Weekly Archive for June 24, 2007 : TreeHugger

So you've already tried using urine to power your batteries and to fill up your gas tank. Why not now try using it as food (and, no, we don't mean for your own consumption)? A team of ecological engineers at the University of Kalyani, India, discovered that plankton fed on a diet of ground water and human urine did better than those that were given alternate nitrogen-rich meals. Bara Bihari Jana and his colleagues tried growing several Moina micrura (a zooplankton species commonly fed to hatchling fish in fisheries) stocks in a variety of different feces/urine cocktails, including cow urine and dung and poultry droppings. Those that were reared on human urine started reproducing at least four days earlier, lived longer and produced more offspring than the rest. "Human urine is a stable liquid and contains valuable nutrients. I see no reason why it couldn't be used for this purpose if it provides a suitable chemical environment for the zooplankton to grow," said Stephen Smith, an environmental biochemist at Imperial College London....

It's an age-old ritual for college science majors around the country: every year, a new wave of students takes a series of chemistry laboratory courses which, while interesting, often inspire much dread and stress. Students are expected to work with hazardous chemicals under cramped conditions to complete a set of preordained, stepwise experiments with speed and precision. Ken Doxsee and James E. Hutchison, both professors of chemistry at the University of Oregon, thought there ought to be a better way. “We were meeting every evening and on Saturday mornings. It was just inappropriate for everyone involved,” said Doxsee, referring to the rigorous lab schedule he and his students were subjected to just a few years ago. Hutchison and Doxsee started tinkering around with several new ideas, such as altering the class curriculum to emphasize less toxic, instrument-heavy experiments, to cut down on lab time and open up more space for students. Many of these schemes eventually bore fruit and have now provided the model for a new movement in chemistry: "green chemistry." ...

Sport fishing ought to be a big input for any locally produced, 100-mile (or any other radius) diet. It's been seldom discussed here; but we aim to correct that. Now...it's true that there are many water bodies from which no fish should be eaten due to pollution. It's also true that there are several species of sport fish that, with perhaps some few exceptions, should just not be eaten at all, such as carp. But the fact of the matter is that the bulk of the sport fish are just fine. Every time you happen to turn on the local news you're going to see car crashes and home fires. Every time. So does that mean you should sleep out on the lawn and refuse to drive ever again? Of course not. Fishing is good!...

Is truth stranger than fiction? Have you ever used Dr. Bronner’s soap and wondered how this tingly product has so many uses? In Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soapbox, director Sara Lamm follows around the Bonner family in their quest to sell soap and unite everyone under one plan (the Moral ABCs), listed on the side of every bottle, along with a variety of other quotes and directives. Dr. E.H. Bronner’s life is the stuff that movies are made of, which is probably why someone decided to make a movie about a family of soapmakers, which does not exactly sound like the stuff of blockbuster movies....

After leading the video game industry in innovation with its DS handheld and Wii console, the house of Mario is now vying to burnish its green credentials with a series of environmental policies it recently unveiled in an e-mail exchange with an enterprising reader from a Nintendo fan site. While nothing special by our standards (keep in mind we're talking about a relatively benign industry, emissions/pollution-wise), Nintendo has established a commendable set of policies to minimize its environmental impact. So how green are we talking about? In Nintendo's own words: In our offices: – We recycle the paper we use company-wide. – We limit our use of colored paper, since it's not easily recycled. – We purchase recycled paper towels, report covers, message pads, and writing pads. – We currently recycle more than 70% of the waste that is generated at our headquarters. – We actively promote the recycling of aluminum cans and glass in our corporate cafeterias....

Macy's will be installing 8 megawatts of solar power in 26 stores throughout California. The installation will be performed by SunPower, a solar cell manufacturer. Macy's will buy the arrays for 11 of the stores. For the other 15 stores, Macy's will purchase the electricity produced by the solar panels from a third-party financier who will retain ownership of the systems. Additionally, the stores will be getting energy efficient upgrades, which will reduce its energy use by 40%, almost doubling the impact of the solar power alone. ...

Sebastiano Oddi, graduating student at the University of Brighton, cooked up the idea of the Edible Plate:

"Mange2 is an edible picnic container for two people. By manipulating the gaseous structure of bread Oddi has designed a wholly edible container that results in near zero waste. It currently has been produced in 8 different flavours.

It can be seen and perhaps tasted at New Designers in London July 12-15. via ::Notcot...

July 1 is Canada's 140th birthday, and every town is getting the fireworks ready; where we are they will shoot them out over the lake. People sometimes say that TreeHuggers don't want anyone to have any fun, but perhaps its time to put this tradition to bed. Besides the stream of burned and injured kids and the usual fires,Rose noted last year:

Unfortunately for those of us who love the pretty lights in the sky, fireworks are often propelled by gunpowder, and the accelerants and heavy metals used for coloration can leave traces in the air and water for days or even weeks after the party is over. The effects are worsened by muggy summer weather and its accompanying poor air quality.

Jeremy noted recently:

fireworks heavily contribute to perchlorate contamination of surrounding water bodies. Perchlorate is well-known to pose risks for both human health and wildlife.

It is all very pretty, but is it a celebration of the birth of a country or is it an excuse to blow things up?...

Here is a thirty-six year old idea for flatpack furniture that needs revisiting. We quote the article: What goes up and doesn’t come down? A new kind of furniture called “Up.” You buy it flat-as-a-pancake in a vinyl package. Cut open the vinyl and the pancake automatically expands into a modern chair. Once expanded, it cannot be recompressed and cannot be punctured. It works like this: At the factory in Italy the furniture is molded of poly-urethane foam, and covered with stretch upholstery. Then, in a vacuum chamber, the piece is compressed to force out the air, and sealed in the airtight package. Open the package and the foam absorbs air, expanding to its designed size and shape. ...

When I wonder what words should replace Emma Lazarus's obsolete phrase on the Statue of Liberty - "give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free" I think of Frank Luntz's dictum learned from Joe Romm: “There is a simple rule, you say it again, and you say it again, and you say it again, and you say it again and again and again and again and about the time you are absolutely sick of saying it is about the time that your target audience has heard it for the first time.” for it clearly is the defining phrase in America today. We see it in the kneejerk "Al Gore's house uses too much electricity" comment on every post that mentions his name, and in the current meme "Banning DDT killed more people than Hitler." Senator Tom Coburn does it as he kills tributes to her 100th birthday. Treehugger favourite source of hilarity the Competitive Enterprise institute does it with a website Rachel was Wrong; Michael Crichton did it in State of Fear; even the New York Times gets tainted when it looks for balance instead of truth by printing John Tierney doing it. As is so often the case, it gets said again and again, even if it is not true. ...

When we interviewed Dale Vince, of UK green energy pioneers Ecotricity (whose collaborations with Lotus and Ben and Jerry's have previously made the pages of TreeHugger) , he was pretty scathing about other renewable energy suppliers. His main complaint was that most suppliers simply buy up existing green energy supplies, rather than supporting new generation capacity. Here’s what he had to say:

“Many companies have set up to sell green energy and they do so on the premise that by buying it consumers can reduce their carbon emissions - its marketing led and not fully honest. What's been happening is that companies have been buying up sources of green energy to bundle into 100% tariffs, in the process taking that green power from the current user to sell it to a new one. Before liberalisation we all had about 3% renewables in our fuel mix (in the UK) - following liberalisation and the rash of 100% tariffs - we now all typically have 0% in our fuel mix and a few people have 100%. So its a redistribution of green and of carbon.”

It seems that one of his major competitors, Good Energy, may have been paying attention, as they are making major investments in new generating capacity. The company has announced a major plan to over haul one othe UK’s first wind farms. Under the slogan Repowering Delabole, Good Energy are planning to completely replace the aging turbines at Delabole Wind Farm in Cornwall with larger, state-of-the-art turbines. Juliet Davenport, Good Energy’s Chief Executive, explained more:...

Today it is over. The very first Bio-market in Germany was founded in 1971 under the name "Peace Food". The small business will shut its doors today, unable to compete with the bio-chain outlet which has opened around the corner. It is a story of the evolution of green from extremist niche to capitalist mainstream. And it prompts you to ask yourself: is this good news? Or the end of an era?...

This past week, two American women launched an expedition in the Karakoram Mountains of Pakistan. Their goal? To retrace the footsteps of Fanny Bullock Workman who was the first woman to climb the mountains 100 years ago. The players include our friend Alison Gannett, a world-champion skier and environmentalist, and Zoe Hart, the first American woman certified as an Alpine mountain guide. The women will also attempt the world’s first descent on skis from the 21,000ft. Mount Koser Gunge before the snow is gone for good. And what’ very cool is that you can be there to watch. Chasing Glaciers, a project directed by five-time Emmy winning producer LLewellyn Wells (former producer of The West Wing) and his partners Michael Penwarden and John Gartner of Matter Media, will bring to the world’s attention the effect of climate change on the glaciers of the Himalaya region through this documentary. Their adventure will allow for an interactive worldwide audience to follow their trek “live” by viewing step by step documentaries via streaming video, images and text on the site. Chasing Glaciers will compare glacial conditions to those documented 100 years ago to help better understand how climate change is impacting this magnificent region, and how those effects impact geography, wildlife and the lives of the 750,000,000 people that count on the watersheds for their survival. In the next week, we’ll be speaking with Wells directly about the project and his company Green Fit. Make sure you tune in! ::Chasing Glaciers...

Go on, admit it you were wondering just how TreeHugger could leap on the media frenzy which has surrounded the release of Apple’s new iPhone. It’s a tough call, but we think with iWood we just sneak in. Well, almost anyhow. Seems there is a company in the Netherlands by the name of Miniot that have been making iPod cases carved out of solid wood. Oak, mahogany, walnut, cherry and padouk to be precise. Although if your wallet is even deeper you could spring for 30,000 year old Kauri from New Zealand. Now that the iPhone has arrived on the scene, they’re offering timber cases for that too. Unfortunately their rather obtuse website doesn’t indicate whether the wood was obtained from a sustainably harvested forest, such as would be the instance with Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification. It is at least from a renewable source and will ultimately be biodegradable, when you upgrade to the ‘next big thing.’ Unlike the multitude of plastic electronics cases which we are destined to have as rubbish for the next 500 years, unless the idea of recyclable ‘industrial nutrients’ takes off, and soon. And alas this is where the iWood fails the test because instead of the wooden, magnetic closing, hinged lid the iPods get, the iPhone model sports a plastic polycarbonate faceplate. Damn and we were so close. ::Miniot via ::MacMinute...

"There has been a double-digit increase [14%] in the proportion of Americans who say environmental problems are a major global threat - from 23 per cent to 37 per cent, according to a comprehensive survey published this week by the Pew Center in Washington. The Pew survey bears out the fact that concern about the environment is still sharply lower in the US than in any other advanced industrial country, with the exception of the UK. [italics are ours] In every other Western European country large majorities view global warming as a serious problem, ranging from 57 per cent in Italy to 70 per cent in Spain. The survey of some 10,000 people worldwide by the Pew Global Attitudes Project found that public opinion in Great Britain mirrors the US view. In the UK, less than half (45 per cent) say it is very serious while another 37 per cent rate it as a somewhat serious concern. In 34 of the 37 countries surveyed by Pew, the United States is named by a majority as the country that is "hurting the world's environment the most.""...

Topping the third round of Popular Mechanics’ DIY Rally 2007 is the work of Damon Vander Lind of MIT. He says he’s been reading PM since he was a kid, and it shows. His recumbent propeller trike is cobbled together from Frankenstiened bike parts and fiberglass blades that he crafted himself (with a simple process called “sandbagging.” Sure, easy.) “The propeller is similar to one Vander Lind made for a wind turbine to power a friend's yurt,” and they are hollowed out and wired with LED lights, creating a spinning circle at night when they get up to 300 rpms. Vander Lind says the propeller trike took him 3 weeks to build and about $500. I’m picturing the road race right now: the propeller trike, the HyperBike, and the Pterosail. The point of it all? It's clever and it's crafty. Beyond that, you got me. Check out the video below the fold to see him spinning around Cambridge, MA and blending up some migratory pigeons (kidding). ...

Now here's something you've probably never seen before: a zoo for animal life. Animal life powered by electric and solar energy, that is. The Robotarium X in Alverca, Portugal, contains 45 robots that encompass a range of several distinct species (14) characterized by their unique morphologies and behavior strategies. The robots, built specifically for the zoo, possess certain abilities, including obstacle avoidance, movement or sunlight detection and interaction with the public. So why, you ask, would anyone go to the trouble of creating a zoo for artificial life when there are already plenty of zoos with real animal life? Leonel Moura, the project's originator, explains his rationale thusly:

"Robotarium X, the first zoo for artificial life, approaches robots very much in the way as we are used to look at natural life. We, humans, enjoy watching and studying other life forms behavior and, sadly, also to capture them. However, in this case, although the robots are confined to a cage it can be said that, not like animals, they enjoy it. In fact the Robotarium is their ideal environment with plenty of sun, smoothness, tranquility and attention. There are no fights or aggression and the only competition is to assure a place under the sunlight.

Plenty more pics of Robotarium X and its coterie of mechanical creatures after the jump. ...

Maria Fadiman is a highly acclaimed ethnobotanist who was nominated as a National Geographic Emerging Explorer in 2006. When she is not studying plants in the depths of the rainforests of South America or in the wilderness of the savannah lands in Africa she works as a professor of world geography at Florida Atlantic University. Maria was introduced to David de Rothschild (Emerging Explorer 2007) through the National Geographic, he then invited her to be a part of his Adventure Ecology team on their first mission to Ecuador in April/May of this year. In my interview with David he explained that he asked Maria to join the team to add specifically to “the scientific side of the quest”. Other members of the Adventure Ecology team include the photographers Ollie Chanarin and Adam Broomberg of Chopped Liver, the filmmaker Dustin Lynn and the world-renowned artist Gabriel Orozco. I talked with Maria Fadiman in Ecuador about what is was like to be an academic surrounded by creative artists, how this expedition compared to her other previous experiences of working in Ecuador and what effects she saw the oil companies having on the local communities they visited. To hear more about the Adventure Ecology mission you can listen to David de Rothschild’s interview on last week’s TreeHugger Radio....

Marion Nestle makes heads or tails of food categorization and the childhood obesity problem… Is there any true wilderness left to preserve, or is it our job to “domesticate wisely?” A new article in Science looks at the question… In Iran, fuel rationing has led to mass unrest. But what if that is our future, too? Al Gore and Live Earth creator Kevin Wall, speaking at the Hearst Tower in NY, announced their call for massive emissions cuts… When Christine Whitman resigned as head of the EPA she didn’t reveal the true reason: she couldn’t take the coal… 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? ...

Sara Bongiorni and her family attempted to live without goods made in China for a year, and found that it was no simple task. She has documented the project in a book called, A Year Without 'Made in China. It wasn't motivated by a patriotic urge to buy American, but more as an experiment to see how global the sources of our goods are. Bongiorni said, "I wanted our story to be a friendly, nonjudgmental look at the ways ordinary people are connected to the global economy." In the foreword, written by economist Joel Naroff, it's said that 15 percent of the $1.7 trillion spent on imported goods the US imported in 2006 came from China. ...

If you trace the ownership of car manufacturers you will find an incestuous spider web. These manufacturers share parts and even chassis between different models. You will often find that even some prestige brands contain many parts from cheaper brands. It helps to keep research and development costs down, and streamlines the manufacturing process. Toyota own Lexus for example, and this has led to speculation that there may be a Lexus version of the Prius on the way. Lexus have already dabbled with hybrid vehicles, so it wouldn't be an unprecedented move. With no expense spent, TreeHugger have mocked up a prototype design for the Lexus Prius above. I thin you'll agree that it's a radical reworking of a green classic. ...

"Waste Management Inc., North America's largest garbage hauler and landfill operator, plans to spend roughly US $400 million at 60 landfills over the next five years to convert methane gas to electricity, its most ambitious renewable energy project to date. The program includes four landfills in Ontario and two in Quebec. Landfills are the largest source of methane emissions in the United States, accounting for 34 per cent of such releases, according to the Environmental Protection Agency...In an announcement Wednesday, Waste Management said it will begin building landfill gas-to-energy facilities this year in Texas, Virginia, New York, Colorado, Massachusetts, Illinois and Wisconsin. It operates 281 landfills in North America, and 100 already have some form of methane-to-energy capabilities. The next 60 will be at the remaining landfills in Waste Management's portfolio with enough gas flow for such projects, said Paul Pabor, vice-president for renewable energy." Let's think what this announcement means in the context of distributed energy production from local renewable resources, using novel green technology. There's considerable "green" business and patent development work going on with new "bio-reactors" to compost organic waste to produce methane. Much of it to be done in the corporate or college campus setting. Once Waste Management completes its 160 methane-to-electricity projects, what it will have is precisely 160 bio-reactors, a.k.a. biogas plants, but without much of the process technology investment and absent the energy inputs needed to make the anaerobes flourish in a man-made chemical process train. On the other hand, the collection and hauling of waste to centrally managed waste fills outside an urban core is a large C02 emission source. The trade off for areawide waste management includes a public health benefit (excluding rat food and disease vectors from the developed environment) that does not accrue to locally used bio-reactors. Plus, the design life of a landfill for methane production stretches toward the century scale. So, can we really say which is better for the future? Via:: Canadian Business Online Image credit: Environment Ministry Of Canada, Quebec...

I think this is TreeHugger material. After all, we often have to exchange business cards and usually they sit in a drawer forever, forgotten and out of date. And they are certainly biodegradable. In Japan there is quite a ritual about exchanging meishi or business cards, and one must always treat it with respect, never just tossing it into your pocket. One would certainly treat these well (at least until the giver was out of sight.) Taberu Me cards are created by laser engraving up to 700 characters per second onto hard organic materials like peanuts, beans, rice and pasta. Pink Tentacle says "Taberu means “eat” and Me could either be an abbreviation of meishi (”business card”) or “me” in English, in which case Taberu Me would be saying “Eat me” — a message you probably don’t want to convey to your new business partner at the first meeting. Regardless, a set of 150 Taberu Me cards costs 5,800 yen (around $50), which is mere peanuts considering the lasting impression you will make on your new counterparts." ::Taberume via ::Pink Tentacle...

Drive across the empty reaches of the Great Plains, from the lost promise of Valentine, Neb., to the shadowless side roads into Sunray, Tex., and what you see is a land that has lost its purpose. Many of the towns set in this infinity of flat have a listless look, with shuttered main streets and schools given over to the grave. With upwards of $20 billion a year in federal payments going to a select few in farm country, you would think that these troubled counties would have a more vigorous pulse.

So starts an op-ed article in the New York Times about the current state of farming in America (behind the fence but we found a copy here). he calls it "the Red State Welfare Program"- a farm subsidy system that showers tax dollars on the richest farmers, with subsidies going to those who can work the system- farming the government, as they call it around the diner....

With so many new green consumer products offered, we thought it a good time to get some refresher points from Jacquelyn Ottman, New York City-based green marketing and design expert. Jaquelyn is a 20-year veteran who's left her green footprints on the TreeHugger archives here, here, and here. Here we go. TH: The US Congress seems to be moving toward enactment of new environmental laws, after a decade-long hiatus. An expanded USEPA budget is even being supported. How risky is it to design a new green product around a prospective US regulatory requirement?...

Combining high concept with a truly green material and a clever play on words, "Lawnchair" by Los Angeles-based Fung + Blatt Architects is further proof that green can be sexy. We've seen that the grass is greener in just about everything: another chair, this bench, a growing wall and even some shoes, and we can add this suave lounger to the list. Though listed in the "coming soon" section of their site, the chair appears to be fully functional, even for those who can't just leave it out on the deck to water it: "the lawnchair is equipped with a built-in 'moisturizing' system that promotes even distribution of moisture under the sod, thereby minimizing evaporation and run-off." We're told it'll be available in limited quantities starting this fall; just watch out for grass stains. ::Fung + Blatt Architects via ::Cool Hunting...

We've been urging folks to bring their own reusable bags (when they shop at the farmer's market, of course) for a while now, and the idea is definitely starting to catch on, especially thanks to the plastic bag bans in San Francisco, at IKEA, in Modbury (in the UK) and more. While all of this is generally good news, we have seen the dark side of such a movement, when Anya Hindmarch's bags caused a huge hullaballo after being co-opted for inclusion in the lifestyles of the rich 'n famous. The fallout from that is fodder for another post; if you want a reusable tote that won't cost upwards of £225 on eBay, but don't want to fall victim to the "environmentalists=hippies" stereotype, we recommend either (or both of) these bags. Designed by our pals at Design Milk, they can help show the world you care about minimalism, modernism and the environment, all at the same time (impossible? Not any more...). Each goes for $14.99 apiece; pick up the minimalist bag here and the modernist bag here, via ::Apartment Therapy: San Francisco...

Developing a cheap and effective technology to scrub clean the emissions spewing forth from thousands of factory smoke stacks around the world would go a long ways toward tackling global warming. With coal-powered utilities likely to continue mushrooming at a steady rate in rapidly developing countries like China and India, finding a way to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions has become a clear priority. The aptly named Wow Energy may have just invented the technology necessary to help accomplish that challenging objective. Its proprietary technology, dubbed Wow-Clean, is superior to that of its competitors in one main respect: in addition to removing carbon dioxide from emissions, it also tackles sulphur, nitrogen and mercury. In recent tests conducted by a third party, Wow's technology was shown to remove 85 - 95% of heavy metal pollutants and up to 85% of carbon dioxide from emissions, compared with other scrubbers, whose technologies only removed an average of 50 - 60% of mercury from emissions. ...

There is always lots of green eye candy in Azure, which has turned into one of the best architectural design magazines in North America. The July/August issue is no exception; there is an interview of Bill McDonough by Chris Turner:

Just because a company takes up a green attitude, if they're still making toxic materials then all they have is a nice attitude; they are still making toxic materials.

Also: coverage of Todd Saunders (known to TreeHugger for his design of Blueskymod) & Tommie Wilhelmsen's spectacular 200 square foot cabin overlooking a fjord in Norway. ...

Research undertaken at the University of Bath and published in the Journal of Industrial Ecology [2004 (7):3-4)]: considers the life cycle of mineral and rapeseed oil in mobile hydraulic systems, i.e. a forestry harvester and a road sweeper. The general conclusion showed that the systems that used rapeseed oil were not necessarily “better” for the environment. With the exception of greenhouse gas emissions, the rapeseed oil had more negative impacts than mineral oil. The study includes the production of the machinery, the oils and their use during the lives of the machines. They attributed the poorer environmental performance of the rapeseed oil to:

“…its poor performance in the field. This is because it does not respond as well to high pressure and temperature as mineral oil, causing it to need more frequent replacement during use….Also, the rapeseed oil has more corrosive qualities than the mineral oil, and more hydraulic components need replacing during the life of a machine running on rapeseed oil than one running on mineral oil.”

...

Many loft renovations seem to eradicate any trace of the former uses; Phillip Rossini and Joe Ponciano bought an old Polish dance hall and kept as much as possible, and all of the furnishings are from vintage stores, kitchen supply stores or IKEA. The kitchen shown here is a good example: the kitchen island and dining table is salvaged from a mustard factory; the commercial range was bought in the Bowery for twelve hundred bucks (they cost five times that new)- “It was so much cheaper to buy old industrial stuff than a brand-new stove,” says Rossini. ::New York Magazine via ::Materialicious...

Simplicity goes a long way in TreeHugger's book: more efficiency, less materials, less waste, less stuff -- all good things. Design firm Johnston-Ready, the Los Angeles-based collaboration of Stephen Mark Johnston and Matthew Ready, makes this mantra tangible with their creations; we like the Folded Aluminum Bench the best. Forged from folded powder-coated recycled aluminum and topped with plantation-grown walnut or mangaris, it's a bench, it's a coffee table, it's patio furniture, it's whatever. When well executed, the soft feel of wood together with the sharp, cool efficiency of metal can be a beautiful thing, and this one qualifies for sure. There's an accompanying side table, and the dynamic duo is available at Woodson & Rummerfields House of Design. Get a better look at the bench and side table after the jump. ::Johnston-Ready via ::cribcandy...

Major brands seem to be falling over each other to claim sustainability. The most recent incarnation of this in the UK is the efforts of major detergent manufacturers to prove their green credentials, and we are not talking the likes of eco-veterans Ecover or Seventh Generation here. Ariel, one of the UK’s largest laundry detergent companies, has just launched the Do a Good Turn campaign, asking customers to wash their clothes at 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit) in order to save money. The Good Turn website claims that doing this could save enough energy to boil 2,500 cups of tea [why is it that UK energy saving campaigns always measure efficiency in cups of tea!?]. The campaign also includes further energy saving advice, as well as a prize draw to win a Toyota Prius. ...

Not to let himself be outdone by his U.S. colleagues, Jock Stirrup, the head of Britain's armed forces, is the latest military man to sound the alarms on the potential threat posed by global warming to national security. In a recent address, he warned that unstable regimes might collapse as a result of the effects of climate change on food and water supplies, prompting armed conflicts and humanitarian disasters on a scale similar to what is now occurring in Sudan. He argued that the military should take global warming considerations very seriously in planning future strategies and troop deployments. Focusing on those countries that are already security risks should be their first priority as they are likely to be at risk for climate change as well. "Just glance at a map of the areas most likely to be affected and you are struck at once by the fact that they are exactly those parts of the world where we see fragility, instability and weak governance today," he explained....

TreeHugger knows that fans make a lot of sense in both winter and summer; they can help circulate warm air in the winter, and keep cool air moving in the summer at a fraction of the cost of more heat or air conditioning. Now that summer is warming up, it's definitely fan season, and CNET has drummed up some pretty interesting fans whose looks will blow you away. Included in the list is a fan whose design is inspired by a jet engine (and looks like it might take flight itself), a portable job that cools wherever you go, and a belt-driven model whose settings ought to include "gale" and "hurricane". No matter which one you like best, they can all help cut your energy usage while keeping you cool this summer (or warm this winter). Paired with a Big Ass fan or Sycamore ceiling fan and you could have the perfect (energy-saving) storm. via ::CNET...

We've profiled and interviewed some pretty impressive CEOs over the years, but Calsunenergy's chief, Alex Boyer, definitely stands in a class by himself: he's still in middle school! Everything's relative, though: among his fellow company executives, Alex is the old man of the group. According to CNet,

The company--which is trying to develop a concentrator for solar cells and come up with a way to convert heat generated by solar cells into usable energy--is founded by kids in grade school and junior high. CTO Shaun Boyer will be in sixth grade in the fall. The VPs of marketing and sales will start fifth grade later this year. The company has one patent application on file and has entered the California Clean Tech Open, which gives prizes and office space to winners.

We're not sure if we're dealing with true prodigies, or if, as Hank at EcoGeek wonders, this is one of those cases of parents doing the real work behind the scenes. Either way, it will be interesting to see if these kids have their patent, or entertain buy-out offers, before they're able to drive. ::CNet via EcoGeek and Netscape Science Image credit: Geri Kodey and NREL/DOE...

It has been an extremely hot, humid week in Toronto. It's certainly been too hot to cook indoors, but even the idea of eating hot food from the barbeque seems too much. So after days of tossing together bean salads, green salads and gazpacho, I thought I would try something a little different. This recipe for Cucumber Avocado Soup takes about five minutes to prepare and you can make it earlier in the day when it is a bit cooler and let it chill until you are ready to eat. Add some crusty bread and some fruit for dessert and you'll have a nice light dinner that will help you keep cool. Cucumber Avocado Soup...

When does a garden become art? When it's part of the Tate Modern's new exhibition, Global Cities, which examines the impact of urban growth on the environment. They have commissioned an artist, Fritz Haeg, to turn a lawn into an edible garden. He worked with residents of a local housing estate in an area surrounded by busy roads, with little green space. Together they designed and planted a garden composed of only edible plants, including vines and beans for height and marigolds for colour and to keep away bugs. Included is a sitting area made of sections of tree trunks. At the Tate, there is an exhibit providing information for others wanting to create their own as well as a charming video of the local children's reaction to the planting. Fritz Haeg is anti-front lawns because they waste land, water, and resources. He has started several projects across the United States where he replaces suburban front lawns with vegetable gardens. In the beginning the concept was controversial because in middle-class neighborhoods the idea of actually using the front yard for anything other than ceremonial purposes was unusual. Maybe we are all so used to front yards being replanted with native plants now--in Toronto it is de rigeur in certain areas--that this Tate project has lost its novelty value. In any case, London houses don't have front lawns for the most part, particularly compared to those in the USA, so the idea doesn't have the same resonance here. :: Tate Modern ...

During the times you leave your computer idle, your CPU is just being wasted. According to a Tel Aviv University (TAU) professor, there are some great ways to put all that number computing potential to good use. While researching ways to map out the shape of the Internet, Yuval Shavitt, an engineer, chanced upon a community that has collected millions of volunteers to monitor electromagnetic radiation in the sky. Calculations done on their computers are working to see if there is someone on another planet trying to communicate with Earth. (Beep beep beep. Beep beep. Beep. Earth to TreeHuggers?) Seeing the potential of such collective efforts, he asked people to donate their CPU to help him develop a topological map of the Internet. The goal was to help determine major nodes of usage of Internet highways and sidetrack them so applications can better select peers for performing a certain task, like sharing a file....

When we recently released our How to Green your Outdoor Sports we noted that making your own gear was one such way to achieve this. We included a few examples like making a surfboard carrier for your bike, but neglect to mention crafting the whole board. But Greenlight Surfboard Supply reckon its pretty easy and can be eco-cool as well. They’ll ship you all you need. From EPS foam halves (less stinky VOCs than polyurethane), laminated bamboo stringers, a stretch bamboo glassing fabric, an ‘echohesive’ glue, a corn starch bio-plastic leash plug for the braided hemp leash. Oh and a video showing how it all comes together in your garage. Impressive huh? Well they go further. The reclaim about 85% of the bamboo dust from making the stringers and offer it as an epoxy thicker, in would you believe it a little plastic tub made from the byproduct of sugar cane processing. If you don’t need the whole kit you can buy most components independently. While an eco solution to epoxy currently remains elusive, they defer to Resin Research, who at least are phenol and formaldehyde-free. Greenlight also buy a portion of their electricity usage from a wind power green energy program. Scrap EPS is taken to a recycling centre, and they co-ordinate shipping to save what they figure to be 80 gallons of fuel each months. We think that all sounds very thorough and shows much dedication to the green goal. ::Greenlight Surfboard Supply, via Surf magazine...

While we’ve discussed the environmental impacts of smoking and programs that some have undertaken to combat those problems before, researchers at the University of Washington have concluded in a recent study that children whose mothers were exposed to second-hand smoke while pregnant have more symptoms of serious psychological problems than the offspring of those women who had no prenatal exposure at all... In the current issue of Child Psychiatry and Human Development, UW psychologists Lisa Gatzke-Kopp and Theodore Beauchaine provided the first evidence linking moms’ second-hand smoke exposure while pregnant to their children’s attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and conduct disorder after controlling for a variety of factors. And while many of us are familiar with the terms, the symptoms include aggressive behavior, ADHD, defiance and conduct disorder, which encompasses truancy, fighting, failing in school, general breaking of rules, substance abuse, stealing, and the destruction of property. Intriguingly, the same kids exhibiting these issues did not show an increase in the symptoms of emotional disorders such as depression or anxiety which this group of researchers couldn’t explain. The compound that’s suspected to be the causing the damage is nicotine, and animal studies have shown that it affects brain development during the second and third trimesters of pregnancy, which causes changes in brain regions critical to the development of what researchers call “externalizing psychopathology” in humans. It looks to me like just one more good reason to stay as far from second-hand smoke as possible…...

Just the other day we noticed that companies were lawyering up for climate change. Now they're banking on it. Talk about serious. "The banks are rushing to hire traders for the U.S., betting it will enact caps, combined with emissions permit trading, after Bush leaves office in January 2009. In the European Union, emissions trading tripled in value to $24 billion in 2006 from a year earlier, when the market started, World Bank figures show...The U.S., which produces more greenhouse gases than any other country, promises to be an even bigger market, says Stephen Welham, a trader at Ambrian Capital Plc in London."The EU emissions trading scheme is going to look like a sideshow to the U.S. and other embryonic programs in a few years' time,'' Welham said." For years now it's been fairly easy to scam and silence climate scientists who just couldn't belive that politicians and carbon intensive businesses sometimes play dirty. Now that bankers are in the cue for huge bonuses pegged to carbon trades, it's a whole different ball game. Via:: Bloomberg.com Image credit:: Chicago Board of Trade, XFA....

Don’t own an elephant? But still looking for transport with less air pollution than the average Indian transport? Then Evera Auto might be able to help out. Come July they’ll be revealing the result of two years development. A battery powered motorbike. Charges its for six hours and the 250-watt motor will carry you for about 80 km (50 miles) at about 25 km per hour (~16 mph). The motorcycles will be made in India, the company is based in Firozabad, Uttar Pradesh, and they expect pricing to start at about 25,000 Rupees (~$600 USD), which they figure is pretty competitive in what is still a niche market. Apparently up to now electric motorbikes had to be imported from China, but the company hopes to sell about 12,000 in its first year of release. We doubt that will make much of an impact in India air pollution problem, but they will take up less room than an elephant, who probably is a big methane contributor anyhow. Oh, and for the record, as of 2005, over 29% of India electricity came from hydro and renewable energy sources. ::India Times. Image found here...

Remember We Are What We Do who Change the World for a Fiver? Well, their first action in their book to change the world was to refuse plastic bags. They took their own advice a step further and launched the campaign Plastic Ain't My Bag in the UK. It is also in the UK where Ikea starts charging for plastic bags and where the Guardian reported about the first town to ban this nasty and yet so common product. Dabid Robinson, co-founder of We Are What We Do, explains that ‘each of us annually consigns 167 bags to landfill for 500 years (often after they've spent several months choking wildlife and disfiguring our parks and countryside.)’. To teach people how to master The Art of Saying No, tactical tools were designed as part of a month-long campaign. We Are What We Do work together with a community of retailers such as Sainsburys, Morrisons, Mondos, Applejacks and The Theatre Royal to drastically reduce the use of plastic bags. Helpers in Plastic Ain’t My Bag t-shirts started the campaign at Stratford Shopping Centre in East London by flooding the supermarket with stickers and posters to raise awareness. A special bag was also designed and handed out that says ‘I’m Not A Plastic Bag’. ...

In the seven-minute video after the jump, QuantumShift.tv turns its lens to the carbon emissions caused by large-scale farming practices used in growing much of the food in the United States, Canada and the UK. According to the video Soil: The Secret Solution to Global Warming, land farmed organically, using such methods as "no-till" and the planting of winter cover crops, absorbs and holds up to 30% more carbon than conventional agriculture. Converting all US farmland to organic would reduce CO2 emissions by 10%. The UK version of the video states that such a conversion would result in a 20% per year reduction in CO2 emissions (although the on-screen graphic still reads 10%, ostensibly because only the voice-over has been changed from the US version). The extra carbon in the soil also increases food nutrients, which could greatly reduce health care costs. Dig a little deeper after the jump....

Cycling is great; good for the environment, good for you and fun. The problem is that unless you live in the kind of gated community then at some point someone is going to steal your bike, or part of it. I've personally had a couple stolen outright, some wheels go missing, a couple of pairs of lights taken off (without the mounts, what's that about?) and once a van even backed into it and drove off. Daniel from Brooklyn recently had his wheels stolen from outside his apartment. Luckily it was all caught on CCTV, but unluckily the guy is blatantly never going to get caught. Daniel is a musician, and he set the video to a song as a form of therapy. Sure, this guy got some wheels, but he also got thousands of people watching him and thinking what an a**hole he is. That's some bad karma that is in no way worth the few dollars he will have got for the wheels. If anyone recognises the guy, then please leave a comment. See also ::Guerrilla Bike Activists ::What is Bike Friendly? ::World Naked Bike Ride Season Opens...

The UK has seen an incredible amount of rain, in a very short time. One sixth of the average annual rainfall in 24 hours - the tragic results are obvious; massive flooding, huge property damage and several deaths. In other parts of the world there is more unusual weather causing problems. In Pakistan flooding killed 200, and more rain in Bangledesh killed 100 when it caused heavy mudslides. Can this extraordinary weather be attributed to climate change? Obviously, we can say if it's a direct result, but it is plain to see that this weather is extremely unusual. Many researchers agree that rainfall is likely to increase die to climate change, and with many parts of England as low as they are we should be paying close attention. The Fire Brigades Union described the rescue effort in the UK as the 'biggest in peacetime Britain', with 3,500 people being rescued in recent days. BBC weather forecaster Jay Wynne believes that some areas could see another 2 inches of rain at the weekend, so the situation is far from over. "Today it's a pretty reasonable day. One or two light showers. There will be some rain overnight. The main event is going to be this weekend. There will be plenty of wet, windy weather across the country on Saturday. It could be quite nasty." ::BBC See also ::Flood Maps: View Sea Level Rise ::The Tide is Turning: natural flood defence makes a come-back...

A recent TH article suggested that flesh and blood planet dwellers (humans) may soon be competing for resources with electronic machines (computers). A recent report from CNN just drives it home; global mobile phone use will top 3.25 billion users in 2007, mostly due to demand from China, India, and Africa. That's about half the world's population with a cell phone. The similarities between cell phones and babies are many. They both require you to keep them powered continuously. They both get born - cell phones at about 1000 phones a minute, based on subscriptions and babies at about 180 per minute, over five times slower. Strangely, cell phones are also like babies in that you can have more than one. In fact, over 30 countries already have a saturation rate of over 100 percent, meaning there are more cell phones than people in these countries. Finally, they both seem pretty indispensable; a recent British survey suggested that one third of those polled wouldn't give up their phone for a million pounds. Let's hope they say that about their kids. ...

The green movement seems to have reached a tipping point. Everyone seems to be involved in what was a minority campaign only a few years ago. Companies are falling over themselves to appear to be greening their products or services, and consumers are increasingly aware of the impact of what they buy. Strange then, that in a recent survey by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, only half of 11-17 year olds claim to be worried about climate change. As floods rage all over England they were less convinced that they would ever see the effects of it than adults. Even more bizarrely only 12% said that they were capable of making a positive change by altering their lifestyle. Neil Verlanderof Friends of the Earth, said, "Young people are an important group. We have been trying different ways to reach them. Johnny Borrell from Razorlight recorded a new song in a studio powered by 18 solar panels in support of our campaign, and we ran a successful advertising campaign in universities, showing condoms covering a coal-fired power station chimney, a car exhaust and an aeroplane engine."...

I really can't decide. According to an annual review, the Prince of Wales’ ‘personal expenditure’ in the last year rose to over $5 million, but yet his carbon footprint actually reduced. The review claims that the prince’s household is actually carbon neutral, but also shows that in 2006-7 its footprint was a staggering 3,425 tonnes. Presumably this means that the Prince offsets his emissions in some way. The review also claims that emissions have been reduced by 9%. The reduction apparently down to taking fewer plane and helicopter journeys, introducing green energy sources and switching to bio-diesel. However, the prince still used nearly $3 million of taxpayer’s money on air and rail travel in the last year, which is far from green. Sir Michael Peat, the prince's principal private secretary, said, "He is very busy and gets increasingly so. He does work very hard to try to make a difference." Peat also went on to explain that 130 people work for the prince, but that they were still understaffed....

A 37,237 sq ft (3,459 sq m) green roof covers the entirety of a new green resort under construction in Shanghai's Songjiang district, just southwest of China's most populous city. The hotel, built into a previously used 328 ft (100m) quarry, will feature approximately 400 rooms, restaurants, sports facilities and even some underwater areas for guests. Sounds pretty energy intensive, right? Well...yes, but like any green resort worth its weight in renminbi, the Songjiang Hotel explored alternative energy sources for their electrical and heating systems. The alt energy winner? Geothermal. The swank five-star resort is expected to open in May of 2009. Via ::Designflute Via ::Inhabitat Also in TreeHugger: Tibetan Eco-lodge ...

While older threads, like the one about why others don't perceive the problem, are still going strong, there's some great discussion happening over at TreeHugger Forums. If you haven't already, you can register for free, log in and add your two cents. Some highlights are below...

	1) User JoshuaOshua postulates that "vegans in Hummers are more green than meat-eaters in hybrids." This argument stems from a recent United Nations report that found that raising animals for food is responsible for more greenhouse gases than all vehicles in the world combined.
	2) User VTEN-DIESEL was recently called a barbarian for questioning that global warming is occurring. "So, here I am, on this discussion board, trying to drum up some discussion on environmentalism or global warming to see if anyone out there has any real facts on the issue or are all treehuggers out there just over emotional? I can be convinced. I just need facts. So far, I have found very few." Can anyone help?
	3) Forum user Collin McConville is perturbed that the environmentalist = hippie stereotype is still widely applied to those of us who give a damn about the planet. The question: "when will all the people against environmentalists see that we aren't all a bunch of pot smoking, treehugging hippies"? Thoughts? More good discussion after the jump...

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Dear EcoGeek, Is it possible to recycle old CD's or DVD's? Thanks, Rob The perpetual scourge of EcoGeekiness is obsolescence. We pay good money for what we see as a good product, and then five years down the line we're surrounded by useless junk! But I can't help but answer this seemingly straightforward question with several different answers. First, I'll actually answer the question: Yes, you can, but it's not as simple as curbside pickup. CDs and DVDs do contain valuable materials (CDRs even sometimes contain gold) and there are techniques to harvest that material for reuse, but those same materials make them too complicated for regular recycling centers. Unfortunately, the materials aren't expensive enough that someone will pay for them. To recycle CDs you'll have to ship them to a special recycling center. Several are listed at the bottom of this post....

Quadruple-distilled from 100% organic grain and pure Vermont spring water, Sunshine Vodka is some green drinkin’… Plastic bags go back to oil—just add microwaves… A 4,000-mile bike ride will take Colin Davis from San Francisco to Boston, connection the dots between green energy hotspots… Climate Counts ranks companies and gives consumers more leverage… Greenpeace’s latest roundup of green electronics is out and the ranking has shuffled… 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? ...

Seattle Times, inspired by some USEPA leadership, asks: - "You're buying organic vegetables, ecologically safe cleaning products and natural-fiber T-shirts -- but what about your nail salon, which smells more like an industrial paint shop than a place of beauty? The Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday is awarding two local non-profit groups $100,000 to help nail salons go green -- or at least greener. Salons use polishes, solvents and chemicals to make acrylic nails, some of which contain ingredients that can cause a range of health ailments including cancer, mental confusion and birth defects. The fumes and skin contact can pose a risk to salon workers and customers alike." There's an interesting cultural and ethnic confluence with risk, well covered in the article. One dimension not covered, however, is the supply chain. To reduce customer and worker exposures, it's not just a matter of lobbying chemical companies to change formulations of items sold in mainstream beauty supply houses or at Wal-Mart. There's black market for cheap, unacceptably hazardous nail product formulations, some from Asia, some home bottled and bootlegged. ...

This week we look at water. San Francisco’s Gavin Newsome has taken a bold step, issuing an executive order draining bottled water from the city budget. Lester Brown summarizes the true impact of a bottle of the wet stuff, while Gigi Kellett of Corporate Accountability explains ‘thinking outside the bottle.’ Also, TreeHugger advertiser Bosch is pushing the envelope of home appliance performance. Brand manager Danyel Tiefenbacher tells us just how much can really be saved. This week’s sounds come courtesy of Circle Back Music (Korby Lenker). 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) ...

Photo credit: Jim Frazier The American bald eagle is back after a four-decade fight for survival. The government has just declared that the national symbol no longer requires the protection of the federal Endangered Species Act. "Today I am proud to announce the eagle has returned," Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne proclaimed at a ceremony near the Jefferson Memorial on Thursday. The bird had been reclassified in 1995 from endangered to threatened; the Interior Department made the recovery official today by striking off the eagle from the list of threatened species under the species-protection law....

A newsletter that tries to find a new homes for used building materials isn't the first place some designers would look for materials, but it works for Cliff Spencer. The Los Angeles-based designer was intrigued by a Napa Valley winery's offer of used oak that had been soaked in wine, so when an opportunity to head to San Francisco came up, a side trip to Napa was planned to pick up some of the material. The white oak he got had been used during the fermentation process to impart flavor to the wine -- it came from a sizable winery, where oak "staves" are put into stainless steel vats, then the traditional oak barrels. The 1/2 inch-thick staves are stained all the way through by the fermenting grapes; pinot noir makes for the darkest stain while the pinot grigio leaves the lightest. Because of this unique material's previous life, no "stain" is necessary; the wine has done all the work. The resulting table, pictured above, has deep walnut tones without the walnut stain, which is pretty amazing. We've seen other wine-related furniture before, but it didn't look quite this good, and Spencer applies this aesthetic to the rest of his work, which features primarily sustainable materials -- we saw some kirei, bamboo and FSC-certified wood in there as well. In addition to residential interiors, he does some commercial work as well; in May, David Hertz Architects (featured here on TreeHugger) commissioned them to design and build their conference room table, bookshelves and media/storage cabinets for their new offices in Santa Monica, the first Platinum-level LEED certified building in the city. Check out more of his work at his site. ::Cliff Spencer...

Starbucks is planning to fete a summer publicity blitz for Arctic Tale, an upcoming movie about a walrus and a polar bear, narrated by Queen Latifah, with posters and cup sleeves that the java juggernaut hopes will educate customers about global warming at the same time. Arctic Tale is produced by Paramount Classics, the Viacom studio behind our man Al's An Inconvenient Truth, and National Geographic Films, which brought us March of the Penguins. It's set to debut in selected theaters July 25, with wide release targeted for Aug. 15....

The client had saved 1.5 million yen ( about US $14,000) to buy a Toyota Corolla but decided he would rather have a gallery to present his hobby of ceramic art, so that was the budget. Mount Fuji Architects call that a ridiculous sum of money to build a building, yet for that sum you can buy a "mobile room" with air conditioning, navigation and power windows. Why is architecture so expensive? They decided to beat the automobile in value by "holding a thorough investigation into closed payment structure of architectural industry; to quest an object which is most rational and reasonable by treating an architectural structure as a plain object." Motto of this project was like this: "Make great use of 1.5 million yen, and architecture get ahead of automobile".::xxxx house in Yaizu, Shizuoka via ::noticias arquitectura ...

In its recent Spain survey, The Financial Times (subscription needed) elaborates at length on the spectacular growth and development of the country’s renewable energy industry, a rapid rise that has allowed it to become the world’s second largest producer of wind energy after Germany and a front-runner in solar and biofuel technologies (peep some of our earlier posts listed at the end for some examples of its sustainable prowess). Indeed, March 20 marked the first time that thousands of whirring wind turbines provided a whopping 27% of the country’s total electricity supply, a historic high reached by pumping energy from 72% of its total installed wind capacity (which we reported on earlier here). This is in great part due to the big investments made by Spanish energy companies and the government’s early adoption of favorable tariff incentives that provide a guarantee to producers that all their energy will be purchased. “Spain has created a cluster of knowledge in clean energy that sets it apart from most other countries,” said Miguel Salis, a private equity manager. “This has enabled Spanish groups to invest successfully in other markets where there is huge potential for growth.” ...

We picked up on Timbuk2’s move into messenger bags fashioned from recycled plastic bags few months ago. A few details are now dribbling through. The company say they are “working hard to test and get them to market” but as yet they remain in the ‘early development phase.’ What is known is that they’ll be called Timbuk2 Lamitron Bags, possibly as a reference to the process which fuses the low and high density polyethylene. In tech talk that is LDPE and HDPE or plastics 4 and 2 respectively. You probably know them better as shopping bag and milk jug. This top secret fusing machine was created by a design consultancy, RootPhi, who call their resulting fabric ‘Reclaim’. Apparently you end up with fabric that has the good attributes of a leather or vinyl. Cool Hunting got their hands on some of the fabric a while back and were pretty chuffed with the finished look of the semi-fused big and small bubblewrap. They have a pic too. PSFK also have some other images and a short interview with one of the product developers from RootPhi, where he reckons the plastics can be cost effectively recycled to produce a wide variety of textures, thicknesses and colours. At this is you need to know more then the best bet would be to sign up to Timbuk2 to be a product tester. They might even let you try one of their hemp numbers due for release January 2008. ::Timbuk2 Lamitron, via reminder tip from JG. ...

Take a look at this sideboard. It's elegant, minimal and modern: everything TreeHugger looks for in its search for sleek, modern, green design. It even has an element of transformability, changing from the solid form at left to the wider, more open setup at right: "this gives rise to a dynamic landscape of cubic forms reminiscent of the gorge formed between skyscrapers." Nice looking, for sure, and has lots of potential to please the TreeHugger set, but, sadly, we have to give it some tough love because of the materials: lacquered MDF (medium-density fiberboard) with chrome legs. Get the formaldehyde out of the MDF and slap some water-based, low-VOC lacquer on the outside, maybe with some recycled steel for legs, and we'll be jumping for joy. It's available as is from Nova68 but we're holding out for the TreeHugger version. Alfredo Haberli's design, via nova68.com...

Alexandra Smith writes: In America, over 100 billion pounds of food are lost to waste by retailers, consumers and restaurants. The average four-person family in the States discards $590 of food each year before it has reached its expiration date. While I work to counter this amount of lost waste by still filling just my canvas bag at the store, there are others both in the States and abroad fighting the consumer/waste results of the capitalist system another way: freeganism. I have gone dumpster diving a few times, and I can assure you the process takes a great deal of time and effort. The result, though, is a feeling of fulfillment in literally reducing human waste while walking away with perfectly good produce, bread, and even coffee tables and iPods. Consumption is clearly an issue on any environmentalists mind. We wonder, what food is the best way to consume? Is veganism the clearest path to green eating or can we just eat local and in season? Read it all via ::Hugg Treehugger on freeganism: Freeganism: The Art of Dumpster Diving Freegans Hit New York Dumpster Also in Hugg: Linton finds Barbara Kingsolver reading the first chapter of Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. ::Hugg ...

Whether it’s fairtrade sneakers from Veja, or the ultra-funky, 99% recycled Worn Agains, we can’t help but get excited about ethical footwear. Now, on a visit to Terra Plana’s London store, we’ve come across another brand to enthuse about – the Khulani fair trade moccasin, a simple, stylish slip on shoe that is hand stitched by villagers in South Africa, with a percentage of profits also going to fund orphanages in the country. The project is the brain child of Lance Clark, a member of the Clarks family – the UK’s biggest shoe retailer – and Khulani shoes are available at most major Clarks outlets. It looks like this important initiative is already having a positive impact. According to the Clarks website, more than $900,000 has already been raised and is being used to build a new orphanage. The Scotsman has also covered the initiative here. ::Soul of Africa :: ...

In Britain, Prince Charles and his Highgrove Farms have been dropped by Sainsbury's grocery store, along with carrots from Patrick Holden, the Director of the Soil Association. Reason: Sainsbury is trying to go local, yet all of their food has to go to a central warehouse for distribution to the various stores. According to the Guardian, Mr. Holden and the prince had been forced to truck their vegetables hundreds of miles from their farms to a centralised packhouse in East Anglia before they were sent back to be sold in Sainsbury’s stores local to their area. Mr Holden believes his vegetables were of the highest quality when harvested, but the combined effects of long-distance transport, handling to create large enough batches for the machines that wash and polish the vegetables and further storing after processing to create large enough batches for packing left the vegetables damaged and prone to rot.

"Supermarkets are preaching localism but it's just tokenism, their systems are still going in the opposite direction, and it's disastrous."

It is great that the supermarkets are making overtures to local food, but the system isn't set up for it, they have big hub-and-spoke centralized distribution centers that might work for FEDEX but don't for vegetables. If you want local food, go to the farmers market and look them in the eye, peer to peer. The hub and spoke guys will never make it work. ::Guardian ...

Designer Rick Lee's homage to the cycle of the year, the 4 Seasons table groups offers a playful, artistic takes on the four seasons. Each table is a different height and shape, to replicate the growing cycles of the year, and features an accompanying CNC (computer numerically controlled)-cut shape: buds in spring; growing leaves in summer; fallen leaves in fall and barren branches in the winter. Lee gets two green thumbs up for materials and manufacturing; bamboo plywood and CNC routing (whereby the design is drawn up and locked in with a computer, which controls the router and (theoretically) creates it without mistakes; it also allows for more efficient use of wood, since offcuts can be minimized with the design) make for a green, poetic, dare we say melodious experience. We think Vivaldi would approve. Get up close and personal with each design after the jump. ::Rick Lee Design via ::PadStyle...

The University of Arizona has just announced that it plans on making available its Biosphere 2 research facility for lease to study the effects of climate change, the global water cycle and the cycling of energy through the planet's various ecosystems. With a 34.5 acre campus encompassing 300,000 square feet of lab, classroom, housing and office space, Biosphere 2 stands to deliver much in the realm of new scientific discoveries and more accurate climate modeling and simulations. UA officials haven't been shy about trumpeting its resources and the opportunities for future interdisciplinary projects it offers. "The facilities and resources at this new campus will be an inspiring place for researchers to gather and to tackle problems that science and society will face now and in the future," said Joaquin Ruiz, the dean of the university's College of Science. "At Biosphere 2, we will address not only the problems of our current condition, but also those of the 22nd century that are still below the horizon."...

We watched in dismay while the Anti-Gore forces attacked him for the size of his house. Much the same is happening here in Ontario where Minister of the Environment Laurel Broten, whose initiatives lately have been impressive, has applied to build a garage twice as large as permitted to hold four cars. A difference is Al owned the house already; Broten just set herself up for this one with an appalling error in public relations. As NDP environment critic Peter Tabuns said :"I don't think she practises what she preaches when it comes to the environment." Broten, who as a Minister rates a limousine and a driver, has a Ford Escape hybrid, a low-emissions Volvo SUV, a Mercedes and a Porsche in her driveway. (She lives in the City and could bike to work in an hour if she wanted to) She is married to a lawyer who likes cars and defends him saying "When you're a young guy that grows up in Sudbury and you're the first guy in your family not to work underground, once you're successful you have dreams of having a couple of cars and you can afford them, you buy them." A case can be made that she is being criticized for the sins of her husband. A case can also be made that Ministers are public figures who should set examples, and perhaps building a faux chateaux garage for a car collection should have waited until she was no longer Minister of the Environment, this just looks really bad. ::The Star ...

I sit at my desk contemplating a Twinkie, lying like a patient aetherized upon a table. I have never tasted one, having been partial as a child to Hostess Cupcakes with the white squiggle on top, or the Canadian wonder food, the Jos. Louis. But I have just finished reading the fascinating Twinkie, Deconstructed by Steve Ettlinger. Why read such a book? Perhaps when you are learning about local and natural foods it is good to know your enemy, and no more dispassionate and detached view of the enemy was ever written. It is an extraordinary book; there is no plot, no story, no climax, just a chapter by chapter explanation of polysorbate 60, stearates, soda and salt; the table of contents is the Twinkie ingredient list. Ettlinger goes down mines, searches records, fighting Homeland Security and corporate spooks protecting the secret sources of ingredients. ...

It's a heat wave, and we all want to join those New York kids at the fire hydrant, but we have work to do. Lifehacker is full of suggestions for keeping cool in the Stay Cool Roundup of its earlier posts on the subject, from making ice straws for summer cocktails, keeping cool on the cheap (Use a bloody fan for Pete’s sake!) and "Replace the seal around the doors and windows or just make sure they are shut when the air in the house is being cooled. As my Mom would say, "We aren t air-conditioning the neighborhood, shut the door!", finding the top ten summer cocktails and more at ::Lifehacker....

We have shown vertical gardens and green walls before, but we love the simplicity of the vertical garden by Australian Artist Joost Bakker. (not to be confused with the talented Vancouver architect Joost Bakker of Hotson Bakker) who uses leaf and flower, raw steel and discared objects among his construction materials- "I'm not really into luxurious finishes, I like using things that people perceive as ugly." Jorge at Inhabitat notes such systems are great in small spaces: "the perfect backdrop for any office or apartment that needs and extra bit of greening but can’t afford the space required for them (when you can’t build out, build up!)." ::Vertical Garden from Schiavello via ::Inhabitat ...

When does a bus shelter become art? When it is part of the Tate Modern's new exhibition Global Cities. This is street furniture with a serious message--too bad it's just part of an art show, rather than out on the streets. For his commission, the artist Nils Norman has borrowed a bus shelter, a sign and a lamppost from London Transport and turned them into vehicles for environmental information whilst making them look like everyday advertising. The bus shelter (pictured) has posters publicising impending environmental disasters: one explains how to make your own diesel, another proposes solutions for living in a flood zone and another tells how to combat West Nile Virus. Another extols people to "dig up your lawn and plant for victory." The roof has been adapted with a planter of drought-resistant plants such as agaves and arid plants to show how green spaces could look in the future, with climate change. In another exhibit, directional signs show a crossroads, pointing out fashionable classifications of people such as "planet of slums" and "international curators", rather than streets. The last, a huge lamppost has a cut-out of a silhouette of a man's face on it. ::Tate Modern...

Dianovo: Carnival of the Green # 83 by Bluecobalt The fun at the fair this week features Save The Ribble, The Responsible Engineer, Hybrid Car Review, Moneywalks, Missmalaprop, Generation Exe, Veggie Revolution and Bean Sprouts. EcoStreet: Give your bathroom a green makeover by Tracy Stokes "Whether you are planning a complete bathroom overhaul, or just want to make a few inexpensive changes, we can help you make your bathroom an altogether more eco-friendly place."...

Now I’ve spent a bit of time at Giants Stadium in my life, and I’d be willing to bet that no one would ever accuse the folks who run the place of being eco-maniacs. But it turns out that the organizers of Live Earth have made some real strides in turning that event into the most sustainably produced event in the venues history. For starters they’ll be instating a triple-stream system which combines waste, compost and recycling with the goal of more than doubling the rate of waste that avoids landfills from the tens of thousands of concert-goers who’ll be rockin’ it out the day of the show. To help reduce the amount of waste generated there will be separate recycling and composting bins placed strategically throughout the venue to encourage even your music obsessed, but environmentally clueless 17 year-old nephew to be environmentally conscious with his trash. And lest you suspect that every bin will wind up as a receptacle for trash, they’ve lined up more than 800 volunteers to help educate and direct people to place the trash in their hand into the correct bins on the day of the event. They’ll even be using compostable Bioware provided by Aramark which will be used for all food and beverage services, with any signage present made from bio-material that will eventually be composted or reused as well. As Josh Stempel, director of sponsorship greening for Live Earth put it, “Live Earth is all about making little changes to create a huge impact,” ...

We at TreeHugger are positive and forward looking, but when we see forest fires, drought, peak oil and global warming slamming into a government that can only come up with coal and 35 MPG in twelve years as an answer, we get depressed. In such times we turn for comfort to James Howard Kunstler. This week he talks about his "serene conviction that we are at the end of the cycle -- and by that I mean the grand meta-cycle of the suburban project as a whole. It's over." He then continues with his prescription and prediction: "we had better prepare to make other arrangements for living in this country, by which I mean specifically re-localizing, de-globalizing, with an emphasis on local agriculture wherever possible, the emergency restoration of passenger railroad service and related modes of public transit, the rebuilding of local commercial infrastructures, and a radical rethinking of how we inhabit the landscape." ::Clusterf*ck Nation Fact of the matter is, you can see this already- in Detroit. ...

In Amsterdam people do everything on bikes, this woman has both headphones and a cellphone. (and we know, no helmet.) In North America, where bicyclists are second class citizens, Dr. Gridlock of the Globe and Mail says "wearing earphones is just one of a range of crazy risk-taking behaviours on display in bike lanes across the city, as is squeezing alongside giant trucks and buses and blowing through traffic lights. This climate of craziness is also self-defeating if you are interested in promoting cycling, as it makes non-cyclists think taking a bike out onto Toronto's streets is strictly for the unhinged, when it should be for everyone." Dr. Gridlock's beat is discovering what slows drivers down, and smearing a cyclist across the pavement can certainly spoil your day, but he has a point. As Constable Burns of the Toronto Police says, "How are you going to supposed to hear a car coming up behind you if you are cranking the tunes?"

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Listen Up! and Adobe Youth Voices is launching Beyond Green, an international film project that will ask youth filmmakers worldwide, ages 13-19, to produce short personal stories on their physical, cultural and social environments. The filmmakers will answer two important questions: How do you and people in your community interact with the environment? Is there a better way? They will provide a $10,000 production award to selected organizations. The deadline is being extended until July 13th. To enter, go here. The organization's last project Beyond Borders: Personal Stories From a Small Planet nine short works by young people from around the world, won television's top honor, a George Foster Peabody Award. Get inspired by the story of a young Afghani woman, Sahar pictured above left (photo by Jack Looney), and watch the Peabody Award-winning short documentary Sahar: Before the Sun after the jump. It really is a well-done little film....

Photo credit: palestrina55 Aren't mushrooms grand, not to mention multitalented? You can subsist on them, lubricate your chainsaw with them, and use them as sustainable, fire-retardant insulation—which would come in really handy, we suppose, if you were trapped in a log cabin in the dead of winter and there was a psycho pyromaniac killer pawing at your door. But we digress. Greensulate is an organic, fire-resistant board made of water, flour, oyster mushroom spores, and perlite, which is a mineral blend found in potting soil. Creators Eben Bayer and Gavin McIntyre hope to bring their product to market once they're able to conduct additional research with more-sophisticated equipment and a better work space....

The floppy disk was the medium of choice during the 80's and 90's, they are now relegated to landfill, and cost dollars to dispose of correctly. People are great at finding ways to recycle and are making the floppy disk into something useful! Instructables has a great 'how-to' on how to make stuff out of floppy disks. Try your hand at making a bag or if that is too much for you get some crafty geekery for your home office with this floppy disk pen holder from Etsy. Others ideas for re-using these floppy disks include, notepads like this or this and there is a simple little 'how-to' at gear log for these and more fun floppy disk geekery, but for something slightly more stylish try this bag. ::Instructables how to make a floppy disk bag ::Floppy disk pencil holder from etsy...

Photo credit: Paul Takamoto Organic food is organically grown, except when it isn't. Confused? So are we. (Man, are we ever.) The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) greenlighted a proposal late last Friday allowing 38 new non-organic ingredients in products bearing the "USDA Organic" seal, despite more than 10,000 e-mails and letters from concerned consumers and farmers, according to the Organic Consumer's Association. The USDA's proposal will mean that Anheuser Bush will be allowed to sell its Organic Wild Hops Beer without using any organic hops at all. USDA Organic-certified sausages, brats, and breakfast links will be allowed contain intestines from factory-farmed animals raised on chemically grown feed, synthetic hormones, slaugterhouse waste, and antibiotics. Fish oil with the USDA seal of approval may also contain toxins such as PCBs and mercury for that extra flavor. Cats and dogs will be forced to live together. (Okay, we made that last one up.) If, like Howard Beale on Network, you're mad as hell and you're not going to take it anymore, seize advantage of the 60-day public-comment period and send a letter to the USDA now. :: Organic Consumers Associaton See also: :: Organic Food is Like, Organic, Right?, :: "Sustainable" Label Offered As Alternative to "Organic", and :: USDA Organic: Drama In The Produce Section...

Barry Edwards had a seemingly simple idea: why not have businesses and other groups make use of the garbage and sewage that was piling up every day in Catawba County's landfills instead of letting it go to waste? Having heard of similar plans being successfully implemented in other communities and countries, he knew that such a project would help save costs and create new jobs and resources, through recycling, that would benefit the county’s residents and the environment. Thus was born the Regional EcoComplex and Resource Recovery Facility at Catawba’s Blackburn Landfill. Though still in its early stages, the complex has already helped move Catawba County up to third place from fifth in North Carolina in per capita recyling and has boosted the county’s revenues by $500,000 a year thanks to a new methane-to-energy project. "Every tie you see there has a benefit," said Edwards, Catawba's utilities and engineering director. "We didn’t just pad these people’s wallets. We get something from it."...

There's a lot to like about datsumzero's minimal, modern furniture. We really like the way the very different materials (solid wood and medium-density fiberboard -- MDF) work together in "Gabi" (above), the cool-but-functional drawer that slides out, and the little bit of storage in the hollowed center...makes a pretty nice low table or coffee table, perhaps. The thing we like best is that the MDF is bound with formaldehyde-free resin, making it much cleaner and greener, especially when it comes to improving indoor air quality. While the minimal design is great, and leaving out the formaldehyde is a nice touch that's better for everyone, we'd love to see datsumzero take their green efforts up a notch by adding certified-sustainable woods, recycled steel or low/no-VOC finish to the equation. Still, it's a solid, versatile piece that will likely last a very long time, and we can't get enough of the minimal, luxurious looks; nobody's perfect, we just wish we could rave about the green aspects as much as we could rave about the design. More eye candy at datsumzero's site; pick one up at 2modern. ::datsumzero via ::PadStyle...

We love the idea of seasonal cooking with local food, and know that in New York restaurants come and go quickly. Here is an idea to deal with our short attention spans: a restaurant that closes and reopens, every season. According to Springwise, "Park Avenue Summer, as it's currently named, is part of the Smith & Wollensky restaurant group and is supremely in tune with the seasons. While most restaurants adapt their menus to accommodate the available foods and prevailing moods of the time of year, Park Avenue takes seasonality to a new heights and will also completely revamp its décor, staff uniforms and place settings. Currently, waitresses wear sundresses, wall panels are yellow, and guests are served Lemon Sole and Peach Sorbet." The designers at AvroKO are "taking their cues from theatre stage sets" so we hope that, like theatre designers, they will reuse components and minimize waste, a renovation every three months is a bit much. ::Springwise...

In the Bitterroot Valley of Western Montana, a house under construction in a setting that is increasingly desired by homeowners and frustrating to firefighters. So many things are changing yet so many stay the same. We noted earlier that the Southwest is the fastest growing part of the US even though there is no water; the same drought and heat is causing massive increases in the number and size of forest fires, yet more and more people are building as close to the woods as possible. According to the New York Times: “It’s like ocean frontage,” said Larry Swanson, an economist at the University of Montana in Missoula who studies public lands. “You would not have these high private property values without the public lands nearby, and the public lands are a huge part of the package that is driving the growth trends.” A new generation of Americans is moving to places perched on the edge of vast, undeveloped government lands in the West and living out a dangerous experiment, many of them ignorant of the risk....

TreeHugger has been a fan of photographer Ed Burtynsky's work for a long time. We first spotted it here and have enjoyed watching him branch out into film with "Manufactured Landscapes", which was recently released in the US and the UK after debuting in Toronto late last year. Ed's work has always been strikingly, hauntingly beautiful, and pairing it with moving pictures and sound gives it an interesting new dimension. We recently had the opportunity to sit down with Ed for a chat about his work, the film, and what it's like to visit and take photographs of some of the most environmentally-degraded places on the planet. TreeHugger: The film -- which is really excellent, by the way -- really contextualizes your work. When you first see something like a manufactured landscape for the first time, how you react? Does it affect you differently on an artistic level, as a photographer, than it does on a personal level?...

From Catherine Porter at the Star: "Get on the road, jackass!" That's just one of the friendly salutations Daryl Wiebe received on his commute home from work. I had already given him a good piece of my mind and thought he was polluting the bike path on a moped. Turns out what he rides is green, clean and completely legal." It's an electric bike. And in Ontario, it is legal to use the bike paths and lanes, even though it looks like a scooter and goes as fast as one. ::The Star This is an interesting issue. A gas powered moped is treated like a motorized vehicle but electrics are treated like bikes, to encourage their use and get people out of cars. But it is as big and as fast as a gas powered unit.

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Southern California may be in danger of succumbing to a “perfect drought” if actions aren’t taken soon to help remedy the situation, according to a recent article in Guardian Unlimited. Leading climatologists, environmentalists and city planners have warned that the use of water may need to be severely curtailed in light of the drought-like conditions prompted by the lowest amount of rainfall (only 8.15 cm in the year ending June 30) since 1877. With no rain forecast before September and supplies from the Sierra Nevada mountains, which typically provide Los Angeles with up to 50% of its water, running low, strict measures such as mandatory hosepipe bans and restrictions on car washing may soon be in the offing. These cutbacks come in the face of rising demand for scarce water supplies as a result of the tremendous population growth witnessed in Southern California (2-4 times higher than the national average) over the past 5 decades....

We do get excited about flatpack furniture, downloadable designs and CNC machines; California architect Gregg Fleishmann has brought them all together in his DH1 Distaster House and his Shelter system. All of the pieces are router cut from sustainable European birch plywood with phenolic resin on both sides. Pieces just fit together without fasteners or glue. It doesn't look too waterproof, but the architect says a plastic canvas or other skin is required. Fleishmann combines "fun and functionality to create innovative designs for shelter systems, play structures, furnishings and more." and considers his mission "to continue developing ways to make building easier." Imagine a future where you go to the local router shop and walk out with a stack of plywood that you just piece together to build your home, no tools or training necessary. It might look like this. It is available from Swarm Studios for US$ 22,000....

Chris Mooney is Washington correspondent for Seed magazine and the blogger behind The Intersection. In addition to his new book, Storm World: Hurricanes, Politics, and the Battle Over Global Warming, he is also the author of the bestselling The Republican War on Science, dubbed a "well-researched, closely argued and amply referenced indictment of the right wing's assault on science and scientists" by Scientific American. Chris has contributed to a wide variety of publications in recent years, including Wired, Science, Harper's, New Scientist, Slate, Salon, Mother Jones, Legal Affairs, Reason, The American Scholar, The New Republic, The Washington Monthly, Columbia Journalism Review, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, and The Boston Globe. He has won several awards for his body of work, being named one of Wired magazine's 2005 ten "sexiest geeks," and a finalist for the 2005 Los Angeles Times book prize in the category of "Science and Technology," for The Republican War on Science....

All these months we’ve been talking about Live Earth and 7/7/07 is just about here. Don’t have tickets to the event and missed our Green Theater contest challenge? Live Earth just announced they have partnered with eBay to auction tickets, travel packages and special pre-event items. Also available for bid is a one day consultation on how to green your life and home. These auctions will be complete by July 1. On July 12, another round of auctions will begin which will include signed memorabilia from the event. All of the funds raised will benefit the Alliance for Climate Protection. Live Earth is also encouraging us to spread the word about what the day is all about. If you already have tickets to the event, send an Evite to friends asking them to carpool or, if you don’t, consider throwing a Live Earth party and watching it on the tube. Either way, this major event will have you and your friends talking about for years. ::Live Earth...

Fernando and Humberto, the amazing Campana Brothers, are at it again. We've hugged their work before, and again more recently here, and they've busily expanding their cutting-edge, conceptual work for an exhibition at the Albion Gallery in London. Called "TransPlastic," the collection tells the (fictional) story of a world made of synthetics that's overgrown by natural fibers as an immunological response, like a scab covers a wound. The exhibition, which runs from now until August 10, 2007, encapsulates the brothers' design trajectory, which first took root back in 2000, which considers "material clashes" like plastic and natural fiber. In the pictured piece, plastic chairs have been "overgrown" by a parasitic vine called "apui", whose extraction helps preserve the biodiversity where it grows and eventually suffocates trees. Says Humberto, "When I go to the workshop where part of the TransPlastic collection is being manufactured, I feel passionate with the possibilities of this material. I am discovering an elasticity in this project that is very fulfilling. And to me it has a special meaning because when I left law school, I used to make wicker baskets. It has taken me 20 years to mature this idea and to take back on this material that appealed to me in my first steps as a designer." Learn more at the gallery's site and at the Campanas' brothers site as well. ::Fernando and Humberto Campana and ::Albion Gallery via ::HAUTE*NATURE...

We’ve covered outlandish looking micro-cars before, such as George Clooney’s Tango or the leans-like-a-motorbike Naro, for example. Now we’ve found another intriguing concept, the hydrogen powered Microcab, a low-speed (30mph) urban taxi vehicle with zero emissions (at the tailpipe at least):

“The Microcab is the product of innovative thinking by entrepreneur John Jostins. For many years he has visualised a small, urban vehicle with zero emissions suitable for use as a taxi or light freight carrier. The result is a vehicle powered by a hydrogen fuel cell, pollution free and virtually silent in operation. The only emission is water vapour.”

And unlike some concepts that are out there, this one has a real-world presence. A prototype recently took part in the Revolve: Brighton to London eco-car rally, which was attended by the Prince of Wales. ::Microcab:: ...

Global Cities is a big multi-media exhibition at London's Tate Modern museum. Starting with the premise that "more than 50% of us now live in cities, and, according to the United Nations, this number is set to rise to 75% by 2050.", it examines Cairo, Istanbul, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Mumbai, Sao Paulo, Shanghai and Tokyo. Drawing on comparative data, the exhibition explores these huge sprawling cities using 5 themes: size, speed, form, density and diversity. The visuals are huge and dynamic, there are videos, old film footage and photographs by artists who come from or have a relationship with the cities. In addition, special projects have been commissioned, using London as their base. Size examines some of the most populous cities--Tokyo, Mexico City and Sao Paulo are expanding their urbanised regions dramatically. Speed looks at the speed of urban change, brought on by immigration and speculative commercial development and how these factors are being managed in Shanghai, Istanbul, London, Cairo and L.A. Form provides an overview of the different urban forms of five cities: Istanbul, Johannesburg, London, Mumbai and Tokyo. Satellite photographs show the diversity and complexity of the cities and the challenges urban planners face. Density compares the number of people living within the boundaries of four cities: Cairo, Mumbai, London and Mexico City. And finally, diversity can affect a city by fostering integration or segregation. Cities that are integrated are designed around shared facilities such as parks and good public transport. Much to think about in a visually stunning and assaulting exhibit. :: Tate Modern...

These days airports are the last place that we think about green things happening, as jet fuel is burned by the ton and square miles of land are flattened for parking lots and access roads. Nobody thought much about airport buildings either, when they showed up for the Canadian Institute of Steel Construction Awards, all expecting that the amazing steel fabrication for the new Royal Ontario Museum would walk off with all the prizes. Instead, Daniel Libeskind and team could just say huh? and accept an award of merit as Kleinfeldt Mychajlowycz Architects Inc. walked away with the heavy hardware (top prize, the award of excellence, and the Green Building Award) for their Fire and Emergency Services Training Institute at Toronto's Pearson Airport. It makes sense; the ROM is built of steel but it is all covered up in drywall now; the Institute celebrates it and exposes it. It got LEED Silver for using recycled local steel; perforated steel cladding on the south elevation has been designed to form a solar air heating plenum, which can preheat incoming air by up to 17 degrees C above outdoor temperatures. This is reducing the building's energy use, which is more than 30% less than a building built to the Model National Energy Code. ...

We often poo-poo the mercury in a compact fluorescent, saying that the advantages outweigh the problem, but in traditional four foot tube fluorescents there is a lot of mercury, much more than in a CFL, and they are harder to dispose of as they are so big and fragile. Here is the first replacement tube we have seen that gets rid of the mercury, lead, fragile glass and phosphors in a tube with a ten year life and a twenty percent power saving.

The EverLED TR's amazing patent-pending driver technology is compatible with all standard fluorescent ballasts, eliminating the need for costly replacement of obsolete systems. Upgrading your failure prone, environmentally hazardous fluorescent lighting system to solid state, LED technology is now as easy as replacing the bulb!

One small problem that will delay implementation: it's 149 bucks. But that will change....::EverLED via ::LEED Pro ...

Anyone who has ever worked in a commercial kitchen or on a sales floor knows how hard it is on the feet to stand up all day, and how nice a soft padded floor is; that is why I have never understood why people would ever put ceramic tiles in a kitchen. Elephant bark is made from recycled tires, which are certainly not a resource in short supply- worldwide, three billion tires are thrown away each year, and eight out of ten end up in landfill or "stockpiled"- waiting for some kind of use while providing a perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes. It is easy to clean and can be used indoors or out, is locally made in the US and is cheap at about two bucks per square foot in quantity. Note: UMBRA used to sell placemats made from recycled tires and they really smelled for a couple of days. ::Elephant Bark found by the ::LEED Pro...

Investigators from the University of Wisconsin have presented "a catalytic strategy for the production of 2,5-dimethylfuran from fructose (a carbohydrate obtained directly from biomass or by the isomerization of glucose) for use as a liquid transportation fuel. Compared to ethanol, 2,5-dimethylfuran has a higher energy density (by 40 per cent), a higher boiling point (by 20 K), and is not soluble in water. This catalytic strategy creates a route for transforming abundant renewable biomass resources into a liquid fuel suitable for the transportation sector, and may diminish our reliance on petroleum." "The team's method for making hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) and converting it to DMF is a balancing act of chemistry, pressure, temperature and reactor design. Fructose is initially converted to HMF in water using an acid catalyst in the presence of a low-boiling-point solvent. The solvent extracts HMF from water and carries it to a separate location. Although other researchers had previously converted fructose to HMF, Dumesic's research group made a series of improvements that raised the HMF output and made the HMF easier to extract. For example, the team found that adding salt (NaCl) dramatically improves the extraction of HMF from the reactive water phase and helps suppress the formation of impurities." Via:: Nature and UW Madison News Online ...

Not too long ago we posted about college kids in Pennsylvania signing eco-pledges and wearing green ribbons at graduation in solidarity for a sustainable future. In fact, over 100 of the 560 graduates at Dickinson College had gotten in on the act… But across the border there’s a group of 8th graders at Tecumseh public school in Canada who’ve taken the whole thing a step further, and who I believe deserve a nod from Treehugger’s everywhere. They decided to make their graduation an eco-friendly one by throwing out the idea of using paper cups, plates, and napkins in favor of reusable ones. Then they chose to forgo the imported refreshments in favor of local organic choices, and made sure even the coffee served to their parents was organic and fair trade too. The most powerful part of it all is that the whole idea for it came from the kids, who were able to convince the parent committee for graduation that green was the way to go....

Last week AMD and Open Architecture Network announced their forthcoming collaboration in the form of an international design competition. The AMD Open Architecture Challenge invites architects and designers from all over the world to find ways of improving living conditions for half the world's population surviving on less than $2 a day. Open Architecture Network say that this Challenge will be a biannual event and each one will focus on different systemic issues around the world. This year's inaugural Challenge will focus on the design and construction of technology centers. AMD are sponsoring the Challenge through their 50x15 initiative which aims to bring affordable computers and internet to 50% of the world by 2015. $250 000 will be provided for the construction and implementation of the winning project. The Challenge will officially launch in September and entrants will have four months to make their proposals, but in the meantime all those communities who feel that they would greatly benefit from a technology center may become partners of the Challenge, and possible recipients of the winning design, by registering on OAN before July 20th. :: Open Architecture Network...

Things are really heating up over at TreeHugger Forums. Old topics, like the air car's new life, are still being debated, while the over 1100 users add new threads as fast as we can read them. To add some of your own flavor to the ongoing discussions, register (it's free) and login to dive in to the green debates. Here are some of the highlights...

	1) Clutchlove asks the forum a cosmic question: "Does anyone here think that we can cause enough damage to the plant with our wasteful practices that we will actually set it in a downward spiral to it's doom?" Attitudes range from somber to apocalyptic to rosy and bright.
	2) User Timetrvlr posts an article that says, among other things, that "New research suggests climate change could be faster and more furious than anyone expects" and paints a picture of a bathwater-like Arctic Ocean. Is that really what we can look forward to if we don't make a change, or is it just another fear-mongering scare-tactic by the drama-seeking media? There are some folks on both sides.
	3) Forum user MoonGlue puts the forum's polling functionality to work with an interesting topic: "Most of us have some friends who are good people, but they just don't care. Because they smoke pot and sit around all day. I germinated a few pot seeds some untidy guests left near the sink...At first they didnt really care (go figure), but once the plants began to grow they got interested in it. I taught them how to compost houshold wastes for fertilizers. Was I wrong for using the cultivation of these substances to get my people interested in earthy hobbies?" TreeHugger never inhaled, and doesn't condone illegal activity of any kind, but it's still an interesting question...More good discussion after the jump...

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In the tropical green south Indian state of Kerala, there is a fresh strategy of dealing with an old problem of waste: specially designed, efficient organic 'digesters' that turn solid waste into energy. Beginning in 1994, a local NGO called Bio-tech pioneered the development of their ‘integrated waste recycling plant,’ where large amounts of organic waste generated by the markets, slaughter houses, and restaurant kitchens are treated and converted into methane (cooking gas) and fertilizer. Saji Das, the man behind Bio-tech, then chose town of Kadakkal in Kollam district (which fortuitously had the largest dump in the state) as the location for the first integrated recycling plant. Today, the plant is capable of digesting daily one tonne of waste – producing three kilowatts of energy – enough to power 120 street lamps....

Photo credit: Judy Baxter It's time to write to Congress and ask: What's the cotton-picking idea? A substantial overhaul of American cotton subsidies in the 2007 Farm Bill could result in additional funds that could feed one million children for a year or pay school fees for at least two million children living in impoverished West African cotton-farming households, according to a new study by Oxfam America. "Previous studies my colleagues and I have done clearly show the trade distorting effects of US cotton subsidies by lowering the world price of cotton, with results at the aggregate level," says Daniel Sumner, director of the University of California Agricultural Issues Center and one of the authors of the Oxfam report. "But these new numbers show that even a modest increase in the world price of cotton that only partly reaches the farmer could greatly improve the daily lives of some of the world's poorest people, and could literally mean that millions of poor people could be fed." ...

SRI has become the de facto term for investing for both financial and (purportedly) social return. Whether by avoiding investments in companies that one dislikes, purposefully investing in companies that one likes or investing in companies that are changing the social responsibility game for their industry, SRI is the name of the game in much of the media these days. Finally, an explanation of what the term really means. Another day, another note on a Chinese solar stock. With the exception of SolarFun, we still feel that the market hasn't separated the winners from the losers in the Chinese solar crowd. Is Trina Solar a winner? Monday's trading was very interesting, with TSL suddenly moving north and approaching its 50-day moving average. Looking to cash in on trends like "Second Life" and increased usage of the Internet by girls, Mattel launches BarbieGirls.com. One of our brave Panelists attends a media launch event where interviews with 10-year old girls reveal whether this new technology encourages a savvier type of female consumer or just reinforces tired gender stereotypes. Last month, Big Oil companies with a stake in the Orinoco Belt lost control of their projects when Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez declared that the Orinoco Belt would be managed and controlled by the state oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela. However, Big Oil companies aren't taking it lying down. ConocoPhillips hopes to limit losses by allying with Big Oil against Chavez. Our pious Panelist recently discovered a "Hall of Shame," a supposed guide for Christian Investors who wanted to steer clear of buying stock in companies that are involved in practices contrary to Judeo-Christian principles. But Christian friends were unimpressed, claiming that The Timothy Plan stinks of legalism. Currency is one of those things, like wristwatches, that will get phased out in time, but for now serve as a reminder that attention to detail is an end in itself. It is with empathy, then, that we read about the town in western Massachusetts that adopted its own currency, "BerkShares," to promote local businesses. What does Energy Bill 2007 mean for clean tech? Overall, it seems to be geared more toward energy efficiency and the reduction of greenhouse gases rather than the provision of direct support to the renewable energy industry. There is not necessarily a bad thing, as there are ways to reduce emissions other than clean energy technology....

The computer industry is constantly producing smaller and cheaper machines. On the face of it that seems great, but is it really? What are the benefits or smaller/cheaper PCs? Furthermore, are they eco? Let's see what we got; for starters, cheaper computers will invariably mean more computers, maybe a billion more by 2015; some think that demand will explode when an $80 dollar price point is hit, which is rapidly approaching. In energy terms, an efficient laptop uses about 25 watts of power; a desktop uses much more (call it 100 watts), which is roughly the power a human being on a 2200 calorie diet requires. So, in energy terms, adding a billion desktop PC is like adding a billion humans to the planet; adding a billion laptops is like adding 200 million. Can the planet afford those kind of resources? Probably not, without getting into the sticky situation of machines competing with humans for resources. So, cheaper computing will place more burdens on our ecosystems, and us. How about smaller computers? It is doubtful that these would drive demand, but they might use fewer resources to create. Take for example the Space Cube, which claims to be the world's smallest PC. It measures just 2 x 2 x 2.2 inches, which is enough volume for 64 MB of SDRAM and a CPU that can go as fast as 300 MHz. Eco-wise, there are a few benefits but not many; the processor uses generally the same amount of resources to create, although you would save a bit on power consumption. And the SDRAM may be a little more eco-friendly to produce than a hard drive. The other items - keyboard, mouse, monitor - fall out of the equation, so a nix must be given to the 'smaller=more eco' hypothesis.:: KrisTV :: SciFi Tech...

Yeah, it's silly, but I don't think you would have seen this a couple of years ago and it's certainly a good sign that various green things are becoming more common in the mainstream. As they say, any publicity is good publicity. Nothing worse for important issues than having no visibility (a few short years ago in the US, for example), so being made fun of is better than not being talked about at all. Via ::Hugg and tipster Linton!...

We're trying to help out the New York Times with a story about Prius owners. Here's Mary Chapman's request: I'm looking for Prius owners who first and foremost are looking to make an environmental statement with their vehicle, who specifically bought the car because they want their Prius to say "hey, I care about the environment." This is part of a New York Times article that I'm assisting with. Please contact [Removed] The way we understand it, she's looking for people who bought the hybrid primarily for environmental reasons and not to save money on gas or because they liked the look or whatever (though those can be secondary reasons)... We'll take down the contact information at the end of the day, so if you are a good fit for this story, don't wait too long to contact Mary. Update: Okay, she has enough so we removed the contact info. Thanks to all those who contacted her!...

An indie-folk rock ensemble made up of scientists already stationed in Antarctica will perform for Live Earth fulfilling Al Gore's promise for music from 7 continents on 7.7.07. The band Nunatak, the Greenlandic word that means an exposed summit of a ridge mountain or peak within an ice field or glacier, will be rocking the ice for their 17 on-site colleagues and also for, well, the rest of the world. Former Vice President Gore personally reached out to the band, not that he had many alternatives. Live Earth organizers did originally explore the idea of flying in performers, but quickly dropped that when told the continent is pretty much inaccessible during the winter. The Rothera Research Station itself is on the Antarctic Peninsula, the fastest warming region on Earth. Temperatures there have risen by 5 degrees F during the last 50 years. In-depth historical timeline of how we got here after the jump....

The Japanese have often been leaps and bounds ahead of the rest of us in finding innovative ways to reduce their energy consumption while boosting their use of renewable energy for everyday life. Having already helped popularize the "furoshiki" as an elegant and sustainable alternative to plastic, it comes as no surprise that they're at it again, this time developing a groundbreaking new process for recycling plastics. A group of scientists have developed a process by which certain types of plastics can be broken down into their original chemical elements and then reused to make a new brand of high quality plastic. While most recycling methods rely on an approach that consists of melting and reforming plastic into a new, less pure type of plastic, the technique developed by Akio Kamimura and Shigehiro Yamamoto completely depolymerizes, or breaks down, the individual chains of molecules that make up polyamide plastics....

Its Tony Blair's last full day as Prime Minister today, and how does he spend it? In a meeting with the Governator. The hummer-driving muscle man said that Blair's environmental leadership was "truly a model for the world", during his meeting with the PM and environmental secretary, David Miliband. The governor claimed that it was Blair "getting everyone back round the table" that helped in the recent G8 talks. He also said that Blair's visit to the US last year had been "an inspiration to everyone in California." There is some speculation that Blair will become an international envoy to the Middle East, a move that the governor backs. "Out of selfish reasons I hope that he becomes the envoy for the environment and brings all the countries of the world together to join some kind of treaty - a Kyoto kind of treaty - that everyone can join and we can all together reduce greenhouse gases. I think the prime minister is the only person who can do that." By the way, the picture at the top of this post is begging for a caption. Go nuts in the comments. ::The Guardian See also ::Governator Coming to UK ::Governator Requires More Energy Efficiency...

Following from my rant earlier this week about fuel efficiency, I bring news of another way to decrease your gas usage. If you reguarly use a roof rack to carry bulky items around, then you probably leave it attached to your roof all the time. The problem is that this uses a lot more fuel, anything that interupts the aerodynamic lines of a car will - even leaving a window open will make a significant difference. The HandiRack is an inflatable roof rack which is easy to put on and take off, and takes up hardly any space in the car when stowed away. This means that you are more likely to only have it fitted when you need it, and save fuel. Another bonus is that it looks like it fits any car, which means that you can lend it to people, or take it with you when you buy a new car. ::Auto Blog Green See also ::How To Green Your Car...

TreeHugger loves it when colleges, universities, and other educational institutions get on board to help further the environmental movement; after all, the children are our future (thank you, Whitney Houston) and the more we can inform our future leaders, the better, so it's great to see the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment (APUPCC) successfully complete the Climate Leadership Summit a few weeks back (we've mentioned it before, a couple of times). On June 11-12, 2007, the leaders of nearly 70 colleges and universities gathered in Washington, DC for the public launch of the American College & University Presidents Climate Commitment, a high visibility effort to make campuses more sustainable by garnering institutional commitments to reduce and ultimately neutralize greenhouse gas emissions (full disclosure: Bob Perkowitz, the President and Founder of EcoAmerica, which is one of the supporting organizations of the ACUPCC, is on TreeHugger's Board of Advisors)....

Hopefully, you got your 1-2 minute video into MSN and Treehugger's "Green Theatre" contest by last Saturday; if not, you may have to resort to buying tickets for one of July 7's Live Earth concerts. The videos are now in the hands of our celebrity judges, and they'll be deciding which five entries will earn their creators tickets, travel, lodging and spending money for Live Earth. While we've introduced most of the judges to you already, there are still a few we'd like you to meet. Last, but certainly not least: Actor and environmentalist Woody Harrelson: Like many of the Green Theatre judges, Woody needs no introduction to most Treehugger readers. An award-winning actor on the big and small screens, as well as the stage, Woody is best known for his Academy-Award nominated portrayal of Hustler publisher and free speech advocate Larry Flynt in The People vs. Larry Flynt, and for his Emmy Award-winning role as lovable bartender Woody Boyd on Cheers. Harrelson is also well-known for his environmental activism: currently, he and wife Laura Louie publish VoiceYourself.com, a website for "promoting and inspiring individual action to create global momentum towards simple organic living and to restore balance and harmony to our planet."...

Employing a system that goes "beyond being green," Ecosystems Brand strives to provide eco-effective products that generate positive effects on the ecology, economy and social equity of the system they inhabit. They take the term usually applied to various ecological systems that feature all living things working together and apply it to product design; there really isn't anything that they haven't addressed or found a way to make more environmentally friendly. Starting with sustainable materials, they employ automated, regional manufacturing to keep transportation costs (both economic and environmental) down, and then create everything so it packs flat for shipping. Once at its location, putting the pieces together is a snap -- no tools required -- and when its "first life" is done, they arrange to pick up the products for recycling or reclamation, creating virtually zero waste. Judging from their website, they just launched at this year's ICFF (in May), so the product offerings appear to be a few tables and chairs, and the details are a bit scarce. We'd love to know more about how they go about this rigorous design-for-environment-type process (and we intend to find out); for now, it's certainly is a nice goal and a good-looking system. Hit the jump for a more detailed pic at the exhibition. ::Ecosystems Brand via ::MoCo Loco...

Remember how it was starting a new school, moving to a new neighbourhood, joining a sporting club? You feel the odd one out and wonder how you’ll ever fit in and accepted on your merit. So it is with new players entering a market that seems already mature and well established. In this case we are talking about the Australian green magazine market, specifically the eco-building end of it. The old timer is Owner Builder mag, which went through new ownership itself and gained colour covers and inserts. Although not exclusively about green aspects of building, it does have a large quota of such materials in its pages. Five or so years ago Environ (PDF link) started out as a trade publication on eco-architecture that later made the transition to the newstand. Around this time the housing industry established their own mag, known as GreenSmart. The Alternative Technology Association then launched Sanctuary, which has evolved from glossy photos and green house plans to more in-depth articles. Into this crowded field, which already includes many international journals and TV tie-in magazines comes ‘Green’, with the tagline: Sustainable architecture and landscape design. The debut issue is a very impressive 100 pages covering lush photography of the usual architect designed grandstand ecohouse through to cute cartoons of kids donning jumpers (that’s what we call sweaters) instead of turning up the heating. The myriad other articles include pieces on renovations, using recycled timbers, food miles, eco friendly resorts, willow trees conversion from environmental weed to furniture. Green is polished new entry in a crowded space. It will be curious to observe whether it is the shy type with bottle lensed glasses that no-one picks for their team or the favourite new kid on the block. The more this stuff is in people’s faces the better we’ll all be. (Disclaimer: This writer also scribes for the aforementioned Environ magazine.) ::Green magazine....

If there are any upsides to serious environmental problems it might be the brilliant (and often low tech) solutions that are invented to tackle them. The Ashden Awards for Sustainable Energy, which were announced last Saturday in London with the help of Al Gore, showcase and handsomely reward some of the most powerful ideas being put to good use in places where they're needed most, reducing pollution and poverty while inspiring and fostering environmental innovation everywhere. Bilingual Chinadialogue spoke to one of the Enterprise Award winners, Pan Shijiao, who runs Beijing Shenzhou Daxu Bio-energy Technology Company, or Daxu for short. While based just north of Beijing, where the population is rising alongside the economy, the company produces biogas stoves for use in the countryside, where 70 percent of China's population still lives. Using cylinders of crop waste for fuel instead of unhealthy and unsustainable coal and firewood, the stove is over 40 percent efficient, and can cook up supper in 15 to 20 minutes without the billows of smoke pollution typical in rural areas. When asked about China's impact on the world's climate, Mr Pan was sanguine about the country's multi-sided, public-private approach to the problem:

As a manager of a small enterprise, I think I should run my own company very well and contribute to this process. We have a philosophy: to do practical things in terms of energy saving and emissions reductions, so that we can have a better environment. And in doing this we address the same environmental concerns as the central government. It’s my opinion that adopting these stoves across the country could reduce emissions by around 20%. There are currently some 200 million rural households in China, and almost all of them have coal stoves.

Those households aren't just potential renewable energy users. They're potential customers. via Chinadialogue See the other winners from India, Peru, Philippines, Bangladesh, Nepal, Ghana, Tanzania and Laos here. And see our coverage of pellet stoves, plant oil stoves, and corn kernel stoves. ...

At the recent meeting of Friends of Trees held in Barcelona, Vandana Shiva made some interesting comments about biofuels, which lead us to wonder why we don’t see more about it even here on Treehugger. She said that it takes more energy to produce 1 litre of biofuels than the energy that is given by that same litre and that . Coming from this renowned physicist, ecologist, seed activist and eco-feminist we thought we should look further into the topic. Not coincidentally, later on during the conference a Spanish NGO called Debt Watch passed out a one page flyer that answers “5 questions about biofuels or agrofuels.” In short here is what they say (they also provide references which you can see on their website ):...

The Alliance to Save Energy, Edison Electric Institute and the SCI FI Channel have partnered up to create an innovative energy-efficiency campaign and contest that will encourage people everywhere to upgrade the energy efficiency features in their home and reward one lucky homeowner with energy-efficiency home makeover improvements of up to $25,000. The campaign and contest website launch today, June 26 at scifi.com/homemakeover, which coincides with a marathon of "Eureka" programming on the channel leading into the series' second season, starting in July. The series premise: The government has been relocating the world’s geniuses and their families to the picturesque Pacific Northwest town of Eureka, where anything can and usually does happen. The lead characters live in a super-efficient "Smart House”, which has become the impetus for the overall Eureka $mart House Energy-Efficiency Challenge. To enter, click here to get started; the entry asks you to answer a few energy-oriented questions about your homes and to write a brief essay about your deservedness for an energy-efficiency home makeover. The contest entry period ends August 31, and the winner will be announced at the end of September. All the details can be had here. ::Eureka $mart House Energy-Efficiency Challenge...

They’ve been around forever, and if your 5 year-old nephew is anything like mine then I’m betting he’s got gobs of them winding their way through the living room and out into the hall… But just over a week ago Thomas & Friends released a recall for about 1.5 million of the wooden toys due to the presence of lead in the bright red or yellow paint on them. In a recent column for the New York Times, Christian Warren, an expert on the history of lead poisoning points out that The Product Safety Commission is constantly issuing recalls of lead-tainted children’s products, but that they’re usually cheap one’s that lack a distinctive brand name or following. Thomas & Friends are a much different story, as the cost can be anywhere from $10 to $70 bucks a pop to satisfy that nephew’s craving, and the people who buy them are generally very much aware of the dangers of exposing their kids to contaminants of any kind. He goes on to point out that despite the outcry over this particular product, lead usage around the world is quite prevalent even though the U.S. has done a pretty good job of cleaning up the problem internally, and that to really rid the world’s children of lead related health issues we’re going to need a much broader framework that incorporates all nations to pull it off. Now I won’t hold my breath waiting for that to happen, but before you suspect that the U.S. based company who owns the brand (RC2 Corp.) actually knew anything about the issue it seems that the Chinese manufacturer went ahead on their own and substituted highly leaded pigments for at least a portion of the lead-free paint the corporation specified in a bid to cut costs. So check out the toy box to see if any of Thomas’s “friends” listed here and pictured above need to find their way back to the RC2 corporation, who promises to replace them with another one at no cost to you besides the serious amount of crying you may well have to endure... Though that may present a great opportunity to talk to the toys "owner" about making the difficult decisions that can have long-term benefits for both ourselves and the environment. via:: NYT ...

Yesterday we wrote about the UK-based magazine The Green Parent. While we were looking around their site, we came across an ad for Ecobean, purveyors of a huge array of cloth nappies (diapers to those on the other side of the Atlantic), as well as numerous parenting accessories:

“Because every baby and every family have different needs we have done our best to put together a selection of products to meet those needs. You will find a great range of tried and tested cloth nappies from top UK brands such as Tots Bots, Nature Babies and Easy Peasy Nappies alongside international favourites such as Mother-ease, Popolini, Stacinator, Fuzzi Bunz and many more. To complement the nappies we have all the accessories you will ever need, a range of natural skin care options and many other great products for mum and baby.”

The company’s website also includes a comprehensive advice section on all aspects of using cloth nappies, from a low-down on reasons to use them, through to a guide to different types available, and information on how to wash, dry and store them. As mentioned yesterday, for more kid-related green info, take a look at our guides on How to Green Your Kids’ Toys, or How to Green Your Baby. ::Ecobean:: ...

The great thing about the UTNE reader is that it, like TreeHugger, is a filter, looking and republishing articles from some very obscure but interesting sources, mixed with some original content. The June/July issue includes: -an interview with chemist Paul Anastas, known as "the father of green chemistry", a field he defines as "the design of chemicals and chemical processes that reduce harm to humans and the environment."on making the world less toxic and more convenient:

"chemistry introduces new things into the world , and because of that we have the responsibility for the consequences. Science and technology won't be able to achieve sustainability alone. But I don't know a pathway to sustainability that isn't going to require science and technology"

::nrdc.org...

What a pity: Noah Shachtman of Wired's Danger Room reports that the Joint Chiefs of Staff has decided to nix an "urgent" request made by Marine Corps Major General Richard Zilmer, the head of coalition forces in Western Iraq, for renewable power stations. Zilmer's "priority 1" plea called for the installation of 183 solar- and wind turbine-equipped stations which, he argues, would've allowed troops to avoid unnecessarily putting themselves at risk by constantly having to transport fuel to outlying bases along exposed routes. "If this need is not met, operating forces will remain unnecessarily exposed ... and will continue to accrue preventable Level III and IV serious and grave casualties," he said. He also pointed out that the high cost of the fuel (which can reach up to $400 in Iraq), in addition to the costs incurred by transporting and storing it, made switching over to a renewable source of energy a more financially viable solution. ...

Most of the buzz about solar is for generating electricity, but much of our natural gas is used for space and water heating, when this is the easiest and cheapest way to use solar to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and conserve the resource, particularly in the Northern US and Canada. It is a simple, straightforward technology that is more cost-effective than photovoltaics, but As Tyler Hamilton says, solar thermal has always presented a better business case than solar photovoltaics but has never taken seriously. But with peak oil and possibly peak gas around the corner, it should be; there are lots of ways to make electricity but how will we heat our homes? Now with Government incentives and interest free loans, it is getting interesting. The City of Toronto is converting its swimming pools to solar, and Wal-Mart is testing a system on one of its big boxes in the Toronto area. The Provincal government announced the goal of having 100,000 solar electric or thermal systems installed across the province. ...

Tip O'Neill said "all politics is local" and perhaps it is if you are a senator, but it sure gets complicated when you are running for president. The state of Illinois sits on 100 billion tons of coal, and its senator is Barack Obama; it really should be no surprise that in 2005 he attached a provision to the energy bill for 85 million dollars to test using Illinois coal for transportation, or that he co-sponsored legislation earlier this year for billions of dollars in subsidies for coal-to-liquid technology. In January Obama said "The people I meet in town-hall meetings back home would rather fill their cars with fuel made from coal reserves in southern Illinois than with fuel made from crude reserves in Saudi Arabia....

Is it possible to create a checks-and-balances spreadsheet for the planet? Mathis Wackernagel thinks so. As the executive director of Global Footprint Network, he works with corporations, non-profit organizations, and national governments to help calculate and reduce their planetary impact. His goal? Only to bring about sweeping global change. Considered by some to be the most illuminating tool in understanding and achieving sustainable development, GFN’s Ecological Footprint program isn’t just a diet for a small planet; it’s an all-encompassing holistic regime that measures humanity’s demand on the Earth’s natural capital and the ability—or lack thereof—for the planet to regenerate its resources. Here, TH talks with Wackernagel about One Planet Living, the looming threat of World Overshoot Day, and why we need to get our ecological finances in order. ::Global Footprint Network The following is a transcript from TreeHugger Radio. You can listen to the audio here. TreeHugger: So the Global Footprint Network was recently awarded a three year, $1,015,000 grant from The Skoll Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/04/global_footprin.php. You've said you're going to use the money to achieve your organization's Ten in Ten program, that is, institutionalizing ecological footprint in at least ten key nations by 2015. How did you target the countries—these ten countries—and what's the strategic plan for implementing this process? Mathis Wackernagel: The premise is pretty simple. It's like bookkeeping for our finances, if we don't know how much we earn and how much we spend, it's hard to know whether we go bankrupt or not, and the same thing is true for our ecology. If you don't have basic tools to understand the resources we use compared to what is available, it's hard to avoid ecological bankruptcy. And that's why believe the ecological footprint is an important tool, not just at the national level but also at the local level or for individuals to understand to what extent we depend on ecological resources and to what extent they're available and to what extent we're exposing ourselves to ecological risks....

This week is Carnival of the Green # 83 and it's being hosted by Dianovo! So, head on over to this week's Carnival to check out a round up of last week's green news and events, submitted by other bloggers and green sites. To learn more about Carnival of the Green, where it will be and how to host (hurry, we're now booking into 2008!), please click here to link to our previous post....

Only a couple of episodes left in this inspiring 13 part series, so it’s definitely time for some play. A little rest and recreation, maybe. However world champion skier, Alison Gannett, is concerned she might see the demise of local snow in her lifetime, so she launched a Globally Cooling Tour. Craig Calfee designs competition grade bicycles made from a grass stronger than steel - bamboo, a material also employed by Comet Skateboards, who build their boards in a solar powered factory. See these action-inducing stories tonight on Sundance Channel’s Big Ideas for a Small Planet . As you’ll observe when you click through that link (or the one below, this is just one of myriad happenings as part of Sundance’s The Green website. Sneak peek clips. podcasts, green living guides, blogs, Simran Sethi’s Second Life virtual seminars, an ‘eco-mmunity help round out this significant offering. And there is bucketloads more too. Be sure to visit — ::Big Ideas for a Small Planet....

In May two artists, Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harvey, covered two sides of the fly tower of the National Theatre with 300 bags of grass seedlings. Their intent was to leave it for 6 weeks and let the public watch as the grass grew and then died. It was intended as a statement on life, decline, death, the weather, and our mortality. The "before" picture of the theatre shows it covered in green grass. Pictured above is the same view, six weeks later. The artists spoke about their work. They said that initially they were very nervous about the piece because it was so large and so exposed and if it went wrong it would be very public. The piece was a culmination of a long period of thinking about grass and working with it. For years people thought that they were mad for working in this medium; it is only in the last 3 or 4 years that the public is more attuned to environmental works. They love the colour of grass because it is so electric and burns into the retina. The artists noted that this is a very physical work; an event proscribed by time. They said that the dying adds to the texture and makes it look like a painting. To them, the fragility and dying of the grass is as important as the growing of it. The hands-on part of the work is a key part of the work: not only did they plant it, they have also taken care of the project over the past 6 weeks, doing the maintenance and the watering themselves. Even thought it has rained, because of the way that the wind and rain hit the building, it still needed watering. But once the project is over, as artists they have to accept that finality, quoting Freud, who said that "all life is death". :: National Theatre...

Ron Jarvis, the Home Depot senior vice president who oversees the Eco Options program, seems to get it. And so does the New York Times in its article about the big box's eco initiative. Author Clifford Krauss writes:

Even though Energy Star is a widely accepted barometer for how much electricity a refrigerator or washing machine uses, it does not measure other factors, like how much energy was used to make the appliance in the first place or whether the manufacturer used recycled materials and encouraged its product to be recycled at the end of its life.

Home Depot is working with Scientific Certification Systems to audit and certify the green claims of the companies that supply the 176,000 products that Home Depot sells. They will grade a product based on its environmental record over its entire life cycle — including the sustainability of its production process, its efficiency and longevity and how it can be recycled when it is no longer useful....

Wall Street Journal points out something is about to change in American lifestyle. Specifically, the several hours per day each US citizens spends driving is about to be Europeanized. Want a vision of what your next new car or truck will look like? Go there. "Whether by presidential order or congressional mandate, car makers in the foreseeable future will likely have to build fleets that average about 35 miles per gallon. But what kinds of cars and trucks will gasoline-guzzling Americans drive to achieve that average? The answer would seem to lie in Europe, where fuel prices are roughly double U.S. levels amid heavy taxation and more than half of the vehicles bought have diesel-powered engines..."...

N+ew, which stands for No More Electronic Waste, is a bench, a sculpture and an installment by Chilean designer Rodrigo Alonso Schramm and his design studio Musuc. The idea might not be entirely new, but it is a powerful statement in Latin America, where recycling is not an easy task (in Buenos Aires, the government recently re-launched its recycling program in order to try to make it work). So says Schramm: “In South America it is not easy to return to manufacturers the electronic waste to be re-used, because such policy does not exist. The reuse of these types of products is poor for its low re-selling prices and the large space they take in containers, also for the fact that they can only be reused three times before loosing their molecular consistence. Having this in mind, N+ew aims to become an ‘aesthetic container’ whose goal is to immortalize something that will have no other life than contaminating”. Built with different types of e-waste, epoxy resin, and recycled-aluminum legs, the bench was first intended to be made with bio-resin, but the producers of such material were scarce, too expensive and hard to find in Latin America, explained Schramm. N+ew is a limited edition product made under special request, and will be exhibited in the Korea Gwangju Design Biennale Designflux next October 2007 and during the Passion Tour Symposium that will take place in Chile in the same month. It is also part of a collection with the same material, and the Chilean designer is in process of developing other products from with e-waste, so we will keep him in our radars. If you are into green computing, check our post on How to Recycle your computer and also our How to Green Your Electronics guide. ::Musuc ::Rodrigo Alonso...

We at TreeHugger tend to focus so on design, recycling, re-purposing, and the myriad other ways for business to do well by doing good, we sometimes forget about what most characterized environmental management over the last 40 years: US Federal laws and regulations, executive policy, phase outs, bans, class actions suits, label restrictions, "potentially responsible party" funded clean ups, and so on. One sure sign that these old ways are about to return to prominence is that US law firms are opening up specialty climate practice groups. "Think this global-warming controversy will blow over soon? The lawyers don't. Top Dallas firm Thompson & Knight started a dedicated climate-change practice June 4 with 26 lawyers. Today, Dallas' Vinson & Elkins will unveil its 41-lawyer group, headed by a former senior counsel for the World Bank. The law firms – and a dozen others nationwide – are getting ready for a predicted explosion of climate-related work tied to government regulation, lawsuits against energy companies and new markets that will trade the rights to emit carbon." ...

Greening your wardrobe is easier said than done, especially here in Europe. We found some great European eco shoes (see here, here and here) but when it comes to clothes, we had to mainly shop online, until recently. Skunkfunk decided to bring bamboo, organic cotton and soybean fabric into this year’s summer collection. This Spanish label from the Basque Country 'is all about keeping it real'. They don’t obey fashion trends but instead they make sure their designs are practical and individual, and if multi-functional (reversible and detachable), well, even better. The result: colourful, funky and comfortable clothes, that ‘are here to stay’ (which means they don’t go out of fashion and are durable) explains Mikel Feijoo Elzo, founder of Skunkfunk. Each piece of clothing is labelled with a tag explaining what fabric it’s made of. So watch out, as not all their clothes are made from eco fabrics YET. The bamboo label reads: Bamboo Cotton products are extremely soft, comfortable and cool. Their velvet slip texture and crease resistant characteristics compliment the natural fibres’ antibiotic and Ultra-Violet ray protection. We love their super comfy bamboo t-shirts as well as the silk-like soybean protein fibre shirts mixed with cotton. And we love the colours! You can find Skunkfunk in more than 700 stores across Western Europe and Russia. To give you an idea about prices (images above, left to right): Ohri soybean dress €55,20, black soybean t-shirt €34,80, green organic cotton t-shirt €36, Kontx soybean t-shirt €36. ::Skunkfunk Thanks Jenna for the tip! ...

Bring me your poor-performing designs, your tired energy systems and your huddled treehuggers -- it's official (almost), Green is the new Red, White and Blue. It was only in October '06 that the majestic Ms. Liberty went wind-powered, and now, courtesy July's New Yorker magazine cover, she promises a better life to all who migrate to the land of the green. However, just beneath her watchful nostrils, by barge and by rail, our city's trash still migrates to landfills in states far-flung such as Pennsylvania, Ohio and Virginia -- that's 90% of the 12 tons of daily refuse. One year ago in July '06, the NYC City Council passed a new solid waste management plan that although reinstating and expanding recycling of certain materials (as well as eliminating the use of long-haul tractor-trailer trucks accounting for 250,000 or so trips made on the region's highways), did little to address the root generation of non-compostable waste. While the Mayor of San Francisco (a city which has already banned the plastic bag) got with the program again last week outlawing single-serving water bottles, the five key dimensions of eco-renaissance-Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s PlaNYC include no component to comprehensively re-envision the design of the greenist-city-to-be’s solid waste stream. Kudos to the same Mayor who is responsible for eliminating second-hand-smoke in bars for working toward carbon-reduced skies, but we’re counting the days until the Supreme Court’s ruling premised upon the Interstate Commerce Clause, no longer provides an excuse to provide our neighboring states with second-hand trash. As for that green day when solid waste garbage trucks are few and far between, we’ll just have to use our imaginations along with some fun video after the jump....

In India, Ford is proud to show its SUVs crush icecaps and slalom polar bears… Scientists are hot on the trail of the planet’s missing carbon dioxide, and closing in… Among those critical of the IPCC’s handling of climate data is James Hanson, head of the Goddard Space Flight Center… A new lightbulb with no electrode could outlast the devise it’s plugged into… Greenvoice is a new online community with a conscience… 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? ...

As part of its "Be a Better Planet” campaign, Yahoo!, has named Hastings, Nebraska, the greenest city in America. Hastings, Nebraska . . . the birthplace of Kool-Aid? Perhaps Yahoo! is drinking too much of it’s own Kool-Aid because Hastings, Nebraska--with a population of only 30,000--is already far “greener” than most US cities. Unfair advantage? Not according to Yahoo!. Ranking was based on citizen participation and environmental initiative. Hastings is a leader with such projects as: “conversion of methane to energy at its pollution control center, local production of Ethanol E85, extensive networks of parks, hiking, and biking trails, and installation of energy-efficient street lighting.” ...

Many of us spend as much (or more) time at work as we do in bed; as such, we think having a healthy, comfortable, sustainable workplace is as important as where you lay your head at night. For those of us who work in an office, here are some quick picks for creating a green office (and check out How to Green Your Work for more ideas and resources).

	1) If you have papers to file, pencils to hold and a telephone to answer, you likely have a desk, too; we like Knú series of desks for an ultra-modern, sustainable center to work. If you're looking for a more simple spot to work, check out Legare's furniture that doesn't require tools for assembly.
	2) Once you have a desk of your liking picked out, you'll need a place to sit; we've seen a whole bunch that are pretty good when it comes to green comfort, but it's tough to beat Steelcase's Think chair or the Zody chair by Haworth when it comes to ergonomics and lifecycle design principles.
	3) The Mix Lamp from Luceplan is a stylish integration of LED lighting for the work space. Delivering “an intense warm and pleasing light,” the Mix has a 50,000 hour life, and its LED Chip on Board technology only drinks up 5 watts of power. White light not for you? The color of light can also be changed with an integrated filter. The remaining two picks are after the jump...

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As the number of tigers dwindle in India’s wildlife reserves, conservationists will make an appeal to a UN wildlife forum on Wednesday to maintain a ban on trading in tiger parts, while Chinese business interests continue to lobby for its legalization. A statement from the Indian environment ministry on Tuesday said that India's junior environment minister, Namo Narayan Meena, would attend the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) in The Hague, Netherlands. Half of the world’s remaining tigers are in India. A century ago, there were about 40,000 tigers, compared to the 3,700 counted in a 2001 and 2002 survey. Today, a partially completed survey by conservation agencies covering 16 of 28 reserves reveals that their numbers may be far lower than that, with final results expected by the end of the year. Though the survey covers only part of the country, it speaks of a more widespread problem rooted in poaching and habitat destruction at home and across the border into countries such as Bhutan....

A new database aims to make parsing of the mind-boggling array of different national and regional policies governing individual states' renewable energy sectors an easier and more approachable task. The Global Renewable Energy Policies and Measures Database, currently being developed by the International Energy Agency (IEA), the European Commission and the Johannesburg Renewable Energy Coalition, will offer renewable energy market and policy information for over 100 countries in one comprehensive format. According to a report released by the UN Environment Program, over $100 billion of new money was invested into clean technology and the renewable energy sector. Because most firms allocate their funds based on a state's specific policy regime, enforcement standards and financial incentives, having one database that provides a thorough overview would be extremely beneficial....

(Picture: the Nedbank ad and Al Gore at the Y&R Conference) During the last edition of the Cannes International Advertising Festival (June 17th to 23rd), which is the most important event in the world for the advertising industry, green was the theme of the moment. Major agencies network Young & Rubicam invited former US vice president Al Gore to discuss how advertising can contribute to the Global Warming struggle, there were prizes to conscious advertising (one of which Lloyd informed about here), lectures on green marketing, an exhibition with the best conscious ads from the world, and even the ‘Young Creatives’ competition had Global Warming as brief. Then there is also the recently launched MTV Switch campaign, for which several major ad agencies worked free to create ads that help raise awareness on the subject in young people. Having been in the festival and having seen some creatives speak their hearts out about how advertising has to aim for bigger messages than just selling and others just loosing their nerves about how many awards they had gotten, we left with the doubt: Was it a real try to awake some minds? Is the industry only trying to learn how to sell to green conscious people? Or is it just that advertising, as usual, is embracing the trend of the moment? While we could go for the skeptical, we want to think it is probably the three. ...

A novel piece of equipment that allows users to create digital maps of any terrain could come in very handy for conservationists. LIDAR, or light detection and ranging, provides much more detailed information about the particular landscape than does an aerial photograph. "The LIDAR measurements will give us a highly accurate depiction of the forest floor and tree heights," said Dan Porter, of the Save-the-Redwoods League. "This application of LIDAR is fairly new. It's pretty cutting edge." A laser beam fired at the ground from a plane to measure the distance to the ground can record the exact position of up to 85,000 points on the ground each second. This data is then used to make a 3-D map of the area. ...

Matthew asks ">"why do cars use so much fuel?" and notes that "A 1980s Ford Fiesta could get 50mpg and comfortably seat 5 adults, but a Prius can’t do that nearly 30 years later." Matthew suggests that we should get rid of the gadgets and reduce weight, but some of that weight comes from safety requirements and devices and even some pollution control equipment.

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Urban Outfitters may not be a megabox brand, but we've never regarded it as solidly indie as the mostly imported togs it hawks take strains to appear. Still, we were pleased to discover that UO—as its teenage and post-adolescent clientèle call it—has a new, limited-edition line of clothing and accessories made from vintage, deadstock, and preloved materials. They're even made in the United States, which is another definite plus. :: Urban Outfitters See also: :: How to Green Your Wardrobe, :: How to Green Your Accessories, and :: TreeHugger Picks: Unusual Materials in Recycled Fashion...

Immigration advocates and sympathizers aren't alone in expressing opposition to federal plans to erect a fence along the border separating states like Texas and Arizona from Mexico. The North American Butterfly Association, which set up a park in Mission, Texas, to serve as a wildlife refuge in the Rio Grande Valley as part of a multimillion-dollar effort by federal and state authorities to preserve the region's biodiversity, was dismayed to hear that the federal government was planning on fencing sections of the nearby border. Having invested a tremendous amount of time and resources into making the park a popular destination for eco-tourists, Sue Sill, its executive director, and her colleagues are afraid that the fence will cut through areas of sensitive habitat and harm endangered or threatened species. "In the last 25 years, the federal government has been in the process of purchasing large chunks of land to create an extension of the wildlife refuge," said Gilberto Hinojosa, an attorney in Brownsville, a nearby city. "It would be completely inconsistent with that policy to cut the big section of that area out in order to put the border security fence."...

Watch out, Japan: there's a new player in town gunning for your green title. Dubbed the "Detroit of Asia" in recent years for its efforts to promote itself as a regional automotive powerhouse, Thailand is moving forward with an ambitious plan to burnish its green credentials by mass-producing a new fleet of "eco-cars." The project aims to encourage foreign and domestic automakers to develop cheap cars that minimize fuel consumption and lower the production of exhaust emissions. The government hopes to accomplish this by issuing a raft of favorable tax incentives for carmakers that meet stringent standards of fuel efficiency, emissions and safety. ...

Perhaps this statement best captures the thrust of a project sponsored by the Wetlands Initiative to restore wetlands in the Midwest: "It's like dialysis for water systems." The 2,600-acre project in Hennepin, Illinois, backed by the Wetlands Initiative and a motley of other major environmental groups, aims to show that restoring wetlands would be a cost-effective, and potentially lucrative, way to filter harmful nitrogen and phosphorus and remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. It would also benefit hunters and wildlife watchers by expanding the habitats for a variety of wetland residents. The project has been unofficially dubbed "nutrient farming." "We think it's a good investment. We're confident that it'll work," said Richard Lanyon, the district's general superintendent. "We expect the state of Illinois will adopt water quality standards for nutrients and we will be obligated to meet those standards. We know wetlands remove nutrients."...

Waitrose is to start selling milk in plastic bags, alongside reusable jugs. The idea is to reduce the amount of harmful plastic milk cartons that get used. They're strong and use a lot of plastic, but are thrown away after one use. The new bags will be use 75% less plastic, and are only designed to get milk home, rather than for a couple of days use. 180 million pints of milk are used every week in the UK, and only one in four plastic bottles is recycled. That means a huge amount of plastic is simply being dumped every week. In the seventies another UK store tried the same thing, but the idea wasn't popoular. It has taken off in Canada though, where pouches of milk are available in stores. Jim Begg, of Dairy UK, said, "What you're seeing now I think is going to be an emerging trend. [But] it's expensive to make any new forms of packaging and operational systems, and we have to be confident it's going to have a meaningful effect." The bags will be available on a trial basis in 17 stores, and will be rolled out to more if successful. Jane Hills, Waitrose's dairy buyer, said, '"Customers are increasingly looking for environmentally friendly solutions and the new milk packs and jugs will be top of their shopping list. The eco-packs will make a radical difference to the way milk is sold within the UK." See also ::Milk price sees a-maize-ing hike ::TreeHuggerTV: How to Buy Green Milk w/Marion Nestle...

In a first for the Maine Legislature, a raft of environmental measures went undefeated through an entire session. It was a hard-earned victory for the coalition of environmental groups that fought hard to get several of its priorities on the legislative docket this year. Following are some of the most notable legislative accomplishments in Maine's green agenda: • Maine will join the country's first regional effort to regulate greenhouse gas emissions by limiting the amount of emissions from its six largest power plants and instituting a regional market for the sale and purchase of pollution allowance (an idea similar to carbon offsetting)....

I’ve been in London recently, over from NYC, catching up with the life I left behind a year ago. I am lucky to own a small property and have not done badly out of the investment I made six years ago. But get this, most of the UK can no longer afford to get on the property ladder in the area they live – the deposit simply too big and the mortgage repayments out of reach for many. This leaves a whole generation with nowhere to invest other than collecting money in a bank with little returns and no idea where/how your money is being used – there is no transparency with banking. So what’s a way to democratize the property market? Well, in comes in the form of a property investment exchange called The Property Investment Market. It’s not (yet) a ‘treehugging’ idea, but it has the potential to deliver real value to individuals and communities – if managed properly. And I do know that green buildings will form a large part of its property portfolio in the near future, as that was obviously one of the first questions I asked. ...

Obesity is rife, and power is scarce. A gym in Hong Kong has take these two problems, and created one bonkers solution. The exercise machines create power which is then used to power the gym. Rather than use machines that waste energy as heat or sound, they have installed the useful machines which can generate up to 50 watts from each person. Lucien Gambarota, the inventor behind the idea, said, "Each of these machines, they are equipped with a generator inside. So what we did, we diverted part of the electricity produced by the machine to recharge a battery, he said. "And with what we store in the battery, we have been able to power part of the lighting system." One club member is behind the plan, "I think it's a really good idea. At least the energy is used for something good. It gives you more reason - you are not wasting what you are using, so it's better that way."...

Melting icebergs are an iconic image, often used to represent climate change. The idea that we are warming the planet with our emissions and melting the poles is one that we are all familiar with. However, some new research shows that it may not be all bad news. Although all this melting will cause sea levels to rise, it may also be storing a lot of carbon and reducing the levels of pollutants in our atmosphere. Icebergs are full of nutrients, and as they melt and float out to sea they can sustain huge communities of seabirds, krill, fish and phytoplankton....

When asked about a popular restaurant once, Yogi Berra said "nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded." It is like that with design and of innovation; it starts with the early adopters for whom money is no object, they want the best and they want it now. Many of them get their first glimpse of the latest and coolest in Wired Magazine. Right now modern green prefab is wired and is still at early adopter pricing and over-the top finishes; the new Wired Home being built by Steve Glenn's livinghomes is a catalog of the best green eye candy that money can buy. We will all be able to visit Yogi's restaurant and afford modern green prefab as it moves mainstream; everything that the early adopters go for eventually does, between when it is tired and expired. In the meantime we can press our noses to the glass.......

This solar powered motorbike design by SunRed won a prize at the Barcelona Motor Show for its innovative technology. It’s a concept at the moment, but the company will be making a prototype soon. It’s not a direct solar-power machine; the panels top up batteries when parked. This is because the panels fold up to give a large surface area (over 3 square metres), but fold down out of the way when the bike is on the go. Leave it in the sun, and when you get back to it you can fold up the panels and be on your way....

The new Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards are going to raise fuel efficiency requirements to 35 mpg for all cars and SUVs. Car companies have until 2020 to comply, and many believe it will be a difficult task. This begs the question, why on Earth is this a problem? Cars that do 35mpg aren't difficult; they’ve been available for decades. Fuel efficiency isn't any better today than it has ever been in the car industry. Gadgets and comfort per car (GCPC) have risen considerably, but miles per gallon (MPG) stands still. I'm not talking about advanced experimental cars, but the average, standard, boring cars that the majority of people drive. Most cars now have air conditioning, CD players, GPS, seat warmers, car heaters and hundreds of other power-sapping accessories. They are all powered by gasoline, which is something that people don't always consider. We're used to gadgets being electric, plugged into the wall. In your car it's the gas you buy at the pump that fuels your air conditioning - turn it on and use more fuel. Considering that and rising gas prices it seems strange to me that people haven't been more proactive in demanding fuel efficiency. Even the Prius, touted as the ultimate green machine, virtually running on air, gets less to the gallon than my first car. A 1980s Ford Fiesta could get 50mpg and comfortably seat 5 adults, but a Prius can’t do that nearly 30 years later....

Michelle Kaufmann gets a lot of posts on TreeHugger, because in so many ways she is the leading edge in modern green prefab. But not only is she pushing the envelope in design and construction, she is using all of the latest tools in marketing to make modern prefab comprehensible. With so many books on modern prefab filling the shelves, no doubt a number of authors and publishers have approached her, but Michelle doesn't wait around, and has published her own. According to a Time Magazine article on self-publishing, she didn't want to wait years to accommodate publishing's long lead times. "I thought, This is the book we've been wanting to do," she says. She spent two months pulling together the content to create Prefab Green--100 glossy pages of text, color photos and detailed floor plans--sent it off as an electronic file and had a stack of hardcovers to give to clients in less than two weeks....

As an ardent, life-long recycler, seeing trash and recyclables commingle makes my skin crawl. Treehuggers know that recycling is the least effective of the 3R’s (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) but that doesn’t mean it is not important. In fact, many cities worldwide have substantial bodies of law in place that dictate how to deal with different elements of the waste stream. Specifics of recycling laws vary from city to city as do enforcement techniques. Despite the fact that both businesses and residents of New York City are required to recycle, it is all too often that I see bottles, cans and paper mixed up in the regular trash. Frequently the reason is that recycling services are not offered by the building – a clear violation of the law. Every New Yorker is entitled to recycling services and the city relies on its citizens to report cases where their rights are being impinged upon. To protect whistleblowers anonymous reports are allowed. Know somewhere this is happening? Be the eco-hero you are and follow the simple steps outlined below to report violations and restore your right to recycle. ...

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On occasion, denizens of the green movement have been known to slip into "holier than thou" mode, behaviors that Think Tank experts unfailingly generalize from - to the universe of all greens past present and to come. The non-sequitor attacks do begin from a valid a point, however, as anybody can can over-blow a problem, or waste time going after convenient targets while missing the real bad actors. (Favorite recent example: Greenpeace attacking Apple mainly for using a few cm of vinyl wire in each PC.) With the risk of climate catastrophe looming, and nascent activist and communications strategies being tested, contemporary green movements are, like the heritage green activists of the 1960's, at risk of facing circular firing squads of their own making - pivoting towards political self destruction by playing into the hands of a wide range of opponents. Just one small example: recently the climate restoration services company Planktos took some hits from green NGO's. Here's a link to a published accusation that an experimental "iron seeding" of marine plankton hundreds of miles west of Galapagos Islands, performed to test the effectiveness of a method to restore natural carbon sequestration over large barren areas of the mid-Pacific, would provoke ecosystem collapse. See explanation of satellite image of upwelling around Galapagos [pictured] after the fold. Also after the fold, see letter to editor of Ottawa Citzen submitted by Russ George, President and CEO of Planktos. Update: see recent press release from Planktos called "Planktos Calls for “All Hands on Deck” Emergency Response to Prevent Massive Plant Life Extinction in the World’s Seas"...

We first encountered Uhuru Design (say it with us: oo-hoo-roo) last year, when "Stoolen", created from collected scraps from local woodshops and a found bicycle rim, caught our eye. Since then, the Brooklyn-based design + build firm have been busily adding to their collection, exhibiting some of their new designs at the Brooklyn Waterfront Arts Coalition, HauteGREEN and BKLYN Designs just in the past few months. One of the pieces that caught our eye is "Love Somebody", a simple wrap-around end table made of reclaimed yellow heart pine (a material they often use because of its ready availability to be reclaimed from old buildings in NYC), embellished with the words "Love Somebody". Though this sentiment is good advice for just about anyone, Uhuru is happy to customize the message so your furniture will help your interiors communicate whatever you want them to. The company itself is "dedicated to sustainability and creating timeless designs" (we love to see sustainability first in that short list) and they "agree with the shaker assertion that 'beauty rests on utility'", which is an inspired, future-friendly design perspective, we think. Hit the jump to see more examples of their work, including a chair that was designed for a model apartment in the first green residential hi-rise in New York. ::Uhuru Design...

Nevada is adding 80,000 new residents every year; Arizona is the fastest growing state- Tuscon and Phoenix will probably merge in the next ten years. Yet as the map shows, these are also the areas of America going through the worst drought in years. In the southeast it is just as bad. In Florida, Lake Okeechobee has receded so much that parts of it caught fire. Worst of all, the Jack Daniels Distillery in Tennessee has warned it may have to reduce or suspend production, because the spring waters on which it relies are flowing as much as two-thirds below normal. ...

At some point, TreeHugger may become superfluous, as the ideas we promote become completely mainstream. An example of this might be Gourmet Magazine, where the July edition starts with Elizabeth Royte (of Garbage Land fame) writing about a stay at Maverick Farms. It offers a vacation on a working farm, operated by Tom Philpott, who also writes about food for Grist. "All small farmers have to work outside the farm" Philpott says. 93% of American farm households "have negative farm operating profits and draw most of their income from off-farm sources." Elizabeth and family spend a week, work hard, sleep well, eat better. Agri-tourism is growing "with the white collar urbanite's false nostalgia for manual labour;" It sounds wonderful. ::Maverick Farms...

Petz and Jenna finally got to see him – the infamous Al Gore – or Albert Gore as he was listed in the program of the First International Meeting for Friends of Trees this past Saturday in Barcelona. We represented Treehugger for this one-day event held in an, ironically enough, overly air-conditioned conference centre. Enough greenies must have said something because it was turned down by the time the Inconvenient Truths presentation began at 6 pm. Señor Gore closed the day of roundtables and talks from Spanish ecologists, the President of Greenpeace Spain, Ecologistas en Acción (Ecologists in Action), WWF-Adena, Amigos de la Tierra (Friends of the Earth), the President of Triodos Bank Spain and the inspiring and always eloquent Vandana Shiva. Vandana's eco-feminism, her strength, and her words were downright moving. She argued that biofuels are more dangerous than we think because they are displacing people and causing massive deforestation (we'll elaborate on that tomorrow). She impressed the crowd with her defense of organic agriculture, food sovereignty, the value of trees and forests and her denouncement of industrial agriculture and the privatization of seeds, water, soil and life. She was very approachable and we saw her giving a casual interview in the coffee break area with nobody swarming her or bothering her, while meanwhile we were told that Al Gore was hardly left alone during the VIP lunch. It was interesting to see two very strong and dedicated activists and how the two, very effectively, communicate their messages in very different ways....

The folks over at designboom have teamed up with DA - Design Association in Japan to host a collaborative design competition. Called "love your earth", the competition is open to applicants from every country in the world, to professionals, students, and design-enthusiasts alike. Like Metropolis' Next Generation Design Competitions and Heated Issue: A Global Warming Design Competition, the event is founded on the idea that things have to change here on the Mothership Earth, and sooner rather than later. Say the organizing 'boomers, "Throughout history graphic design has proved itself as one of the best means to instigate a change in society and communicate the urgency of action. we are looking for graphic artworks that will raise awareness of the environmental issues affecting our delicate planet. your graphic design should provoke a positive change in the many things that are compromising our biosphere." The competition criteria include original/innovative design, attractive design, communication of the theme, and medium flexibility (e.g. transferable from postage stamp to poster to flag), and they want entries from all design fields. Applications will be accepted until September 01, 2007; shortlisted designs will be used for flags, stamps, posters etc. and exhibited throughout the city of Tokyo and inside the 100% Design Tokyo venue, during Design Week (from October 31 to November 04, 2007) and there's even a chance to win some bucks: first prize is ¥500,000, second earns ¥200,000 and there are three prizes of ¥100,000. As with other such competitions, we really like to see designers getting integrated into the TreeHugging process; if we can help convince artists, architects, industrial and even computer and graphics designers to design with the planet in mind from the get-go, there'll be a lot less mess to clean up. Interested parties can click here to get registered (it's free) and begin the submission process; check out all the details here. ::designboom's love your earth...

The Diary of a Pregnant Man is just one of the intriguing sounding articles in the latest issue of The Green Parent, a UK-based magazine describing itself as ‘the green lifestyle magazine for the whole family.’ Other articles include a special feature on no-fly vacations, an article on helping your child with anxieties, and a low down on what to do in a permaculture garden in the summer time. Also included is an ecosourcebook, with details of suppliers of everything from ethical fashion to reusable diapers, and a separate ‘green kids’ supplement that is filled with games, activities and competitions. While we are yet to see a copy of the mag, it certainly looks impressive in terms of content and focus. For further eco-minded parenting advice, check out our guides on How to Green Your Kids Toys or How to Green Your Baby. ::The Green Parent:: ...

We all know that pollution from school buses has health implications for everyone, and particularly school kids with asthma. In the past we’ve taken a look at the issue and highlighted the fact that many times the air inside the bus is far worse than that outside of it. But a recent EPA study of school buses found that when they idle for more than just three minutes they’re actually generating more pollution than stopping and re-starting the engine. That’s an important point, because it debunks a widely held belief by some drivers who think otherwise, most likely reasoning that “just a couple of minutes” won’t do much damage. Of course using that new knowledge and turning off the engine cuts carbon monoxide, fine particles, nitrogen oxide, and carbon dioxide emissions which otherwise go wafting out into our lungs and our atmosphere. In fact, during the study the level of pollution from buses that idled for any more than three minutes was actually 66 percent higher in fine particulate matter than pollution generated from shutting off the buses and then re-starting them. Hopefully more and more bus drivers will get the message to stop even small amounts of idling, and that every school district in the country will implement clear guidelines for a no-idling policy to make it a done deal. Let’s face it, with 24 million school kids riding the bus every day there's also a significant amount of savings to be gained from reduced fuel costs as well for districts. And that’s money that can be used in a wide array of ways to improve our kids actual time in school, rather than being wasted on the way to and from it. via:: Stevens Publishing...

Finally, the film Manufactured Landscapes was show in London and the Canadian artist and film director Ed Burtynsky answered questions after the screening. A documentary about landscapes that have been transformed by man, particularly by extraction industries such as coal and strip mining and iron ore, it focuses on China with its massive dams and huge factories employing thousands of people. Burtynsky, along with the director Jennifer Baichwall, talked about their travels there. In some locations the Chinese were reluctant to let him shoot or talk to the people. The film is not available publicly there, although it is being pirated all over, but his photography book is for sale. Many in the audience were annoyed when Burtynsky said that he "is not overly political so that people will be drawn to make their own decisions". He said that he walked a "razor walk" because if he "was too much on the side of human rights and the environmental issues his work would become less open and he gets painted into a corner". He tells CEO's that he can't prevent a dialogue from going on. But he does perform political actions, for example with the proceeds from some sales, he sent 2,000 safety goggles to a factory along with a translated letter saying that the workers should use them or else they would go blind and insisting that the employer maintain them. Burtynsky said that his photos and the film are a lament for places lost. The loss is so complete in China that one can drive for four hours there and see no birds or trees because the environment is so stressed. The sky is always hazy, never blue because of the coal burning. He called himself a "subliminal environmentalist" because he is aware of the tension between shooting for beauty and being an undercover reporter. The consequence of urban existence is horror and he is going to the source of it through his photos so that we can comprehend it. :: Manufactured Landscapes...

When you hear about balloons in the news they are usually implicated in something nasty, like choking pigeons or used in underground not-so-TreeHuggerish guerrilla activities. Weren't we pleasantly surprised when we read the Jerusalem Post today and found that researchers from the Technion Institute have developed helium balloons coated with solar cells to generate energy. Two models have been constructed - one in the city of Haifa and one in the desert. The balloons are expected to overcome surface area issues such as in cities and crowded countries where large solar cell panels are not feasible. Dr. Pini Gurfil and his doctoral student Yossi Corrie head the project that may bring balloons bobbing around in the sky in a city near you. Are they safe for birds and other animals, we don't know. But the same cable that brings the helium to the balloon will also carry the electricity to the ground, reports the JPost. And your home may require only one or two balloons. ...

What with their cellphones and Aalto furniture, we usually like things that come from Finland. This might have stayed behind: For three bucks a pop you get a three ply aluminum bag filled with wood chips (alder or hickory), spices, hardwood syrup and sugar, that you toss on the barbeque to "add delicious smokiness to anything cooked inside them." We always thought that you put things on the barbeque in the first place to get that smokiness, why wrap it in foil? Three bucks to get two cents worth of Finnish sawdust shipped to America, use once and throw away. But no chemicals! Boo to ::Savu...

Did you ever wonder which parts of your computer are using the most power and what you can do to reduce energy use? Take the Handelsblatt PC Energy Quiz to test your knowledge and improve your eco-IQ. The quiz is, of course, in German so you can enjoy the opportunity to exercise your brain in your foreign language skills as well (if you are not a native German speaker exercising your English here). In case you don't trust your German computer vocabulary, or want a little cheat sheet, you can find english translations of the most interesting points over the fold....

We had the pleasure to meet a true treehugger in Barcelona this weekend: Vandana Shiva. She's also a physicist, philosopher, eco-feminist and writer from India, who participates, together with Al Gore, in building a "green barrier" of 100 Million trees in Spain to fight global warming. Check out our video from the press conference the day before the 1st International Meeting of Friends of the Trees and let yourself get inspired by solutions to climate change and the idea to “live less in our heads”. Find out how trees are the new economy and not carbon pollution. Discover why we need more trees to deal with the climate chaos and how “all men should be more womanly”. If you want more of this fascinating woman, look at the Foundation +árboles' video interview here. ::press conference video: Vandana Shiva ::Foundation Más Arboles ...

No longer dealing just with ghosts but a whole new kind of terroir, Dan Aykroyd is opening a winery in Niagara, Ontario. He apparently got into wine (probably in great quantities) while making the Blues Brothers, and is now into quality, so he and Vintner Diamond Estates have hired one of Canada's best, Moriyama and Teshima Architects to design it. Architectspeak usually needs translation but Raymond Moriyama was always poetic, so we quote the source:

The design of the building draws upon the metaphor of the grape and of the fine wine that it yields: Like the vine firmly rooted in its soil, the building has been designed for long term sustainability; Just as grapes are harvested directly on site, so too does the building harvest sunlight, rainwater and wind, harnessing these elements to minimize its environmental impact.

...

Sigh. Christine gets to write about Center Parcs hidden among the trees and we get to write about Motel 6. It is a challenge to put a roadside drive-n motel in the eco-travel category but behind that tacky awning is Accor's impressive "Earth Guest" initiative that includes: -a 65 point environmental checklist for employees; -organic food in the hotel restaurants with 10% of sales donated to second harvest; -employee mini organic herb gardens; -battery and fluorescent bulb recycling; -ozone machines on washers to wash linens in cold water; -use of Ecolab cleaning products; -energy and water management programs; -elimination of all incandescent bulbs. Accor operates 4,000 hotels with 475,000 rooms in 90 countries, so adding up all those little steps has a huge impact. ::Accor Hotels via ::Sustainable is Good...

We’ve previously shown a video of Albert Bates introducing the Ecovillage Training Center at The Farm in Summertown, Tennessee which he helped to pioneer. We’ve also noted that our very own Jacob Gordon shared a stage with him at the Nashville Step It Up event. Now we hear that Albert has published a cookbook. This is no ordinary cookbook, however, this is The Post-Petroleum Survival Guide and Cookbook: Recipes for Changing Times, published by New Society Publishers. The book starts with the premise that we will, over the coming years, have to move away from a culture of cheap fossil fuels and then apparently offers light-hearted, hopeful, but practical advice on ways that individuals, families and communities can prepare for this transition. Topics covered include: • Rebuilding civilization • Changing your needs • Water and waste disposal • Energy and transportation • Equipment and Tools • Food storage and First Aid As the title suggests, the book also includes recipes that emphasize local, organic, seasonal produce, as well as food growing or preservation techniques. According to the publishers, this book is about “having your catastrophe and eating it too.” ::Post-Petroleum Survival Guide and Cookbook:: ...

Strangely, the climate change denying National Post is full of good green ideas this weekend. In their Take Five handy guide to what's hot, they suggest Treehugger.com's guide for How to Go Green

With a name like Treehugger. com, you know the site is all about green. If you're looking to get your life on a more sustainable track, from your car to your sex life, visit their comprehensive (and growing) guides for How to Go Green.

In Bonnie Stern's eco-friendly tips for a summer barbecue,she says that "green issues are the top concern, so when you have your summer barbecues, keep these points in mind:" -Invite guests by telephone or e-mail. No more paper invitations (or at least use recycled paper). -Shop at farmers' markets. -Buy locally grown food whenever possible. -Buy locally grown organic food whenever possible. -Eat less protein and more fruits and vegetables, grains and legumes. -Buy products with minimal packaging. -Use traditional plates and cutlery. -Use cloth napkins. -If you do use paper plates and napkins, use those made from recycled paper. -Use gas or electric barbecues over charcoal. -If you do use charcoal, do not use lighter fluid. Chimney lighters work equally well. -Confirm your guest list to avoid buying too much. -Send guests home with leftovers so they don't go to waste. ::National Post...

We always say that conservation is the best source of energy; Toronto Hydro is spreading that message with its new "Do the right thing" campaign for business. If a business reduces its consumption by 10% compared to last year then they get an automatic 10% discount on their electricity bill. Splashy graphics on recycled paper, too, not the usual bureaucrat-designed bumpf. This seems a pretty obvious way to pay people to reduce consumption, essentially buying "negawatts". They will even adjust for weather, which should make it interesting; if it is hotter summer consumption might not go down at all, and they still have to pay out. Good plan at ::Toronto Hydro...

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Entries for June 24, 2007 - June 30, 2007

Total this week: 174

by Jeremy Elton Jacquot, Los Angeles on 06.30.07

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by Sami Grover, Carrboro, NC, USA on 06.28.07

by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 06.28.07

by Collin Dunn, Corvallis, OR, USA on 06.28.07

by Jeremy Elton Jacquot, Los Angeles on 06.28.07

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by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 06.28.07

by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 06.28.07

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by Bonnie Alter, London on 06.28.07