea of environmental sanity. Small steps, we're told, ignoring the fact that most of the steps most frequently promoted (returning your bottles, bringing your own bag, turning off the water while you brush your teeth) are of such minor impact (compared to our ecological footprints) that they are essentially meaningless without larger, systemic action as well." Dave at Grist is shocked, shocked that only 60% of Americans believe that global warming has begun to affect the climate and frets that most people are wary of any government effort to protect the environment by imposing restrictions on how they live, work or get around. He agrees with Alex and Sarah and says “Yup. The time for "small steps" is long past. It's time for people to wake the hell up.” ...

Via the Racine Wisconsin Journal Times:- "Community leaders launched a environmentally friendly cleaning campaign called Green Racine during a press conference Thursday at Memorial Hall. Representatives from more than 20 local institutions - including city and county government, public and private schools, businesses, churches and non-profits - signed a pledge to reduce the impact of facilities on the environment and people's health by switching to green-cleaning products and processes...The Green Racine program will track annually how many trees were saved, reductions in waste sent to landfills and in greenhouse gas put into the atmosphere as a result of the green initiative..." Because Racine Wisconsin is also the city where S.C. Johnson is headquartered they're not talking about the Pledge brand here...just to be clear. On the other hand, over at the SC Johnson website, there are indications that green cleaning has their attention in a broader sense....

Back In February Dr. James Hanson, of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, gave a seminal speech to the National Press Club about the five most critical actions needed from the US Congress in response to the risk of impending climate catastrophe. Paraphrasing, Dr. Hansen said the needs are to: 1.) place a "moratorium on building any more coal-fired power plants until we have the technology to capture and sequester the CO2"; 2.) put a gradually rising price on emissions"; 3.) mandate maximum achievable energy-efficiency standards on vehicles, buildings, appliances, and so on; 4.) ask the National Academy of Sciences to do a study on the risk of polar ice sheet collapse; 5.) Reform the way in which agencies of the Federal government communicate scientific characterization of risk and introduce effective campaign finance reform, so that special interests no longer have such a big influence on policy-makers. It's not long, and it's well written. Go read "Why we can't wait." at The Nation....

Do you love a good read? Does your inner bookworm compete with your inner TreeHugger: Bookworm: "I love to run my hands over the spine of a finely bound treasure, leafing into the promise of a new story." TreeHugger: "The cheap mass-produced books on the modern market don't match the aesthetic books used to have, and e-books might be the path forward. But is yet another electronic gadget good for society?" Probably, you participate in a book-swapping club such as Read It Swap It in the UK or Novel Action in the US. But in these post-Napster days, did you ever stop to ask yourself: "How does the creative artist make their daily bread when people re-cycle the story with the book?" Here is a statistic few people know: 95% of writers cannot support themselves from their craft. Clearly, the time is right for a paradigm change in reading habits. Now, Blackbetty is beating the path forward. Blackbetty has developed technology which allows a book to be ordered and delivered to your mobile phone as easily as downloading a new ring tone....

The simple fact that global automakers are throwing everything they have into two auto shows spaced just months apart speaks volumes about the former Bicycle Kingdom's appetite for the car. That the second show, starting in Shanghai on Earth Day, has gone eco-friendly is an acknowledgment of just how unhealthy that appetite could continue to be -- and a reminder of China's great opportunity to leapfrog to sustainable technologies, integrating green into its growth from the get-go. What's not helping the situation are low gas prices, which are controlled by the government (in Beijing, where over 1000 new cars hit the streets a day, a gallon of 93 octane gasoline costs a paltry $2.30). What is helping -- in spite of the upper class and government penchant for SUVs and luxury sedans -- is an ongoing push for small cars. An auto consumption tax introduced last year for instance, slashed taxes on low-emission vehicles and raised taxes on high-emission vehicles. In general, too, China's economical car culture remains stuck on smaller, more efficient models. Car manufacturers are listening. Among the show's highlights: The newest Chevy Volt, Chinese hybrids and more below the fold......

ComputerShopper magazine is currently featuring a guide on How to Buy a Green PC which was authored by Treehugger's own Jasmin Malik-Chua. The article walks readers through the most important aspects of environmental home computing. The article is broken down into six parts: Buy a smaller computer, avoid hazardous substances (always check for RoHS compliance), check for energy efficiency, get an efficient power supply, find a good multi-core processor, set your software on power-save and, finally, make sure to recycle anything that might otherwise be thrown away. As an introduction to environmental computer buying, I have never seen a better guide. See Also ::How to Green Your Electronics the Treehugger Guide...

Jeremy recently decided to dump a career in dentistry after realizing that he missed his undergraduate coursework, which focused primarily on marine biology and natural conservation, too much. Having made the full conversion to a green way of living, he's now decided to reorient his studies towards environmental science and will be attending the University of Southern California to obtain a Ph.D. in Marine Environmental Biology, with an emphasis on environmental policy and sustainable management. On his downtime, he enjoys reading about everything business, politics, science and technology and sometimes moonlights as a pundit/op-ed writer. He can be reached at jeremy [dot] treehugger [dot] com. ...

For most TreeHuggers, Earth Day is every day. So why get excited? Because there are so many fun events happening on and around April 22nd. The festivities kicked off in style yesterday. EGBNY, in collaboration with Teknion, GreenDrinks NY, and o2NY, put on Project Earth Day, an Eco Fashion show, celebrating and showcasing emerging eco-designers such as aGaiN NYC, Contessa d'Eleganza, Bahar Shopar, NaturevsFuture, Entermodal, Ekovarhuset and many more. Below the fold is a partial list of happenings in New York City. Please add your tips and suggestions in the comments section!...

A Chinese anti-pollution campaign solidifies the car’s mighty black plume… Speak up: new standards for carbon offsets are coming and the comment period is open… How many retailers does it take to give away a million light bulbs? Home Depot wants to make itself the punch line for Earth Day… Ontario is ready to ban incandescent light bulbs altogether… No more excuses: Green Cleaning for Dummies… 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? ...

A quick reminder to stop reading our Earth Day guide long enough to watch TreeHugger's resident TV star Simran Sethi on The Oprah Winfrey Show this afternoon. Simran will be chatting with Oprah about how easy it is to be green, including tips on recycling, cleaning green, having a real lightbulb moment, and more. Find out when and where the show is airing on a television near you; in the meantime, check out a pictorial sneak peek of the show's happenings, after the jump. ::The Oprah Winfrey Show...

Earth Day is really just around the corner (Sunday!), and we hope that as the day draws near, you've been thinking about what you can do to make our world a greener, healthier place. When it comes to equating everyday behavior with saving the planet, few things are as high on the list as recycling. Here are some tips and resources for incorporating recycling into your life, not just on Earth Day, but every day. 1) Recycle your stuff: it can be fun (and sexy) with the EcoPod; with programs from Dell, Apple (remember, iPod has its own program) and more, there's no excuse not to recycle your computer; the online community at Superuse has user-generated ideas, pics and descriptions to help you do-it-yourself and keep it out of the landfill; and, as if you needed more incentive, Recyclebank pays you to do it. More tips on recycling something today can be found here. 2) Get recycled and second-hand stuff: just about anything can be made with recycled content or given a new home, from toothbrushes to computers to home insulation and apparel. 3) Give recycled and second-hand stuff: 'tis better to give than receive, so rather than chucking it in the garbage, help it find a new home with services like FreeCycle, Craigslist, Material Love and Swap-O-Rama-Rama. 4) See the results: recycled stuff doesn't have to "look recycled". To wit: you can recycle a 747 into a house; build a yacht entirely from recycled materials; get a ring from recycled precious metals; create art or fancy lighting; and create a couture dress from umbrellas. The sky's the limit. For more examples and ideas, check out our How to Green Your Recycling guide and dig in to our category dedicated to recycling. Happy Earth Day!...

Picking up from my last post, this TH was part of a discussion to determine how far you could push sites such as Freecycle and Craigslist, where people give and get items for free. Would people really treasure my junk? Here's my experience; what's yours? Let's start with a Dell Inspiron 7000 laptop that I owned for about 6 years. I don't know the exact specs, but it was running GNU/Linux and everything except the battery worked. I posted it on Craigslist - I got 15 "I'll take its" in 10 minutes. The guy picked it up the next day for his ten year old daughter to use. I felt great. Next one; ten circa-1992 Thinnet repeaters with BNC connectors. For those not on the floor laughing, nowadays these are about as useful as shouting "One!" and "Zero!" into two tin cans with a string between them. Posted on Freecycle and gone in 30 minutes, to a guy right down the street from me. He needed then to run some old system that was still in use. ...

It’s getting a bit warmer here in New England which means that all of our stores in downtown Newport are beginning to open their doors from the winter. We have one in particular that we enjoy browsing in and checking out their new products. ReSails, celebrating their 10th anniversary this year, is still making the same style bag that inspired the start of the company back in 1997. We’ve seen a couple of bags recently that are similar (Sea Bags, Red Flag Design and Uncommon Goods), but ReSails was the first to rework sailcloth into something usable. We love the rugged look of the bags and how they are fully lined inside to keep moisture out. In addition to “the original recycled sail bag,” you can also find belts, wallets and dog collars. ReSails is owned by Hooley USA, whose recycled kite vest we mentioned before. ::ReSails ::Hooley USA...

Here is a great, green post-doctoral opportunity for US citizens at the US EPA’s National Risk Management Research Laboratory (NRMRL) located in Cincinnati, Ohio in the area of Life cycle assessment with emphasis on nanotechnology. Given the recent release of the report, Nanotechnology and Life Cycle Assessment: A Systems Approach to Nanotechnology and the Environment, which concluded that LCA is an essential tool for safe and responsible commercialization of nanotech, this post-doc is well timed for research into just that. ”NRMRL is seeking applications for the position of a Federal Post-Doctoral Fellow in the area of nanotechnology. Under the EPA Nanotechnology Program, EPA is interested in studying the following areas: 1) generating the underlying science needed to better understand and predict potential implications of nanoparticle releases, their fate and transport in the environment, and 2) identifying how nanoscience can be responsibly used for beneficial environmental applications (e.g. improved sensors, control/remediation options). In particular, ORD is interested in areas ranging from studying how the physicochemical and biological properties of nanomaterials are altered in the environment, identifying the sources of nanoparticle releases, determining the life cycle fate of nanoparticles and their daughter products when nanotechnology is used for environmental applications and potential health risks associated with both the nanoparticles and their by-products, and in finding ways nanotechnology can be used to improve techniques to measure releases to water, soil, and air and enhance the effectiveness of conventional control and remediation technology to address these releases. The duration of the project is three years.” The closing date for Applications is May 8th, 2007 and you can get additional information about this post doc here. And you can read more about nanotechnology here, here. Image credit: 21st Century.co.uk ...

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Are you the kind of person who hates eating fruit? Maybe with the help of genetic engineering you can eat less and reap all the benefits. The question is -- are you willing to trade the risks of genetic engineering for the goodness that designer fruit offers? Scientists from Ben-Dor Fruits company in Israel have unveiled a genetically- engineered plum that packs a punch of 4 times the cancer-inhibiting anti-oxidants found in pomegranate seeds. One of their plums is called the Lamoon Plum – “it looks like a moonlit lemon,” says the company website. Others are the Plumagranate or the Shark’s Tooth plum (pictured). Ben-Dor’s plums were showcased at Israel’s international agricultural exhibition Agro-Mashov this month at the Tel Aviv Convention Center. Besides the plum, other new fruits and vegetables “designed” for better health were also exhibited. Would you take a bite out of one? ::Haaretz...

Well folks, MTV announced yesterday that the two winners of their Break the Addiction Final Exam, which challenged college student groups across the country to submit tangible evidence of educational activities as well as policy advocacy to reduce their school's global warming pollution are Rutgers and Cornell University. So what did they win for helping to save the planet? Well, an MTV eco-renovation for their student centers worth up to $10,000 plus the knowledge that they helped educate and inspire people across both campuses to help stop global warming. As an added bonus they’ll both have representatives featured on a special edition of MTV's TRL on Monday, April 23 that will also feature an interview with Arnold Schwarzenegger. The challenge itself was the product of collaboration between thinkMTV and the Campus Climate Challenge, a project of 30 leading environmental and social justice organizations working with hundreds of high schools and colleges to help them make their schools greener. Go Rutgers and Cornell! ...

This article is about opportunity. Problem opportunity. I usually try to write about exciting and innovative service solutions that are challenging the product economic paradigm and shifting our world into 21st century business practice. My objective is to inspire and present an alternative vision of consumption, not necessarily to critique or expose those who aren’t addressing sustainability. However, today in my article I want to ‘green bash’ a bit (ie, hit a few brands over the head with my green views because I feel so passionately there is the opportunity to do things better). I want to present some observations and problem opportunities for 21st century business. I will try to remain positive and optimistic with my tone, despite actually being quite angry and hurt by the insanity of my experiences, because I see these systemic problems as opportunities for innovation. They present a great argument for the service model – ie, looking at a closer connection with the customer to define exactly what they want and a continuous flow of value over time, which is very different to the dominant product economic paradigm that focuses on selling as many units as possible despite of my needs/motivations....

Currently in London there is a battle for commuters attention. Once upon a time there was one free newspaper, Metro. Then came London Lite and the London Paper, which weren't granted permission to distribute in train stations, forcing them onto the street. People dressed in bright purple hats and coats, thrust newspapers at anyone who dares walk within a ten feet radius. If you're already carrying a paper, they thrust one at you, if you say 'no, thanks', they thrust one at you. It's a nuisance, but the main problem is that London is almost completely coated in a blanket of low-brow celebrity gossip and offbeat news by 6PM. The council have estimated that recycling costs in the last two years have reached £500,000, and have decided that the papers should be the ones to pay. They account for 3-4 tonnes of waste daily in the city, but Westminster Council have said that, "neither has made a satisfactory offer which would significantly help meet the £500,000 set-up and running costs of a scheme to ensure the papers end up getting recycled." The problem is that both are being run at a loss in order to gain market share, so neither want to pay for clean-up costs. The environmental impact of printing 3-4 tonnes of papers daily is enormous, and something clearly needs to be done. Recently in the UK there has been legislation that will force electronics manufacturers to pay for the recycling of their goods once they are disposed, could a similar scheme work for print publishers? :: The Guardian...

We still continue to get comments about a post we ran over year ago about South African scientist Vivian Alberts of the University of Johannesburg and his thin film solar technology. The post even spurred a new page on the PESWiki for pure energy systems. At the just 2µm the film made of copper, indium, gallium, sulphur and selenium, otherwise called CIGSSe-solar, is way thinner than a human hair. Some poo-pooed the notion as just another blue-sky prototype, but Germans are generally pretty cautious and thorough folk, so when they are the ones building a production plant to manufacture the film, one suspects there is substantial meat on this skeleton. The factory is currently going up in Brandenburg an der Havel. (check out those massive timber beams, we assume them to be Glulam monsters!) The company managing the technology, Johanna Solar, are hoping to be producing 30 megawatt worth of panels by mid 2007, and then ramping this up to double by 2009. We hope some makes its way back down to South Africa to satisfy all those chafing at the bit for some renewable energy. ::Johanna Solar....

Perhaps one of the reasons that change comes slowly is that, like with apples and tomatoes, where we used to have diversity and variety, now everything is the same and we are afraid to change. We no longer understand how anything could be different because everything we live with has become a monoculture. Photographer Mark Luthringer demonstrates this with his series of "typological arrays", which have an "inherent ability to depict prevalence and repetition make it the perfect technique for examining the excess, redundancy, and meaningless freedom of our current age of consumption". There are arrays of cars, cellphones, signs, house entries (which I find the most interesting, where did that come from?) Ridgemont is his imaginary, ahistorical name for the everysuburb. See them at ::Mark Luthringer or in San Francisco May 31-June 29 at 3A Architecture.. via ::Daily Dose ...

There's good news for all you eco-design hunters at the Salone del Mobile this week - we've found some help people! The Best Up Circuit has been created to find the best eco-design exhibits during the furniture fair. Two Italian journalists, Clara Mantica and Giuliana Zoppis, came up with the idea to create a free sustainable design street map after last year's show. They say, 'after long hours spent - a little like looking for needles in a haystack - searching for “sustainable” events and products. We said to ourselves “Why not do something to raise the profile of these ventures and really value the eco-design?”' Huh... funny, I am sure we mentioned something about haystacks and needles just a few days ago! The Best Up (Beauty, Equality and SusTainability, UP is an invitation to wake up, to get moving), street map will be handed out around the city and there will also be postcards strategically placed in pubs and bars. Incase you don't happen upon any Best Up information on your chosen route, you can go to their main stand at the Fabbrica del Vapore, (the steam factory) and find them at the via Procaccini 4 entrance. Already marked on the Best Up map is our recommendation of the Sofar Sonear Showroom, but there are plenty more to check out - it seems this year those needles won't be so hard to find after all! ::Best Up...

This post is about light bulbs - the world’s first ‘carbonfree’ light bulb, to be precise, but first, let us digress. Carbon offsets tend to create a lot of tension in the green-minded community. There is even disagreement among us usually mild-mannered TreeHuggers. Mark, on the one hand, feels that offsets are basically built on guilt, while Michael Graham Richard sees them as a potentially useful tool. This author has himself agonized over whether offsets are a good or bad thing, and has come to the conclusion that they can be of benefit if, and only if, they are part of a wider emissions reduction strategy. It makes sense, for example, for Eurostar to further improve their already impressive environmental record, and then offset to take responsibility for emissions they can’t eliminate immediately, as they announced this week. It seems less justifiable, in this author's eyes at least, to launch a hugely carbon-intensive service like a business-class only airline, and then simply claim it’s green by offsetting emissions, as Silverjet have done. Of course one could argue that Silverjet, or another competitor, would have launched anyway, and it’s better to offset than to do nothing, but it still seems dangerously close to offsets providing a fig leaf for ‘business as usual.’ Anyhow, back to light bulbs. ...

One can jam solar panels onto a roof, or one can integrate them into a building in an attractive and useful manner. At the Ma Wan School in Hong Kong, the roofs have been pumping out kilowatts since 2004 and also acting as a sunshade, creating shadow and comfort on the top floor and over the atria. It has not generated as many KwHr as the simulations projected, but since opening it has supplied 72,753.464 KwHr, which you can see online on a very slow loading website that monitors performance of the building. Developed as a prototype to "understand local solar energy resources, promote school PV installations and determine the value to HK of wide-scale PV applications" ::Ma Wan School Project via ::the Sietch...

We have shown the wonderful mechanisms that Italian designers come up with to make it easy to work with beds in small spaces, all of which are very expensive to import to North America where everyone expects IKEA pricing for everything. Now a Canadian company is importing the mechanisms and building furniture around them so that we can enjoy sofas that turn into two or three beds. They also have an ottoman and a chair that fold out into single beds. None are as slick or well finished as the Italian jobs, but the prices are reasonable. Turn the sound down for the silly flash intro at ::European Ingenuity...

You probably wouldn't be surprised to learn that we, like many online media outlets, regularly receive invitations to participate in press events held by businesses, non-profit organizations and government agencies. You might be surprised (as were we, quite frankly) to read that we got one last week from the American Petroleum Institute. Yes, you read that right: API invited Treehugger, as well as EcoGeek, The Oil Drum, Green Options, and Maria Energia to participate in a conference call with the organization's CEO, Red Cavaney this past Wednesday. The topic of the call: energy and the environment. Also participating were bloggers and writers from NewsWatch (the Houston Chronicle), the Wall Street Journal Energy Roundup, Fortune/CNN Money, and ShopFloor.org (National Association of Manufacturers). We accepted API's invitation. While we're always a bit suspicious about the motivations behind outreach from businesses and organizations that have historically shown hostility towards environmentalism, we also believe that open dialogue is the only way to address that hostility, and perhaps even change it. We held no illusions, though: we know the claims that have been made about API's involvement in efforts to challenge the scientific consensus on global climate change and human contributions to it. We went into the call with our radars on "high."...

National Downshifting Week is April 21 to 27 this year. It is all about “Helping you find a good work/life balance”. It is a time to slow down and smell the flowers—a time to stop participating in a consumer society, to eat well, volunteer, live more simply and less wastefully. Here is what you can do to make a meaningful change: Book a half-day off work to spend entirely with someone you love. Cook a meal from scratch, using locally sourced, seasonal ingredients, preferably organic Cut up a credit card Donate a bag of clothes, toys or useful items to a local charity shop, refuge or recycling centre Hand-make a simple card for the next birthday or event on your calendar Eliminate 3 non-essential purchases this week Plant something in the garden you can cultivate and eat and start a compost heap Tonight, turn off the television, switch on the radio, play a few games and talk Volunteer an hour of your time to a local charity shop, animal shelter, hospice etc And take the pledge:“ I hereby pledge to slow my life down a gear for the benefit of my health, my well being, my environment and for those around me whom I dearly love. " :: National Downshifting Week...

We previously posted about how if you invest in a wind turbine on your property, the tax assessor will come by and say "nice turbine, your assessment just went up." Ontario Environment Minister Dwight Duncan agreed that was dumb and appears to be fixing that; but here is another example of local idiocy. Green Limousine is a Canadian company trying to set up the " first [canadian] limo service to use only fuel-efficient, ultra low-emission hybrid vehicles." They use standard size Priuses (picture is of a stretch LA ecolimo) and have started business in Pickering, a suburb east of Toronto, serving primarily the Airport, west of Toronto. The big space in between is the City of Toronto, where they are not allowed to do business. According to Tyler Hamilton in the Star, "Prius limousines don't comply with size rules under a municipal bylaw, which considers a limo a luxury vehicle that can carry up to five passengers. The bylaw also stipulates that a stretch limo must be provided for every four sedans in a fleet." (rules brought in just two years ago because of endless taxi/limo battles) The Green Limo prez is meeting with Licencing head honcho Howard Moscoe, who says "We have to look at how it will affect the overall structure of the industry. It's like a complicated Swiss watch. If you throw a couple of pieces out, it breaks down." Right. A couple of Priuses are going to bring down the Toronto limo business. We look forward, as usual, to years of discussion. ::The Star ...

A while back we quoted Seth Godin on how the Manhattan Money is hitting the farmers markets, bringing back empty egg cartons and buying local food. Now they can go into Bergdorf Goodman and buy recycled glasses, albeit "handcrafted and mouth-blown" . What is New York coming to? Next thing you know they will be walking, taking taxis and subways instead of driving, shopping in local stores instead of going to Wal-Mart and living in dense highrises instead of single family dwellings. ::Bergdorf via ::Haute Nature...

Now, 'that's what we're talking about.' Via: BBC and RTE News- "Norway is aiming to offset all emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050 with the world's toughest national target for fighting global warming. Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg told a meeting of the Labour Party today that he plans to make the country carbon neutral by 2050. Mr Stoltenberg..."added that the government of Norway, the world's number five oil exporter, also plans to cut emissions by 30% by 2020. That target is tougher than the European Union goal of at least a 20% reduction." Increased reliance on hydroelectric power and sequestration of C02 are two of the approaches Norway will rely on to deliver on the goal. On learning of this, the fact that Norway is the #5 oil exporter set off the "green-washing" alert bell here at TreeHugger. What good is a stretch goal at home when your downstream customers have a far greater climate impact with product end use, and no parallel mitigation goals? Good news on that front: Stoltenberg seems intent on supply chain management as well. Via China People's Daily Online:- "China will adopt on-the-ground strategies to combat climate change, with financial and technological backing from Norway. Further strengthening their relationship yesterday, the two countries signed agreements in Beijing, witnessed by Premier Wen Jiabao and Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, on a three-day official visit to China. Among the three pacts is one targeting the effects of climate change, and will be jointly conducted by Norway, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and China." The ultimate national stretch goal, the one that would serve as the appropriate slap upside the head for US government officials, would be for OPEC members to match Norway's courage and put some of those princely petro-dollars to work at home and for their customers, making climate mitigation a condition of their supply contracts. Speaking of OPEC, they seem to have been rather quiet about climate issues. Hmmm. Image credit: RTE...

If you liked Dan Price’s hobbit house then you might also be intrigued by the eco-roundhouse inhabited by Tony Wrench and Jane Faith within the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park of Wales. Constructed of wood, turf, straw and recycled materials it cost £3,000 (~ $6,000 USD) to build. And although having permission to exist from the landowners, it does not have building planning permits. Nevertheless Tony and Jane live the simple life, existing on around £90 a week, of which only about £15 goes toward store-bought food. They grow and preserve their own veggies, as well as harvesting fruit from trees they fertilise with compost from their toilet. Water is local, and heated with wood collected from the nearby woods. Solar panels provide the minimal electricity required. Their modest income being derived from the sale of woodturned bowls and music playing. "We are not totally self-sufficient, but we like being self-reliant." says Tony. Pictorial essay via ::BBC Online...

Intent on peddling his (hormone free) Ben & Jerry's ice cream, Stephen Colbert learns about the effects of rBGH, recombinant bovine growth hormone, which for some reason American dairy farmers are allowed to inject into cows to increase production about 15%. He compares the increase to a certain Loaves and Fishes incident that we will not go into in deference to our religious Christian readers, and derides the rest of the world for banning the stuff, based on the underlying American Principle, Innocent until proven cancerous. Evidently without rBGH we will need more cows: no hormone, more global warming. Extremely entertaining at ::Colbert Report....

Will organic-coffee lovers need a different kind of fix, soon? Earlier this month, Salon published a story decrying the U.S. Department of Agriculture's recent tightening of organic-certification requirements. The main sticking point: These revised standards could drastically cut back on the ability of small grower co-ops to produce organic coffee. "This ruling could wipe out the organic coffee market in the U.S.," says Kimberly Easson, director of strategic relationships for TransFair USA, which certifies fair-trade products in the United States. Worries that the USDA ruling will jack up costs for small-scale organic producers, and drive them back into conventional commodity markets, also abound....

This week, Simran Sethi speaks with Bob Perkowitz, a passionate environmentalist, dynamic conservative, and a serial entrepreneur. Aside from sitting on TreeHugger’s board of directors, other hats worn by Mr. Perkowitz include being the president and founder of ecoAmerica, a trustee of the Sierra Club and Environmental Defense, and managing partner of VivaTerra. He offers us a refreshing approach on spreading the green message and how different An Inconvenient Truth would have been if Arnold Schwarzenegger had been the star. Our soundtrack, as always, is compliments of Calabash Music. Catch TreeHugger Radio each week on Air America’s EcoTalk, here on TreeHugger.com, or pick up the podcast on iTunes. (listen/right click to download) ::TreeHugger Radio
(Interview conducted by Simran Sethi, produced by Jacob Gordon) ...

Bees are so industrious when they are at the job. Tomas Gabzdil Libertiny introduces With a Little Help of the Bees in Milan. It is a vase built by bees. we quote Dezeen: "Libertiny made a vase-shaped hive that the bees then colonised, building a hexagon comb around it. The wax sheets used to make the hive were embossed with a honeycomb pattern to help the bees on their way. Libertiny calls the process “slow prototyping” - it took 40,000 bees a week to make the vase. Since the bees get aggressive when they are interrupted, Libertiny had to guess when it was time to remove the vase." The artist told Dezeen: “To give a form to this natural product it has occurred more than logical to choose a form of a vase as a cultural artifact. Beeswax comes from flowers and in the form of a vase ends up serving flowers on their last journey." More from Milan 2007 from ::Dezeen...

Just in time for Earth Day, TreeHugger's own Simran Sethi will be joined by Matt Damon, Sheryl Crow and others on tomorrow's Oprah Winfrey Show to discuss "Going Green 101". The show will focus on why it's cool to be green, along with info about how to "join forces with Oprah for changing the way we live on our earth. It is our step-by-step action-plan. From cleaning your house to grocery shopping, find out what families like yours are already doing." Simran was on Oprah's show last year talking about how TreeHuggers do Christmas, so we'll look forward to seeing her in the green spotlight tomorrow. Check out Oprah's site for more info on the show and find out when and where to find Oprah's show near you. ::The Oprah Winfrey Show...

Yesterday we wrote about a Business Week article that discussed the possible decline in Wal-Mart selling organics. Because of this, TreeHugger received a note which included a Letter to the Editor written by Karen Burk, a corporate communications professional at Wal-Mart. Since we are all about reporting what we know, we felt our readers should hear both sides of the story. Ms. Burk’s letter follows: April 13, 2007 Dear Editor, Pallavi Gogoi's article, posted April 12, 2007, on Businessweek.com is an erroneous and inaccurate representation of Wal-Mart's commitment to providing our customers with affordable access to organic products....

"This is not your parents' energy crisis, [...] what is going on today is something fundamentally new and different and requires us to think about and redefine the term 'green'". This is New York Times columnist and author Thomas Friedman speaking at the annual mass media and technology conference Pop!Tech. He goes on to talk about energy, global warming, how to help the Green Movement become mainstream (something we, at TreeHugger, know about...), etc. Of course, Friedman being Friedman, there's also a good dose of geopolitics (be warned). We recently wrote about Friedman's recent "green" NYT column and it generated some nice discussion in the comments. Check it out. ::Video of Friedman at Pop!Tech...

Sundance Channel was nice enough to send us an exclusive clip of "Build", to be aired on The Green on April 24th at 9 PM (see the schedule for more details). “Build”, which airs April 24th at 9pm, is about visionary architect Michelle Kaufmann builds a Glidehouse, an ultra-sustainable modular prefab dream home, for a couple looking to enjoy life off the grid; architect Carlton Brown defies all odds and builds a low-income sustainable housing project in Harlem; and MIT genius Mitchell Joachim demonstrates his Fab Tree Hab living house made from intertwined trees, creating a spectacular living space of the future....

Now that we've wrapped up the Convenient Truths video contest here at TreeHugger (congratulations to the winners!) let's take a moment to rest...and done. Okay, now we'd like to draw your attention to the Sundance Channel's What's the Big Idea? video contest (we mentioned it before). They're looking for a one minute film about one big idea to improve the environment -- change a bulb, compost your waste, that kind of thing -- and to the winner go the spoils: a one-year lease of a Lexus hybrid and $10,000 to turn your big idea into reality. Entries are accepted through April 30, and completed videos can be uploaded directly to the site, where you can also learn more about the contest and watch some inspirational sample entries. Good luck, everyone; now get out there and record your big idea for everyone to see! ::Sundance Channel's What's the Big Idea? Contest...

English supermarket chain Sainsbury's are boycotting disposable plastic bags for one day, and give out free reusable bags instead. The chain normally charge 10p for these, and have estimated that the scheme, running on Friday next week, will cost them £700,000. Sainsbury's bags have been in the news recently, in September they changed their design to include one third recycled materials. The store also began awarding loyalty points for every bag that customers avoided using at stores. Although how this was measured I don't know; I can see how you count bags that people do use, but not how you could count the bags that they don't. On their website, Sainsbury's offer an explanation as to why they don't charge for bags all year round;

"We did a 'pay-for' trial some years ago where we did charge the cost price for carrier bags to our customers, but our customers where not happy and complained. From these trials we decided to stop charging our customers for carrier bags and fall in line with other retailers."

...

There may come a time where you will have an extra computer or two lying around. In fact, that time is probably now, as about 75 percent of used computers are currently stockpiled in storage (read, your basement). What to do, what to do - you don't want to turn them into eWaste. Well, here are two methods that produce good results, let's call them the 'Joy' method and the 'Profit' method. With the 'Joy' method, you give a gift (which is fun), someone receives one (which is also fun), and you both share the joy of giving the computer an extended life (more fun). One way is to use the 'free' section of Craigslist - just post your equipment, and folks will email you if they want it. The gift getter usually picks up the equipment; it will usually be gone within minutes, no matter what it is. You can also try freecycle as well; their motto is 'changing the world one gift at a time'. Make sure you use your local group, there are a lot of them....

Drive one day less and look how much carbon monoxide you'll keep out of the air we breathe. (WWF) If China saw the car the way it increasingly sees, for instance, coal plants, industrial pollution and ungreen buildings -- that is, as dangers to the country's environmental and social stability -- we might have cause to breathe a little bit easier. But as the country races down the road of western-style consumption at the rate of 11% GDP growth per year, it's like the '50s all over again: the car is at the top of everyone's wish list. After giving a lecture to a group of environmental science students in Beijing last year, Lester Brown asked how many hoped to own a car: all hands went up. And China's got a lot of hands. But whose hands are on the wheel? With at least 20,000 new cars hitting China's roads every day, national and sometimes local governments have been experimenting with ways to address the car problem, which is hurting not only the environment but, due to endless gridlock, crippling the basic productivity of cities like Beijing. (Not to mention that cars are responsible for 100,000 deaths in China a year, more than anywhere else.) As the huge Shanghai Auto Expo opens this week, many challenges remain, not least the dependence of the government on its booming car industry: even as it snarls traffic, causes respiratory problems and ruins the air, the largely state-run auto industry employs 1.7 million workers....

As “Chicago’s Conscious Caterer” Greg Christian puts it, “The pizza served in my elementary school was a chewy rectangle of dough…” Well, it seems he must have had similar experiences to all of us! But he’s stepping up to the plate to help change all that by pioneering the Organic School Project (OSP). It’s a non-profit, pilot program in the Chicago Public Schools that engages parents, school employees, professors and healthcare professionals to help instill healthy eating habits in children.The curriculum at three schools has so far included gardening, mindful living classes, and yoga. The most recent news is that they’ve begun feeding kids organic, sustainable food in these public schools. And while yoga and organic food may be readily accessible in charter and private schools, the OSP is now exposing low-income students to sustainable living practices that they might never hear of otherwise. And the really great news is that they've also just signed a contract with Chartwells-Thompson Hospitality, the powerhouse that feeds the Chicago Public Schools. OSP is the first of its kind in the country to partner with a foodservice company working in a public school to provide an organic menu, which is inspiring news to me! Though now I start to worry a bit… I’m a teacher who’s actually grown accustomed to chewy, cardboard tasting pizza for lunch on occasion. How would I ever cope with such great tasting organic school food?...

For the last four and half months, we've encouraged you to both reduce your personal carbon footprint, and to participate in Treehugger and Seventh Generation's Convenient Truths video contest. Today, we're pleased to wrap up the contest by announcing the winners. The Top Ten finalists were chosen by you and our expert panel of judges, and the Grand, second and third place prize winners were chosen by guest judge Ed Begley, Jr. In addition to prize packages described below, each winner's video will be featured on a DVD by Ironweeds Films, and also showcased at the Weather Channel's Forecast Earth climate change site. The winners of the Treehugger and Seventh Generation Convenient Truths contest are:...

One%20Planet%20Living%20in%20the%20Suburbs.jpg

We TreeHuggers just love new, funky, green developments like BedZED, Greenbridge and these plans for Toronto’s Portlands redevelopment. But the fact remains, new build can only accomplish so much. Most of us will be living in buildings, and communities, that already exist now for many, many years to come, and few of these were built with anything approaching sustainability in mind. All is not lost however, there is lots that can be done to move even the most unecological settlements towards a better, greener future. Bioregional Development Group (the folks who brought us BedZED) and WWF, have published a report entitled ‘One Planet Living in the Suburbs’ – Greg Searle, the head of One Planet Living North America, mentioned it in his interview with TreeHugger here. A summary of the report can be downloaded here, and the full 116 page version can be found here. The idea behind the report is to look at recommendations for actions that national gove

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Entries for April 15, 2007 - April 21, 2007

Total this week: 154

by Celine Ruben-Salama, New York, NY on 04.21.07

by George Spyros, New York City, USA on 04.21.07

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by EcoGeek.org on 04.20.07

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by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 04.20.07

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by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 04.20.07

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by Jeff McIntire-Strasburg, St. Louis, MO on 04.20.07

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by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 04.20.07

by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 04.20.07

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by Team Treehugger, Worldwide on 04.19.07

by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 04.19.07

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by Michael Graham Richard, Gatineau, Canada on 04.19.07

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by Mark Ontkush, Boston, Massachusetts, USA on 04.19.07

by Alex Pasternack, Beijing, China on 04.19.07

by Kenny Luna, North Babylon, NY on 04.19.07

by Jeff McIntire-Strasburg, St. Louis, MO on 04.19.07

by Sami Grover, Carrboro, NC, USA on 04.19.07