Weekly Archive for May 20, 2007 : TreeHugger

Good news for people who like "clean coal": a team of scientists from the Department of Colloid Chemistry at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces has discovered a novel "low-tech" way of using biomass to clean up carbon dioxide emissions.They suggest using a cost-efficient process known as hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) to turn fast-growing energy crops into a form of "bio-coal" that would be stored into "carbon landfills" that could act as effective carbon sinks. Unlike other carbonization techniques, HTC is a "wet" process that eschews complex drying procedures and costly isolation schemes. Carbon structures produced through this process tend to retain most of the reactant's original carbon and are therefore the most carbon dioxide-efficient. Perhaps most significantly, the only by-product of the reaction is water. The process is itself fairly simple: biomass is placed into an autoclave (anything from leaves, organic waste to pine cones) with water and a citric acid catalyst, and the entire mixture is heated for approximately 12 hours at 180°C....

In a fascinating article published in the open access journal Environmental Research Letters, James Hansen of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York argues that widespread "scientific reticence" poses a threat to the future well-being of the planet by hindering a necessary conversation between scientists and the public over potentially large sea level rises. He points out that any delay in the discussion carries tremendous risk as system inertias could precipitate a situation in which future sea level changes careen out of control. In laying out his case against scientific reticence, Hansen cites numerous studies that sought to examine this "resistance to scientists to scientific discovery" and this tendency to "delay discount" out of concern for being the one to erroneously "cry wolf." In essence, as do most individuals, scientists prefer immediate over delayed gratification, a practice that Hansen believes "may contribute to irrational reticence even among rational scientists" (for full list of cited references, see original article here)....

New research has shown that saving trees could slow the onset of climate change. According to the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), nearly 33 million acres of forestland is felled around the world each year, accounting for approximately 1.5 billion metric tons of carbon to the atmosphere, or 20 percent of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. If the number of trees cut down were halved, experts estimate that it could save close to 500 million metric tons of carbon annually and contribute to the 12 percent of greenhouse gas emission reductions needed to prevent the pernicious effects of global warming. Werner Kurz, a forest ecologist with Natural Resources Canada, believes that the impact of forest depletion on global warming is more harmful than the combined effects of all vehicle emissions. "What we are doing in these tropical forests is really a massive problem," said Kurz....

[Author’s Note: Readers will have to forgive me if I drop the usual TH style of writing in the third person. This post is of a rather personal nature. I want to tell you about my wedding.] Some time ago I was responsible for putting together the TreeHugger guide on How To Green Your Wedding. I was in the process of planning my own wedding celebration at the time. Now the happy day is over, and I have tied the knot with my beautiful, fantastic, tree-hugging, good lady wife, I thought it might be of interest to go over some lessons learned from planning a green, or at least greener, wedding. The event was held at Celebrity Dairy Goat Farm, a local cheese producer here in North Carolina that also runs a bed and breakfast, and offers event catering. Because the main caterers were local farmers themselves, and the rehersal dinner caterer was also deeply passionate about local food, incorporating our green values into the menu was easy. Over the course of the weekend guests were served NC shrimp biryani, fresh local strawberries, vegetarian ‘meat balls’, and local, sustainably-reared pork. One guest was even convinced she’d met the pigs in question at her friend’s farm. Obviously there was plenty of goats cheese too! The cake was baked by our local co-op, and put together by a friend who just happens to have been a pastry chef (we choose our friends well!). We made a point of celebrating local food on the menus, and in the programs, and many guests commented on how nice it was to hear the story behind their food – quite a few left with packets of the farm’s cheese too at the end of the evening. And being a farm, all food waste was either fed to the chickens or composted at the end of the day. ...

USG Corporation (NYSE:USG) announced that it has registered its new headquarters, 550 W. Adams St., Chicago, Illinois, USA, as LEED for Commercials Interiors (CI) registered space, the U.S. Green Building Council’s voluntary rating standard for green design and construction of tenant improvements. USG is seeking LEED-CI Gold certification, joining a select group of environmentally-friendly buildings in Chicago. Of the 250 registered LEED-CI spaces in Chicago, only 16 are certified as Gold. LEED ratings include Certified, Silver, Gold and Platinum...Nearly 1000 employees occupy 11 floors totaling about 300,000 square feet in the new 18-story glass and steel building."...

The Orlando Florida, USA airport has a new hydrogen fueling station, installed to provision a new generation of clean shuttle buses. "Air Products' (NYSE:APD) hydrogen technology was officially put into operation this week in Orlando, Florida. Designed and constructed by Chevron Hydrogen Company, a division of Chevron U.S.A. Inc., the hydrogen fueling station is located near the Orlando Airport and will fuel a fleet of shuttle buses powered by modified internal combustion engines." The thought of waiting for a shuttle at baggage claim - and not having to breath diesel fumes - is certainly attractive. We don't have to wait for fuel cell technology to become more cost effective to benefit from better air quality. Knowing that the hydrogen reformation equipment can be more conveniently equipped to control pollutants than can a bus, we expect to see more of this in the future....

how to green your kids toys banner image

What’s the Big Deal?

It’s a little cliché but true nonetheless, your children and your children's children will inherit the world that we create today. So, the stuff we give them shouldn't make life any harder on them in the future. If that alone isn't enough, how about the fact that your child will, more likely than not, chew everything edible and non-edible in his/her sight. Now there's motivation to make sure your child's playthings are green and healthy! Here we’ll give you the scoop on how to find more sustainable and less toxic toys for your little TreeHugger so you can do good for your child and the environment.

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There are no downtown supermarkets in worn-out cities like Troy, Schenectady and Albany, so the poor living in these areas don't get fresh vegetables. This year, the Capital District Community Gardens, a nonprofit agency, started showing up in the Veggie Mobile, which according to the New York Times, cruises the streets on a rotating schedule three days a week, selling freshly grown local produce. On one additional day, it offers samples and gives away fresh fruit and vegetables, hoping to get people to expand their food choices. “We’re trying to give people in inner-city neighborhoods access to affordable fresh produce,” said Amy Klein, executive director of the community gardens. But they are being careful about their carbon footprint while they do it- "Our UPS- style step van that will be retrofit with refrigeration and shelving units to store produce being sold. The refrigeration units will be powered by photovoltaic cells and the truck itself will run on biodiesel, making it a truly green machine. To make the Veggie mobile charmingly conspicuous it will be colorfully painted and outfitted with a sound system that will announce our presence before we arrive. " ::Capital District Community Gardens via ::New York Times ...

Spring is in the air and the long daylight hours are bringing Berliners out of hibernation and back to activity. Activity as in Activism. Green entries in the calendar range from the small and provincial to events of international impact. Anchoring the local end of the spectrum are items such as the call for entries to the competition for the Berlin Mitte Environment Prize. Of somewhere between local and global interest, depending on your point of view, is the much-discussed issue of Knut, the first polar bear born for over thirty years at the Berlin zoo. Where do you weigh in: should Knut be mascot for the fight against global warming? Or should the tiny bear, rejected by its mother and raised on a bottle by the zoo keeper, be humanely executed to spare him the indignity of being raised by humans and therefore not bear-like enough? In spite of the threats to polar bear biodiversity in the wild? At the clearly global end of the spectrum is the G8 conference on the sea shore north of Berlin. With the conference only weeks away, global citizens are converging by foot, bike and caravan to join the protests, exhibitions and general hub-bub that surrounds the meeting of global leaders. Dropping Knowlege will report the blow-by-blow from their G8 Summer Camp, and is a good place to find out how you can join a Bicycle Caravan or Euromarch on Rostock. These links are just examples, but there are routes from south, east, west and north. All roads lead to Rostock and events of cultural, social, environmental and artistic merit; so check it out: everyone can join from anywhere....

Sometimes an idea seems almost too good to be true. But this one is not. If there was a worldwide shift from incandescent light bulbs to compact fluorescents, the drop in electricity use would permit us to close 270 coal-fired (500-megawatt) power plants that are contributing enormously to climate change. (See full report.) Some countries have already started “banning the bulb.” On February 20, 2007, Australia announced it would phase out the sale of inefficient incandescent light bulbs by 2010, replacing them with highly efficient compact fluorescent bulbs that use one fourth as much electricity. For the United States, this bulb switch would facilitate shutting down 80 coal-fired plants. Two months after Australia’s announcement, the Canadian government announced it would phase out sales of incandescents by 2012. In mid-March, a U.S. coalition of environmental groups—including the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Alliance to Save Energy, the American Coalition for an Energy-Efficient Economy, and the Earth Day Network—along with Philips Lighting launched an initiative to shift to the more-efficient bulbs in all of the country’s estimated 4 billion sockets by 2016....

This week's article will once again address the construction of the main house (the past few articles focused on construction of the workshop). At this point in the construction process, framing of the house is complete and we can begin stacking the straw bales. For this task, I decided to enlist the help of some volunteer workers. Over the course of a weekend, I held a straw bale workshop. I had placed several fliers around town to announce this, and on the first day of the workshop, about twenty-five enthusiastic individuals showed up to lend a hand and to get some hands-on experience with these techniques. A workshop like this benefits everyone involved. The homeowner saves a great deal of time and money (in my case, eighty percent of the bales were placed during the workshop) because he or she is essentially getting free labor, and the volunteers receive free instruction on how to place the bales and other related skills. There is also a wonderful feeling of community when a group of people get together for a project such as this—the obvious comparison is that of an old-fashioned barn-raising. ...

While global warming naysayers seem content to continue flouting the overwhelming scientific consensus in favor of this anthropogenic phenomenon, they seem to have gotten one point largely right: hurricanes didn't suddenly begin massing over the past century as a result of warming sea temperatures. Indeed, a new study carried out by geologists Jeff Donnelly and Jonathan Woodruff from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) has shown that the frequency of hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean is closely related to long-term trends in the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the West African monsoon and that bursts of intense activity have occurred in cycles over the past 5,000 years. By examining sediment-core samples obtained from Laguna Playa Grande on Vieques, Puerto Rico, an island particularly vulnerable to strong hurricanes, they were able to piece together a 5,000-year chronology of land-falling hurricanes in that area that they then compared with existing paleoclimate data on ENSO, the West African monsoon and other climate influences. They concluded that the number of intense hurricanes (i.e. category 3, 4 and 5) tended to rise when the effect of El Niño was weak and that of the West African Monsoon strong. ...

For one week each year, Black Rock City becomes the tenth largest city in Nevada. The massive fully-interactive arts festival that is Burning Man attracts people from around the world to experience a temporary intentional community in the heat of the desert, and this year’s theme is eco-effectiveness. In this extended interview, Meaghan O’Neill talks with Burning Man’s Environmental Manager Tom Price about green tech on the playa, Burners Without Borders, and Black Rock City as a sustainable microcosm. Subscribe to TreeHugger Radio on iTunes or listen/right click to download. ::TreeHugger Radio (TreeHugger Radio is written by Simran Sethi and produced by Jacob Gordon. This week's interview conducted by Meaghan O’Neill.) ...

Mini takes the Cooper a step forward making its emissions as clean as the Prius… Bill Richardson says President Bush slept through the climate wakeup call… Exxon shareholders want to shake up the boardroom and oust a key figure… Massive Wal-Mart has plans to bring more sustainable practices to the sale of shrimp… As wetlands turn dry, diverse bird populations face extinction… Most Huggable is a daily roundup of some of the top stories from Hugg.com, TreeHugger’s user-generated green news site. Why not submit your own green news? ...

"On the eve of summer and as gasoline prices soar, the auto industry is launching a $1 million radio ad campaign that challenges the push for new vehicles to get about 35 miles per gallon. The ads, decrying "extreme fuel economy increases," are part of a brewing fight in Congress over legislation that will be considered next month and could lead to more fuel-efficient vehicles...The ads will starting running this weekend in states with a large concentration of pickup truck and sport utility vehicle owners, including Arkansas, Colorado, Delaware, Idaho, Louisiana, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The group also directs people to a web site that encourages residents to contact their members of Congress about the proposed bill." With gasoline bumping US$4/gallon ,the "extreme mileage" thing would sound pretty good to me. But I don't plan on buying a really big truck. If fuel stays that high, though, it seems reasonable to expect fewer "Sold" signs on those "normal mileage" vehicles. Via: Houston Chronicle Image credit: Neils Big Truck. ...

Just when you thought you have every add-on and doodad for your 18 wheeler, an Israeli professor in engineering has made a device that can help make your truck fleet go green. Highlighted at the World’s Best Technologies Showcase in Fort Worth Texas last week, Professor Avi Seifert has devised an anti-drag device that can increase fuel efficiency as much as 10%. Experts commercializing the technology at the University, say that the device could save Americans as much as $400 million dollars worth of fuel every year. Less fuel consumption, needless to say, goes hand in hand with reducing greenhouse gases and a happier planet. The device which is still in the prototype stage (and looking for an investor) is a small actuator that can be attached to a truck or its trailer. Using a combined action of suction and pulsed blowing of airflow, reports the University’s website, the device reduces drag in a controlled manner. At an expected end-user cost of $1000 to $2000 per unit, the device could pay for itself in a year. And if developed in time, it could be one of those blockbuster Christmas gifts like The Clapper, remote-controlled garage door openers and heated slippers. But don't stop at this post truckers. TreeHugger archives report on many ways to make your trucks go green. Here, here and here. ::TAU News ...

Sweden’s Scania has produced a standard-sized low-floor city bus that cuts CO2 emissions by up to 90 percent when fuelled with ethanol and saves at least 25 percent fuel, compared with a bus running on conventional petrol or diesel. Twelve of the hybrid-drive buses equipped to run purely on ethanol will start regular operation in Stockholm in 2008 and 2009 in cooperation with the city’s public transport operator, SL (Storstockholms lokaltrafik). Ten of these are partly financed by the Swedish Energy Agency. The new bus also meets some of the world’s toughest emission levels - Euro 5 and EEV - and it uses technology which is designed to last the life of the vehicle. For example, energy storage is by way of supercapacitors, which are much more robust than batteries, especially in heavy-duty applications such as trucks and buses (where there is also room for the capacitors’ bulk)....

Inspired by the Greek philosophy of "kalon," meaning to have beauty linked with moral worth and usefulness, Kalon Studios extends this ideal to their work, making products that aren’t only beautiful in form but beautiful in concept as well. They've created a small collection of beautiful, modern, sustainable furniture -- a crib and changing trunk for kids, plus a chair and set of nesting blocks -- that are "kalon" in every sense of the word. Our favorite is "Isometric Chair (pictured above), featured at HauteGREEN last week (check out our Sneak Peek series for more examples of what was at the show). Made from bamboo and created with the precision of CNC (computer numerical control) manufacturing, we really like the way the the clean lines work really nicely with the beautiful, intricate engravings in the back (which are optional, by the way, if you don't like them). Kalon is a German/American husband and wife team -- Johannes Pauwen and Michaele Simmering -- and so they're fond of saying their work was "inspired in Berlin, made in Los Angeles", where they follow a sustainable business model that includes the local production, 100% post-consumer recycled paper and vegetable inks for printed materials and non-toxic finishes for their furniture. There are more pics (and a cool quote from their site) after the jump. ::Kalon Studios ...

A man was found dead in a drainage canal, close to his home in Marshland St James in the UK. The quiet Norfolk town has been the centre of a controversial battle over proposed wind farms, to which many believe the death is linked. Richard Herbert was one of a local group in support of wind-power, who wanted to build 26 turbines on land belonging to the group. They claim that members were intimidated by those against the plans. In a statement made by his family it was made clear that they believe this animosity was a factor in his death, "In recent months Richard's health had created cause for concern, and he had commenced treatment at the Fermoy centre, King's Lynn [a mental health facility]. Anxieties relating to the decline of farming coupled with opposition to a wind turbine farm and personal matters are believed to be behind his recent out-of-character behaviour." The tension between pro and anti wind in the village had grown quite strong. An 85 metre-high anemometer was erected to test the suitability of the area for a wind plant, which was promptly destroyed by anti-wind protesters, causing £100,000 of damage. ...

British nuclear engineers are set to follow the path of all ancient architects. "All but one of Britain's nuclear power stations will be shut by 2023, and the government insists it must make a decision this year on whether to build new nuclear power plants...The complete Oldbury [plant] shutdown will cost around 1 billion pounds and could take 110 years, nearly three times longer than the plant has been in operation...Decommissioning [all the] aging nuclear plants, like 40-year-old Oldbury in western England, and storing their toxic waste will cost around 70 billion pounds ($138.3 billion), according to the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority." In announcing the decision to indeed build more reactors this week, the government spokesman stated "it would make sense for any new nuclear plants to be built alongside existing ones, because all the necessary infrastructure and links to the National Grid were already there." Did they really mean they would bury the old plant's hot carcass aside a new one? If so, this could become common practice wherever aging nuclear plants must be decommissioned, including in North America - as long as no one can agree on a central repository for radiological waste. Once this prospect sinks in to the public consciousness, public licensing hearings will be, shall we say, "heated." Semantic aside: the namesake town is Oldbury - Old Bury, get it? Via:: Scientific American Image credit: Oldbury Plant NukeWorker...

DaimlerChrysler is developing a hybrid version of its Citaro bus, with pilot operation to begin next year and full-scale production planned for 2009. The Citaro hybrid uses a downsized diesel engine to provide power for a lithium-ion battery pack on the roof. When drawing into, standing at, or accelerating away from bus stops, the hybrid bus operates in electric-only mode. DaimlerChrysler says the hybrid will offer 20-30 percent lower fuel consumption than conventional diesel Citaros. The hybrid will use four electric wheel hub motors on the center and rear axles of the vehicle, with a total output of 320 kWs of power....

There's satellite imagery and then there's satellite imagery: as part of the European Space Agency's (ESA) GlobCover project, the most detailed pictures ever of the Earth's land surface (ten times sharper than similar previous efforts) have been created with the Envisat environmental satellite. These images, which are bimonthly global composites for the periods between May and June 2005 and March to April 2006, can be accessed through the ESA's GlobCover website's newly created map server tool. In all, around 40 terabytes of imagery were retrieved between December 2004 and June 2006 and processed to produce these composites, which will aid the international community in modeling the impacts of climate change and worldwide land-use trends and in studying ecosystems. Ron Witt of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) explained that the data sets obtained through the GlobCover project should "allow UNEP to do frequent monitoring of environmentally-critical sites and known 'hot spots' in areas we have under examination around the globe, and to update our knowledge of such changing environmental conditions."...

This isn't your hipper-than-thou teenager's knitting book. The Natural Knitter: How to Choose, Use, and Knit Natural Fibers from Alpaca to Yak ($32.50 cloth; 2007, Potter Craft) by Barbara Albright returns to the fiber art's all-natural roots, before acrylic/polyamide/polyester blends made their debut—before...praise the Lord and pass the Merino...fun fur. Albright adroitly covers much ground, from the plants and animals that produce the fibers to the artisans who coax them into luscious skeins of yarn. Alongside the vibrant, lavishly detailed photographs are knitting patterns to more than 20 classic designs, created from yarns spun from the fibers of sheep, llamas, angora bunnies, yak, and silkworms, as well as from organic cotton, hemp, linen, and even pineapple. (Look elsewhere for the eyelash-yarn bustiers.) You even get step-by-step instructions on how to dye yarn at home with naturally derived, eco-friendly dyes. A brilliant end to a fine career, The Natural Knitter is Albright's final publication; she passed away in 2006. We raise our needles and salute her. :: The Natural Knitter See also: ::No Sheep For You...

We're fans of this Lounge Chair made from sustainably-harvest teak by Maku Furnishings. Founded by two "Global Surfers, Travelers, Marketers and Lifestyle enthusiasts", Maku Furnishings offers "non traditional furnishings for a modern world." Their surf-inspired aesthetic is tempered by a distinctly modern feeling that yields a pretty unique set of products; Maku calls them "experiential, organic, and relevant to passionate lifestyle participants and design enthusiasts." ...

You wouldn’t know it by looking at it or by snapping photos with it, but Pentax’s *istDS digital SLR camera has the Japanese eco-label ECO-LEAF. Surprisingly when searching for consumer information about the camera there was no mention of the eco-label. The ECO-LEAF is an eco-label that is given based on the results of the life cycle assessment of the product. This program belongs to the Type III eco-label category of the ISO 14025 Standard. For this label quantitative environmental data is given for the life cycle of a product, from raw material extraction to production, distribution, use, disposal and recycling of the finished product. This is different from Type I which is given by a certifying body who judges a product based on a standard (i.e. Forest Stewardship Council) and Type II in which a company auto-declares that its product is “environmentally conscious”. Type III is quantitative and doesn’t provide a judgment on the environmental “friendliness” of the product. What it does mean is that the manufacturer has carried out an LCA and reported its finding to the ECO-LEAF people. The small amount of information available on the German Pentax website notes that “The *istDS was the world’s most compact, lightweight digital SLR camera at the time of its market launch in January 2005…” Minimizing materials and weight is one of many eco-design principles. Additionally, “the camera is free of hazardous substances such as hexavalent chromium and used no lead in the optical components, in order to minimize environmental impact.” Although we couldn't find the actual LCA report the good news here is that Pentax is minimizing hazardous materials, lowering weights and reducing materials in an attempt to make their digital SLR cameras greener. ...

After meeting in the Faroe Islands recently, 200 of the world's leading environmental scientists from five continents warned Thursday that exposure to common chemicals at normal levels makes infants and those in the womb more likely to develop a wide range of health problems in later life. Some of these include diabetes, attention deficit disorders, prostate cancer, fertility problems, thyroid disorders and obesity. And that’s because when fetuses and newborns encounter various toxic substances the growth of their critical organs and functions can be irreparably changed in a process called "fetal programming," which leaves the children susceptible to diseases later in life, and perhaps could even lead them to pass on those altered traits to their children and grandchildren. Indeed, the newest animal research suggests that some chemicals can alter gene expression by turning on or off genes that predispose people to diseases, and though the DNA itself is not changed genetic misfires in the womb like these may be permanent, and could be passed on to the next generation. ...

One doesn't have to dig deeply these days to see that green business is hot: from Fortune 500 companies to the smallest of start-ups, the business world increasingly recognizes that the urgent need to tackle climate change and other environmental challenges offers new opportunities for profitability. On Tuesday, the House of Representative's new select committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming held hearings on employment in the green economy, as businesses ramping up their eco-friendly efforts are discovering that the pool of potential employees with the necessary training and skills is still fairly shallow. Titled “Economic Impacts of Global Warming: Green Collar Jobs,” the committee's members heard testimony on efforts to expand the number of workers trained to participate in the greening of the economy, and the importance of ensuring that people on various rungs of the socioeconomic ladder are included in this expansion. Committee chair Edward J. Markey and colleagues invited the following experts to address these issues:...

We mentioned Lord Rogers' prefab "flexi-houses" being built with Wimpey earlier; now we get to see the almost finished project. "The homes are constructed from sustainable materials and employ unique features including an ‘EcoHat’ – allowing hot air to be re-used to optimise energy consumption and provide passive solar water heating – as well as layouts which optimise space and light." ::Financial Times via ::Urbanity ...

TreeHugger tends to cover some pretty high-end, glamorous technologies, but we are constantly reminded that much of the technology (and the know-how) needed to get us out of our present crisis is already here. While we may gawp over space age electric cars such as the Tesla, or the latest in thin-film solar, ultimately, much of the work needing to be done is in arguably less ‘sexy’, but equally important, fields such as home insulation, energy efficiency advice, and simple, small scale power generation. We are delighted, then, to be once again covering the Ashden Awards for Sustainable Energy (see our previous posts on the 2005 and 2006 awards, or our coverage of specific previous finalists here, here and here). We have just heard that this years’ short list has been announced, and it looks as impressive as ever. Divided into a UK section, and an international section, this prestigious award sets out to be “an annual competition to identify and reward organizations which have carried out truly excellent, practical, yet innovative schemes, demonstrating sustainable energy in action at a local level.” And this years’ crop of nominees represent, without doubt, a perfect example of the broad spectrum of fronts on which the battle against climate change is currently being fought - while some nominees are purveyors of fancy solar panels, or the latest in wind-turbine technology, they stand alongside simple micro-hydro schemes, basic ram pump technology, efficient wood stoves, and basic energy efficiency advisors. All have their place in securing a brighter, more secure future for our planet. This year the prizes are to be presented at the Ashden Awards ceremony held at the Royal Geographical Society, London, on 21st June by none other than Al Gore, and the event will be attended by grassroots, public sector and business enterprises from around the world. In a statement of support, Mr Gore said:

“The Ashden Awards are a powerful reminder that well designed and managed local sustainable energy initiatives can tackle climate change while meeting the needs of local communities. Tackling these issues simultaneously - in both rich and poor countries - is critical to addressing the twin planetary challenges of climate change and sustainable development.”

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Adam Stein is vice-president of marketing and co-founder of TerraPass, one of the leading US providers of voluntary carbon offsets. He is also a regular contributor to the debate surrounding offsets in the comments boxes here on TreeHugger. We've previously interviewed Tom Arnold of TerraPass here, and we also interviewed a seller of carbon credits to TerraPass about the details of getting funding through offset sales here. Given the always controversial nature of carbon offsets, we thought it would be worth exploring TerraPass' activities in more detail. In particular, we wanted to hear Adam's views on what role offsets can play within the wider fight against climate change, whether there is a risk that they provide an excuse for inaction, and to ask how consumers can ensure that offsets really do live up to their full potential. TreeHugger: Carbon offsets are controversial. Some welcome them as a cost-effective way to reduce emissions, while others worry that by selling 'carbon neutrality' at the swipe of a credit card, they provide an excuse for 'business-as-usual'. What role do you see offsets playing in the wider move towards a sustainable economy? Adam Stein: We’re in a phase where people are waking up to the threat of climate change, but most of us haven’t yet considered very deeply what is going to be required to actually prevent the worst effects of global warming. This is true even in much of the environmental community, where many proposed fixes are too narrow to address the full scope of the problem. ...

The Worn Again brand have hit urban eco-design gold once again with a new range of bags using reclaimed materials. After the great success of their 99% recycled sneaker line the Worn Again design team have turned their talents to accessories. The over riding impression I get from Worn Again is the fun they have with finding new and unexpected ways of reusing all sorts of materials. On their shoes they've used leather car interiors, cotton t-shirts, jeans, coffee sacks, recycled rubber and even firemen's trousers! Now for their new bags they've found a surplus of seat belts, inner tubes and ex military capes to play with. Functional, stylish and hard wearing, with a donation from every Worn Again sale going towards offsetting with Climate Care - what more could a green urban warrior need? Worn Again Bags are available to buy online and at special stockists. :: Worn Again :: Terra Plana...

We have been following Vanessa Farquharson's journey to take a small green step every day and blog it, but unplugging the fridge seems at first like a very big one. It is true that if you are young in the city, where you can shop fresh for every meal, the fridge is less important than it is to families who shop at Wal-Mart for a week's food. I believe the definition of a "New York Fridge" is one with nothing but a bottle of champagne and a grapefruit in it; I also have noted that small fridges make good cities. However unplugging the whole thing isn't a baby step. Vanessa notes that "it’s been interesting learning about all the things that didn’t really need to be refrigerated — at least for very long — in the first place (margarine, jams, potatoes, ketchup, mustard and most other condiments, apples, almond butter, blueberries, etc)." and "if you live in a city, have some time to spare each day for a walk to the corner store, have only yourself (and your kitty) to feed, and are almost a little too concerned about the environment but still more or less in control of your mental faculties — it’s worth trying the no-fridge lifestyle."-at least until it is 40 degrees C inside your apartment. ::Green as a Thistle...

Green grass is growing all over London's landmarks--last month it was the National Theatre and this week it is Trafalgar Square. Wandering onto the green is a sweet, grassy-smelling delight, with red deck chairs, people lying down, eating lunch, reading the paper, a family playing baseball (they must have been American) and others just gawking at the sight. And not quite understanding what was going on. The answer is that the mayor, Ken Livingstone, is promoting London's "villages" and its reputation as one of the world's greener capital cities. But not that green--the sod will be gone by tonight; transferred to a park where it will be planted beneath a row of trees close to the Thames. It is all quite ecological: the 2,000 square metres of sod came from a sustainable turf farm in York and was harvested the day before yesterday with very little soil attached. A team of gardeners worked all night to lay it. Global Cool a celebrity-backed climate change group, was involved in making its journey carbon neutral. How sweet it was. ...

Ontario Asparagus has made an appearance in supermarkets and outdoor markets in the past week. This is one of those vegetables that is so delicate and delicious that I like to keep the preparation as simple as possible and just enjoy the flavour of the asparagus. Nigel Slater in his book The Kitchen Diaries says "I don't mess around with asparagus". He boils it is salted water until it bends and then dips the spears into softened (not melted) butter. I like to roast asparagus. It is quick and easy to make and the flavour is quite intense. I usually just place the spears on a baking sheet, drizzle with olive oil and roast at 450 degrees for about 8 minutes, a little less if you have the skinny spears. Once out of the oven you can sprinkle it with a little sea salt or a little parmesan cheese and that's it. This recipe from Jamie Kennedy's book Seasons is a bit more elegant and you can serve it as part of a buffet or as an appetizer....

Canada has great plans for controlling greenhouse gases, except of course where it might hurt oil sands development in Alberta. And of course in Maritime Canada where jobs are scarce. And when the Irvings, who own the Province of New Brunswick are on the phone. And when six out of ten cars in Boston run on Irving oil. So when the Irvings propose a new seven billion dollar, 300,000 barrel per day refinery there is no real worry about it, even though the existing refinery pumps out 3.3 million tonnes of CO2 per year and is one of Canada's 25 biggest emitters. And we can't jave things like environmental assessments of the project slow it down, so Environment Minister John Baird just exempted it from the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. After all he says the refinery "will provide great economic benefits for the province, a lot of jobs, a lot of hope, a lot of opportunity will be created with that. If we didn't have an intensity-based system (for regulating greenhouse gas emissions) that wouldn't be able to go ahead." Irvings say jump; Baird says "how high?" ::CBC...

What a pleasure to show a green residential project that is not an expensive condo in New York or Dubai. Instead it is a sixty-six unit building of affordable apartments in ratty Ramsgate Street in Dalston, London, designed by Waugh Thistleton. It is an airfoil shape to concentrate the greatest wind speed to the spline of the building, where four vertical axis turbines are mounted and will generate 15% of the buildings load, saving seven tonnes of CO2 each year. ...

Walking on Toronto's funky Queen Street, we noticed a sign for the Matchbox Garden & Seed Co. and walked down a back lane into what is normally a parking area behind retail stores, and found seedlings being sold by Hannah Jacobs from a lovely oasis of a garden, just beginning to sprout. It turns out that in an urban backyard one can make a business growing vegetables and herbs. Hannah says "Our focus is organically grown heirloom vegetables and herbs. Part of our purpose is to encourage visitors to our garden to start their own inner city organic experience. The month of May brings opportunity to plant your garden, enjoy the warmer weather and look forward to the colours and flavors of summer harvests." The catalogue is also a gem, a graphic wonder from another era. ...

The Japanese are famous for their paper crafts; we love them because they can so easily be downloadable designs, eliminating the cost and carbon of shipping. There is an exhibition in Harajuku a the AssistOn Gallery showing dozens of them, old and new. Above are "from left to right: the grey old-fashioned robot from the 50s, the “Space Patrol” robot in his car on a pedestal and the flying robot dog on a LEGO brick." And then they get much more complicated. There are ships, birds made out of tracing paper, and buildings like the Katsura Detached Villa and the Tokyo Train Station. All of the models in the exhibition are available from the Shubunsha Corporation; we hope soon for download. Open until May 31 at ::Assiston ...

In its most recent report released in April, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) cautioned that rising temperatures would likely result in "the altered spatial distribution of some infectious disease vectors" and other "mixed effects, such as the decrease or increase of the range and transmission potential of malaria in Africa." Stephen Morse, a professor at Columbia University, noted at the 107th General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology that "environmental changes have always been associated with the appearance of new diseases or the arrival of old diseases in new places." David Rogers of Oxford University, who also spoke at the meeting, explained that the diseases that are most likely to be affected by environmental changes are those carried by insects and ticks. What isn't clear, he added, is whether the diseases would increase or decrease, an uncertainty he ascribed to the lack of a thorough analysis of historical disease record and the need for present-day ground-based surveillance and good predictive models. Based on current and projected figures, Morse predicted that rising global temperatures would exert a profound impact on the spread of malaria by facilitating the migration of disease vectors, such as mosquitoes, to altitudes that had originally been too cold to support them. "One of the first indicators of rising global temperatures could be malaria climbing mountains," says Morse. ...

Gas prices are rising, and gas-guzzling cars are appearing less and less attractive. SF Gate are reporting that sales of "perhaps the most idiotic consumer vehicle ever produced in your lifetime", the Hummer H2, have fallen dramatically for the past two years, to the point where the model may be dropped, "It's heavily rumored that GM will soon kill the model entirely, which is already being supplanted by a slew of smaller, less disgusting H2 offspring like the H3." However, it's not a trend. SUV sales are climbing, despite the huge cost of filling their tank. Perhaps the H2 didn't sell because it was ugly, not because gas became too expensive. Perhaps people wanted an SUV, but didn't want to be seen as harming the environment - Hummers are an icon of irresponsible environmental choice, even amongst other SUVs. Perhaps when gas prices rise another dollar, we'll finally see less of these over the top cars on the road. :: SF Gate See also :: A Green Hummer? (It Runs On Biofuels) :: GM Kills the Hummer H1...

Question: A large apartment complex is going to be built in my neighborhood, starting next month and lasting through the year. There is already a lot more congestion and many more construction vehicles near my house. Is this construction dangerous? What can I do to minimize the impact of this construction? Response: As you are already witnessing, construction has many impacts on surrounding neighborhoods. Construction tends to be loud, dusty, and bothersome. If the construction includes demolition, some of the generated dust may contain pollutants, such as asbestos or metals, that are potentially harmful. Also, construction is likely to increase congestion in your neighborhood -- both from usual and rerouted traffic and from construction vehicles. This increased congestion generally means more pollution for your neighborhood. ...

Think water and global warming, and melting Arctic ice caps may come to mind. That may seem kind of far away, but the water you use at home does in fact have something to do with the melting poles. That’s because every time you heat up water for a bath or to wash the dishes, CO2 is released. So using less hot water means fewer CO2 emissions. Since the average American household expends about 14 percent of its energy usage on heating water, this week’s Slate Green Challenge with TreeHugger is designed to help you use hot water more efficiently, without asking you to resort to cold showers. (Though if you did do that, you’d save a bundle in carbon dioxide emissions.) Click on through to read this week's article and take the Green Challenge quiz. ::Green Challenge Water What the heck is the Green Challenge anyway? Click here to find out. Related in TreeHugger: Our guides for How to Go Green help you green up your act when it comes to your dishwasher and your water usage. ...

The updated 1991-2005 National Solar Radiation Data Base (NSRDB) is now available from NREL and the National Climatic Data Center. The update (472 pp) includes solar and meteorological data from 1,454 sites in the U.S., as well as a 10-km resolution hourly solar data set for 1998-2005. In addition to the expanded station list, this update differs from the original NSRDB several ways. It contains: • New or modified solar models • New gridded data product • New station identification numbers • A new station classification scheme • New data formats • Different meteorological fields • Revised uncertainty estimates. ...

This coming weekend, the US celebrates Memorial Day; for many of us, that means a day off on Monday. With spring waning and summer almost here, it's a great time to get outdoors and prepare for a summer of fun, or catch up on some spring chores that you haven't gotten around to yet. Whatever your long weekend holds, we hope you make it green; here are some tips and ideas for your green weekend. 1) Start a garden; here are some ideas to get you started, and here are some tips for doing it with the planet in mind. 2) If spring cleaning is still on your list, be sure to use eco-friendly cleaners to help get the green job done; check out our How to Green Your Cleaning to really get down to the nitty-gritty. 3) If your spring cleaning extends to culling and organizing your stuff, here are some ways to get organized, and some inspiring words to help get rid of stuff you don't use -- remember, you don't have to throw it all away. 4) Starting a compost heap or picking up a compost bin is a great start to fertilizing that new garden (that you planted in tip 1), and you can get a container that even fits right in your kitchen and doesn't smell! 5) If a little outdoor time is on your schedule, hop on the world's most energy efficient vehicle: your bicycle; even the cool kids are doing it and you can charge your cell phone and get ready for the next World Naked Bike Ride event at the same time....

GE -"General Electric will today reveal that it has doubled sales from environmentally friendly products to $12bn over the past two years in the strongest sign yet that corporate America's drive to respond to climate change is beginning to pay off. At a Los Angeles event with Arnold Schwarzenegger, California's governor, Jeffrey Immelt, GE chief executive, will say the company has $50bn of projects in the pipeline and is on track to meet its target of $20bn in "green" sales by 2010." A most interesting article that ThreeHugger heartily recommends. Via:: Financial Times " JPMorgan, seeking to capitalise on the boom in environmentally friendly technologies, has established an alternative energy investment banking unit and hired a former executive from General Electric to run it." Catch-up time. Via:: Financial Times again. US Oil Industry (variously) "“If the national policy of the country is to push for dramatic increases in the biofuels industry, this is a disincentive for those making investment decisions on expanding capacity in oil products and refining,” said John D. Hofmeister, the president of the Shell Oil Company." More excuses are possible: if CAFE standards were raised significantly, they could close refineries. (joke) Via: New York Times...

First designed back in 1968 by renowned industrial designer Peter Raacke, and currently on display in design museums around the world, like MoMA in New York and the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, "otto" is coming back to the consumer market. The corrugated cardboard chair, being re-issued by German design retailer pulpo, was designed to be light, durable, sustainable and stable; ideas that are as relevant today as they were almost 40 years ago. We've noted some of the ways that cardboard can be used aside from as packing materials, and this one ranks right up there; in addition to being built by recycled, recyclable materials, it's a blank slate, waiting to be painted, lacquered or otherwise altered to fit your style, decor or mood. For €69, you can join the otto club by visiting here. ::pulpo via ::Design Spotter Agency...

Hydrogen energy enthusiasts, rejoice: the recent revelation of a promising (and tasty) new technology that would convert sugars into hydrogen should breathe some much-needed air into the hydrogen fuel cell movement and partially rebuke those who've dismissed the notion of a viable hydrogen economy. Virginia Tech, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), researchers led by Y.-H Percival Zhang, assistant professor of biological systems engineering, announced the discovery of a novel synthetic enzymatic pathway that would use a combination of 13 enzymes not normally found in nature to convert polysaccharides and water into hydrogen. In light of the U.S. Department of Energy's 2006 Advance Energy Initiative that called for the creation of hydrogen-powered fuel cell vehicles by 2020, this technology would solve one of hydrogen's most vexing problems, the cost-efficient storage and transportation of the gas, by allowing future consumers to easily carry around the fuel in the form of starch and water. Adding enzymes to the mixture would cause them to "use the energy in the starch to break up water into only carbon dioxide and hydrogen," according to Zhang. He and his colleagues believe these ingredients could be mixed in the fuel tank of a car to provide a more potent alternative to gasoline. Assuming a car with a 12-gallon tank could hold 27 kg of starch (the equivalent of 4 kg of hydrogen), it could presumably run for more than 300 miles since Zhang estimates that one kg of starch produces approximately the same energy output as 1.12 kg of gasoline. ...

This coming Sunday would've been Silent Spring author and environmental hero Rachel Carson's 100th birthday. In recognition of Carson's contributions to the creation of the modern environmental movement, Sen. Benjanmin L. Cardin (D-MD) has announced his intentions to submit a resolution celebrating Carson's work. While most treehuggers would consider this a no-brainer, Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) has announced that if Cardin submits his proposal, he will block it. According to the Washington Post,...

Virtualization software allows you to run many different servers on a single piece of hardware; it's all the rage with IT departments because it drastically reduces the number of servers you need. This translates into reduced energy consumption (fewer machines to draw juice), less maintenance (fewer machines to fix), and more dollars in your pocket (fewer machines to buy). VMware, a commercial product with a good rep is the clear market leader. But now a worthy competitor - the Xen open source project - just got better. Xen just released a new version of its virtualization product this week, and apparently it boots gluteus maximus. From the article: "For server workloads, Xen's core hypervisor functionality now meets or beats VMware ESX in pretty much all areas, both features and performance," said Ian Pratt, leader of the Xen project and founder of XenSource. Hype? Probably not; the list of supporters (Intel, IBM, Novell, VA Linux (Japan), HP, Fujitsu, SGI, Red Hat, AMD, Sun, Unisys and the National Security Agency) is impressive. And the cost of the free software is zero; ironically, that always seems to be the hardest number for IT shops to swallow. But why buy? Put your saved cash into a green technology, say solar cells. Xen says the next stop is laptops and desktops; no idea what that means but I'm sure it will be exciting:: ServerWatch...

TreeHugger loves multi-functional designs, and furniture that transforms is no exception. Aside from saving space and making more efficient use of space, it's just cool to watch your transformer furniture actually do something. It's a concept we've hugged before, but we're always happy to add more to the flock. The newest entry is the "foureight table", designed by Alex Suvajac (whom we've featured before), who designed the hinging bamboo coffee/end table to work with and expand the notion of adaptable, eco-friendly furniture for small urban dwellings. About the design, Alex says, "Our goal in creating this piece was to make a solution for a small urban space that allows for a flexibility of uses. We are aware that now and in the future people who live in the urban centers of the world will have small quarters. We want to contribute to this new furnishing demand by designing environmentally responsible furniture that is both beautiful and purposeful." Hit the jump to see how the table transforms, and learn more about the design, including how it is created from start to finish, at the designer's website. ::Alex Suvajac...

Amazon.com Green Life: A Different Environmental Crisis: Questions for Al Gore by Tom. "Whether he's running in 2008 or not, Al Gore is busily staking his claim as the leading voice of the Democratic Party. With the success of his Oscar-winning documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, marking the end of his time in the wilderness, the losing party in Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98, has returned with The Assault on Reason." Everyday trash: Carnival of the Green # 78 by Leila Darabi "This week, everydaytrash is proud to host Carnival of the Green, a roving roundup of the very best in green blog posts designed to amaze, delight and drive Web traffic." ...

Photo credit: krish4u The buzz around organically maintained beehives seems to be "Epidemic? What epidemic?" (That and maybe "Someone should tell the Queen to start laying off the royal jelly, if you know what I mean.") While record numbers of bees in North America and Europe are vanishing en masse in a worrying trend experts have dubbed "Colony Collapse Disorder" (CCD), organic beekeepers are reporting no losses. Sharon Labchuk, a longtime environmental activist and part-time organic beekeeper, was quoted in a recent report at Red Ice Creations:

I'm on an organic beekeeping list of about 1,000 people, mostly Americans, and no one in the organic beekeeping world, including commercial beekeepers, is reporting colony collapse on this list. The problem with the big commercial guys is that they put pesticides in their hives to fumigate for varroa mites, and they feed antibiotics to the bees. They also haul the hives by truck all over the place to make more money with pollination services, which stresses the colonies.

...

Walk to School Week in Brighton & Hove England took things over the edge as the road outside their Rudyard Kipling Primary School was closed to traffic and covered with plants, flowers and artificial grass so kids could walk on the roadway as though it were a path. The project itself just may be the first of its kind on the planet to be quite honest. I mean really, who ever heard of covering the road with fake grass just to prove a point about walking to school and sustainability? And from the looks of things it really had an impact on kids, the most important part of any project to get their attention about sustainability no matter how wacky it seems at first glance. How wacky was it? Well, not only was the road covered with fake grass and plants, but the kids were met with strange characters to greet them like singing cowboys and a fish on a bicycle too. So how did teachers and students feel about the whole crazy idea? Well, as Headteacher Barbara Shackell pointed out: “It was abs

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