Manuel said:
"This is great news! I hope all cities pass this into law.The practice of using plastic bags just to quickly dispose of them has been going on far t..." [read]
Jay Knecht said:
"What are the performance stats for the Son of Max? ..." [read]
gazelle said:
"@ Dallas:
The book, and the supplementary videos in the "How It All Ends" youtube series, address this in detail, but I'll try to paraphrase:..." [read]
Barry said:
"Kofi Annan has about as much of a clue about electric cars and developing countries as Ann Ann the Panda.
He underestimates the ingenuity o..." [read]
JJ said:
"Very cool. I didn't thought that biodesel might be our future fuel...." [read]
Derek said:
""I guarantee you this will spark huge debates around the world," she said. "We have to delve into this in a way that hasn't been done in a long tim..." [read]
Move over global warming, this could be the planet's biggest "heads-up" of all - researchers at the University of Southampton recently unveiled a software modelling program that is able to evaluate the potential catastrophic consequences of a small asteroid impacting the earth - and it is showing that the possibility is not that far off the map.
Called NEOimpactor, the software has been specifically designed to model asteroid impacts, allowing scientists to gauge the impact of "small" asteroids - "small" meaning under one kilometre in diameter. Preliminary results point toward the ten countries at greatest risk are China, Indonesia, India, Japan, the United States, the Philippines, Italy, the United Kingdom, Brazil and Nigeria.
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In a move that spells trouble for India’s forests and one that blatantly favours private interests, the government has asked that the Supreme Court disband a forest protection panel that has been overseeing forest management for the last ten years and to instead leave it to the executive branch of the government.
The forest protection committee was put into place by the Supreme Court in 1996 as a body that would supervise and report on the use of forested areas, in addition to keeping tabs on the environmental effect of development. Logging in forests now requires permission from the Supreme Court – and that includes any kind of industrial or commercial development. But now, perhaps that is all about to change....
The desert is one place you definitely don't want to be if you lack a ready supply of drinking water. For animals that call this ecosystem home, that means that they need to be able and ready to procure whatever small amounts of water they can muster whenever the opportunity knocks. A new study by Wade Sherbrooke of the American Museum of Natural History's Southwestern Research Station has found that certain species of lizards have devised a unique way of dealing with this predicament: storing water in a network of tiny channels in their skin.
The networks within the spaces between their scales can absorb water from the ground or from rainwater and carry it to their mouth for drinking. Sherbrooke and his colleagues at Australia's James Cook University used a combination of light and electron microscopes to scrutinize the lizards' scale hinges and found that they contain tube-like channels capable of employing capillary forces to transport water. One of the species they studied, the Australian thorny devil (Moloch horridus), possessed a network that covered its entire body and that could carry water to an area near the corner of its mouth. ...
The last few years have witnessed an unpredented land rush with mining companies eagerly staking thousands of new claims in areas bordering on some of the country's most prized natural treasures — including the Grand Canyon, Yosemite and Joshua Tree National Parks. Indeed, a new analysis of government records by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) has revealed that the total number of active claims has risen from 207,540 in January 2003 to 376,493 in July 2007, an 80% increase. Stoked by a large increase in global demand for metals, mining companies are staking thousands upon thousands of claims for gold, copper, uranium and other metals.
Because the U.S.'s original mining law, which was enacted in 1872, offered very little protection for lands — essentially prioritizing the interests of mining companies over those of the public — many have argued for a fundamental overhaul in its provisions to bring it up to date. As Dusty Horwitt — an EWG Public Lands analyst and the report's author — put it to us, reforms in the legislation need to be implemented to at least place mining on the same level as other extractive practices. ...
A contentious topic that we've often seen batted around in policy circles and scientific forums over the past few months has concerned the long-term viability of biofuels — namely, is the trade-off inherent in converting ever larger tracts of forest to cropland worth it? We've expressed our own reservations about the merits of biofuels in the past but have remained somewhat open to the idea in the face of new research and ongoing developments taking place in the scientific and business communities. An article published in this week's issue of Science has helped rekindle our worries about the feasibility of a global biofuel energy market by claiming that no amount of biofuels can ever offset the environmental damage caused by the cutting down of forests to grow more crops.
Renton Righelato of the World Land Trust and Dominick Spracklen of the University of Leeds estimated that the initial cutting down of forests to plant more food crops, like corn and sugarcane, would release as much as 100 - 200 tons of carbon per hectare. They calculated that it would take between 50 and 100 years alone to compensate for these emissions by burning biofuels instead of fossil fuels — and that's assuming governments don't continue their rigorous regimen of deforestation. According to their best estimates, a 10% substitution of gasoline and diesel fuel would require 43% and 38% of current cropland alone in the United States and Europe, respectively. "We cannot afford that, in terms of climate change," said Righelato. ...
With the warm weather fully unfurled, you’ve got some free time and some hot days before you. That means time off to spend at the beach, with the kids, away on vacation, whatever… You’ve got backyard BBQs, ballgames, trips to the local zoo, and a whole lot more to squeeze in, but you’re not so certain how to make sure your summer vacation is looking and feelings its greenest. So let’s lotion up, put some beer on ice, and get down to business.
Um, why is this green? Perhaps because it changes colours the faster you type, starting at yellow and shifting to blue. And all bloggers have to worry about their words per watt/hour ratio; the faster you type, the less energy burned per word. I understand that TreeHugger headquarters is issuing these to us soon. Or perhaps I just like things that change colours, like the orb. ::Typing orb via ::Core77
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We mentioned Ecotricity’s new 'Merchant Wind Power' project at Avonmouth Docks near Bristol, UK earlier this year, but we couldn’t help posting a picture of the now completed initiative. Located in the ultra-industrialized port, surrounded by storage depots for coal, gas and imported cars, this 3 turbine installation is set to generate enough electricity to meet most of Bristol Port Company’s requirements, while saving an estimated 15,000 tonnes of CO2 a year. There is even an added bonus - because the site is less than half a mile away from the M5 motorway, the primary route to and from the South West of England, the turbines will be passed by literally hundreds of thousands of motorists each day, providing a very real and visible working symbol for the coming energy revolution. For more information on Ecotricity’s work, check out our interview with managing director Dale Vince here::Ecotricity::via site visit::
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Like orangutans dying for a cookie, gorillas in the Congo are dying because people in Rwanda need charcoal to cook and heat. "The gorillas have become a hindrance for the charcoal trade," said Emmanuel de Merode, director of WildlifeDirect."There's a very strong incentive for these people to kill the gorillas."
The forests of Virunga National Park, near Rwanda, are being depleted by the illegal charcoal trade; Rwanda banned production of charcoal so it is smuggled in. "The last 15 years of Congo's history have been defined by the illegal exploitation of natural resources," de Merode said. "The charcoal trade definitely fits into that reality."
Once again energy trumps biodiversity. Sigh. ::National Geographic
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Founded on the premise that it's dumb to buy everything you need when you can just borrow it from your friends and neighbors when you need it, Neighborrow is part Freecycle, part Netflix/Swaptree and all product service system goodness. It allows you to pool your resources with your neighbors, and then borrow a food processor when you need one; when you're done, you just pass it back, and round and round we go. Founded by Adam Berk in his New York City apartment, the site gives users the opportunity to both list what they're willing to share and what they're looking to use; you network with your neighbors to get 'em all done without having to resort to paying retail. Users are rated, so you know how reliable each one has been, and the site keeps track of where your stuff is, how long its been there, and when it's due back. Learn more about them at ::Neighborrow and read an interview with founder Berk in ::Gristmill...
Peter J. Thompson, National Post
Canada's National Post ran an interesting article by 16 year old Alex Nevitte, describing the hazards of urban cycling:
"I've encountered several greedy and unreasonable motorists who never hesitate to take far more than their share of the road and who waste no time screaming at any cyclist willing to demand their fair piece of the road as well. Bicycles are vehicles and so are entitled to a lane of their own just as any other vehicle is."
and concluding:
"Oil is a non-renewable resource that harms our environment and is a huge source of conflict among nations. Vehicles that run on oil, such as every SUV, car, truck and minivan in Toronto are only inflaming this growing problem and polluting the very air we breathe. In contrast, bicycles use absolutely no gas to run, do not in any way harm the air and (shockingly!) actually benefit those who ride them. At a minimum, cyclists should be treated with equal respect to motorists and so the next time you see someone toiling away on their bike to get from A to B, show a little sympathy and appreciate the sacrifice we cyclists are making." ::National Post...
SUVs and trucks are big sellers, even with the recent drop-off in sales. Yet when polled, three-quarters of Americans support increased fuel-efficiency, and this includes those who own the gas-guzzling, carbon-emitting trucks and such. Why the disconnect? An article in this week's New Yorker argues that individuals desire to protect themselves (believing big cars to be safer than small), and to be more powerful (using horsepower, for example), so they buy big cars.
Will electric cars ever really replace gasoline powered cars? One of the things Big Oil companies might have to fear is the development of a practical and affordable electric car. And that is what is likely coming our way in the fairly near future. With instability reigning in top oil producing regions of the world, many people are jittery about relying on foreign oil and about the volatility of oil prices. This is providing some impetus to companies (including car makers in Detroit) to develop electric cars that work well and are reasonably priced....
Earlier this year in Germany, the courts decided that a bicyclist shares responsibility for pain and suffering from head injuries received in an accident if they are not wearing a helmet(1). So although it is not required by law to wear a helmet, bicyclists may be entitled to substantially less compensation in the event of an accident.
Of course, any urban warrior amid the tons of pollution-spewing steel claiming ownership of the roads knows that the head is only a small part of the utterly naked exposure cyclists feel. Those of us wearing helmets are motivated mostly by "umbrella karma": if you wear your helmet, you won't crash, akin to the observation that it only rains when you forget your brolly.
But even the most committed safety advocate faces that awkward moment, trying to figure where to stash their melon-mantle at the shop or during the train stretch of a bike-ride-bike commute. The Stash provides a solution. The sides of this helmet fold in, significantly reducing the helmet's volume to the point where it could be stored in a corner of a briefcase or backpack. A video of the helmet design in the anvil-drop test demonstrates that the unique concept surpasses the safety requirements for impact reduction. ...
1) New forums user throughware (welcome!) ponders, "I recently joined and was shocked that there were a lot of topics about not using disposable diapers, but nothing so far about not using disposable feminine products. Just curious as to why I haven't been able to find anything on the forums about these types of products, because they DO exist." While this is news to some and not to others, an interesting side discussion takes off about the dichotomy between disposable diapers and feminine products.
2) User exformation (another new user -- thanks for stopping in!) has an interesting idea: a click-to-donate website for global warming. "I imagined this would work would by generating ad revenue, then purchasing carbon offsets or other beneficial carbon reducing ventures. I believe the most important part about this is not just to donate to help solve this problem, but to encourage more active, positive action. Because I believe this flurry of activity right now will cause an avalanche of support for this cause soon and we are starting to see that happen. What I'm hoping for is the proverbial 'tipping point'." Who would be willing to click once a day?
3) Forums user snwbrder0721 points to a recent op-ed about the health benefits of organic milk over conventional milk...or the lack of health benefits, according to the article. "Try as they may, proponents of organic foods have not been able to produce evidence that the food produced by conventional farms is anything but safe." Hmm. One forums user has found a way around the debate: home-produced breast milk. The perfect green company and leaf burning: yay or nay, after the jump...
Ed Hammer invented the CFL in 1976 for General Electric. Squeezing a fluorescent into a bulbous shape wasn't easy; "I was given a number of reasons why it wouldn't work," he told Michael Kanellos of News.com, who writes: Bulbs and fluorescent light are not a natural combination. Fluorescent lights are ordinarily tube-shaped. Curving them into a bulb shape creates reflective losses, i.e. light that shines from one part of the tube gets deflected by a nearby spiral. Through a lot of trial and error, he came up with a way to space the spirals far enough apart to minimize losses without also losing a bulb-like shape.
As is so typical of so many great ideas, GE sat on it. CFL's would have needed a $25 million plant. "So they decided to shelve it," Hammer said. They didn't even license it, but the design leaked out. So much for ecoimagination! ::ZDNet...
In the middle of a heat wave, the Tennessee Valley Authority has been forced to shut down a reactor at Browns Ferry. because water drawn from the Tennessee River was exceeding a 90-degree average over 24 hours, amid a blistering heat wave across the Southeast. "We don't believe we've ever shut down a nuclear unit because of river temperature," said John Moulton, spokesman for the Knoxville, Tenn.-based utility. They are buying power elsewhere and was already imposing a surcharge because of lower hydroelectric power production caused by drought conditions.
This was discussed in an earlier post: ""We're going to have to solve the climate-change problem if we're going to have nuclear power, not the other way around. As the climate warms up, nuclear power plants are less able to deliver." Same is true of coal fired plants, and we are getting lots more of those. " ::Houston Chronicle...
After Britain made exciting commitments to renewable energy, leaked information now reveals that the country can’t even come close to meeting its goal of 20% renewables by 2020. We speak to Richard Hawkins of ZeroCarbonBritain about how the mark was missed. Also, while the Scottish highlands are beautiful, they’re not what they used to be. Now, a maverick millionaire with a dangerous animals permit wants to bring things back to the way they were 2000 years ago. We also chat with TreeHugger correspondant Mark Ontkush about the blackening of Google and what web colors can do for energy savings. Subscribe to TreeHugger Radio on iTunes or listen/right click to download. ::TreeHugger Radio(TreeHugger Radio is written and produced by Jacob Gordon and narrated by Simran Sethi).
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TreeHugger likes to promote smart use of space, efficient use of materials and creating more function with less of both (that's space and materials). That's why we like the concept behind "The Ethical Kitchen," a project by Alexandra Sten Jørgensen, a recent graduate of the contemporary design course at Buckinghamshire Chilterns University in England. For those who can't fit their kitchen into a single, compact kitchen cart, something like the this would do quite nicely. The Ethical Kitchen requires proper recycling of water and composting of food waste to nourish the plant, and has systems set up for both; if you don't do enough, the plan(e)t will wilt and die. Dig in to more pics and the designer's statement about the kitchen after the jump....
Vikram Vij is the chef of Vij's, one of the star restaurants in Vancouver. In the Globe and Mail this week, Mr. Vij extols the virtues of shopping at your local farmer's market and then going home and cooking the family dinner together. I happen to agree. For a number of years my teenage son and I cooked dinner together every night. It was wonderful to talk about our day while we chopped and stirred and listened to music. But for most working people this is just not practical during the week. So the recipe that Mr. Vij has provided is pretty simple using ingredients you can get anywhere. Well, almost. I am at the cottage and the general store doesn't have curry leaves so I substituted curry powder and it was still delicious. The recipe looks long, but half of the ingredients are spices, so don't let that put you off. My husband thought this was a bit wintry for August. I don't know if that was because he was thinking we usually grill vegetables or serve salads or that he associates cauliflower and eggplant with cooler weather. Our August evenings are beginning to cool off, so it seems just right to me.
Coconut Curried Vegetables...
The Toronto architectural critic wonders, " It's great, this good ecological consciousness that's all the rage, but, in the final analysis, do so-called green technologies actually work? Is it possible that human beings and the things we do are just naturally too dirty and expensive, and that all the green inventions in the world can't get rid of our big, ugly carbon footprints?"
He asks this while damning a Stanford Downey project with faint praise- "If it's aesthetically a cut above most social housing in Toronto, the staid design of the 11-storey tower is still not the kind of exceptional architecture we should expect in our inner city. The last thing we need there is another residential project that looks like a motel at an expressway interchange."
But he is really there to review the technologies that make a green building. ...
"Global warming" or "carbon neutrality" aren't usually the first words that pop to mind when you say "silver jewelry," but that's what the BE CARBON NEUTRAL collection of special edition jewelry is going for. Mentioned by TH pal Summer Rayne Oakes on a recent House & Garden magazine video podcast (we mentioned it yesterday), the collection of jewelry is made from reclaimed silver in a carbon-neutral production shop in Manhattan by jewelry designer Anthony Aletto. Featuring a range of jewelry including rings (pictured above), pendants, necklaces, bracelets and more, the purchase of each product results in the neutralization of one month of your carbon emissions.
While TreeHugger agrees that carbon offsets are not a silver bullet-solution to climate change, nor an excuse to cover up your continued pumping of carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere at will, we like the business model. Distilling global warming down to a personal level is tough -- it's a big, big problem -- so providing tangible context in the form of beautiful jewelry is beneficial to anyone who thinks the problem is too big to deal with and doesn't know how to help, and to anyone who wants to buy jewelry (and for whom plastic or cork won't do the job) while considering the planet's best interests at the same time. Hit the jump for more details and more pics, including what Al Gore looks like wearing a piece from the collection. ::BE CARBON NEUTRAL...
Australia's Collins and Turner's design for Brazil
The Living Steel competition tries to "inspire people to think about how housing can be made more efficient with steel, from design through construction, use and end-of-life." 1100 designers submitted to the 2nd International Architecture Competition for Sustainable Housing competing for €300,000 in prizes, with designs for three prototypical sites in Brazil, China and the UK. Now the judges have winnowed them down to a short list of 18 interesting entries, with the winner being announced September 17. ::Living Steel They are also running a contest: win an iPod if you pick the winner. ::Living Steel Contest...
Part of the Crandall Canyon mine shaft and miners tools are seen in this video taken Aug. 12.
Three more have died at the Crandall Mine while trying to dig out the six previously trapped. Jeff Biggers gives us another reason why coal is evil: safety.
Coal mining is emblematic of our nation's failed energy policy. The drama unfolding in Utah is one of its latest reckonings; coal miners and their communities continue to pay the highest personal price. Until the Bush White House, Congress and our coal-dependent citizenry make genuine steps toward shifting our energy policy to renewable sources that not only sustain our energy demands but also our local economic needs, it is nothing short of a crime to deny our coal mining communities the best possible protection from accidents and the repercussions of strip-mining.
Calling all sustainable designers: Verdant is launching a design showcase and resource center and they're looking for a few good green gurus, whether your focus is on textiles, furniture, lighting, technology, transportation, appliances, or fashion.
"We're looking not only for the aesthetically beautiful, but also something with a story," says Victoria Foraker, curator of Verdant's The Green Room, which will have its official opening on Sept. 19 at the New York Design Center. "We want designers ranging from the super-green to people just catching on in that design process."
For more information, check out the press release below.
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We've often heard the media and government officials talk up the potential for a future hydrogen economy to revolutionize the way we consume and produce energy. And while we've seen some promisingapplications of hydrogen as a fuel source in the last few months, it still seems very unlikely that we'll ever see a hydrogen-based energy market on the scale that some are envisioning. That's not to say that some scientists aren't still trying to gradually make this a reality: Craig Grimes, a professor of electrical engineering at Penn State University, has just announced that he and his team are close — in their words, "only a couple of problems away" — to developing a cheap, viable photoelectrolytic technology, that is one that would split water into hydrogen and oxygen by using sunlight.
While most current hydrogen production processes split hydrogen from natural gas — an inefficient technique that consumes energy and produces greenhouse gases — Grimes' method would rely on thin films made of titanium iron oxide nanotube arrays that could split water under natural light. According to Grimes, this method is much more eco-friendly since it only requires the natural energy of sunlight and doesn't produce GHGs....
The words on the front of the new Nativa furniture storefront in San Diego pretty much say it all: "Soon We Will Prove That Artistry And Luxury Can Sustain Nature, Art Never Loses Meaning, True Beauty Endures." Powered by 156 solar panels, the new Nativa store (full disclosure: Nativa is a client of The Change, whose founder, Jerry Stifelman, is a TreeHugger guest poster. TreeHugger Sami Grover also moonlights for The Change) will feature an exclusive range of artisan-quality home furnishings, 85-90% of which will be crafted with FSC-certified rainforest woods. Nativa's stance on timber certification represents an alternative to the destructive practices common in the furniture industry, demonstrating a way of doing business that preserves the Amazon rainforest and its indigenous people.
The collection of Spanish and Mediterranean-inspired furniture (the "Campo" dining table is above) features artisan joinery techniques like tongue and groove, mortise and tenon, butterfly and dovetail joints, helping insure that the furniture is as sturdy as it is artistic. About the craftsmanship, Mario Scolari, Nativa's founder and CEO, says, "Unlike most furniture stores today, we don't sell anything from China. The world's most talented craftspeople are right here in South America -- and so are most of the world's FSC-certified tropical rainforests. There's only one reason I know of to import furniture from Asia — low cost. Costs are low because people are being paid incredibly low wages, quality is inferior, and because no one is watching out for the environment, or speaking up for the forests." ...
That was the tagline for a microcar manufacturer in the 50's; some of them got a hundred miles to the gallon. Lots of former airplane manufacturers made them; perhaps the most elegant was the Italian designed Isetta, built by BMW. Avi Abrams notes that it "evokes the feelings of sophisticated European romance like no other small-budget car. It was seen in many movies of the era, and was quite popular for many years and earned many names. French called it "yogurt pot", Germans "coffin on wheels" (apparently disdaining very little space inside), Italians "little eggs".
Now of course, we can't drive these kinds of things, because we have to go 70 MPH and carry tons of stuff. Yet 50 years ago people even hooked up trailers and went camping with them....
Did you attend Step It Up back in April? Many of us TreeHuggers did and because of its success, Bill McKibben has announced that he’ll be organizing another for this coming November 3rd. But he can't do it without the help of all of us. The follow-up event will aim to lobby politicians to pass meaningful legislation to regulate emissions of greenhouse gases. And yes, the date is exactly one year before the next election. “We’ll find out who the real leaders are,” the Step It Up website says. Within our communities, McKibben asks people to organize rallies to take place in some spot that commemorates great leaders of the past. McKibben says, “People have already committed to climbing New Hampshire's Mt. Washington and gathering in Chicago's Lincoln Park. Others will gather at the Rhode Island church where John F. Kennedy was married (hey, that’s only a few blocks from where I live!), or in front of a site honoring Navajo elder and activist Roberta Blackgoat. But we need hundreds more, gatherings in places that bear the names of national leaders or of locally celebrated men and women who did the right thing in a moment of great need.” We encourage you to get involved in your local community, to become a leader, and to tell Congress to Step It Up! ::Step It Up 2007...
There's a right way to negotiate a refinery wastewater discharge permit limit that affects huge numbers of people around a resource of international prominence. You get all the stakeholders around a table, state the goal, examine the trade-offs, and put the best ideas for a solution forward. At the end of the meeting, participants agree to meet again and report on the issues outstanding and progress made. Because people need fuel and water and aquatic life and tourism and boating and white sand beaches.
Chicago's Mayor Daley and his staff, the USEPA Regional Office people, BP, and others, deserve credit for agreeing to get together at last, even if the opportunity was created by controversy. It's a wonder that BP did not ask for such a meeting at the outset, being already a bit overdrawn on it's credibility account? Amazing how often corporations forget that being legally 'in the right' is less important than the 'red-faced test.'
"BP, which aggressively markets itself as an environmentally friendly corporation, sought to dump more ammonia and suspended solids into Lake Michigan as part of a $3.8 billion expansion that will enable the refinery to process more heavy Canadian crude oil. Officials justified the increase in part by noting that the project will create 80 permanent jobs and 2,000 construction jobs...Indiana regulators also exempted the company from meeting tough limits on mercury pollution for the next five years."...
When we last heard of China's renewed efforts to block a relentlessly advancing Gobi desert and claw back some terrain for its farmers, government officials seemed confident that their "green wall" would prove successful in accomplishing these difficult tasks. It now looks as though their optimism may have been misguided: local authorities across China are now sounding the alarms and ordering farmers and growers to leave so that their fields can be replanted with native grasses. They hope that the grasses will help revive the barren lands and stop the encroaching sand dunes.
While these officials have experienced some measure of success in reclaiming land over the past few years — primarily through the imposition of strict grazing and planting regimes — this latest call to retreat is an implicit admission of defeat for an increasingly beleaguered Chinese government. According to researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, China has had an average annual land loss of close to 950 sq. miles to desertification — which, in combination with the country's rapid residential and industrial development, has resulted in more than 10,500 residents having to relocate over the next 3 years. ...
Fat-cat designers draining limited-edition buckets of Cristal and swinging from Swarovski chandeliers at the Gdansk Biennial… where did it all go wrong?
One should be careful what they wish for, it may come back and actually happen, but Icon magazine makes some good points in this article about how our consumer society (and the designers working in it) needs a time-out. Some examples:
£100,000 speakers
This year Ross Lovegrove made a two-metre-high speaker system encased in super-formed aluminium worth £100,000 for British audio brand KEF. Do they sound any better? Who cares?
Degeneration
We’re running out of derelict factories to turn into luxury lofts. Pretty soon there’ll be nowhere left for designers to live. Enough regeneration – bring on degeneration.
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Pardon the pun, but Danish manufacturers of amplifiers, telephones, music systems and speakers, Bang & Olufsen, were apparently working with our beloved life cycle assessment for ten years before they decided to call it quits. Why? It seems the Danish company learned what they needed to learn from the ISO regulated methodology and wanted to focus on what the results were telling them. Lone Nielson, the quality and environmental consultant at the company told the LCA Center in Denmark that, “The LCAs kept showing the same - That our largest impact is the energy consumption of the products. Therefore, we decided to stop making the analysis and instead concentrate on using the experience. But we are ready to conduct life cycle assessments on possible new product types because in this area LCA is a strong tool.”
B & O’s amplifier technology provides better efficiency while reducing energy consumption. About 99% of the power supplied to an amp turns into heat and is wasted. The heat has to escape somehow so most amplifiers are equipped with large cooling plates. B&O have created an amplifier technology (ICEpower®) that does not require said cumbersome cooling plate. It consumes 10 times less electricity than a regular amplifier, thus a smaller power supply and no need for the cooling plate. The benefits are not only reduced energy consumption, but material reduction, which you can see in their little amplifier products. ...
Jennifer Siegel nails it again, with her term "new nomadism", describing the trend towards mobile, lightweight, eco-friendly lifestyles. We're working and living in a very different way, and yet our buildings have remained static, heavy structures. Our cars are smart, our clothing is smart, our materials are smart and our buildings are still these heavy boxes."
Jennifer uses examples like Burning Man, Glastonbury or even RV cities like Quartzite in Arizona that mushrooms from 3,000 in summer to 100,000 in winter, when it is over-run by snowbirds from Canada and northern states: instant cities composed of mobile, portable buildings.
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When it comes to fashion, girls have all the fun! There’re 50 selections for a woman with any comparable item for a man. In the realm of eco-fashion, the opportunity for a guy to both achieve a look of refinement while being earth-friendly has been practically non-existent. The only options the male species has had in the past are the causal, but unremarkable, organic cotton t-shirt, or perhaps a pair of organic cotton jeans that lacked a sense of flair – not every greenie guy wants to simply blend into the background with his wardrobe and in the it’s-best-to-impress-business-world of the urban jungle, there’s a necessity to stand out. ...
When people head off on vacation, it’s unfortunately not all that unusual for them to purchase items from endangered species that they may either knowingly or unknowingly bring back to the U.S. or their own country of origin. Turns out the Afghan people have discovered a burgeoning trade in the sale of furs from certain endangered species that soldiers have provided the primary market for… Of course, they’re certainly not on vacation, but that doesn’t prevent them from wanting to bring something unique back either. That’s why the military and the EPA are starting a joint operation to educate soldiers about the legal fines of up to $100,000 for knowingly shipping or bringing back the parts of endangered species, as well as the fact that they’re simply not going to be allowed to ship them to begin with… And while I’m not fool enough to think there won’t be at least one person who will figure out a way to beat the system, I am genuinely hopeful that the vast majority of soldiers will do the right thing once they realize what they’ve actually been doing. I mean really, how many of us are readily aware that in Afghanistan the Marco Polo sheep exists and is endangered? I must admit that I certainly didn’t, and there’s no guarantee even the Afghans themselves understand which of their local species are endangered. So the campaign to educate soldiers will also spend time working to educate the Afghan people as to what an endangered species actually is, and that leaving them be is the best way to protect it for future generations. But I must admit that there's a certain irony in all of this, as the endangered species list is itself becoming endangered in the U.S.... An unfortunate example of "Do as I say and not as I do"?
via:: American Forces Press Service...
Bottled water bashing has been an ongoing theme at Treehugger and for good reason: plastic bottles destroy the environment and why pay for what nature gives us. Lately there have been restaurants that have stopped serving it and it has been proven that tap water is just as safe, or safer than bottled. In London, studies have shown that 99.98% of samples of tap water meet industry standards so there seems little reason to drink anything else. Time Out magazine asked a jury to blind-taste six popular brands of bottled water, plus one from the tap. Their findings: they gave tap water from the Thames and River Lea the best score, 4 out of 5. One taster said "It's likeHighland river water. High acidity from a peaty soil. I really like it. The best."
They compared Volvic, Spa, Vittel, Pret a Manger, Fiji and Evian. The funny thing about their comments is that they guessed that each of the bottled waters was tap water (Pret a Manger: "tastes like tap water. The aftertaste is awful. Definitely the worst.") And they guessed all of the brands wrongly, thought Volvic was Evian, and Spa was Volvic. One tip: tap water tastes best chilled--the colder the water, the harder it is to tell its source. So save your money, go green and stick with nature's own. :: Time Out ...
OK, we all know we should recycle our laptops, but what about our sex toys? Even our very own How to Green Your Sex Life failed to cover this one, but as European law now mandates the recycling of electronic devices, it is now technically illegal, and certainly irresponsible, to send your unloved (or over-loved!) vibrators to the landfill. From New Consumer we hear that UK company Love Honey has set up a rabbit amnesty to save folks the embarrassment of going to their local dump for proper disposal:
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We're glad His Honor noticed the water bottle thing. Like he said, bottled water produces tons of plastic empties. And few get recycled. It's a problem even in the town with the biggest, baddest water plant in the world and a high quality surface water supply.
""Mayor Daley is a bottled water guzzler who's often seen hydrating after heated news conferences. He's also an avowed environmentalist who's determined to make Chicago the "greenest city in America." Mayor Daley has, reportedly, "all but endorsed a proposal by one of his staunchest City Council supporters to slap a tax of anywhere from 10 to 25 cents on the cost of every bottle of water sold in Chicago.""
The City has to pay people to pick up the plastic empties. Why not recoup the expense of cleaning up after careless consumption?
""Money-wise, it's a good idea. Environmental-wise, it's a good idea, too....There's so much plastic in our lives. It's amazing. Every time you look, there's plastic all over," Daley said Tuesday."
(The International Bottled Water Association (lobby front for the bottlers) responded by saying that what would be a first-in-the-nation tax unfairly singles out the bottled water industry for a much larger environmental problem caused by packaging of all kinds."
Uh Oooh: somebody just admitted there's a problem. Woodshed time on K Street.
Go get 'em Mayor. We want to see this happen. Cause so many pretend green cities will copy-cat it.
Via:: Chicago Sun Times Image credit:: Google Earth, Chicago waterfront, Jardine Water Treatment Plant (top center)....
We've told you a bit about the amazingly versatile and sustainable tagua nut before. Known as vegetable ivory, tagua is collected from the unsurprisingly named Ivory Nut Palm, which grows in the rainforests of South America. Crucially the nuts can only be collected once they are fully ripened and have fallen off the tree, otherwise they will not dry out to a sufficient quality for the artisans to use. During my recent time in Ecuador I saw a lot of tagua hand crafts: buttons, miniature sculptures and jewellery, but none had quite the flare of the Palma Collection. These jewellery pieces really exploit the potential of tagua to create dynamic shapes and vibrant colours. ...
Do you hate walking into candle and soap shops, or drugstores that reek of perfume? That headachy and head-spinning feeling shouldn’t be ignored. Chances are that you have sensitive olfactory glands warning you that something isn’t good for your body. A whole host of nasty products go into synthetic smells, and some are poisonous. So if your nose knows that something isn’t smelling right, it probably isn’t. A team of Israeli “sniffers” have taken their smell sense to a whole new level and are cracking down on environmental polluters.
"We go to the place with at least four sniffers," says “sniff” team coordinator Yisrael Oppenheim, from the Ministry of Environmental Protection, "[we] stand at a few locations in the area of the odor source, and detect whether it is food aromas, chemicals or manure, and determine the intensity of the smell at that moment." ...
Dear EcoGeek,
My parents are always bugging me about computer usage and how the computers are sucking up energy. I want to know what I can do so that my computer doesn't waste so much energy? I totally wanna go green and save the Earth from Global Warming!
- Lukas
Hey Lukas,
You probably won't be surprised to discover that I spend quite a bit of time thinking about this very question. First, you should let your parents to know that your computer, with all of it's amazing opportunities for educational, economic and social advancement likely uses less power than the light bulbs in that share the room with it.
Most desktop computers use between 100 to 150 watts. Now, this goes way up if you've got some kind of monster high-end gaming system, but 100 watts is a pretty good energy investment for what these glorious machines give us...in my opinion anyhow.
But that doesn't mean that they're aren't steps you can take to decrease your computer's power usage. ...
Ed. note: We're now up to the sixth post in the Green Basics series of posts that TreeHugger is writing to provide basic information about important ideas, materials and technologies for new greenies (or those who just need a quick refresher). Read on and stay tuned!What are electric cars?
The electric vehicle (EV), or, more colloquially, electric car, is gaining traction as a viable alternative form of personal transportation, and remains just out of arms' reach as a mainstream way to get around. An electric car runs on energy stored in large packs of batteries instead of the more conventional internal combustion engine, making it very attractive to those concerned with using less oil and causing fewer greenhouse gas emissions. When driving, they don't emit any carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gas, nor any nitrogen oxide or other smog-forming compound. The first electric car to be commercially available in the US, General Motors' EV1, is pictured above, and much was made about who killed the electric car; keep reading to get the scoop on whodunit....
TreeHugger has been watching the hype surrounding fuel cells coming to the marketplace ever since it was but a wee sprout. For the most part, we're still waiting (and hoping) for them to materialize; the (awesome!) notion that we can power stuff without the conventional grid or other "dirty" fuels keeps on hanging on, though. Here are our picks for one of the implementations that makes the most sense: the laptop computer.
1) Almost as big as the Thinkpad it is designed to power, IBM and Sanyo cooked up a methanol-based fuel cell that will run a notebook for up to 8 hours back in 2005. It is even compatible with existing Thinkpads, although not recommended for use on airplanes. Now if Sanyo could just develop a cooker (and, oh yeah, sell the things!) to make methanol at home out of our compost, we'd really have something.
2) Matsushita, a division of Panasonic, unveiled a direct methanol fuel cell in early 2006 that was similar to the one pictured, and smaller and more powerful than comparable models developed to date. At 24 cubic inches, it is about the size of a soda can and about half the size of previous models; it features an average output of 13 watts, a peak output of 20 watts, giving a laptop using this fuel cell up to 20 hours of runtime.
3) By mid-2006, it seemed that things were progressing and that the wait would soon be over, but the news from Toshiba made us think we'd be paying taxes again before buying one of these puppies (and we were right). To date, it had taken about four years to get the pieces of the fuel cell puzzle together; according to Tomoaki Arimura of Toshiba's Methanol Fuel Cell Group, Toshiba was working towards commercialization in 2007...still, we wait. Two more picks, after the jump...
Stalagmites and trees probably aren't the first places you'd think to look for records of past hurricanes. But that's exactly what Amy Frappier, a geochemist at Boston College, and her colleagues have been doing for the past few years — investigating the stalagmite formations' growth layers for chemical fingerprints left behind by storms — and are now doing in the caves on Mexico's Yucatan peninsula.
At the same time, a team of researchers from the University of Tennessee has been searching for the same tell-tale fingerprints in tree rings — in samples gathered from a region of woods in Georgia. The trees have provided them with a record of hurricane activity stretching back almost 220 years.
All these recent efforts have focused on bringing to light the likelihood that storms will intensify as the climate continues to change. Because scientists agree that historical records obtained from aircraft and satellites fail to provide an adequate enough picture, there has been growing interest in the budding field of paleotempestology — the study of past tropical cyclone activity through geological proxies....
TreeHugger teamed up with our pals at House & Garden magazine and the good people of Teragren to produce a series of video podcasts, all about the fabulous world of green. Hosted by TreeHugger's own Jacob Gordon (that's him on the left, above -- sorry, ladies, he's taken!) and featuring green all-stars like Summer Rayne Oakes, Josh Dorfman and Greg Kiss, the "Green & Gorgeous" podcasts delve into subjects like fashion, beauty, furniture and architecture, each with a green twist. Each video is sort of a "current greatest hits" of the gorgeous green world, featuring ideas, projects and products that can help the world go green and look good doing so. Click on over to H&G's site to learn more and watch the videos. ::House & Garden...
We TreeHugger writers are sometimes advised that society 'can't buy its way out of climate change' solely by shopping for green "stuff" and reshaping individual lifestyles. Similarly, the folks are Grist are fond of saying that the prospect of runaway climate change means we need 'big solutions.' Fair enough from both quarters. We'd like to add third prerequisite for achieving a better environment: bare knuckle politics are a necessity when vested interests 'lay down in front of the progress bus.' For a contemporary example of this point, we turn to a U.S. City with a long standing reputation for high skills in this area: Chicago.
"Chicago city vehicles would no longer use BP-issued gas credit cards until the company backtracks on plans to dump more pollutants into Lake Michigan [pictured] under an order drafted by Ald. Edward Burke (14th)..."
Context: this issue relates to plans for increasing the capacity of the BP owned Whiting Refinery south of Chicago. The proposed upgrade will enable this very old refinery...located on what was once a marsh continuous to Lake Michigan..to handle large quantities of Alberta Tar Sands crude. On the one hand, Lake Michigan water will have to assimilate the waste products of refining increased volumes of Alberta "sour" crude. On the other hand, Chicago is one of the few American cities with a sustainable and clean water supply, plus numerous extensive beaches adjacent to the city center. (Chicago and many of its suburbs obtain their drinking water from Lake Michigan intakes located a scant few miles from the Whiting refinery discharge, which is on the southwestern tip of the Lake.)...
At first it’s hard to get a handle on what exactly Vinay Gupta does. Well, even after getting to know him it’s still hard to pinpoint. Half Indian, half Scottish, and residing in Iceland, Vinay is an engineer at heart. Whether its software, physical structures, or social structures, the man is a tinkerer at an advanced stage of development. He has developed the self-sufficient Hexayurt, presented mass evacuation strategies to the Red Cross, and worked on policy papers such as Winning the Oil Endgame. Gandhi and Buckminster Fuller are two of Vinay’s heroes. But the real magic is in combining Gandhi’s political thought with Fuller’s engineering, what Gupta calls a “curry and chips phenomenon.” It’s an odd mixture, but it sure seems to be working.
To listen to this interview, click here or right click to download. You can also find TreeHugger's podcast in iTunes.
Vinay and his Hexayurt recently won TreeHugger’s Participate! design contest. Look for the Hexayurt in Black Rock City. ...
Photo credit: Johns Hopkins University
We'd have used a picture of flesh-eating bacteria dilligently at work, but all our options made us want to disgorge the contents of our stomachs, so here's a nonthreatening—dare we say even cuddly?—microscopic look at the insidious beasties themselves. In reassuring monochrome. (This was a close second.)
Now that our breakfasts are properly secured, we can tell you that scientists at the University of Hull and Kent in the U.K. warn of a dramatic uptick in the numbers of people suffering Leishmaniasis, a flesh-eating and sometimes fatal disease, should global warming continue its current course.
This festive disease is caused by a parasite transmitted through the bites of sand flies, found typically only in tropical climes. As temperatures increase, however, so will the number of countries the sand fly will find inhabitable, as it moves further north and through Europe, say university scientists. ...
That seems to be the sentiment reached by several million people in Britain, according to the results of a recent government survey. Fully a quarter of the people polled agreed with the statement "It takes too much effort to do things that are environmentally friendly." Another quarter agreed with the statement "I don't believe my behavior and everyday lifestyle contribute to climate change." On the other hand, close to half of the people polled disagreed with those statements.
The survey was carried out by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and polled about 3,600 people about issues such as transport, buying habits and waste recycling. Out of all the issues the public thought the government should address, the environment was the fourth most commonly mentioned — though fewer placed it as a priority now than in years past (19% now vs. 25% in 2001). This was most likely the result of crime and immigration looming large in the minds of more individuals....
We're willing to bet that many of you out there use water-pitcher filters — whether it be the Brita filters or the PUR variety. Indeed, according to representatives of those companies (not necessarily the most impartial observers, we know), close to 35% of American households use them. So while the following story may not come as a surprise to some of you, we're sure it'll still be news to many: the Ontario Ministry of the Environment Canada has just revealed that water-pitcher filters don't reduce lead concentrations to sufficient standards in tap water from areas where there are elevated levels of the metal — because they don't remove lead particles.
NSF International — the organization that certifies water filters — recently updated its website listing for filters to meet its newly implemented, more rigorous NSF-53 standard for curtailing lead in drinking water. To meet these new standards, filters must be able to remove not only soluble lead — which wasn't originally covered — but also lead particles. The filters need to reduce overall levels to below 10 ppb (parts per billion) to pass. Officials found that no water-pitcher filters met the higher standards. ...
Jimmybund says "It's hard for a thoughtful person to trust anyone when everyone on the left argues that there is a scientific consensus on the issue and everyone on the right claims the exact opposite! How do we sift through all the politics and bias to uncover the truth? "
It really isn't a left and right split anymore; many Democrats from coal states are among the worst deniers and delayers, and even Rupert Murdoch has bought into climate change. Joseph Romm says that there was a concerted and effective campaign to convince Americans that the science was not proven, but even Frank Luntz, who masterminded it, has been converted. Mostly there is nobody left on the denier side but the oil companies and their PR flacks now. There are lots of delayers still, who don't know how the world will live without coal or SUVs or monster homes, but they are worried. So what to read? ...
Not to be confused with the Wee House or this wacky contraption, Wee Generation is an "all-star green team dedicated to educating parents on a healthy, "living home" and smart choices for baby. Most recently, Sheryl Crow lent her support to Wee Generation; check out the video of her chatting it up. More generally, it's a collaboration between our pals at Seventh Generation, Healthy Child Healthy World and babystyle.
The Wee Generation green team's primary goal is to provide parents with easy steps to a healthy home. The team is also developing an environmentally-safe, fashion-forward (read: non-ugly) baby bag -- they're going for Cradle-to-Cradle certification! -- and they want your input! Surf on over to the Design the Bag section of their site to lend your design and environmental sensibility, and be sure to sign up to be notified when the bags hit the street. Learn more over at ::Wee Generation...
14,000 posts and still there are gems out there we’re slow to unearth. Take Specialbike, for instance. This British company, based in occasionally sunny Brighton, take the daggy cast-offs of the bicycle world, and like a phoenix rising from the ashes, affect a reincarnation. Basically they find a frame with the right end-use function and geometry for each customer. From a woman’s step thru frame with groovy shopping basket, to a hill hooning MTB. They strip them down and send ‘em off for sand blasting and a powder coating - in your selection from a kaleidoscope of cheery colours. Next they’ll reassemble your custom steed with appropriate components. Voila! Where once was a rusty looking heap, with dirt grimed gears, now stands a fresh bike, ready for new adventures. Specialbike say that, with about two million bikes sold in the UK annually, there is no shortage of old frames to work their magic on. Not only do they recover the frames, but where the components are of sufficient calibre they’ll give those a second lease of life too, often pairing them with some new parts. As they say, ‘the result is not cheap, but nor is it expensive’ — for a custom bike, anyhow. Prices have ranged from £250 to £1,000. They also stock some one-off models, if dreaming up your own custom bike does your head in. We particularly liked the tone of writing on their site. A little like the casual, personal style we enjoyed from Swobo. Anyhow, if you are in Blighty do look them up. ::Specialbike, via David Report....
If you've got cats or kids crawling around on rugs and furniture, lets do the good news part first...natural fiber area rugs, natural flooring materials, and natural fiber upholstered furniture items are, in general, are very fashionable. And green. A little bad news though: those cat scratch things made of old carpet ends are perhaps not so good.
An article in Environmental Research and Technology Online "documents that house cats can have extraordinarily high concentrations of polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE) flame retardants in their blood. Janice Dye, a veterinary internist at the U.S. EPA's National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory (NHEERL), and her colleagues say their findings suggest that "chronic [cumulative] low-dose PBDE exposure may be more endocrine-disrupting than would be predicted by most short-term or even chronic PBDE exposure studies in laboratory rodents." They contend that cats can serve as sentinels for chronic human exposure—of both children and adults—to the persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic compounds.
"PBDEs are known to impair thyroid functioning. They have been used since the late 1970s as flame retardants in household products, including upholstered furniture, carpet padding, and electronics. During that same time period, the incidence of a cat thyroid ailment, known as feline hyperthyroidism, has risen dramatically..."...
That seems to be the case as there’s word out of Europe that the Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP) in the UK is looking into banning cars from school zones, not to protect students from being hit by a car, but instead to get kids to walk more. And to be honest, the biggest reason they’re looking into it is to reduce the waistlines of kids in the UK, who are rapidly catching up to their counterparts in the U.S. by packing on the pounds due, in part, to a sedentary lifestyle facilitated by the good old-fashioned automobile. In fact, it seems parents in the UK are averaging 27 miles more per year carting their kids to school than they did back in 1982, with Brits of all ages average 20 miles less per year walking than in the 70s. And researchers at the IEEP say that walking an extra hour per week will save 28lbs of fat over the course of a decade. Of course, losing all that weight will be terrific for the health and well being of the UK population, but I’m looking at all that reduced driving and thinking of the reductions in CO2 emissions it will bring… Of course, they’ve already been having some great events inside the UK to encourage kids to walk to school, as they even carpeted a whole street with grass and plants for a day just to make it a bit more entertaining. And just think, if there are no exceptions to this “no car” rule, even for really severe weather, then this generation of students will be able to one day tell their kids how they “walked 5 miles up hill to school, both ways, in the snow and in the ice,” just like my dad did…
via:: Autoblog.com...
There has been a lot of demolition going on as houses are demolished for new monsters or renovated, and a number of different ways to get rid of the stuff that comes out, much of which has value. Usually the better ways to ensure re-use are Habitat for Humanity or non-profit deconstruction companies. An interesting idea out of Chicago joins the mix: Murco Recycling holds auctions of the building components, IN PLACE, in the house to be stripped. It has a loyal base, a "consolidated, well educated, group of buyers that show up on the day of auction, with tools, transportation and cash." And, they have to strip the stuff out and take it away by 5:00 the same day. Themselves. The gang of customers is known as the Homewreckers Club; "They'll take it all; the bushes, the windows-they'll take a nail out of a board if it's the kind they were looking for," says one builder clearing a site for a monster home.
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What was that phrase Professor Prangnell used to say? "Economy of means, Generosity of ends." I was reminded of it seeing this simple off-grid structure. The architect says:
The Hill Country Jacal (a Mexican term referring to a lean-to structure) is a weekend retreat located on a rock ledge above Bear Creek west of San Antonio. The simple screened cedar pole structure is oriented towards the prevailing summer breeze and creek while its stone wall shelters the living space from the northwest winter winds. The thick limestone wall houses an outdoor shower, bunk beds and composting toilet. The screened living space and adjacent open porch step down the hill under the simple shed roof.
Environmental Graffiti: Bio-fuels and Supermarkets kill orangutans by Mary King
"Indonesia and Malaysia together produce 83 percent of the world’s palm oil. In 2004, the Indonesian government released a plan calling for the conversion of 40,000 square miles of Borneo to palm plantations by the end of the decade. Borneo currently supports the largest surviving wild orangutan population. However, environmental groups fear this may not be true for much longer, as the primates are rapidly losing their habitat due to the deforestation."
Good Clean Tech: 50 Mile-Per-Gallon... Plane! by Steven Volynets
"Yep. This beauty is known as Pipistrel Virus. The Slovenian-built single engine, two-seat plane was the winner of NASA-sponsored Personal Aircraft Vehicle (PAV) challenge. That's right. NASA and Café Foundation believe that aircraft like Pipistrel Virus could be the working prototypes of future flying cars!" ...
Designer Anna Mkhitarian reinvents that tired hippie standard—the ol' peace sign—into physical, wearable mantras that, though unsubtle, remind us what our groovy voyage on Spaceship Earth is all about.
Generously sprinkled with a random selection of mini embossed hearts, flowers, and, okay, peace signs, each recycled-sterling-silver pendant measures 3/16 of an inch thick and 1 1/4-inch long, and weighs around 5 grams—light enough to be nearly weightless when worn, but with sufficient heft when palmed so it doesn't feel chintzy. (We borrowed the Love necklace, which included a skinny snake chain with a lobster clasp, for a few days because TreeHugger is an unstinting believer in the scientific method.) The chains measure 16 or 18 inches, depending on availability. ...
We always quote architect Donald Chong: "Small fridges make good cities."- the principle being that if you shop locally and fresh from a neighbbourhood store, you don't need much space. (and vice versa: if you don't have much space you shop a lot locally) Thus we were really intrigued by Norcool's Scandinavian works-in-a-drawer fridge. Everything lays out neatly and accessibly and it integrates beautifully into kitchen cabinetry.
We have also noted that chest type fridges and freezers are extraordinarily efficient because cold air sinks, so you can open the door of a chest design without all the cold air spilling out onto the floor. We immediately thought that a drawer type fridge would be perfect. ...
It’s a tough life being green, and now it looks like the ecologically concerned don’t even get respite from their ethics when they die. Green funerals are increasingly becoming a big deal, but it’s not just related to burial. That’s why we’ve seen BBC’s Ethical Man considering composting his own corpse, and India has been getting in on the act by introducing less harmful funeral pyres. Now we read from the ever-trusty Guardian that a British crematorium is aiming to cut its emissions by only firing up when there are enough bodies to burn. Unfortunately, some funeral directors feel this risks upsetting members of the public, who want to get the understandably distressing task over with as quickly as possible:
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We call it wearing the clothes from our cupboard,she calls it art. Can we survive without the retail buzz that we get from shopping? "Can a person wear, in heavy rotation, the equivalent of one suitcase worth of clothing for an entire year and survive and be "normal" in modern America?" To examine this question, for one long year the artist Alex Smith Brown wore only the clothes from her closet; "I wore only things I made myself (clothes, jewelry, shoes, underwear, bags, everything) and my source materials were clothing items already in my possession - a completely closed loop, 100% recycled from my own closet." It is the ultimate anti-fashion statement. Last year she wore the same brown dress for an entire year (this girl is tenacious), she called it a "one-woman show against fashion", so this new recycling project was an offshoot of that experience. She wondered if she could claim some sort of complete ownership over an aspect of her life by designing and making everything in her wardrobe.
How did she do it? She wore 2 pairs of trousers, 2 skirts and a pair of shorts. Six tops, one fleece and one coat plus three pairs of shoes and some odds and ends completed her ensemble. In her journal/blog she outlines her trials and tribulations. Her home-made recycled shoes, made from some old leather trousers were a problem so she switched them. Creating new clothes from old was much more time-consuming than she had thought. And her conclusions at the end of the experiment--a person can wear the clothes in her cupboard for an entire year and live happily. But a person does get bored when everything is hand-made and recycled. And shoes start to smell when you wear them for a whole year. :: recycling project :: Via :: Hippyshopper
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It is too bad that Detroit's Kelsey-Hayes Corporation is no longer around; they had something going with their prefab shelters in 1963. We like this one's multifunction space with efficient storage under the beds. The green roof will keep it cool and inconspicuous. ...
Giving new meaning to the term "sleeper sofa" is Doc, a couch that flips up to create a couple of bunk beds. The ingenious space saver uses a patented mechanism to transform a place to lounge into a place to sleep; though the bunk beds are a little Tom-Hanks-in-"Big", anytime you can cut create double function from a single piece, it's a good thing. Live small, host big and get primed for your next sleep over with more pics after the jump. ::Bonbon Trading via ::Freshome...
Somehow the idea of a New York sect of Amitabha Buddhists releasing imported eels frogs and turtles into New Jersey's Passaic River, a body of water already beset with a host of problems, doesn't match up with a 'do no harm' stereotype we westerners may have of Buddhist beliefs, nor with the words of wisdom on their home page. As a result, we'll put this one in the file labeled Outcome Of Good intentions With Lack Of Knowledge.
"Members from a New York sect of Amitabha Buddhists -- devout vegetarians who believe in the sanctity of all living creatures -- said Sunday they had purchased the creatures in New York's Chinatown for the purpose of setting them free. Ann Chin, a member of the group, said on Sunday they chose the Passaic River because it was the nearest body of freshwater to New York City, where the eels, frogs and turtles they let go had the best chance of surviving and realizing their full karmic potential."
"Amitabha, also known as the Pure Land Study of Buddhism, is heavily focused on cause and effect, and the cycle of transmigration."
We're sure that the sea lamprey (pictured above, as it would be in nature, sucking blood), a freshwater ecosystem-destroying marine eel that was introduced to the Great Lakes some time ago, has already reached its full Karmic potential, nearly extirpating the native Lake Trout and putting several other native species at risk. Who knows what other China Town market goodies might be one day accidentally unleashed to find their "karmic potential."
A similar risk of unintended damage accrues from those who, tired of their aquatic pets, release them into the wild, or from fishermen who dump unused live bait in a lake.
Importing live, non-native and invasive species from overseas has negative karma: a huge carbon emissions footprint per kg., plus added risk of destroying an ecosystem. That's a potential we don't need expressed by anyone. It is the consequence of unawareness. No different than denying the science of climate change.
UPDATE: Please see important comment below from Venerable Wuling, Advisor, Amitabha Pureland, where we are advised that the home page for Amitabha is based in Australia and not associated with the subject of this post.
Via:: North Jersey Herald News Image credit:: Sea Lamprey parasitizing Lake Trout, Maricopa University....
Per a study published in Public Library of Science, Biology, and as described by a Reuters News report:- "The current carbon market actually encourages cutting down some of the world's biggest forests, which would unleash tonnes of climate-warming carbon into the atmosphere, a new study reported on Monday."
"The countries that haven't really been the target of deforestation have nothing to sell because they haven't deforested anything," said Gustavo Fonseca, one of the study's authors..."So that creates a perverse incentive for them to actually start deforesting, so that in the future, they might be allowed to actually cap-and-trade, as they call it: you put a cap on your deforestation and you trade that piece that hasn't been deforested," Fonseca said in a telephone interview."
TreeHugger recommends reading the original article if you are interested in lobbying for changes suggested by the authors.
Via:: Reuters Image credit:: Tree Planting, MocoLoco Art Archives...
Today REI Co-op, America’s largest consumer cooperative and outdoor gear emporium announced an initiative to help their customers, and 2.8 million co-op members, find garments made of Eco-Sensitive materials, whether shopping in person at their some 90 stores across the US, or their two on-line stores. And it’s simple really. Garments made from the likes of bamboo, organic cotton, hemp, post-industrial recycled polyester, recycled polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic, polylactic acid (PLA), or organic wool will wear a little hang tag, such you see pictured above. On their website is a link which rounds up all the apparel made from such fabrics. Today it found 25, but by mid next month that should be 40. In the media release, Lee Fromson, vice president of REI Gear & Apparel observed “While we previously offered REI brand clothing that contained environmentally sensitive fibers, we are moving from a grassroots approach to a formalized commitment to environmental performance in our products.” We asked Kevin Hagen, Manager of CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) at REI whether the impetus for formalisation had come from within or from their customer base. His reply: “Very much customer and employee driven. There have been a lot of questions about the “green” factor in products and with “eco-sensitive” we hope to offer solid information and education.” And that’s education, not merely marketing. Go to the eco-sensitive web page and you’ll find the Cons, as well as the Pros for each cloth. ...
After scouring through a ton of quality entries, we have chosen a winner for the Participate! contest. Vinay Gupta's Hexayurt caught our judges' imaginations by using common materials in a completely new way, yielding what Vinay terms a "microbuilding" capable of housing refugees in times of disaster without adding new infrastructure. Here's what Vinay had to say about it,
So here's the innovation - a building, big enough to house a family, that can be made from renewable resources, for as low as $100 each. For another $100 or so (in mass production) you can add electric light, a super-efficient wood gasification stove, a solar water pasteurizer and a sanitary toilet. The building design and some of the components are open source, and the rest is "off the shelf" systems like solar panels.
1) Forums user Maurices5000 starts an interested thread about water conservation and low-flow and dual-flush toilets. Did you know that people actually smuggle those things from Canada to the US? In any event, there are lots of perspectives here, from how to do low-flush right when you're a parent, to what to do if you have a greywater system and more. Good stuff.
2) User gizzigoo is wondering if tissues (for blowing your nose and such) aren't a huge waste, and one of those things that we should all think about replacing with a less disposable, less wasteful alternative, like a handkerchief. Surprisingly, though, they've been banned from some workplaces (what? It's true!). Are there bigger fish to fry than getting rid of tissues?
3) Forums user wannaBgrn is worried about unnumbered plastics leaching nasty things into food, home and environment, saying, "I have several plastic kitchen things that do not have a code on them. Are these safe? If not, how should I dispose of them?" The thread moves from there to the "Made in China" debate, with users wondering about how safe anything is that comes from China these days. Below the fold: making the environment a matter of national security, and the ecological implications of alternators.
A lot of the design that gets featured on TreeHugger has a familiar look: lots of wood and bamboo, both chosen for their soft, organic feel, ability to sequester carbon dioxide, and their almost infinite renewability. Missouri-based designer Cole Scego takes a completely different approach to creating sustainable design, using non-renewable (but highly recyclable) materials like aluminum and steel to "produce work that will stand the test of time...I design my work to last, to be handed from one generation to another."
A strict vegetarian, Cole believes that happiness and well-being are strongly associated with your living environment, and he works to create as much happiness as possible with his vibrant, vividly-colored designs. If you've been looking for a pop of color to really tie the room together, this might be it; just be sure that your kids like the color. Hit the jump for more pics and a closer look at his artist's statement. ::Cole Scego Design via ::Land+Living...
Could the adverse weather events that befell Mary Shelley's vacation to Switzerland many years ago have influenced the creation of her famous novel, Frankenstein? Several English and literature scholars now believe that Shelley's book was inspired in part by the unusual weather that characterized many regions of Europe and North America during the early 19th century.
During that period, a volcano called Mount Tambora — located in what is now Indonesia — had erupted, sending vast quantities of dust and sulphur particles into the atmosphere. As a result, Europe and North America were plunged into one of the coldest periods in modern history, a year that became known as "The Year Without a Summer." Having recently eloped with the poet Percy Shelley to Geneva, Shelley found herself writing the book under the influence of the bizarre weather events occurring all around her. Indeed, the final version of Frankenstein contains many references to the weather — including lightning storms, ice and snow....
Ever since we first heard about the Tesla Roadster, folks have been drooling over its sexy looks and lamenting its six-figure price tag. While that works for Jay Leno and Condoleeza Rice, many of the rest of us are left to smile nicely and hope that someone will come up with a battery-powered, zero emission (while it's driving, at least) car. While ZAP has promised a few, one is a 644-horsepower SUV and one isn't even a car (it has three wheels), so the market is still missing the sub-$30,000 electric sedan...until now (maybe).
Miles Automotive Group, featured recently at CNN Money, is promising the $30,000 Miles XS 500 to reach a top speed of 80 miles per hour and a range of 120 miles at 60 miles per hour; six hours of charging in a normal wall socket will top the batteries off. Founder Miles "Per Gallon" Rubin says he'll have 6 prototypes of the XS 500 by the fall, but they still need tinkering to get safety approval from U.S. regulators, plus do additional battery testing, meaning that the real deal could be here by 2009. "The cars will speak for themselves. You can PR it to death, but if it doesn't perform well, it's dead on arrival," he says. We'll just have to wait and see how true that will be. ::Miles Automotive Group via ::CNN MoneyInterested in electric cars? Check out: 17 Electric Cars You Must Know About
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As computers grow increasingly powerful, computer chips are becoming more and more densely packed with transistors, the basic building blocks of microprocessors. As a result, a knotty problem is that these faster chips produce more heat. So, unless you are planning to get a water cooled rig, dissipating the heat is a concern.
The classic solution is to use a simple fan to blow the heat away, so the CPU can keep doing its job. But this conventional cooling technique is limited because it suffers from air-flow problems; the molecules nearest the chip often get stuck and remain stationary, hindering the cooling effect. But now some US researchers from Purdue have developed a new "wind engine" that could take computing power to the next level.
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We've heard of some fairly "creative" geo-engineering schemes in the past — to name just a few, there was the giant, orbiting reflector to reduce the amount of sunlight reaching the Earth and the football-field-sized synthetic blankets to cover the Alps — but this one really takes the cake. Some scientists have argued that emulating a volcanic eruption could help mitigate global warming by pumping sulphur particles into the planet's upper atmosphere with rockets — scattering incoming sunlight and cutting down outgoing radiation.
A new study from two scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, CO, has (not suprisingly) cast doubts on this proposal — cautioning that its use would create problems of its own, including potentially disastrous droughts. Examining precipitation and streamflow records dating back to the mid-20th century, Kevin Trenberth and Aiguo Dai found that the eruptions of two volcanoes — Mexico's El Chichón in 1982 and the Philippines' Pinatubo in 1991 — caused large-scale droughts accentuated by substantial decreases in rainfall, runoff and river discharge into oceans. ...
40 -- the percent of deaths worldwide caused by water, air and soil pollution. This is according to David Pimentel, Cornell professor of ecology and agricultural sciences, and a team of Cornell graduate students who examined data from more than 120 published papers on the effects of population growth, malnutrition and various kinds of environmental degradation on human diseases.
Read the rest of the sad story at ::Science Daily via ::Hugg...
In Heat, George Monbiot suggests that big box retail should be stopped dead, and that suburban strip malls and big box stores must be converted to warehouses and distribution centers, which don't need the heating and cooling and lighting of retail outlets. Jim Kunstler says "the activities that have become "normal" for us during the post World War Two era will very shortly become untenable. An economy based on suburban expansion and incessant motoring is on the top of the list of supposedly "normal" activities that will not be able to continue."
Thus I am less than excited about Best Buy's new commitment to mandatory green building with LEED certification.
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Tortillas in Mexico. Beer. Popcorn. Now Gummy bears are under threat as the price of glucose rose 30%. Der Spiegel warns that if crops continue to be more lucrative as biofuels than foodstuffs, then gummy bears could soon become a candy only the rich can afford.
"We're going to maintain current prices through the end of the year," Marco Alfter, a spokesman for Bonn-based gummy bear-maker Haribo, told SPIEGEL. But afterwards, the golden bears could get more expensive. "The decisive factor will be if the government continues to subsidize the burning of food," said Alfter, in reference to government subsidies given to farmers who produce biofuels using crops traditionally used for food.::Der Spiegel via Katie at ::Earth2Tech...
According to New York Magazine, A New Yorker born in 2004 can now expect to live 78.6 years, nine months longer than the average American will. The traditional ways of dying young in New York (homicide, AIDS, and drugs) continue to decline, but so does cancer and heart disease. One reason: people not only walk, they walk fast, faster than anywhere else in the country. “Walking speed absolutely reflects health status,” [epedemiologist Eleanor] Simonsick says. So when you irritatedly blow past a trio of ambling visitors from Ohio or Iowa on the subway platform, you’re not just being an obnoxious New Yorker. You’re demonstrating that you’re going to outlive them—and enjoy better health while they slowly degrade....
Coming after years of intense pressure, the decision by ERCO — one of the country's largest emitters of mercury — to stop using the metal was seen by many in the environmental community as a major victory. A subsidiary of Superior Plus Income Fund, a company based in Toronto, ERCO announced it would convert its chlor-alkali plant outside Port Edwards, WI, to a mercury-free plant in 2009. Until now, the ERCO plant had been one of only five plants in the U.S. using mercury to produce chlorine.
According to federal records, the plant released close to 1,118 pounds of mercury into the air in 2005 — easily making it the largest polluter in Wisconsin and the 15th largest source in the country. Environmentalists had made the case for years that mercury — which falls into lakes, streams and oceans where it enters the food chain — posed a serious threat to public health. Their victory, however, masks a greater uncertainty: namely, what to do with the 200 tons of mercury on hand at ERCO's chlor-alkali plant? ...
The iconic UK architectural magazine ICON asked 50 designers to provide manifestos, an extremely loaded architectural term where architects try to put into words what they stand for, usually incomprehensible, like Peter Eisenman's " The crisis of the spectacular demands a call for a new subjectivity, for a subject removed from the passivity induced by the image and engaged by form in close reading." Yves Behar, shown at left, was straight and to the point; Ken Livingstone, Richard Rogers and Peter Bishop want
"Beautiful and accessible buildings, with low environmental impacts and the ability to adapt to changing uses and a changing climate.
Inspiring, well managed public spaces that everyone can use, from pavements to parks
Neighbourhoods that blend old and new, respecting London’s heritage,
and creating places for a diverse population
Transport infrastructure that makes moving around the city easy,
pleasurable and environmentally responsible"
Some contributors just phoned them in; others are insightful and inspiring. Collect them all at ::Icon
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With a population that approached 1 million and a surface area of more than 115 square miles, the Khmer city of Angkor in Cambodia was the largest preindustrial settlement on the planet. After coming into being during the ninth century A.D., it thrived for 6 centuries as a central hub for commerce and art — rising to eventually become the capital of the Khmer Empire — before it started its rapid and heretofore unaccountable decline. Until very recently, archaeologists had suspected warfare and changing religion were at the root of the settlement's collapse.
A new study has now shown that the key to Angkor's demise may have lied in the technology that made its rapid ascent possible: its highly sophisticated hydraulic system. A technology originally devised to help the city's residents manage and harvest water during the dry season — which involved diverting three major rivers through Angkor's agricultural fields, homes and temples — facilitated their demise when overpopulation and deforestation caused its canals to become filled with sediment. The elaborate waterworks required an extensive redesign of the city's landscape and natural resources — manual labor-intensive changes that soon became unmanageable. According to archaeologist Damien Evans, the lead author on the study, the system thus became "not manageable, no matter how many resources were thrown at it." ...
Attention, Mozilla developers (spread Firefox): TreeHugger has a request. We know that Blackle can save us energy (and have even busted a few myths about its use) and we know that the handy search engine browser add-ons (pictured above, on the right) can save us time. We want to do both! As TreeHuggers, browsing about the internet for the latest in green, we want to walk the walk by using something like Blackle as much as possible, but it requires an extra step or two: either typing it in to Google's search engine add-on, or directly into the URL field, and then waiting for the black page to load. With all the browsing we do, that's a lot of extra steps, and we end up using that handy Google search engine add-on about 6 zillion times a day instead of slowing down to find our way to Blackle.
So, you see, we want to save energy by browsing the black web, but we also want to get stuff done. Please, open source developers: we want a Blackle add-on! ::Blackle, ::Firefox and ::Firefox Add-ons
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Anyone who's ever flipped through the glossy pages of Wallpaper* magazine knows it's the synthesis of cool. Packed with sleek, modern, hip, uber-chic lifestyle info, it's at once shocking (when you look at the price tags) and awe-inspiring; when it comes to seeing the way forward in architecture and design, it's the place to be. While they've come to embrace sustainability and sustainable design in small doses, they haven't devoted a ton of space to the idea of green lifestyle, until now.
The theme of their September issue is urban farming, and they'll be looking at examples of how self sufficiency, local production and maximizing usable space is making inroads in urban centers around the world, from Tokyo to New York and back again. Ultimately, they'll be showing the world that it's not only okay to be in to this stuff, but that it's damn cool. Watch a video about one of their shoots, The Farm Project, over at wallpaper.com, and stay tuned for more on the rest of the issue. ::Wallpaper* via ::Hugg...
Why am I beginning to hate cars so much? Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that so many people I know are getting killed by them. Charlie Princep was my son's schoolmate; he was in the middle of an epic bike ride from San Diego to Toronto and back. According to his brother,
"Charlie had completed his southerly ride from Vancouver to San Diego and then started his second leg from Vancouver to Toronto, a ride of many thousands of kilometers. Charlie equipped himself to work towards a greener planet and after completing his studies his plans were to continue his studies in France and later in Urban Planning at the Sorbonne and to dedicate his significant talents to a better world."
He was hit by a drunk driver that veered onto the paved shoulder in Brooks, Alberta, "Flesh and blood against gasoline, alcohol and two tons of steel."
Getting people onto bikes is just about the greenest thing we can do. How can we make it safe for them? How many people do we have to lose before cyclists are given the space they deserve? Read Charlies blog ::the Double Cross and ::Bike Toronto...
Woot! Woot! A rolling party it ain't, but Japan's newest super-train has something better than DJs and disco lights to smiling all the way to Sendai: Hybrid Power. The Kiha E200 packs a diesel engine and electric motors like most passenger trains, but adds banks of lithium ion batteries on it's roof. The result is a 20 percent boost in fuel efficiency, and up to 60 percent fewer emissions and noise....
She’s adopted a Tsunami orphan, has given money towards a Cambodian wildlife sanctuary and now Angelina Jolie is off to the south of France with Brad Pitt to take residence at Chateau Val Joanis. The 1,000 acre estate is home to one of the oldest vineyards in the world that is still operating and, what’s even better is that it’s an eco-friendly one. The wine from Chateau Val Joanis was once sipped by the Romans and the Chateau still features visible remains of the Roman Villa that once existed there. According to its website, the French estate has survived many revolutions and has not had a change in its boundary lines since 1575. Along with organic grapes, the property also boasts a sustainable vegetable and herb garden that “makes up the first terrace” in addition to an olive orchard and loads of flowers and fruit trees. The estate seems to be one-of-a-kind, and we concur with Ecorazzi that we hope the Jolie-Pitt family recognizes its beauty and continues to operate with the green values of its previous owners. Via ::Ecorazzi ::Chateau Val Joanis (photo credit)...
Pet food. Toothpaste. Thomas the Tank Engine and Polly Pockets. Even BatMan! Suddenly everyone is shocked, shocked to find that low prices come at the expense of quality. The fascinating discussion in Kenny's post blames America as well as China; no matter who is to blame, people's attitudes are changing. Some people are even avoiding Chinese food restaurants.
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coffee nursery at Hacienda la Esmeralda
In Vancouver, a good cup of coffee costs fifteen bucks. "It reminds me of a fine glass of cognac," said customer Borislav Trifonov, as he sat sipping the pricey dark brew at Caffe Artigiano in downtown Vancouver yesterday afternoon. "You detect all kinds of flavours," Mr. Trifonov said. "Flowery," he said was the most apt description.
It is Hacienda la Esmeralda Especial, which snagged the "world's best coffee" title at the Specialty Coffee Association of America's Roasters Guild Cupping Pavilion Competition and got US$ 130 per pound at the wholesale auction. You can take it home from the Caffe Artigiano for C$135 for half a pound.
The growers profess sustainability and fair trade practices: "First comes sustainability of people. Our business practices must always be such that our products will readily sell at a level which will keep everyone (owners and workers) fed, clothed, educated and in good health." however it cannot be classed as Fair Trade, which is applied to co-ops, not private farms.
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Ever wondered what to do with the endless amount of energy your child seems to possess at all the wrong times? Well, how about considering a new line of toys that uses an LED and has batteries that are constantly recharged by your own child’s boundless enthusiasm for playing with them? They’re the brainchild of Sun Yu, co-founder and president of the Zen Design Group, who’s decided to call them “SEE Toys”, for safety, ecology, and economy. He admits that the timing is terrific as people are becoming more and more environmentally aware, but confesses that when he came up with the idea it was really part of a quest to get rid of batteries; that bane of parents and the assorted relations of small children everywhere. Ultimately, the toys are designed for kids 5 years and up, prices range from $19.99 to $29.99, and the initial line of 5 toys includes creatures like Dynafly, a bug with moveable arms and head and flexible antennae whose crank when turned causes the bug to buzz and laugh while the LED factors in to make his bug eyes light up and his tail glow red while your child is busy running around the house enjoying the process… Of course, if you can convince them to play with it exclusively you may never have to buy batteries again, so if you want to take a closer peek check out the group’s website where they’ll be available for purchase sometime next month.
via:: The Detroit News...
John coined that name for the former Lake Superior in his earlier post on its falling water levels; now the New York Times tells us why. It appears that it may not be climate change or declining snow melt in Canada, but the Army Corps of Engineers, renowned also for their levee design and maintenance in New Orleans. Starting in the mid sixties, they dredged and widened the St. Clair river between Lake Huron and Lake Erie. The Times says: The flow may be eroding the riverbed. The erosion may in turn result in increased outflow, more than can be replenished by rain or snowmelt, according to a study by a group of Canadian coastal engineers. If the new estimates are correct, 2.5 billion gallons a year are being lost through the expanded parts of the St. Clair, roughly the equivalent of the amount diverted annually for Chicago’s needs....
It seems there’s no shortage of environmental movies coming out these days, either chronicling the dire situation we find ourselves in, or mapping out things we can do about it. We’ve seen Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth winning an Oscar, we’ve read Olivia’s rave review of Leonardo Dicaprio’s new 11th Hour documentary, and of course Who Killed the Electric Car? continues to kick up debate, controversy and conspiracy theories wherever it is viewed. Is there room, then, for one more? The makers of The Shift certainly think so, and they are asking for your help to get it made.
Essentially, like Paul Hawken’s recent book Blessed Unrest, The Shift proposes the notion that we are living through the birth of the largest political movement in human history, which seems a pretty easy argument to accept from where we are standing. Whether you accept the film's secondary argument, that this movement is part of a necessary evolution of humankind, will depend on your personal philosophical biases. Either way, the makers of the movie make a passionate, compelling, and ultiamtely hopeful case for engaging in change:
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The Camp Arowhon of my childhood was never like this; the Camp for Climate Action at Heathrow Airport just keeps getting more exciting. All kinds of activities are planned, although kite flying is off the schedule. Like many summer camps, there will be a dressup night where campers wear formal clothing and stewardess uniforms for a song and dance number. Grumpy outsiders think the costumes are to infiltrate airport security, but camp director John Jordan says "If BAA think they are real stewardesses they have got really bad fashion sense."
Rarely have campers been so well protected; up to 1800 police officers are expected to coddle the 2000 campers expected this weekend. They are a diverse crowd; the Daily Mail describes them as "eco-zealots, professionals, modern warriors, hardliners and nimbys." It is even being blogged minute by minute in the ::Guardian. ...
Breathe deep: Chances are that air is not as fresh as you would like to think it is. Indoor Air Quality, which is shown to influence both your health and your productivity, is continually affected by airborne pollutants such as smoke, food and cooking smells, ammonia, and other organic odors which can be continually circulated. Well, imagine a carpet that quietly cleans up the air around you. We recently heard about Puralex, a high-tech odor neutralizer introduced by commercial carpet manufacturer Beaulieu Commercial. According to Beauilieu, Puralex breaks down and destroys these airborne pollutants. ...
Only in Portland would our leftover crap get treated so well, in a solar powered, LEED platinum storage building! Expect growth in storage facilities as we migrate to smaller spaces and can't part with grandma's treasures, but here it is absolutely coddled with 100,000 square feet of solar panels, water taxi access, rainwater collection, fish and wildlife habitat restoration along the seawall, and a small footprint (relative to regular storage buildings which are usually bland, low, cheap structures). Waterfront site, great views; their big problem is going to be keeping people from renting a 10x20 and moving in....
Perhaps the old ways were the better ways. Some of those remedies that your grandmother told you about really did work, and were purer, more environmental and cheaper than the complicated, hyped products that we are bombarded with today. Plus there was very little packaging and fewer chemicals. And let's not even think about the disposal of all these "necessities". We all know about using vinegar to clean windows (still haven't tried it) and honey and lemon for a cold. But there are so many more clean and easy "old-time" remedies and the Guardian, in a new weekly column, is going to showcase one every week.
They are starting off with a recipe for bubble bath--of all things! Is this a reflection of the British psyche--discuss in one thousand words or less. You can choose between making Love Potion, Pure Sunshine (wishful thinking), Cold Season (more like it) and Sweet Dreams. They are created from distilled water, essential oils, castile soap and liquid glycerin. With ingredients such as patchouli, lavender and eucalyptus, they sound good enough to make. :: Guardian...
"The world thin-film photovoltaics (TFPV) market is forecast to reach $7.2 billion by 2015, compared to just over $1.0 billion today, according to a new report that is being released by NanoMarkets LC."
"The market is being driven by the inherent advantages of TFPV including low cost, low weight, and the ability to manufacture on flexible substrates and embed solar power capabilities into walls, roofs and even windows. Unlike more conventional PV that uses crystalline silicon, TFPV also has the ability to operate under low light conditions. The report notes that to support the growing demand for TFPV, most manufacturers are ramping up production capacity and several - including First Solar, Fuji Electric, Nanosolar, Sanyo, Uni-Solar and G24i - are building plants with more than 100 MW in capacity." Via:: NanoMarkets.net Image credit:: ECD Ovonics...
The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) has released a study that shows that "the aggressive development and implementation of a full portfolio of advanced electricity technologies could reduce the economic cost of cutting future U.S. CO2 emissions by more than 50 per cent while meeting the continuing growth in demand for electricity." All this, and they haven't even accounted for the economic loss that would result from the "do nothing" alternative.
"Previous EPRI work has shown that absent investments in advanced technologies, significant reductions in future emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases will result in higher prices for electricity and natural gas, and reduced economic growth."
"However, by developing and deploying advanced electricity technologies, such as a "smart" electricity grid, plug-in hybrid vehicles, new advanced nuclear reactors, and clean coal technologies with carbon capture and storage, this EPRI study shows that the same cuts in future U.S. CO2 emissions could be accomplished at much lower cost, saving as much as $1 trillion in future U.S. economic growth under some scenarios analyzed." Via::Power Engineering Image credit:: EPRI report cover excerpt. TreeHugger comment after the fold....
The Gaia hypothesis proposes a fantastic means exists for keeping the earth stable enough for life, in part reliant on climate controls exerted by living organisms. As Wikipedia says: "...living and nonliving parts of the earth are viewed as a complex interacting system that can be thought of as a single organism. Named after the Greek earth goddess, this hypothesis postulates that all living things have a regulatory effect on the Earth's environment that promotes life overall." A newly documented climate-positive plant succession has been documented that is consistent with Gaia, and suggests there is hope for a more stable Climate future.
"The thawing of vast stretches of Canadian permafrost -- widely seen as a "ticking time bomb" of climate change because of its expected liberation of billions of tonnes of pent-up methane and carbon dioxide -- may be much less of a threat than previously believed, according to a new U.S. study of freshly unfrozen peat lands across Western Canada's northern frontier.
Although the melting of underlying permafrost will release huge amounts of the greenhouse gases blamed for fueling global warming, researchers who sampled three sites in boreal Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba have discovered that the warmer, softer, wetter soil that results also promotes the growth of new mosses that capture and store about as much carbon from the atmosphere as the thawed ground releases."...
Margaret Thatcher is supposed to have said "A man who, beyond the age of 26, finds himself on a bus can count himself as a failure." The sentiment is still strong as the private car continues to be dominant. Lynsey Hanley pulls no punches in the Guardian, blaming most of our social and environmental ills not on the car, but the driver, saying
"The real enemies of the environment are the obdurate millions who refuse to accept they can function without driving." and "the car does more damage to our bodies, our built environment, our climate and our communities than anyone who drives a lot seems prepared to admit, even to themselves."
Strong language. "People who have always driven, and were driven around as children, have no idea what it's like to be a pedestrian. They don't care about the fumes they emit, because they can't smell or sense them inside their cars. They don't care about the noise they make, because all they can hear while locked inside their car is a low, comforting purr." He damns the government for investing in highways and runways instead of transit; he thinks we have a responsibility to give up our cars and take transit, and concludes: "I'm over 26 and regularly find myself sitting on a bus, I'm Thatcher's definition of a failure. Anyone else care to join me?" ::Guardian...
Instructables user, TheNaib, has written a tutorial on how to create a solar thermal water heater for under five dollars. It will involve a fair amount of DIY, but nothing too complicated. It's designed as a fun project, but with some tweaking it could see real applications, "Its a great way to learn about using the renewable energy of the sun to produce useful effects, in this case hot water. You can use these instructions to build a device that will actually heat enough water to use in the home, but it would require modifications."...
Jatropha has been hailed as one of the best biodiesel crops in existence. Some of the more impressive features are the large yields of quality oil, and the ability to grow the plant with minimal water or fertilizer. As one of the most agriculturally gifted nations in the world, Brazil has a keen interest in all things biofuel. So it is no surprise the two were going to meet, and find a spark. Green Car Congress reports:
"Brazil’s first commercial jatropha biodiesel project goes into operation this month following the delivery of BioDiesel Technologies’ (BDT) processing unit.
BDT will deliver an additional four processing units to increase the plant's annual capacity to 40,000 tonnes (about 10 million gallons US) by the end of 2007. The President of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, will officially open the plant in September."
I've just finished reading The Lazy Environmentalist by Josh Dorfman. While not every chapter was for me (babies and children?!) the book contains a gigantic amount of information on how to make good, informed, green decisions. Without condescension or guilt trips Dorfman lays down easy to digest information on how to live a cleaner greener life that isn't a big pain in the ass.
We recently had a chance to talk to Josh about his book, which you can get at Amazon.com
EcoGeek: What is a Lazy Environmentalist?...
In a move that should help lighten the large amount of sulfur pollutants emitted from their cruise ships, Royal Caribbean Cruises has signed up to purchase a boatload (couldn't resist) of biodiesel from Imperium Renewables. For 2007, Royal Caribbean will buy a minimum of 15 million gallons, and for the four years after a minimum of 18 million gallons. Imperium believes this purchase to be "the single-largest long-term biodiesel sales contract to an end user in the US." Here's to making the high seas a little cleaner - and may the other cruise companies follow suit or be forced to walk the plank! ::Via Green Car Congress
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Steven Holl's Linked Hybrid in Beijing has green roofs, 600 wells for geothermal heating and cooling, recycled gray water pond, and is just a very neat building. (see Alex's earlier post here) He says "The aspiration of the developer Modern Group is for an ultra-modern expression of 21st Century ecological urban living. Current development in Beijing is almost entirely “object” and free standing towers. This “city within a city” envisions urban space—as well as all the activities that can support the daily life of over 2500 inhabitants." Very cool videos....
The National Gallery of Scotland has an exhibition of the work of Andy Warhol on the twentieth anniversary of his death. They have wrapped his famous images of soup cans around the columns, an architectural trend that we hope stops here. The images of banal consumer packaging as art seem more powerful today than they did then.
Jonathan Jones of the Guardian says "Twenty years have passed since Andy Warhol died during what was expected to be a routine gallbladder operation. He was 58, and his sudden end was neither a bang nor a whimper, but meaningless. Every year since, his art has become more perversely alive."
Andy Warhol: A Celebration of Life ... and Death, National Galleries of Scotland, The Mound, Edinburgh, August 4-October 7.
::Guardian ::Slideshow...
The results are in for Design21's "Heated Issue" global warming design contest -- we mentioned it here awhile back. They were looking for an educational campaign to raise public awareness about global warming and the contribution of our daily lifestyle and activities make to this problematic phenomenon. First prize, pictured above, goes to "Re-written Aesop's Fables" by Hwani Lee for the World Wildlife Federation; it's a collection of the lesson-bearing tales of morality, re-written with global warming as the punchline. The combination of the iconic imagery of the tales combined with an updated story of a feverish planet was very effective, thought the judges, and we certainly agree. Hit the jump to see more examples of powerful graphic design on behalf of the planet. ::Design21 Heated Issue...
If the "if it's yellow let it mellow" debate still rages in your home, have we got the solution for you: a waterless urinal. Though most often relegated to restaurant bathrooms and the like, urinals in the home make tons of sense: they save thousands of gallons of water and you don't have to worry about remembering to put the seat down. Add the waterless -- as in, no flushing required -- element and you've got a device that conserves a remarkable amount of water. Take this sleek option from Kohler (above); it's tubular design is not only a refreshing take on the more typical blocky designs, but it "virtually eliminates splashing". Because you don't have to flush it (more on that in a sec), it saves an astounding 40,000 gallons of water per year....
As Collin has mentioned, TreeHugger has teamed up with Instructables and Popular Science to bring you a super-cool contest promoting DIY eco-friendly projects. You don’t have to be as craft-tastic as Martha Stewart to have a shot at a prize. All you need is a little inspiration, a camera, and decent instruction-giving skills. What are you doing to go green? Recycling floppy discs? Greening your roof? Perfecting your recipe for homemade yogurt? Use TreeHugger as your muse and search our archive for “DIY,” or, peruse our guides for How to Go Green. Hit the jump to see a few examples of the submitted projects in living color....
Though its intentions were sound — presumably attempting to shine a light on global warming deniers and their funding resources — Newsweek made several significant mistakes and used outdated science in its cover story last week. According to John Christy and Roy Spencer of the University of Alabama, the story erred in its portrayal of satellite collected global climate data — a dataset that they maintain — by misrepresenting a January 2000 report from the National Academy of Sciences.
"One of the more egregious errors in the Newsweek article is the misrepresentation of the satellite data relative to a January 2000 report from the National Academy of Sciences. That report did not 'skewer' the satellite data, as the Newsweek article contends. Instead, it found that the apparent disagreement between surface temperature records and the satellite record was not so significant as to invalidate either dataset," said Christy, who helped write the 2000 NAS report.
After writing recently about the attention paid by Nude Skincare to their packaging design, which uses recycled and recyclable plastic and biodegradable cornstarch sleeves, we were contacted by Symren Skincare. New York based Ingrid Anderson wrote to let us know that her natural skincare company has been working on their eco-packaging as well. They have recently introduced the use of biodegradable boxes for their PET bottled products. Ingrid tells us, "Our packaging (boxes) is made from 100% bagasse, which is the pulp that remains after extracting juice from sugar cane. Note that bagasse is often considered to be a tree-free alternative for making paper." It's great to see that skincare companies are beginning to think about not just what they put in their products, but also what they put their products in....
Squawk if you've heard this one: The government of Argentina is creating a new marine park along the isolated Patagonia coast to officially safeguard more than half a million penguins and other rare seabirds, according to the Bronx Zoo-based Wildlife Conservation Society.
Prime turf for waddling, diving, and whatever else it is that tuxedoed flightless fowl do, the new protected area, located in Golfo San Jorge, covers 250 square miles (647 square kilometers) of coastal waters and nearby islands, with almost 100 miles (160 kilometers) of largely undeveloped shoreline for feathered hijinks....
A project jointly undertaken by a group of Central Michigan University researchers and Dendritic Nanotechnologies Inc. has resulted in the creation of a groundbreaking new technology that can absorb toxic chemicals from ground water — a technology that could soon find its way into water purification systems. The partnership was recently granted a contract from the U.S. Department of Defense to refine the method using Dendritic Nanotechnologies' Priostar dendrimer-based nanotechnology. Dendrimers are spheroid or globular structures engineered to carry specific molecules in their interior empty spaces or on their surface.
The primary target for the purification system will be perchlorate — a groundwater contaminant found in several regions of the U.S. — which has been found to adversely affect the health of women by interfering with iodide absorption in the thyroid gland. Once brought over to the public sector, researchers believe it will also prove effective at removing and recovering metals such as chromium and lead and contaminants such as arsenic from groundwater. Company and university officials expect the system to be launched commercially in September 2008, with manufacturing, sales and technical support to be housed in CMU. ...
The days of having to deal with large, bulky batteries may soon be coming to an end: a team of scientists from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY, have created a small paper-like battery that could herald a new generation of tiny, cheap and more eco-friendly energy sources. While attempts have been made in the past to build smaller, more flexible batteries — with varying degrees of success — scientists were never able to find an efficient way to combine a battery's different components into a thinner material.
Thinking a paper-like film might prove to be the ideal solution, the scientists created such a material by combining microscopic carbon nanotubes with cellulose dissolved in a liquid salt solution. The result was a film that resembled a piece of paper — white on one side and black with nanotubes on the other. Soaking the cellulose in a lithium hexafluorophosphate solution and covering the white side with lithium metal completed the novel battery — with the carbon nanotubes serving as one electrode and the lithium metal the other, the solution serving as the electrolyte and the cellulose functioning as the spacer....
Recycline, makers of the Preserve Toothbrush, among other recycled and earth friendly products, are no strangers to TreeHugger. We’ve covered their flagship product here, and we’ve talked about their attempts to expand into more mainstream markets here. Now our spies tell us that this forward thinking company has made it into the top 20 of the Forbes.com Boost Your Business competition. This is no mean achievement, given the starting line up was made up of 1000 hopefuls, all vying for the $100,000 prize money. Anyone wanting to help Recycline win can vote via this link.
Eric Hudson, President of Recycline, says that winning the competition would be a huge boost to expanding the company’s market share:
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Originated by the transit plan that pretends to reduce the number of vehicles in Buenos Aires, a neighbor has come up with the very first carpooling website: Compartocoche.com.ar (which means something like I share a car). For those not familiar with the term, Carpooling is an activity that goes back to the seventies, and consists of the “shared use of a car, in particular for commuting to work, often by people who each have a car but travel together to save costs and in the interest of other socio-environmental benefits” (Wikipedia). Those benefits are of course the carbon emissions that can be reduced by using one car instead of two. The Argentine site is pretty simple and works with a classifieds system, where people publish their available trips and places, and others share their needs for transport. The man behind the idea is Fernando Cardona, a citizen from Liniers neighborhood, who says he aims “to improve transit and pay less, while reducing contamination”. Typical from Argentina: most times, green actions come from economic needs (check Scraplab or Silvina Romero’s work for examples). Even though according to Clarin newspaper, Compartocoche.com.ar gets 300 sign ups per week, reactions to the proposal are diverse in this blog (in Spanish), since some people think it is insecure. Our advice: there is no need to get paranoid, but of course be careful and maybe try the first time with a friend. ::Comparto Coche...
When news came yesterday that Cheung Shu-hung, a co-owner of the Lee Der Industrial Corporation responsible for the lead contamination of approximately 1.5 million toys that recently had to be recalled by Mattel committed suicide at one of his warehouses, I must admit that I was really not that surprised. After all, it’s not uncommon for disgraced officials in China to commit suicide in response to the immense amount of public shame their actions bring on both themselves and their families. With Thomas and Friends being recalled this year for similar concerns, and another round of recalls coming shortly from Mattel, it seems as if there is, in fact, no end to the problems with Chinese manufacturers and the production of toys. And with over 80% of the toys sold in the world being produced in China, I’d be willing to bet that there are a whole lot more out there just waiting to be recalled as it becomes more and more apparent that Chinese suppliers having been cutting every toxic corner imaginable to gain an edge in the fierce competition for a piece of the business. ...
Claire Morisette was an impassioned cycling advocate in Montreal, fighting City Hall since 1976. She thought cars made no sense in an urban environment: "They take up all that space and leave me a little strip," she once told the Montreal Gazette. "They pollute and throw their noise in my face, and in traffic we go at the same speed." She came up with great stunts to promote bikes; when the transit authorities would not let people bring bikes on the subways, she and other protesters carried toboggans, ladders and skis, all allowed, to point out the foolishness of it. Another famous event was the 1976 "die-in" where a a hundred people lay down and played dead at the corner of Ste. Catherine and University Sts., using ketchup to symbolize blood and mangled bicycles to demonstrate the effect of the car culture on cyclists and pedestrians.
In 1994, Ms. Morissette published Deux roues, un avenir (Two Wheels, One Future), a study of the global cycling movement and the humble bicycle's potential to change cities for the good.
She founded Cyclo Nord-Sud which has sent over 20,000 bicycles as aid to third world countries. "the bike is a simple and efficient solution, perfectly adapted to the Third World. In these countries, the car is a complete disaster." They have shipped bikes to 13 countries. "It tears my heart out when I see a bike thrown in the garbage heap," she said. "A bike can have a 20-to-30-year life span, but the average length of use here is about five years." ::Globe and Mail...
This is the urban bicycle-rental stand, which won an award at this year's Spark Design & Architecture Awards. It's designed to allow one-way journeys, with drop off and pick-up points in various locations around a city. Each bike would be fitted with an RFID chip to track and log journeys, and customers would pay a small charge to rent a bike. It was designed by Dutch agency, Springtime, who have worked for Nike, Coca Cola and Toyota.
Several cities have implemented bike rental or free-bike schemes, and this system, excluding initial investment, could help to keep costs down. Of course, there are problems with it, such as the fact that you are relying on the previous renter to return the bike in good condition. Presumably there is no way for the machine to know if the bike it is handing out has a flat tire or other problem. ::BikeDispenser via ::TrendHunter via ::Gizmodo...
Sydney is white Australia's birthplace, settled as a penal colony in 1788. Many of its first white inhabitants would be very surprised to learn that it is now often recognized as one of the world's top ten most liveable cities. Earlier this year it was ranked as the world's most favourite city by the Anholt City Brands Index. And Grist dubbed it 10th in their list of the worlds top fifteen Green Cities. And there is much to be thankful for in this city of about 4.3 million souls, which is also considered one of the globe's most cultural diverse metropolis, with around 140 different ethnic groups. Sydney is the capital city for the state of New South Wales (NSW), but contrary to popular international misinterpretation, not of the nation. That is Canberra.
Geographically Sydney has the largest natural harbour in the world, is famed for its beaches (having over 70 of them), and is blessed with mostly sunny, mild weather, lending the city a very outdoorsy lifestyle. Particularly when surrounded on three sides by national parks, one of which is the world's second oldest (after Yellowstone), and another a World Heritage area. With the Pacific Ocean taking up prime position on the fourth side, Sydney has become a victim of its own success. It has reached the limits of its natural basin, and there is no room in the inn. Land for housing and infrastructure is at a premium. ...
"A lot of people like to say, scaremonger about China, right? A lot of politicians and I know you talk about that issue all the time. I think people should be careful what they wish for on China -- you know, if China were to revalue its currency, or China is to start making, say, toys that don't have lead in them, or food that isn't poisonous, their costs of production are going to go up. And that means prices at Walmart, here in the United States, are going to go up too. So, I would say China is our greatest friend right now.They're keeping prices low, and they're keeping prices for mortgages low too."
Call it environmental art, public art, whatever, more and more artists are getting interested in working with nature to alter the environment and create outdoor art with plants. We saw it on the walls of the National Theatre in London, where artists grew grass on the outside of the building for 6 weeks. Now in Japan, as part of an annual celebration, rice farmers grow wonderful pictures in their fields of rice paddies. Since starting the tradition in 1993, the farmers in Aomori prefecture have become famous, attempting more and more complex pictures every year. In the past they have grown the Mona Lisa, japanese warriors, and this year they have done two images from the series of woodblock prints, 36 Views of Mount Fuji, by the famous wood block printmaker Hokusai. The view of the great wave and Mt. Fuji are in two adjoining fields, in purple and yellow rice.
To do this, the farmers grow some purple and yellow-leafed kodaimai rice along with their regular green-leafed tsugaru-roman variety. The paddies will be on view until September, when the rice is harvested. :: psfk...
Due to the combination of drought lowering flows in the Catawba River and the added heat of midsummer, coal fired power plants that rely on Catawba water withdrawals for cooling are being forced to shut down or limit operations due to discharge permit limits on daily average temperature. But, we don't want to kill the bass now do we?
"On Friday, a new problem arose when Duke had to curtail power generation at two coal-powered plants on the Catawba River, Duke spokeswoman Paige Sheehan said. The river's water temperature is too high to use for cooling. Low lake levels already had cut the hydro generation that Duke usually taps at peak times. Duke uses river water to cool its coal-powered steam operations. That heats the water, which then is discharged back into the waterway. But when the water is too hot to begin with, the state won't allow Duke to add to the heat, because the resulting temperature would be too hot for wildlife and cause other environmental concerns."
'Now, who would ever have expected climate change to cause problems like this?'
Via::The Charlotte Observer, and Knight Ridder Tribune Business News. Image credit::Hilton Pond Nature Center, Catawba River
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"At the World Bank -- heavily influenced by its largest shareholder, the United States -- the effect of projects on climate change is not even calculated.
In February 2006, for example, the World Bank's operating vice presidents gathered to discuss a draft of a progress report, requested by the Group of 8 leading industrialized nations, titled "Climate Change, Energy and Sustainable Development: Towards an Investment Framework." The bank executives endorsed the report, according to minutes obtained by the Government Accountability Project and authenticated by The [Los Angeles] Times.
But afterward, the summary noted, the office of then-World Bank President Paul D. Wolfowitz -- a President Bush appointee -- "asked the team to refocus the paper shifting from a climate lens mainly to a clean-energy lens." A note of uncertainty should be injected, a top Wolfowitz aide instructed: "Elaborate on the challenge of mitigating climate change and reducing the vulnerability to the impact of climate change."
"Climate change" was duly removed from the name of the paper, which was issued within months as "Clean Energy and Development: Towards an Investment Framework.""
Via:: Los Angeles Times Image credit:: Belmont University
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Have you made the switch? For tips on how to or the powerful impact on global warming of your light bulb switching actions, check out Philips’ beautiful online campaign A Simple Switch, launched last month. There are quizzes, hints & tips, a glossary and lots of ideas how to get involved in the light bulb changing movement. The best thing about it is the measuring tool of the global impact. At the moment they count 169.086 light bulbs switched which is equivalent to taking 11.836 cars off our roads. Although the campaign in the end mainly promotes Philips’ own products, we still like the globalness of it as well as the hints & tips which are very thorough. Fascinating, go loose yourself in this charming web site. ::A Simple Switch
Other light bulb campaigns:
A Light Among the Nations, Mr Luna’s Bright Idea, Change a Light, Change the World...
Over at TreeHugger Forums, topics from energy to global warming to diapers to brownies are up for discussion, and with the addition of monster trucks and toilets, there's never a dull moment. Here are some of the recent highlights...
1) samchase joins the recent fray started by the "Is walking worse than driving?" debate; though it seems a bit silly, "The article talks about meat, but it does beg the question as to what the carbon footprint of a vegetarian diet is in relation to travel. I don't do well with numbers, but does anybody with a science background know if this article is legitimate?" Thoughts?
2) Forums user bkfass is trying to swing the tide of some global warming-denier relations: "Does anyone know a good resource where someone tracks who the global warming deniers are and where their money comes from? I need this in my arsenal while debating my "brown" family...."
3) In the same vein, user OG spots an interesting read: a "lightbulb" moment for a former climate change-denier who writes for Reason Magazine: "On the day that the studies were released I wrote a column for Reason in which I declared that my skepticism of man-made global warming was at an end...." The "most terrifying video you'll ever see" and baking brownies, after the jump...
This week is Carnival of the Green # 90 and it's being hosted by Miss Malaprop! 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 and have less than 20 dates left!), please click here to link to our previous post....
You read that right: a study linking something other than climate change to adverse weather events in Africa. A group led by J. Curt Stager of New York's Paul Smith College has just published a study citing a possible connection between sunspots and heavy rain, flooding and even incidents of insect-borne diseases in East Africa. The key element driving the rains is not the sunspots themselves but the added brightening of the sun that accompanies them, explained Stager.
Though not particularly intense, the brightening may be sufficient to slightly warm the oceans and the surrounding land — increasing the region's humidity and prompting the creation of more rain clouds, leading to increased precipitation. "So you get a double-whammy amplifying effect from what would otherwise be a weak solar signal," Stager said. Furthermore, the solar cycle (which occurs in 11-year phases) can cause more rain by affecting winds in the upper atmosphere and changing the flow of air. ...
Exploring the versatility and maximizing the functionality of one small sheet of birch plywood, designer Elil Chissick came up with "The Bend," a clever series of fruit bowls (though you could probably put some veggies in there, too, if you wanted to) that use the hand-bent ply to create some neat shapes and some functional structure. Two of the three are pictured above; we love the way so little material creates so much dimension, and that the whole thing could be put in a big envelope for shipping before you build it. Check out the third version after the jump. ::Eli Chissick via ::Produce Dose...
There are 10,000 abandoned houses in Buffalo, New York; instead of just wrecking them, non-profit Buffalo ReUse is taking them apart and selling the materials and components. From the Buffalo News: “We saved 4 million pounds from the landfill each year,” says consultant David Bennick. “It’s like an urban forest. Every building in Buffalo represents ‘X’ number of trees . . . If you just demolish that building it’s like those trees are done and they’re in the landfill.” They are filling a warehouse with materials: “The goal here is to sell local,” Manager Michael Gainer said. “It’s very affordable material and it’s high quality material.” It is happening across America as a new economic model: "Nonprofits take on the job of deconstruction and open Home-Depot-like warehouses of used materials. A growing number of deconstruction related organizations have nonprofit status, such as Buffalo ReUse." ::Buffalo News and ::Buffalo ReUse...
Anyone who grew up in rural parts of the US knows that corn growers who raise dairy animals rotate the corn to alfalfa periodically. It's a legume that enhances the soil, fixing nitrogen and carbon in abundance. Apparently, there is a faction at the USDA that believes that ethanol can be made economically from alfalfa leaves, and if used for both soil enhancement and fermentation for alcohol, would keep alive a traditional soil stewardship choice. This is a key topic when high market prices for corn might otherwise tempt farmers to plant corn fence line to fencel ine, year in and year out: a formula for soil destruction.
"Proponents of alfalfa describe it as a wonder crop. It is self-fertilizing — fixing nitrogen from the air — and adds carbon to the soil, creating its own carbon sink and enriching the soil. Its long roots prevent erosion and improve soil and water quality...But on an energy-per-acre basis, alfalfa cannot compete with corn. USDA researchers found you could get about 137 gallons of fuel per acre for alfalfa stems, compared with about 473 gallons for corn. If farmers could also throw in corn stalks for cellulosic ethanol, that would increase corn yields to more than 600 gallons per acre — more than four times as much as alfalfa.
Alfalfa’s competitive edge could be its leaves, which are more nutritious for cattle and much higher in protein than the feed mix that is marketed as a co-product of corn ethanol. But removing leaves on a large scale is no easy task, and there is no commercial equipment currently available to do the work."
Via:: Greenwire (subscription only) and Earth Portal Image credit:: Alfalfa, Blue Sky Herbs
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Though we knew that trees alone wouldn't provide the silver bullet needed to single-handedly fix global warming, a new study from scientists at Duke University in North Carolina seems to have cast doubts on the notion of using trees at all as a strategy to reduce carbon emissions. It's not that trees in themselves can't store carbon dioxide well: it's just that, to do so, the trees need to receive substantial amounts of water and nutrients — a requirement not always easy to meet (especially in the case of adverse weather events).
Ram Oren and his colleagues spent a period of 10 years bathing plots of pine trees in extra carbon dioxide every day (1.5 times the current levels of GHG in the planet's atmosphere). This project — dubbed the Free Air Carbon Enrichment (FACE) experiment — compared 4 different plots exposed to higher levels to 4 matched plots lacking the extra carbon dioxide. They found that while the trees typically grew more — producing approximately 20% more biomass on average — only those trees supplied with the most nutrients and water could store enough carbon dioxide to effectively offset the effects of global warming....
Eugene de Salignac, NYC Municipal Archives
We need investment in green infrastructure, but there is so much of the old stuff hanging around. Matthew Wald of the New York Times asks "Is the country relying too much on decaying infrastructure, the capital investments of generations long gone?"
He notes that there is a good reason why big old things — pipes and bridges, nuclear reactors and even spaceships — stick around. In many ways, they are like your grandmother’s dining room set: big, bulky and hard to remove. And in a lot of ways, it makes more sense to keep the old stuff than replace it with something from Ikea.
However he concludes by noting that climate change may make infrastructure replacement necessary. "Airlines fly some very old airplanes, but new ones promise to save so much fuel that the old ones may be finally put out to pasture." ::New York Times...
Designer Miquel Mora looks at the new techniques of printing electronics and wonders "What if we could 'enhance' paper instead of getting rid of it? What if we could merge the printed world with the digital one?" He says "Through printed electronics we can create processors, displays, batteries on flat and flexible surfaces like paper. Objects will wear technology instead of carrying them inside. It will become their skin." It is all conceptual, so we can forgive him for suggesting "What if objects are made of paper? How are we going to interact with them? For instance, the disposable Paper Alarm Clock needs to be scrunched up in order to turn it off. It brings new ways to experience electronic products."
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While TreeHugger is used to seeing transformer furniture that goes from bench to table and obelisk to chairs, this is the first luggage-to-seating arrangement we've come across. While the others cross functions in the same space (like the living room), this quaint concept is more of a comfortable suitcase, or chair with wheels that holds a bunch of clothes sometimes. By crossing platforms, it insures that there are few situations that it couldn't be functional; the only bummer is that it looks like it has to be a suitcase full of clothes, or a chair (without the clothes) and not both. Still, it's an awesome idea; more pics below the fold. More of this, please! ::TechEBlog via ::SciFi Tech...
The good people at Metropolis magazine have posted a transcript of a terrific talk given by Herman Miller's Scott Charon and Susan Lyons about their Design for Environment, their sustainable design program based on the Cradle to Cradle protocol.
Using their task seating as an example (the Mirra chair, pictured above, is divided into its 96 percent recyclable pieces on the left and the other 4 percent on the right), they talk about materials chemistry, usability, recycling and more. If you've ever wondered why TreeHugger gets in to this stuff, it's a worthwhile read; they talk at some length about the process required to design, assemble, disassemble, reconfigure and recycle their projects, which is no easy task. Hit the jump to take a quick bite out of the transcript, and read the whole thing at ::Metropolis via ::Core77...
We’ve recently featured some prominent UK initiatives promoting ambitious targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions and boosting renewable energy generation. We’ve seen Dale Vince, of UK renewable energy company Ecotricity proposing a ‘zero carbon’ Britain by 2050 (meaning zero carbon emissions, presumably, rather than an eradication of all carbon-based life forms!), and we’ve seen the folks from the Centre for Alternative Energy upping the ante by claiming that this target is achievable by 2027. The UK government, however, seems to take a different view. According to a report in today’s Guardian, government officials have secretly briefed ministers that there is no chance of meeting the renewable energy targets that Tony Blair signed up to earlier this year, and are suggesting that they need to start looking for escape routes:...
We all want to help save the oceans but how? While most of our attention has been fixated on solving terrestrial problems — whether it be deforestation, floods, droughts or other climate change-related weather events — we have largely glossed over the issue of elaborating innovative and sweeping new initiatives aimed at preserving or strengthening the state of our oceans. Sure, we talk about erecting more marine protected areas (MPAs), reducing overfishing pressure and stopping the unregulated flow of treated sewage and nutrient-rich runoff, but are there other viable solutions?
Fortunately, Conservation Magazine took it upon itself to gather some of the brightest minds in ocean conservation and ask them what solutions they would propose to help us save the oceans. The result was 10 unique and innovative ideas. ...
The Mortgage Interest Deduction in the States costs a hundred billion dollars per year, and may once have served the purpose of encouraging home ownership, but now just penalizes the poor and others who rent and is a gift to homeowners and builders, who can charge higher prices and sell bigger homes. It doesn't even really work; Canada doesn't have it yet has just as high a rate of home ownership as the USA. No politician will have the guts to get rid of it, but Rep.USA John Dingell has a great idea: Eliminate it on the portion of the house over 3,000 square feet. If you want to own a McMansion, why should the taxpayers subsidize it?
What a great idea. Continue helping people get into home ownership, encourage smaller houses, and stop subsidizing McMansions. Builders are apoplectic, but Dingell says "These are all new ideas," Dingell said. "I know I'm going to catch hell for them," but "if we are serious about global warming, we need to reduce consumption by making it more expensive." ::Desmogblog...
We look forward to it all summer and planned to sleep outside to watch; then the clouds moved in and we couldn't see a single star. Others say it was a fabulous meteor per minute.
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They may be sucked into the vortex of cellphones and Myspace while living life on land, but when kids are out sailing on the A.J. Meerwald, and 80-year-old oyster schooner turned education center they seem to get a whole new view of the world. That’s probably because the whole experience of sailing itself leaves some kids breathless. As Trinity Carey, an 11-year-old from New Jersey said after what may well have been his first trip aboard a seafaring vessel without a motor puttering along behind, “It felt pretty awesome, I felt kind of like a pirate,” and then “You feel like you’re floating but flying at the same time.”
As for the education part, the Bayshore Discovery Project aims to immerse kids in an experience that simply can't be re-created in a classroom. During a day-long camp last week, nine kids charted their course on a nautical map, learning boating terms and hand signals in the process, and working in teams to hoist the canvas sails up the 68-foot mast as well. And after using that knowledge to get themselves around New York Harbor, Jesse Briggs, the ship’s captain, took the time to show them how runoff carries pollutants with it from farmland and factories alongside streams that wind up polluting the bay. Simply using a net from the stern to pick up jellyfish and oysters for the kids to check out helps them make the connection with living things that are actually present in the water as well... As Briggs puts it, "We like to give folks a chance to get in touch with the water and see how what they do on land affects the water. Hopefully, we'll instill a better sense of stewardship for the water." And with over 5,000 students a year getting that experience aboard the Meerwald, it seems to me that he’s most definitely leaving a positive lasting impression on both his student’s minds and the environment we all share. via:: Daily News...
Ontario Minister of the Environment Laurel Broten says "do as I say, not as I do" and is introducing green licence plates for for low emission and alternative fuel vehicles. Perks include access to the high-occupancy lanes, free parking and lower registration fees.
"Now we're saying we're going to also put some more factors on that table to help you make a decision that's good for your family and good for the environment," she told a news conference. NDP environment critic Peter Tabuns sniffed "small potatoes given the scope of the problem before us."
Just don't drive to Ohio or Wisconsin, where legislators are proposing green licence plates for sex offenders and pedophiles. "Can you imagine, you're a granola cruncher, you've got a green plate, and you wonder why everyone hates you in Ohio?" said Opposition member Tim Hudak. ::the Star
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When we asked for dumb questions, we got some very smart ones, including dwightstreetrenter's very long "Why don't housing architects design more energy-efficient homes in large subdivisions? When they cut down all those trees, they're basically building huge homes in a desert of dirt...and encouraging people to consume massive amounts of electricity for air conditioning.... and suburban sprawl is promoted in such developments."
Why do builders build these homes? Because they could, and it was more profitable to do so. There were a number of reasons:
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Residential air conditioning in the US has become the norm for all except the poor. By now there's probably more tons of cooling capacity per household than there are flat screen TV's. Air conditioning use has always been highest in the coal-reliant Southern states, where it gets hot and stays that way for longer periods. Climate change, coupled with continued economic development and population growth, may intensify this need. For example, "As Georgia experiences unrelenting soaring temperatures, Georgia Power has met three straight days of record-breaking demand for electricity with a new record of 18,216 megawatts (MW) set on Wednesday."
Georgia Power, a Southern Company subsidiary company, recently suggested some energy saving tips for its customers, via press release. We've included the list below, highlighting in bold the suggestions we've not emphasized on TreeHugger before. We think you'll agree that a whole lot of human behavior will have to be relearned to accomplish these ideas consistently, meaning its not just about buying more high tech stuff. You can't fully buy your way out of inefficiency, even if you have great wealth. The lifestyle equation demands behavior change for everyone.
Tell us what you think should be added to the list.
Via:: PR Newswire Image credit:: Cupertino Orthocare
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Treehugger has had so many posts on plastic bags, it would seem that there is nothing more to say about the subject. So maybe it is time to switch to pictures, worth a thousand words, of course. The Photographers' Gallery has asked people to send in photos of plastic bags to the Gallery, to show the extent of the problem across London and beyond. " Reminding us of our ability to consume and dispose, this project provides the public with their own platform for visual expression." And the pictures show it all. The bags are of every size, shape and colour and they are everywhere: on stairways, in the sky, in trees, on buses, doorways, at night, in storms and in water.
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Agriculture systems in Quebrada de Humauaca, Jujuy province (in the North of the country), are very fragile, since they depend of a price defining market that sometimes forces small-scale producers to sell under the production costs. Given this situation, the Argentine National Institute for Industrial Technology (INTI) has come up with the idea to differentiate the farmers’ fruits and vegetables and to give them longer life by helping them elaborate dehydrated products. In this line, they developed a low-cost solar dehydrator (of about 1500 pesos, which equal 500 dollars), especially adapted to the climatic and productive conditions of the region. We thought this was a great idea: making the crops last more and add value without spending a lot in processes but using simple materials and the natural energy of the sun. Read the extended to find out how it was developed. And if you're inspired and want to put this to practice in other communities, the building plans are available by request....
The founder of Tesla Motors, Martin Eberhard, has stepped down as CEO of the company, worrying some that delays with Tesla production are possible. He explained in an email to customers that he will carry on in the organization as chief technology officer, "In my new job, I will focus on the final details of the Roadster and on advancing Tesla's leadership in our core technology. I will also be able to spend more time with you, our customers."
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The catastrophic decline and extinction of our planet’s amphibians, some believe, is due to a virulent fungus spreading around the globe. Scientists now find another strain of fungus, called Ug99 (or stem rust), has claimed a new victim: Our global wheat crops. According to The Jerusalem Post, the wheat fungus first found in Uganda eight years ago, is moving like wildfire through Africa. It now threatens to destroy some 70% of the world’s wheat crops.
But this fungus, currently in Yemen and making its way north to Israel, may just get a dose of medicine: A native Israeli species of wheat, Sharon goatgrass (Aegilops sharonensis), found on Israel's coastal plain and in a few locations in Lebanon, is highly resistant to the fungus. Scientists from the University of Minnesota and Tel Aviv University are proposing that genetic engineers take the “resistance” from Israel’s Sharon goatgrass and transplant it to at-risk varieties of wheat. ...
There are natural reserves and then there are natural reserves: Alladale Estate — a peaceful 23,000-acre Highland estate offering luxury digs and wildlife sightseeing for a couple hundred visitors every year — aims to become Britain's first fully-fledged ecological game reserve by reverting it to a state of nature 2,000 years old. Paul Lister, the millionaire owner of Alladale, having just obtained a dangerous wild animal license — enabling him to reintroduce elk, wild boars, lynx and others — now hopes to complete his life-long dream of recreating Scotland's once remote wilderness.
Working with neighboring landowners, he wants to convert his and adjoining estates into a reserve for indigenous flora — including juniper, hazel, Caledonian pine and round birch — and fauna. "We received our dangerous animals licence last week and as soon as the foot and mouth regulations die down we'll be bringing in two young elk from Sweden as part of the first step," said Hugh Fullerton Smith, the general manager of Alladale. "We already have wild boar and have fenced off 440 acres as part of a game reserve trial which scientists from Oxford University are monitoring."...
Try matching it up to the record in solar cell efficiency recently set by two University of Delaware scientists — 5.4% vs. 42.8% — and it certainly doesn't sound worthy of a new world record. However, there is an important caveat: the record-setting solar cell technology created by Plextronics, a Pittsburgh-based organic semiconductor startup, is organic.
Organic solar cells — made out of plastic-like polymers — are much cheaper when compared by the conventional inorganic, silicon and metal-based solar cells typically favored by the solar industry. Their one main disadvantage, of course, is their relatively low efficiency (measured as what percent of light is converted to electricity): when compared with the 20 - 40% efficiencies regularly attained by inorganic crystalline solar cells, the 5.4% efficiency sounds almost disappointing. ...
Richard Thalheimer, the guy who started up The Sharper Image, has his own online store over at richardsolo.com, which he's filled with slick, Sharper Image-like gadgets, gizmos and toys. Some of them are a bit extraneous, but one of the things we like is the Forever Last Radio, the newest in a growingnumber of handy hand-cranked radios. In addition to the AM/FM radio, it's got a flashnight/nightlight combo (so you can see what station tune to, we guess), and one minute of cranking gets 20 minutes of listening pleasure or 40 minutes of flashlighting. The answer the "Who cares?" question, Richard says, "People need a stylish radio and flashlight but do not want to keep buying batteries." Well said. ::Richard Solo via ::Notcot
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Nissan has said that it will remain dedicated to it's efficient continuously variable automatic transmission systems, despite other manufacturers dropping the technology. Director of Nissan's product planning, Mark Perry, told reporters that the system can provide a 7-10% efficiency boost over a traditional four-speed automatic gearbox. "We're expanding CVTs across the lineup. We have great confidence in the technology. Our engineers are confident they can make further fuel-efficiency gains."
Like a surprising number of clever inventions, continuously variable gear systems were first invented by Leonardo Da Vinci, so they're hardly new. Some production cars appeared in the 50's that featured similar systems, allowing them to change gears gradually and constantly, with no noticeable jump between each ratio. In a CVT, two pulleys are connected by a belt, and the ratio between the pulleys changes when the axle size changes. This allows a car to always be in exactly the most efficient gearing ratio all the time, and improves mileage. ::FreeP::Picture source...
Ikea has announced that all management staff in Spain who have company cars will be switched over to Toyota Prius' as soon as the current leasing period expires. The number of cars changing isn't huge, but is another small step for the increasingly green furniture company.
The move is the latest of many small but positive changes from the company, such as initially charging for, and then banning, plastic bags in the US and the UK, handing out free CFL bulbs to customers and giving staff free bicycles. All these are part of a larger plan which aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from transport by 9 percent before 2010. We've previously written about other moves that the company are making, and highlighted just how big an impact a small change in working practices can be for a huge company like Ikea. ::Auto Blog Green::Picture source...
In the wake of Minneapolis' tragic bridge collapse, policymakers and economists have been scrambling to reassess the state of the nation's oft deteriorating infrastructure. Concerns about their potential vulnerabilities to extreme weather events — such as hurricanes, flash floods and sharp temperature abnormalities — brought about by climate change have also pushed these reevaluations to the fore. And not a moment too soon, says University of Alaska resource economist Peter Larsen.
When he first started calling transportation officials across Alaska in late 2006 to ask whether climate change had damaged any roads or bridges he would often get laughs. But that didn't stop him: he continued calling — searching for infrastructure that was deteriorating as the permafrost thawed beneath it and for facilities threatened by coastal erosion and flooding — until he and his colleagues had mapped every inch of Alaska's infrastructure and put a price tag on what climate change might do to it. And a hefty price tag it is: up to $6.1 billion dollars between now and 2030 to fix or replace structures and up to $7.6 billion between now and 2080 — figures he came up with after tracking down the state's 16,000 structures and putting dollar signs on the potential wear and tear with the help of engineering estimates and the latest climate projections. ...
A crematorium in Bath, in the UK, is taking steps to reduce its carbon footprint by making their cremation schedule more efficient. New burners have been installed, and cremations are only undertaken when enough bodies are waiting. Rosemary Tiley, the local council's bereavement manager, said, "we need to manage our workload as effectively and as efficiently as possible, both to minimize gas usage as an environmental issue and to look after our new cremators, which we hope will last a long time. In order to do this we will fire up only one cremator if there are insufficient cremations to warrant both being used. We will store coffins overnight to achieve a balanced workload and gain the greatest efficiency from our cremators."
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Sunday's New York Times has cracked open story on the latest US consumer fad. Cage-free eggs, "from chickens raised in large, open barns instead of stacks of small wire cages, have become the latest addition to menus at universities, hotel chains like Omni and cafeterias at companies like Google. The Whole Foods supermarket chain sells nothing else, and even Burger King is getting in on the trend."
Apparently there are shortages as a result of the spike in demand. And, as you'd expect, the egg industry had originally moved to chicken skyscrapers (lap-top sized cages, stacked in rows, warehouse-like) because of reduced capital and operating costs. Now, because of consumer awareness, they are being asked to flatten not the cost structure, but the chicken houses, putting the bird herd (our term for flightless avian roamers) on the loose.
The unanswered question is: how does this trend affect chicken manure management options? Hopefully poop power, as enabled by the caged operations, will be pursued as well.
Via:: New York Times. Image credit:: Feathersite....
Yeasterday we posted on The River Cottage Meat Book, a comprehensive collection of ethical musings, practical advice, and extensive recipes for all those not willing to go vegetarian, but wanting to make wiser, more humane choices about their meat consumption. This got us thinking, what if there’s a similar resource for seafood lovers (aside from the fabulous advice offered on TreeHugger TV of course) ? Well it looks like there is.
One Fish, Two Fish, Crawfish, Bluefish: The Smithsonian Sustainable Seafood Cookbook offers 150 recipes from some of America’s top chef’s all in the name of more sustainable seafood. It also includes a useful guide to what fish can be eaten with a clear conscience (assuming you have no moral objections to eating fish of course), and which species would be best avoided. The following is from the customer reviews on Amazon:
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You might have been following the recent debate about surfing a black web, even received a viral email or two on the topic. We have discussed some facts and figures around using a black Google, and other alternatives sites such as Blackle. In spite of all the recent press, mysteries and myths still abound, here are 5 of the most common.
1. Every monitor uses 74 watts to display a white background, and only 59 watts to display a black background.
Answer: Nope, and it's probably the biggest misconception. The original post that started this whole thing pulled these numbers from the US department of energy, but these numbers almost certainly refer to CRT monitors only....
The Toshiba Portégé R500 hitting stores this month can boast a battery which lasts 8 hours. But the trick is not in the battery. This machine has no hard drive, relying on the same memory technology that makes your USB stick work. In addition to being less susceptible to shocks and temperature swings, the no-moving-parts technology uses half as much power as a traditional hard drive. And with 64 Gbytes of memory, the technology is not a compromise on storage capacity. However, like many things green, you will pay a premium to be the first in your neighborhood with this low-power alternative: it will cost you $550 to swap in the SSD compared to the lower-end traditional model.
The Toshiba's 12" screen uses backlit LED technology and is trans-reflective, high-tech speak for you can use it while sitting in the sunshine on a riverbank and still see good contrast in the image on screen. Since it weighs in at less than 800 grams (1 and 3/4 pounds), getting it to the riverbank is not a problem either. Reviews give the Toshiba points for better performance than the Sony Vaio TZ150, which is also available with SSD data storage....
Move over global warming, this could be the planet's biggest "heads-up" of all - researchers at the University of Southampton recently unveiled a software modelling program that is able to evaluate the potential catastrophic consequences of a small asteroid impacting the earth - and it is showing that the possibility is not that far off the map.
Called NEOimpactor, the software has been specifically designed to model asteroid impacts, allowing scientists to gauge the impact of "small" asteroids - "small" meaning under one kilometre in diameter. Preliminary results point toward the ten countries at greatest risk are China, Indonesia, India, Japan, the United States, the Philippines, Italy, the United Kingdom, Brazil and Nigeria.
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In a move that spells trouble for India’s forests and one that blatantly favours private interests, the government has asked that the Supreme Court disband a forest protection panel that has been overseeing forest management for the last ten years and to instead leave it to the executive branch of the government.
The forest protection committee was put into place by the Supreme Court in 1996 as a body that would supervise and report on the use of forested areas, in addition to keeping tabs on the environmental effect of development. Logging in forests now requires permission from the Supreme Court – and that includes any kind of industrial or commercial development. But now, perhaps that is all about to change....
The desert is one place you definitely don't want to be if you lack a ready supply of drinking water. For animals that call this ecosystem home, that means that they need to be able and ready to procure whatever small amounts of water they can muster whenever the opportunity knocks. A new study by Wade Sherbrooke of the American Museum of Natural History's Southwestern Research Station has found that certain species of lizards have devised a unique way of dealing with this predicament: storing water in a network of tiny channels in their skin.
The networks within the spaces between their scales can absorb water from the ground or from rainwater and carry it to their mouth for drinking. Sherbrooke and his colleagues at Australia's James Cook University used a combination of light and electron microscopes to scrutinize the lizards' scale hinges and found that they contain tube-like channels capable of employing capillary forces to transport water. One of the species they studied, the Australian thorny devil (Moloch horridus), possessed a network that covered its entire body and that could carry water to an area near the corner of its mouth. ...
The last few years have witnessed an unpredented land rush with mining companies eagerly staking thousands of new claims in areas bordering on some of the country's most prized natural treasures — including the Grand Canyon, Yosemite and Joshua Tree National Parks. Indeed, a new analysis of government records by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) has revealed that the total number of active claims has risen from 207,540 in January 2003 to 376,493 in July 2007, an 80% increase. Stoked by a large increase in global demand for metals, mining companies are staking thousands upon thousands of claims for gold, copper, uranium and other metals.
Because the U.S.'s original mining law, which was enacted in 1872, offered very little protection for lands — essentially prioritizing the interests of mining companies over those of the public — many have argued for a fundamental overhaul in its provisions to bring it up to date. As Dusty Horwitt — an EWG Public Lands analyst and the report's author — put it to us, reforms in the legislation need to be implemented to at least place mining on the same level as other extractive practices. ...
A contentious topic that we've often seen batted around in policy circles and scientific forums over the past few months has concerned the long-term viability of biofuels — namely, is the trade-off inherent in converting ever larger tracts of forest to cropland worth it? We've expressed our own reservations about the merits of biofuels in the past but have remained somewhat open to the idea in the face of new research and ongoing developments taking place in the scientific and business communities. An article published in this week's issue of Science has helped rekindle our worries about the feasibility of a global biofuel energy market by claiming that no amount of biofuels can ever offset the environmental damage caused by the cutting down of forests to grow more crops.
Renton Righelato of the World Land Trust and Dominick Spracklen of the University of Leeds estimated that the initial cutting down of forests to plant more food crops, like corn and sugarcane, would release as much as 100 - 200 tons of carbon per hectare. They calculated that it would take between 50 and 100 years alone to compensate for these emissions by burning biofuels instead of fossil fuels — and that's assuming governments don't continue their rigorous regimen of deforestation. According to their best estimates, a 10% substitution of gasoline and diesel fuel would require 43% and 38% of current cropland alone in the United States and Europe, respectively. "We cannot afford that, in terms of climate change," said Righelato. ...
Um, why is this green? Perhaps because it changes colours the faster you type, starting at yellow and shifting to blue. And all bloggers have to worry about their words per watt/hour ratio; the faster you type, the less energy burned per word. I understand that TreeHugger headquarters is issuing these to us soon. Or perhaps I just like things that change colours, like the orb. ::Typing orb via ::Core77
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We mentioned Ecotricity’s new 'Merchant Wind Power' project at Avonmouth Docks near Bristol, UK earlier this year, but we couldn’t help posting a picture of the now completed initiative. Located in the ultra-industrialized port, surrounded by storage depots for coal, gas and imported cars, this 3 turbine installation is set to generate enough electricity to meet most of Bristol Port Company’s requirements, while saving an estimated 15,000 tonnes of CO2 a year. There is even an added bonus - because the site is less than half a mile away from the M5 motorway, the primary route to and from the South West of England, the turbines will be passed by literally hundreds of thousands of motorists each day, providing a very real and visible working symbol for the coming energy revolution. For more information on Ecotricity’s work, check out our interview with managing director Dale Vince here::Ecotricity::via site visit::
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Like orangutans dying for a cookie, gorillas in the Congo are dying because people in Rwanda need charcoal to cook and heat. "The gorillas have become a hindrance for the charcoal trade," said Emmanuel de Merode, director of WildlifeDirect."There's a very strong incentive for these people to kill the gorillas."
The forests of Virunga National Park, near Rwanda, are being depleted by the illegal charcoal trade; Rwanda banned production of charcoal so it is smuggled in. "The last 15 years of Congo's history have been defined by the illegal exploitation of natural resources," de Merode said. "The charcoal trade definitely fits into that reality."
Once again energy trumps biodiversity. Sigh. ::National Geographic
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Founded on the premise that it's dumb to buy everything you need when you can just borrow it from your friends and neighbors when you need it, Neighborrow is part Freecycle, part Netflix/Swaptree and all product service system goodness. It allows you to pool your resources with your neighbors, and then borrow a food processor when you need one; when you're done, you just pass it back, and round and round we go. Founded by Adam Berk in his New York City apartment, the site gives users the opportunity to both list what they're willing to share and what they're looking to use; you network with your neighbors to get 'em all done without having to resort to paying retail. Users are rated, so you know how reliable each one has been, and the site keeps track of where your stuff is, how long its been there, and when it's due back. Learn more about them at ::Neighborrow and read an interview with founder Berk in ::Gristmill...
Peter J. Thompson, National Post
Canada's National Post ran an interesting article by 16 year old Alex Nevitte, describing the hazards of urban cycling:
"I've encountered several greedy and unreasonable motorists who never hesitate to take far more than their share of the road and who waste no time screaming at any cyclist willing to demand their fair piece of the road as well. Bicycles are vehicles and so are entitled to a lane of their own just as any other vehicle is."
and concluding:
"Oil is a non-renewable resource that harms our environment and is a huge source of conflict among nations. Vehicles that run on oil, such as every SUV, car, truck and minivan in Toronto are only inflaming this growing problem and polluting the very air we breathe. In contrast, bicycles use absolutely no gas to run, do not in any way harm the air and (shockingly!) actually benefit those who ride them. At a minimum, cyclists should be treated with equal respect to motorists and so the next time you see someone toiling away on their bike to get from A to B, show a little sympathy and appreciate the sacrifice we cyclists are making." ::National Post...
SUVs and trucks are big sellers, even with the recent drop-off in sales. Yet when polled, three-quarters of Americans support increased fuel-efficiency, and this includes those who own the gas-guzzling, carbon-emitting trucks and such. Why the disconnect? An article in this week's New Yorker argues that individuals desire to protect themselves (believing big cars to be safer than small), and to be more powerful (using horsepower, for example), so they buy big cars.
Will electric cars ever really replace gasoline powered cars? One of the things Big Oil companies might have to fear is the development of a practical and affordable electric car. And that is what is likely coming our way in the fairly near future. With instability reigning in top oil producing regions of the world, many people are jittery about relying on foreign oil and about the volatility of oil prices. This is providing some impetus to companies (including car makers in Detroit) to develop electric cars that work well and are reasonably priced....
One year ago today at TreeHugger, variety was the spice of life. We had our eyes on a bunch of different things, from a water-saving dual-flush retrofit system for your current bowl to Wildcard Creative's wildly creative cardboard bench; a 99% recycled, 100% recyclable place for you and up to 49 of your closest friends to park your keester; to an Israeli company and a Californian company planning to work together toward the common goal of developing cost effective, energy-efficient biofuel made from micro-algae feeding off of carbon dioxide emissions.
And that's not all; there was Ronald McHummer's Sign-O-Matic, a way to carve your own wooden kayak, a review of Seventh Generation's "Naturally Clean" book and some of the geo-politics wearing helmets when you bike...whew! It was a pretty interesting day, all in all; hit the jump for a full list of the posts that turn back the clock to one year ago....
Earlier this year in Germany, the courts decided that a bicyclist shares responsibility for pain and suffering from head injuries received in an accident if they are not wearing a helmet(1). So although it is not required by law to wear a helmet, bicyclists may be entitled to substantially less compensation in the event of an accident.
Of course, any urban warrior amid the tons of pollution-spewing steel claiming ownership of the roads knows that the head is only a small part of the utterly naked exposure cyclists feel. Those of us wearing helmets are motivated mostly by "umbrella karma": if you wear your helmet, you won't crash, akin to the observation that it only rains when you forget your brolly.
But even the most committed safety advocate faces that awkward moment, trying to figure where to stash their melon-mantle at the shop or during the train stretch of a bike-ride-bike commute. The Stash provides a solution. The sides of this helmet fold in, significantly reducing the helmet's volume to the point where it could be stored in a corner of a briefcase or backpack. A video of the helmet design in the anvil-drop test demonstrates that the unique concept surpasses the safety requirements for impact reduction. ...
Ed Hammer invented the CFL in 1976 for General Electric. Squeezing a fluorescent into a bulbous shape wasn't easy; "I was given a number of reasons why it wouldn't work," he told Michael Kanellos of News.com, who writes: Bulbs and fluorescent light are not a natural combination. Fluorescent lights are ordinarily tube-shaped. Curving them into a bulb shape creates reflective losses, i.e. light that shines from one part of the tube gets deflected by a nearby spiral. Through a lot of trial and error, he came up with a way to space the spirals far enough apart to minimize losses without also losing a bulb-like shape.
As is so typical of so many great ideas, GE sat on it. CFL's would have needed a $25 million plant. "So they decided to shelve it," Hammer said. They didn't even license it, but the design leaked out. So much for ecoimagination! ::ZDNet...
In the middle of a heat wave, the Tennessee Valley Authority has been forced to shut down a reactor at Browns Ferry. because water drawn from the Tennessee River was exceeding a 90-degree average over 24 hours, amid a blistering heat wave across the Southeast. "We don't believe we've ever shut down a nuclear unit because of river temperature," said John Moulton, spokesman for the Knoxville, Tenn.-based utility. They are buying power elsewhere and was already imposing a surcharge because of lower hydroelectric power production caused by drought conditions.
This was discussed in an earlier post: ""We're going to have to solve the climate-change problem if we're going to have nuclear power, not the other way around. As the climate warms up, nuclear power plants are less able to deliver." Same is true of coal fired plants, and we are getting lots more of those. " ::Houston Chronicle...
TreeHugger likes to promote smart use of space, efficient use of materials and creating more function with less of both (that's space and materials). That's why we like the concept behind "The Ethical Kitchen," a project by Alexandra Sten Jørgensen, a recent graduate of the contemporary design course at Buckinghamshire Chilterns University in England. For those who can't fit their kitchen into a single, compact kitchen cart, something like the this would do quite nicely. The Ethical Kitchen requires proper recycling of water and composting of food waste to nourish the plant, and has systems set up for both; if you don't do enough, the plan(e)t will wilt and die. Dig in to more pics and the designer's statement about the kitchen after the jump....
Vikram Vij is the chef of Vij's, one of the star restaurants in Vancouver. In the Globe and Mail this week, Mr. Vij extols the virtues of shopping at your local farmer's market and then going home and cooking the family dinner together. I happen to agree. For a number of years my teenage son and I cooked dinner together every night. It was wonderful to talk about our day while we chopped and stirred and listened to music. But for most working people this is just not practical during the week. So the recipe that Mr. Vij has provided is pretty simple using ingredients you can get anywhere. Well, almost. I am at the cottage and the general store doesn't have curry leaves so I substituted curry powder and it was still delicious. The recipe looks long, but half of the ingredients are spices, so don't let that put you off. My husband thought this was a bit wintry for August. I don't know if that was because he was thinking we usually grill vegetables or serve salads or that he associates cauliflower and eggplant with cooler weather. Our August evenings are beginning to cool off, so it seems just right to me.
Coconut Curried Vegetables...
The Toronto architectural critic wonders, " It's great, this good ecological consciousness that's all the rage, but, in the final analysis, do so-called green technologies actually work? Is it possible that human beings and the things we do are just naturally too dirty and expensive, and that all the green inventions in the world can't get rid of our big, ugly carbon footprints?"
He asks this while damning a Stanford Downey project with faint praise- "If it's aesthetically a cut above most social housing in Toronto, the staid design of the 11-storey tower is still not the kind of exceptional architecture we should expect in our inner city. The last thing we need there is another residential project that looks like a motel at an expressway interchange."
But he is really there to review the technologies that make a green building. ...
"Global warming" or "carbon neutrality" aren't usually the first words that pop to mind when you say "silver jewelry," but that's what the BE CARBON NEUTRAL collection of special edition jewelry is going for. Mentioned by TH pal Summer Rayne Oakes on a recent House & Garden magazine video podcast (we mentioned it yesterday), the collection of jewelry is made from reclaimed silver in a carbon-neutral production shop in Manhattan by jewelry designer Anthony Aletto. Featuring a range of jewelry including rings (pictured above), pendants, necklaces, bracelets and more, the purchase of each product results in the neutralization of one month of your carbon emissions.
While TreeHugger agrees that carbon offsets are not a silver bullet-solution to climate change, nor an excuse to cover up your continued pumping of carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere at will, we like the business model. Distilling global warming down to a personal level is tough -- it's a big, big problem -- so providing tangible context in the form of beautiful jewelry is beneficial to anyone who thinks the problem is too big to deal with and doesn't know how to help, and to anyone who wants to buy jewelry (and for whom plastic or cork won't do the job) while considering the planet's best interests at the same time. Hit the jump for more details and more pics, including what Al Gore looks like wearing a piece from the collection. ::BE CARBON NEUTRAL...
Australia's Collins and Turner's design for Brazil
The Living Steel competition tries to "inspire people to think about how housing can be made more efficient with steel, from design through construction, use and end-of-life." 1100 designers submitted to the 2nd International Architecture Competition for Sustainable Housing competing for €300,000 in prizes, with designs for three prototypical sites in Brazil, China and the UK. Now the judges have winnowed them down to a short list of 18 interesting entries, with the winner being announced September 17. ::Living Steel They are also running a contest: win an iPod if you pick the winner. ::Living Steel Contest...
Part of the Crandall Canyon mine shaft and miners tools are seen in this video taken Aug. 12.
Three more have died at the Crandall Mine while trying to dig out the six previously trapped. Jeff Biggers gives us another reason why coal is evil: safety.
Calling all sustainable designers: Verdant is launching a design showcase and resource center and they're looking for a few good green gurus, whether your focus is on textiles, furniture, lighting, technology, transportation, appliances, or fashion.
"We're looking not only for the aesthetically beautiful, but also something with a story," says Victoria Foraker, curator of Verdant's The Green Room, which will have its official opening on Sept. 19 at the New York Design Center. "We want designers ranging from the super-green to people just catching on in that design process."
For more information, check out the press release below.
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We've often heard the media and government officials talk up the potential for a future hydrogen economy to revolutionize the way we consume and produce energy. And while we've seen some promising applications of hydrogen as a fuel source in the last few months, it still seems very unlikely that we'll ever see a hydrogen-based energy market on the scale that some are envisioning. That's not to say that some scientists aren't still trying to gradually make this a reality: Craig Grimes, a professor of electrical engineering at Penn State University, has just announced that he and his team are close — in their words, "only a couple of problems away" — to developing a cheap, viable photoelectrolytic technology, that is one that would split water into hydrogen and oxygen by using sunlight.
While most current hydrogen production processes split hydrogen from natural gas — an inefficient technique that consumes energy and produces greenhouse gases — Grimes' method would rely on thin films made of titanium iron oxide nanotube arrays that could split water under natural light. According to Grimes, this method is much more eco-friendly since it only requires the natural energy of sunlight and doesn't produce GHGs....
The words on the front of the new Nativa furniture storefront in San Diego pretty much say it all: "Soon We Will Prove That Artistry And Luxury Can Sustain Nature, Art Never Loses Meaning, True Beauty Endures." Powered by 156 solar panels, the new Nativa store (full disclosure: Nativa is a client of The Change, whose founder, Jerry Stifelman, is a TreeHugger guest poster. TreeHugger Sami Grover also moonlights for The Change) will feature an exclusive range of artisan-quality home furnishings, 85-90% of which will be crafted with FSC-certified rainforest woods. Nativa's stance on timber certification represents an alternative to the destructive practices common in the furniture industry, demonstrating a way of doing business that preserves the Amazon rainforest and its indigenous people.
The collection of Spanish and Mediterranean-inspired furniture (the "Campo" dining table is above) features artisan joinery techniques like tongue and groove, mortise and tenon, butterfly and dovetail joints, helping insure that the furniture is as sturdy as it is artistic. About the craftsmanship, Mario Scolari, Nativa's founder and CEO, says, "Unlike most furniture stores today, we don't sell anything from China. The world's most talented craftspeople are right here in South America -- and so are most of the world's FSC-certified tropical rainforests. There's only one reason I know of to import furniture from Asia — low cost. Costs are low because people are being paid incredibly low wages, quality is inferior, and because no one is watching out for the environment, or speaking up for the forests." ...
That was the tagline for a microcar manufacturer in the 50's; some of them got a hundred miles to the gallon. Lots of former airplane manufacturers made them; perhaps the most elegant was the Italian designed Isetta, built by BMW. Avi Abrams notes that it "evokes the feelings of sophisticated European romance like no other small-budget car. It was seen in many movies of the era, and was quite popular for many years and earned many names. French called it "yogurt pot", Germans "coffin on wheels" (apparently disdaining very little space inside), Italians "little eggs".
Now of course, we can't drive these kinds of things, because we have to go 70 MPH and carry tons of stuff. Yet 50 years ago people even hooked up trailers and went camping with them....
Did you attend Step It Up back in April? Many of us TreeHuggers did and because of its success, Bill McKibben has announced that he’ll be organizing another for this coming November 3rd. But he can't do it without the help of all of us. The follow-up event will aim to lobby politicians to pass meaningful legislation to regulate emissions of greenhouse gases. And yes, the date is exactly one year before the next election. “We’ll find out who the real leaders are,” the Step It Up website says. Within our communities, McKibben asks people to organize rallies to take place in some spot that commemorates great leaders of the past. McKibben says, “People have already committed to climbing New Hampshire's Mt. Washington and gathering in Chicago's Lincoln Park. Others will gather at the Rhode Island church where John F. Kennedy was married (hey, that’s only a few blocks from where I live!), or in front of a site honoring Navajo elder and activist Roberta Blackgoat. But we need hundreds more, gatherings in places that bear the names of national leaders or of locally celebrated men and women who did the right thing in a moment of great need.” We encourage you to get involved in your local community, to become a leader, and to tell Congress to Step It Up! ::Step It Up 2007...
There's a right way to negotiate a refinery wastewater discharge permit limit that affects huge numbers of people around a resource of international prominence. You get all the stakeholders around a table, state the goal, examine the trade-offs, and put the best ideas for a solution forward. At the end of the meeting, participants agree to meet again and report on the issues outstanding and progress made. Because people need fuel and water and aquatic life and tourism and boating and white sand beaches.
Chicago's Mayor Daley and his staff, the USEPA Regional Office people, BP, and others, deserve credit for agreeing to get together at last, even if the opportunity was created by controversy. It's a wonder that BP did not ask for such a meeting at the outset, being already a bit overdrawn on it's credibility account? Amazing how often corporations forget that being legally 'in the right' is less important than the 'red-faced test.'
"BP, which aggressively markets itself as an environmentally friendly corporation, sought to dump more ammonia and suspended solids into Lake Michigan as part of a $3.8 billion expansion that will enable the refinery to process more heavy Canadian crude oil. Officials justified the increase in part by noting that the project will create 80 permanent jobs and 2,000 construction jobs...Indiana regulators also exempted the company from meeting tough limits on mercury pollution for the next five years."...
When we last heard of China's renewed efforts to block a relentlessly advancing Gobi desert and claw back some terrain for its farmers, government officials seemed confident that their "green wall" would prove successful in accomplishing these difficult tasks. It now looks as though their optimism may have been misguided: local authorities across China are now sounding the alarms and ordering farmers and growers to leave so that their fields can be replanted with native grasses. They hope that the grasses will help revive the barren lands and stop the encroaching sand dunes.
While these officials have experienced some measure of success in reclaiming land over the past few years — primarily through the imposition of strict grazing and planting regimes — this latest call to retreat is an implicit admission of defeat for an increasingly beleaguered Chinese government. According to researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, China has had an average annual land loss of close to 950 sq. miles to desertification — which, in combination with the country's rapid residential and industrial development, has resulted in more than 10,500 residents having to relocate over the next 3 years. ...
Fat-cat designers draining limited-edition buckets of Cristal and swinging from Swarovski chandeliers at the Gdansk Biennial… where did it all go wrong?
One should be careful what they wish for, it may come back and actually happen, but Icon magazine makes some good points in this article about how our consumer society (and the designers working in it) needs a time-out. Some examples:
£100,000 speakers
This year Ross Lovegrove made a two-metre-high speaker system encased in super-formed aluminium worth £100,000 for British audio brand KEF. Do they sound any better? Who cares?
Degeneration
We’re running out of derelict factories to turn into luxury lofts. Pretty soon there’ll be nowhere left for designers to live. Enough regeneration – bring on degeneration.
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Pardon the pun, but Danish manufacturers of amplifiers, telephones, music systems and speakers, Bang & Olufsen, were apparently working with our beloved life cycle assessment for ten years before they decided to call it quits. Why? It seems the Danish company learned what they needed to learn from the ISO regulated methodology and wanted to focus on what the results were telling them. Lone Nielson, the quality and environmental consultant at the company told the LCA Center in Denmark that, “The LCAs kept showing the same - That our largest impact is the energy consumption of the products. Therefore, we decided to stop making the analysis and instead concentrate on using the experience. But we are ready to conduct life cycle assessments on possible new product types because in this area LCA is a strong tool.”
B & O’s amplifier technology provides better efficiency while reducing energy consumption. About 99% of the power supplied to an amp turns into heat and is wasted. The heat has to escape somehow so most amplifiers are equipped with large cooling plates. B&O have created an amplifier technology (ICEpower®) that does not require said cumbersome cooling plate. It consumes 10 times less electricity than a regular amplifier, thus a smaller power supply and no need for the cooling plate. The benefits are not only reduced energy consumption, but material reduction, which you can see in their little amplifier products. ...
Jennifer Siegel nails it again, with her term "new nomadism", describing the trend towards mobile, lightweight, eco-friendly lifestyles. We're working and living in a very different way, and yet our buildings have remained static, heavy structures. Our cars are smart, our clothing is smart, our materials are smart and our buildings are still these heavy boxes."
Jennifer uses examples like Burning Man, Glastonbury or even RV cities like Quartzite in Arizona that mushrooms from 3,000 in summer to 100,000 in winter, when it is over-run by snowbirds from Canada and northern states: instant cities composed of mobile, portable buildings.
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When it comes to fashion, girls have all the fun! There’re 50 selections for a woman with any comparable item for a man. In the realm of eco-fashion, the opportunity for a guy to both achieve a look of refinement while being earth-friendly has been practically non-existent. The only options the male species has had in the past are the causal, but unremarkable, organic cotton t-shirt, or perhaps a pair of organic cotton jeans that lacked a sense of flair – not every greenie guy wants to simply blend into the background with his wardrobe and in the it’s-best-to-impress-business-world of the urban jungle, there’s a necessity to stand out. ...
When people head off on vacation, it’s unfortunately not all that unusual for them to purchase items from endangered species that they may either knowingly or unknowingly bring back to the U.S. or their own country of origin. Turns out the Afghan people have discovered a burgeoning trade in the sale of furs from certain endangered species that soldiers have provided the primary market for… Of course, they’re certainly not on vacation, but that doesn’t prevent them from wanting to bring something unique back either. That’s why the military and the EPA are starting a joint operation to educate soldiers about the legal fines of up to $100,000 for knowingly shipping or bringing back the parts of endangered species, as well as the fact that they’re simply not going to be allowed to ship them to begin with… And while I’m not fool enough to think there won’t be at least one person who will figure out a way to beat the system, I am genuinely hopeful that the vast majority of soldiers will do the right thing once they realize what they’ve actually been doing. I mean really, how many of us are readily aware that in Afghanistan the Marco Polo sheep exists and is endangered? I must admit that I certainly didn’t, and there’s no guarantee even the Afghans themselves understand which of their local species are endangered. So the campaign to educate soldiers will also spend time working to educate the Afghan people as to what an endangered species actually is, and that leaving them be is the best way to protect it for future generations. But I must admit that there's a certain irony in all of this, as the endangered species list is itself becoming endangered in the U.S.... An unfortunate example of "Do as I say and not as I do"?
via:: American Forces Press Service...
Bottled water bashing has been an ongoing theme at Treehugger and for good reason: plastic bottles destroy the environment and why pay for what nature gives us. Lately there have been restaurants that have stopped serving it and it has been proven that tap water is just as safe, or safer than bottled. In London, studies have shown that 99.98% of samples of tap water meet industry standards so there seems little reason to drink anything else. Time Out magazine asked a jury to blind-taste six popular brands of bottled water, plus one from the tap. Their findings: they gave tap water from the Thames and River Lea the best score, 4 out of 5. One taster said "It's likeHighland river water. High acidity from a peaty soil. I really like it. The best."
They compared Volvic, Spa, Vittel, Pret a Manger, Fiji and Evian. The funny thing about their comments is that they guessed that each of the bottled waters was tap water (Pret a Manger: "tastes like tap water. The aftertaste is awful. Definitely the worst.") And they guessed all of the brands wrongly, thought Volvic was Evian, and Spa was Volvic. One tip: tap water tastes best chilled--the colder the water, the harder it is to tell its source. So save your money, go green and stick with nature's own. :: Time Out ...
We're glad His Honor noticed the water bottle thing. Like he said, bottled water produces tons of plastic empties. And few get recycled. It's a problem even in the town with the biggest, baddest water plant in the world and a high quality surface water supply.
""Mayor Daley is a bottled water guzzler who's often seen hydrating after heated news conferences. He's also an avowed environmentalist who's determined to make Chicago the "greenest city in America." Mayor Daley has, reportedly, "all but endorsed a proposal by one of his staunchest City Council supporters to slap a tax of anywhere from 10 to 25 cents on the cost of every bottle of water sold in Chicago.""
The City has to pay people to pick up the plastic empties. Why not recoup the expense of cleaning up after careless consumption?
""Money-wise, it's a good idea. Environmental-wise, it's a good idea, too....There's so much plastic in our lives. It's amazing. Every time you look, there's plastic all over," Daley said Tuesday."
(The International Bottled Water Association (lobby front for the bottlers) responded by saying that what would be a first-in-the-nation tax unfairly singles out the bottled water industry for a much larger environmental problem caused by packaging of all kinds."
Uh Oooh: somebody just admitted there's a problem. Woodshed time on K Street.
Go get 'em Mayor. We want to see this happen. Cause so many pretend green cities will copy-cat it.
Via:: Chicago Sun Times Image credit:: Google Earth, Chicago waterfront, Jardine Water Treatment Plant (top center)....
We've told you a bit about the amazingly versatile and sustainable tagua nut before. Known as vegetable ivory, tagua is collected from the unsurprisingly named Ivory Nut Palm, which grows in the rainforests of South America. Crucially the nuts can only be collected once they are fully ripened and have fallen off the tree, otherwise they will not dry out to a sufficient quality for the artisans to use. During my recent time in Ecuador I saw a lot of tagua hand crafts: buttons, miniature sculptures and jewellery, but none had quite the flare of the Palma Collection. These jewellery pieces really exploit the potential of tagua to create dynamic shapes and vibrant colours. ...
Do you hate walking into candle and soap shops, or drugstores that reek of perfume? That headachy and head-spinning feeling shouldn’t be ignored. Chances are that you have sensitive olfactory glands warning you that something isn’t good for your body. A whole host of nasty products go into synthetic smells, and some are poisonous. So if your nose knows that something isn’t smelling right, it probably isn’t. A team of Israeli “sniffers” have taken their smell sense to a whole new level and are cracking down on environmental polluters.
"We go to the place with at least four sniffers," says “sniff” team coordinator Yisrael Oppenheim, from the Ministry of Environmental Protection, "[we] stand at a few locations in the area of the odor source, and detect whether it is food aromas, chemicals or manure, and determine the intensity of the smell at that moment." ...
Dear EcoGeek,
My parents are always bugging me about computer usage and how the computers are sucking up energy. I want to know what I can do so that my computer doesn't waste so much energy? I totally wanna go green and save the Earth from Global Warming!
- Lukas
Hey Lukas,
You probably won't be surprised to discover that I spend quite a bit of time thinking about this very question. First, you should let your parents to know that your computer, with all of it's amazing opportunities for educational, economic and social advancement likely uses less power than the light bulbs in that share the room with it.
Most desktop computers use between 100 to 150 watts. Now, this goes way up if you've got some kind of monster high-end gaming system, but 100 watts is a pretty good energy investment for what these glorious machines give us...in my opinion anyhow.
But that doesn't mean that they're aren't steps you can take to decrease your computer's power usage. ...
Ed. note: We're now up to the sixth post in the Green Basics series of posts that TreeHugger is writing to provide basic information about important ideas, materials and technologies for new greenies (or those who just need a quick refresher). Read on and stay tuned!
What are electric cars?
The electric vehicle (EV), or, more colloquially, electric car, is gaining traction as a viable alternative form of personal transportation, and remains just out of arms' reach as a mainstream way to get around. An electric car runs on energy stored in large packs of batteries instead of the more conventional internal combustion engine, making it very attractive to those concerned with using less oil and causing fewer greenhouse gas emissions. When driving, they don't emit any carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gas, nor any nitrogen oxide or other smog-forming compound. The first electric car to be commercially available in the US, General Motors' EV1, is pictured above, and much was made about who killed the electric car; keep reading to get the scoop on whodunit....
Stalagmites and trees probably aren't the first places you'd think to look for records of past hurricanes. But that's exactly what Amy Frappier, a geochemist at Boston College, and her colleagues have been doing for the past few years — investigating the stalagmite formations' growth layers for chemical fingerprints left behind by storms — and are now doing in the caves on Mexico's Yucatan peninsula.
At the same time, a team of researchers from the University of Tennessee has been searching for the same tell-tale fingerprints in tree rings — in samples gathered from a region of woods in Georgia. The trees have provided them with a record of hurricane activity stretching back almost 220 years.
All these recent efforts have focused on bringing to light the likelihood that storms will intensify as the climate continues to change. Because scientists agree that historical records obtained from aircraft and satellites fail to provide an adequate enough picture, there has been growing interest in the budding field of paleotempestology — the study of past tropical cyclone activity through geological proxies....
TreeHugger teamed up with our pals at House & Garden magazine and the good people of Teragren to produce a series of video podcasts, all about the fabulous world of green. Hosted by TreeHugger's own Jacob Gordon (that's him on the left, above -- sorry, ladies, he's taken!) and featuring green all-stars like Summer Rayne Oakes, Josh Dorfman and Greg Kiss, the "Green & Gorgeous" podcasts delve into subjects like fashion, beauty, furniture and architecture, each with a green twist. Each video is sort of a "current greatest hits" of the gorgeous green world, featuring ideas, projects and products that can help the world go green and look good doing so. Click on over to H&G's site to learn more and watch the videos. ::House & Garden...
We TreeHugger writers are sometimes advised that society 'can't buy its way out of climate change' solely by shopping for green "stuff" and reshaping individual lifestyles. Similarly, the folks are Grist are fond of saying that the prospect of runaway climate change means we need 'big solutions.' Fair enough from both quarters. We'd like to add third prerequisite for achieving a better environment: bare knuckle politics are a necessity when vested interests 'lay down in front of the progress bus.' For a contemporary example of this point, we turn to a U.S. City with a long standing reputation for high skills in this area: Chicago.
"Chicago city vehicles would no longer use BP-issued gas credit cards until the company backtracks on plans to dump more pollutants into Lake Michigan [pictured] under an order drafted by Ald. Edward Burke (14th)..."
Context: this issue relates to plans for increasing the capacity of the BP owned Whiting Refinery south of Chicago. The proposed upgrade will enable this very old refinery...located on what was once a marsh continuous to Lake Michigan..to handle large quantities of Alberta Tar Sands crude. On the one hand, Lake Michigan water will have to assimilate the waste products of refining increased volumes of Alberta "sour" crude. On the other hand, Chicago is one of the few American cities with a sustainable and clean water supply, plus numerous extensive beaches adjacent to the city center. (Chicago and many of its suburbs obtain their drinking water from Lake Michigan intakes located a scant few miles from the Whiting refinery discharge, which is on the southwestern tip of the Lake.)...
Photo credit: Johns Hopkins University
We'd have used a picture of flesh-eating bacteria dilligently at work, but all our options made us want to disgorge the contents of our stomachs, so here's a nonthreatening—dare we say even cuddly?—microscopic look at the insidious beasties themselves. In reassuring monochrome. (This was a close second.)
Now that our breakfasts are properly secured, we can tell you that scientists at the University of Hull and Kent in the U.K. warn of a dramatic uptick in the numbers of people suffering Leishmaniasis, a flesh-eating and sometimes fatal disease, should global warming continue its current course.
This festive disease is caused by a parasite transmitted through the bites of sand flies, found typically only in tropical climes. As temperatures increase, however, so will the number of countries the sand fly will find inhabitable, as it moves further north and through Europe, say university scientists. ...
That seems to be the sentiment reached by several million people in Britain, according to the results of a recent government survey. Fully a quarter of the people polled agreed with the statement "It takes too much effort to do things that are environmentally friendly." Another quarter agreed with the statement "I don't believe my behavior and everyday lifestyle contribute to climate change." On the other hand, close to half of the people polled disagreed with those statements.
The survey was carried out by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and polled about 3,600 people about issues such as transport, buying habits and waste recycling. Out of all the issues the public thought the government should address, the environment was the fourth most commonly mentioned — though fewer placed it as a priority now than in years past (19% now vs. 25% in 2001). This was most likely the result of crime and immigration looming large in the minds of more individuals....
We're willing to bet that many of you out there use water-pitcher filters — whether it be the Brita filters or the PUR variety. Indeed, according to representatives of those companies (not necessarily the most impartial observers, we know), close to 35% of American households use them. So while the following story may not come as a surprise to some of you, we're sure it'll still be news to many: the Ontario Ministry of the Environment Canada has just revealed that water-pitcher filters don't reduce lead concentrations to sufficient standards in tap water from areas where there are elevated levels of the metal — because they don't remove lead particles.
NSF International — the organization that certifies water filters — recently updated its website listing for filters to meet its newly implemented, more rigorous NSF-53 standard for curtailing lead in drinking water. To meet these new standards, filters must be able to remove not only soluble lead — which wasn't originally covered — but also lead particles. The filters need to reduce overall levels to below 10 ppb (parts per billion) to pass. Officials found that no water-pitcher filters met the higher standards. ...
Jimmybund says "It's hard for a thoughtful person to trust anyone when everyone on the left argues that there is a scientific consensus on the issue and everyone on the right claims the exact opposite! How do we sift through all the politics and bias to uncover the truth? "
It really isn't a left and right split anymore; many Democrats from coal states are among the worst deniers and delayers, and even Rupert Murdoch has bought into climate change. Joseph Romm says that there was a concerted and effective campaign to convince Americans that the science was not proven, but even Frank Luntz, who masterminded it, has been converted. Mostly there is nobody left on the denier side but the oil companies and their PR flacks now. There are lots of delayers still, who don't know how the world will live without coal or SUVs or monster homes, but they are worried. So what to read? ...
Not to be confused with the Wee House or this wacky contraption, Wee Generation is an "all-star green team dedicated to educating parents on a healthy, "living home" and smart choices for baby. Most recently, Sheryl Crow lent her support to Wee Generation; check out the video of her chatting it up. More generally, it's a collaboration between our pals at Seventh Generation, Healthy Child Healthy World and babystyle.
The Wee Generation green team's primary goal is to provide parents with easy steps to a healthy home. The team is also developing an environmentally-safe, fashion-forward (read: non-ugly) baby bag -- they're going for Cradle-to-Cradle certification! -- and they want your input! Surf on over to the Design the Bag section of their site to lend your design and environmental sensibility, and be sure to sign up to be notified when the bags hit the street. Learn more over at ::Wee Generation...
14,000 posts and still there are gems out there we’re slow to unearth. Take Specialbike, for instance. This British company, based in occasionally sunny Brighton, take the daggy cast-offs of the bicycle world, and like a phoenix rising from the ashes, affect a reincarnation. Basically they find a frame with the right end-use function and geometry for each customer. From a woman’s step thru frame with groovy shopping basket, to a hill hooning MTB. They strip them down and send ‘em off for sand blasting and a powder coating - in your selection from a kaleidoscope of cheery colours. Next they’ll reassemble your custom steed with appropriate components. Voila! Where once was a rusty looking heap, with dirt grimed gears, now stands a fresh bike, ready for new adventures. Specialbike say that, with about two million bikes sold in the UK annually, there is no shortage of old frames to work their magic on. Not only do they recover the frames, but where the components are of sufficient calibre they’ll give those a second lease of life too, often pairing them with some new parts. As they say, ‘the result is not cheap, but nor is it expensive’ — for a custom bike, anyhow. Prices have ranged from £250 to £1,000. They also stock some one-off models, if dreaming up your own custom bike does your head in. We particularly liked the tone of writing on their site. A little like the casual, personal style we enjoyed from Swobo. Anyhow, if you are in Blighty do look them up. ::Specialbike, via David Report....
If you've got cats or kids crawling around on rugs and furniture, lets do the good news part first...natural fiber area rugs, natural flooring materials, and natural fiber upholstered furniture items are, in general, are very fashionable. And green. A little bad news though: those cat scratch things made of old carpet ends are perhaps not so good.
An article in Environmental Research and Technology Online "documents that house cats can have extraordinarily high concentrations of polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE) flame retardants in their blood. Janice Dye, a veterinary internist at the U.S. EPA's National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory (NHEERL), and her colleagues say their findings suggest that "chronic [cumulative] low-dose PBDE exposure may be more endocrine-disrupting than would be predicted by most short-term or even chronic PBDE exposure studies in laboratory rodents." They contend that cats can serve as sentinels for chronic human exposure—of both children and adults—to the persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic compounds.
"PBDEs are known to impair thyroid functioning. They have been used since the late 1970s as flame retardants in household products, including upholstered furniture, carpet padding, and electronics. During that same time period, the incidence of a cat thyroid ailment, known as feline hyperthyroidism, has risen dramatically..."...
That seems to be the case as there’s word out of Europe that the Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP) in the UK is looking into banning cars from school zones, not to protect students from being hit by a car, but instead to get kids to walk more. And to be honest, the biggest reason they’re looking into it is to reduce the waistlines of kids in the UK, who are rapidly catching up to their counterparts in the U.S. by packing on the pounds due, in part, to a sedentary lifestyle facilitated by the good old-fashioned automobile. In fact, it seems parents in the UK are averaging 27 miles more per year carting their kids to school than they did back in 1982, with Brits of all ages average 20 miles less per year walking than in the 70s. And researchers at the IEEP say that walking an extra hour per week will save 28lbs of fat over the course of a decade. Of course, losing all that weight will be terrific for the health and well being of the UK population, but I’m looking at all that reduced driving and thinking of the reductions in CO2 emissions it will bring… Of course, they’ve already been having some great events inside the UK to encourage kids to walk to school, as they even carpeted a whole street with grass and plants for a day just to make it a bit more entertaining. And just think, if there are no exceptions to this “no car” rule, even for really severe weather, then this generation of students will be able to one day tell their kids how they “walked 5 miles up hill to school, both ways, in the snow and in the ice,” just like my dad did…
via:: Autoblog.com...
There has been a lot of demolition going on as houses are demolished for new monsters or renovated, and a number of different ways to get rid of the stuff that comes out, much of which has value. Usually the better ways to ensure re-use are Habitat for Humanity or non-profit deconstruction companies. An interesting idea out of Chicago joins the mix: Murco Recycling holds auctions of the building components, IN PLACE, in the house to be stripped. It has a loyal base, a "consolidated, well educated, group of buyers that show up on the day of auction, with tools, transportation and cash." And, they have to strip the stuff out and take it away by 5:00 the same day. Themselves. The gang of customers is known as the Homewreckers Club; "They'll take it all; the bushes, the windows-they'll take a nail out of a board if it's the kind they were looking for," says one builder clearing a site for a monster home.
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What was that phrase Professor Prangnell used to say? "Economy of means, Generosity of ends." I was reminded of it seeing this simple off-grid structure. The architect says:
Environmental Graffiti: Bio-fuels and Supermarkets kill orangutans by Mary King
"Indonesia and Malaysia together produce 83 percent of the world’s palm oil. In 2004, the Indonesian government released a plan calling for the conversion of 40,000 square miles of Borneo to palm plantations by the end of the decade. Borneo currently supports the largest surviving wild orangutan population. However, environmental groups fear this may not be true for much longer, as the primates are rapidly losing their habitat due to the deforestation."
Good Clean Tech: 50 Mile-Per-Gallon... Plane! by Steven Volynets
"Yep. This beauty is known as Pipistrel Virus. The Slovenian-built single engine, two-seat plane was the winner of NASA-sponsored Personal Aircraft Vehicle (PAV) challenge. That's right. NASA and Café Foundation believe that aircraft like Pipistrel Virus could be the working prototypes of future flying cars!" ...
Designer Anna Mkhitarian reinvents that tired hippie standard—the ol' peace sign—into physical, wearable mantras that, though unsubtle, remind us what our groovy voyage on Spaceship Earth is all about.
Generously sprinkled with a random selection of mini embossed hearts, flowers, and, okay, peace signs, each recycled-sterling-silver pendant measures 3/16 of an inch thick and 1 1/4-inch long, and weighs around 5 grams—light enough to be nearly weightless when worn, but with sufficient heft when palmed so it doesn't feel chintzy. (We borrowed the Love necklace, which included a skinny snake chain with a lobster clasp, for a few days because TreeHugger is an unstinting believer in the scientific method.) The chains measure 16 or 18 inches, depending on availability. ...
We always quote architect Donald Chong: "Small fridges make good cities."- the principle being that if you shop locally and fresh from a neighbbourhood store, you don't need much space. (and vice versa: if you don't have much space you shop a lot locally) Thus we were really intrigued by Norcool's Scandinavian works-in-a-drawer fridge. Everything lays out neatly and accessibly and it integrates beautifully into kitchen cabinetry.
We have also noted that chest type fridges and freezers are extraordinarily efficient because cold air sinks, so you can open the door of a chest design without all the cold air spilling out onto the floor. We immediately thought that a drawer type fridge would be perfect. ...
It’s a tough life being green, and now it looks like the ecologically concerned don’t even get respite from their ethics when they die. Green funerals are increasingly becoming a big deal, but it’s not just related to burial. That’s why we’ve seen BBC’s Ethical Man considering composting his own corpse, and India has been getting in on the act by introducing less harmful funeral pyres. Now we read from the ever-trusty Guardian that a British crematorium is aiming to cut its emissions by only firing up when there are enough bodies to burn. Unfortunately, some funeral directors feel this risks upsetting members of the public, who want to get the understandably distressing task over with as quickly as possible:
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We call it wearing the clothes from our cupboard,she calls it art. Can we survive without the retail buzz that we get from shopping? "Can a person wear, in heavy rotation, the equivalent of one suitcase worth of clothing for an entire year and survive and be "normal" in modern America?" To examine this question, for one long year the artist Alex Smith Brown wore only the clothes from her closet; "I wore only things I made myself (clothes, jewelry, shoes, underwear, bags, everything) and my source materials were clothing items already in my possession - a completely closed loop, 100% recycled from my own closet." It is the ultimate anti-fashion statement. Last year she wore the same brown dress for an entire year (this girl is tenacious), she called it a "one-woman show against fashion", so this new recycling project was an offshoot of that experience. She wondered if she could claim some sort of complete ownership over an aspect of her life by designing and making everything in her wardrobe.
How did she do it? She wore 2 pairs of trousers, 2 skirts and a pair of shorts. Six tops, one fleece and one coat plus three pairs of shoes and some odds and ends completed her ensemble. In her journal/blog she outlines her trials and tribulations. Her home-made recycled shoes, made from some old leather trousers were a problem so she switched them. Creating new clothes from old was much more time-consuming than she had thought. And her conclusions at the end of the experiment--a person can wear the clothes in her cupboard for an entire year and live happily. But a person does get bored when everything is hand-made and recycled. And shoes start to smell when you wear them for a whole year. :: recycling project :: Via :: Hippyshopper
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It is too bad that Detroit's Kelsey-Hayes Corporation is no longer around; they had something going with their prefab shelters in 1963. We like this one's multifunction space with efficient storage under the beds. The green roof will keep it cool and inconspicuous. ...
Giving new meaning to the term "sleeper sofa" is Doc, a couch that flips up to create a couple of bunk beds. The ingenious space saver uses a patented mechanism to transform a place to lounge into a place to sleep; though the bunk beds are a little Tom-Hanks-in-"Big", anytime you can cut create double function from a single piece, it's a good thing. Live small, host big and get primed for your next sleep over with more pics after the jump. ::Bonbon Trading via ::Freshome...
Somehow the idea of a New York sect of Amitabha Buddhists releasing imported eels frogs and turtles into New Jersey's Passaic River, a body of water already beset with a host of problems, doesn't match up with a 'do no harm' stereotype we westerners may have of Buddhist beliefs, nor with the words of wisdom on their home page. As a result, we'll put this one in the file labeled Outcome Of Good intentions With Lack Of Knowledge.
"Members from a New York sect of Amitabha Buddhists -- devout vegetarians who believe in the sanctity of all living creatures -- said Sunday they had purchased the creatures in New York's Chinatown for the purpose of setting them free. Ann Chin, a member of the group, said on Sunday they chose the Passaic River because it was the nearest body of freshwater to New York City, where the eels, frogs and turtles they let go had the best chance of surviving and realizing their full karmic potential."
"Amitabha, also known as the Pure Land Study of Buddhism, is heavily focused on cause and effect, and the cycle of transmigration."
We're sure that the sea lamprey (pictured above, as it would be in nature, sucking blood), a freshwater ecosystem-destroying marine eel that was introduced to the Great Lakes some time ago, has already reached its full Karmic potential, nearly extirpating the native Lake Trout and putting several other native species at risk. Who knows what other China Town market goodies might be one day accidentally unleashed to find their "karmic potential."
A similar risk of unintended damage accrues from those who, tired of their aquatic pets, release them into the wild, or from fishermen who dump unused live bait in a lake.
Importing live, non-native and invasive species from overseas has negative karma: a huge carbon emissions footprint per kg., plus added risk of destroying an ecosystem. That's a potential we don't need expressed by anyone. It is the consequence of unawareness. No different than denying the science of climate change.
UPDATE: Please see important comment below from Venerable Wuling, Advisor, Amitabha Pureland, where we are advised that the home page for Amitabha is based in Australia and not associated with the subject of this post.
Via:: North Jersey Herald News Image credit:: Sea Lamprey parasitizing Lake Trout, Maricopa University....
Per a study published in Public Library of Science, Biology, and as described by a Reuters News report:- "The current carbon market actually encourages cutting down some of the world's biggest forests, which would unleash tonnes of climate-warming carbon into the atmosphere, a new study reported on Monday."
"The countries that haven't really been the target of deforestation have nothing to sell because they haven't deforested anything," said Gustavo Fonseca, one of the study's authors..."So that creates a perverse incentive for them to actually start deforesting, so that in the future, they might be allowed to actually cap-and-trade, as they call it: you put a cap on your deforestation and you trade that piece that hasn't been deforested," Fonseca said in a telephone interview."
TreeHugger recommends reading the original article if you are interested in lobbying for changes suggested by the authors.
Via:: Reuters Image credit:: Tree Planting, MocoLoco Art Archives...
Today REI Co-op, America’s largest consumer cooperative and outdoor gear emporium announced an initiative to help their customers, and 2.8 million co-op members, find garments made of Eco-Sensitive materials, whether shopping in person at their some 90 stores across the US, or their two on-line stores. And it’s simple really. Garments made from the likes of bamboo, organic cotton, hemp, post-industrial recycled polyester, recycled polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic, polylactic acid (PLA), or organic wool will wear a little hang tag, such you see pictured above. On their website is a link which rounds up all the apparel made from such fabrics. Today it found 25, but by mid next month that should be 40. In the media release, Lee Fromson, vice president of REI Gear & Apparel observed “While we previously offered REI brand clothing that contained environmentally sensitive fibers, we are moving from a grassroots approach to a formalized commitment to environmental performance in our products.” We asked Kevin Hagen, Manager of CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) at REI whether the impetus for formalisation had come from within or from their customer base. His reply: “Very much customer and employee driven. There have been a lot of questions about the “green” factor in products and with “eco-sensitive” we hope to offer solid information and education.” And that’s education, not merely marketing. Go to the eco-sensitive web page and you’ll find the Cons, as well as the Pros for each cloth. ...
After scouring through a ton of quality entries, we have chosen a winner for the Participate! contest. Vinay Gupta's Hexayurt caught our judges' imaginations by using common materials in a completely new way, yielding what Vinay terms a "microbuilding" capable of housing refugees in times of disaster without adding new infrastructure. Here's what Vinay had to say about it,
A lot of the design that gets featured on TreeHugger has a familiar look: lots of wood and bamboo, both chosen for their soft, organic feel, ability to sequester carbon dioxide, and their almost infinite renewability. Missouri-based designer Cole Scego takes a completely different approach to creating sustainable design, using non-renewable (but highly recyclable) materials like aluminum and steel to "produce work that will stand the test of time...I design my work to last, to be handed from one generation to another."
A strict vegetarian, Cole believes that happiness and well-being are strongly associated with your living environment, and he works to create as much happiness as possible with his vibrant, vividly-colored designs. If you've been looking for a pop of color to really tie the room together, this might be it; just be sure that your kids like the color. Hit the jump for more pics and a closer look at his artist's statement. ::Cole Scego Design via ::Land+Living...
Could the adverse weather events that befell Mary Shelley's vacation to Switzerland many years ago have influenced the creation of her famous novel, Frankenstein? Several English and literature scholars now believe that Shelley's book was inspired in part by the unusual weather that characterized many regions of Europe and North America during the early 19th century.
During that period, a volcano called Mount Tambora — located in what is now Indonesia — had erupted, sending vast quantities of dust and sulphur particles into the atmosphere. As a result, Europe and North America were plunged into one of the coldest periods in modern history, a year that became known as "The Year Without a Summer." Having recently eloped with the poet Percy Shelley to Geneva, Shelley found herself writing the book under the influence of the bizarre weather events occurring all around her. Indeed, the final version of Frankenstein contains many references to the weather — including lightning storms, ice and snow....
Ever since we first heard about the Tesla Roadster, folks have been drooling over its sexy looks and lamenting its six-figure price tag. While that works for Jay Leno and Condoleeza Rice, many of the rest of us are left to smile nicely and hope that someone will come up with a battery-powered, zero emission (while it's driving, at least) car. While ZAP has promised a few, one is a 644-horsepower SUV and one isn't even a car (it has three wheels), so the market is still missing the sub-$30,000 electric sedan...until now (maybe).
Miles Automotive Group, featured recently at CNN Money, is promising the $30,000 Miles XS 500 to reach a top speed of 80 miles per hour and a range of 120 miles at 60 miles per hour; six hours of charging in a normal wall socket will top the batteries off. Founder Miles "Per Gallon" Rubin says he'll have 6 prototypes of the XS 500 by the fall, but they still need tinkering to get safety approval from U.S. regulators, plus do additional battery testing, meaning that the real deal could be here by 2009. "The cars will speak for themselves. You can PR it to death, but if it doesn't perform well, it's dead on arrival," he says. We'll just have to wait and see how true that will be. ::Miles Automotive Group via ::CNN Money
Interested in electric cars? Check out: 17 Electric Cars You Must Know About
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As computers grow increasingly powerful, computer chips are becoming more and more densely packed with transistors, the basic building blocks of microprocessors. As a result, a knotty problem is that these faster chips produce more heat. So, unless you are planning to get a water cooled rig, dissipating the heat is a concern.
The classic solution is to use a simple fan to blow the heat away, so the CPU can keep doing its job. But this conventional cooling technique is limited because it suffers from air-flow problems; the molecules nearest the chip often get stuck and remain stationary, hindering the cooling effect. But now some US researchers from Purdue have developed a new "wind engine" that could take computing power to the next level.
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We've heard of some fairly "creative" geo-engineering schemes in the past — to name just a few, there was the giant, orbiting reflector to reduce the amount of sunlight reaching the Earth and the football-field-sized synthetic blankets to cover the Alps — but this one really takes the cake. Some scientists have argued that emulating a volcanic eruption could help mitigate global warming by pumping sulphur particles into the planet's upper atmosphere with rockets — scattering incoming sunlight and cutting down outgoing radiation.
A new study from two scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, CO, has (not suprisingly) cast doubts on this proposal — cautioning that its use would create problems of its own, including potentially disastrous droughts. Examining precipitation and streamflow records dating back to the mid-20th century, Kevin Trenberth and Aiguo Dai found that the eruptions of two volcanoes — Mexico's El Chichón in 1982 and the Philippines' Pinatubo in 1991 — caused large-scale droughts accentuated by substantial decreases in rainfall, runoff and river discharge into oceans. ...
40 -- the percent of deaths worldwide caused by water, air and soil pollution. This is according to David Pimentel, Cornell professor of ecology and agricultural sciences, and a team of Cornell graduate students who examined data from more than 120 published papers on the effects of population growth, malnutrition and various kinds of environmental degradation on human diseases.
Read the rest of the sad story at ::Science Daily via ::Hugg...
In Heat, George Monbiot suggests that big box retail should be stopped dead, and that suburban strip malls and big box stores must be converted to warehouses and distribution centers, which don't need the heating and cooling and lighting of retail outlets. Jim Kunstler says "the activities that have become "normal" for us during the post World War Two era will very shortly become untenable. An economy based on suburban expansion and incessant motoring is on the top of the list of supposedly "normal" activities that will not be able to continue."
Thus I am less than excited about Best Buy's new commitment to mandatory green building with LEED certification.
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Tortillas in Mexico. Beer. Popcorn. Now Gummy bears are under threat as the price of glucose rose 30%. Der Spiegel warns that if crops continue to be more lucrative as biofuels than foodstuffs, then gummy bears could soon become a candy only the rich can afford.
"We're going to maintain current prices through the end of the year," Marco Alfter, a spokesman for Bonn-based gummy bear-maker Haribo, told SPIEGEL. But afterwards, the golden bears could get more expensive. "The decisive factor will be if the government continues to subsidize the burning of food," said Alfter, in reference to government subsidies given to farmers who produce biofuels using crops traditionally used for food.::Der Spiegel via Katie at ::Earth2Tech...
According to New York Magazine, A New Yorker born in 2004 can now expect to live 78.6 years, nine months longer than the average American will. The traditional ways of dying young in New York (homicide, AIDS, and drugs) continue to decline, but so does cancer and heart disease. One reason: people not only walk, they walk fast, faster than anywhere else in the country. “Walking speed absolutely reflects health status,” [epedemiologist Eleanor] Simonsick says. So when you irritatedly blow past a trio of ambling visitors from Ohio or Iowa on the subway platform, you’re not just being an obnoxious New Yorker. You’re demonstrating that you’re going to outlive them—and enjoy better health while they slowly degrade....
Coming after years of intense pressure, the decision by ERCO — one of the country's largest emitters of mercury — to stop using the metal was seen by many in the environmental community as a major victory. A subsidiary of Superior Plus Income Fund, a company based in Toronto, ERCO announced it would convert its chlor-alkali plant outside Port Edwards, WI, to a mercury-free plant in 2009. Until now, the ERCO plant had been one of only five plants in the U.S. using mercury to produce chlorine.
According to federal records, the plant released close to 1,118 pounds of mercury into the air in 2005 — easily making it the largest polluter in Wisconsin and the 15th largest source in the country. Environmentalists had made the case for years that mercury — which falls into lakes, streams and oceans where it enters the food chain — posed a serious threat to public health. Their victory, however, masks a greater uncertainty: namely, what to do with the 200 tons of mercury on hand at ERCO's chlor-alkali plant? ...
The iconic UK architectural magazine ICON asked 50 designers to provide manifestos, an extremely loaded architectural term where architects try to put into words what they stand for, usually incomprehensible, like Peter Eisenman's " The crisis of the spectacular demands a call for a new subjectivity, for a subject removed from the passivity induced by the image and engaged by form in close reading." Yves Behar, shown at left, was straight and to the point; Ken Livingstone, Richard Rogers and Peter Bishop want
"Beautiful and accessible buildings, with low environmental impacts and the ability to adapt to changing uses and a changing climate.
Inspiring, well managed public spaces that everyone can use, from pavements to parks
Neighbourhoods that blend old and new, respecting London’s heritage,
and creating places for a diverse population
Transport infrastructure that makes moving around the city easy,
pleasurable and environmentally responsible"
Some contributors just phoned them in; others are insightful and inspiring. Collect them all at ::Icon
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With a population that approached 1 million and a surface area of more than 115 square miles, the Khmer city of Angkor in Cambodia was the largest preindustrial settlement on the planet. After coming into being during the ninth century A.D., it thrived for 6 centuries as a central hub for commerce and art — rising to eventually become the capital of the Khmer Empire — before it started its rapid and heretofore unaccountable decline. Until very recently, archaeologists had suspected warfare and changing religion were at the root of the settlement's collapse.
A new study has now shown that the key to Angkor's demise may have lied in the technology that made its rapid ascent possible: its highly sophisticated hydraulic system. A technology originally devised to help the city's residents manage and harvest water during the dry season — which involved diverting three major rivers through Angkor's agricultural fields, homes and temples — facilitated their demise when overpopulation and deforestation caused its canals to become filled with sediment. The elaborate waterworks required an extensive redesign of the city's landscape and natural resources — manual labor-intensive changes that soon became unmanageable. According to archaeologist Damien Evans, the lead author on the study, the system thus became "not manageable, no matter how many resources were thrown at it." ...
Attention, Mozilla developers (spread Firefox): TreeHugger has a request. We know that Blackle can save us energy (and have even busted a few myths about its use) and we know that the handy search engine browser add-ons (pictured above, on the right) can save us time. We want to do both! As TreeHuggers, browsing about the internet for the latest in green, we want to walk the walk by using something like Blackle as much as possible, but it requires an extra step or two: either typing it in to Google's search engine add-on, or directly into the URL field, and then waiting for the black page to load. With all the browsing we do, that's a lot of extra steps, and we end up using that handy Google search engine add-on about 6 zillion times a day instead of slowing down to find our way to Blackle.
So, you see, we want to save energy by browsing the black web, but we also want to get stuff done. Please, open source developers: we want a Blackle add-on! ::Blackle, ::Firefox and ::Firefox Add-ons
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Anyone who's ever flipped through the glossy pages of Wallpaper* magazine knows it's the synthesis of cool. Packed with sleek, modern, hip, uber-chic lifestyle info, it's at once shocking (when you look at the price tags) and awe-inspiring; when it comes to seeing the way forward in architecture and design, it's the place to be. While they've come to embrace sustainability and sustainable design in small doses, they haven't devoted a ton of space to the idea of green lifestyle, until now.
The theme of their September issue is urban farming, and they'll be looking at examples of how self sufficiency, local production and maximizing usable space is making inroads in urban centers around the world, from Tokyo to New York and back again. Ultimately, they'll be showing the world that it's not only okay to be in to this stuff, but that it's damn cool. Watch a video about one of their shoots, The Farm Project, over at wallpaper.com, and stay tuned for more on the rest of the issue. ::Wallpaper* via ::Hugg...
Why am I beginning to hate cars so much? Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that so many people I know are getting killed by them. Charlie Princep was my son's schoolmate; he was in the middle of an epic bike ride from San Diego to Toronto and back. According to his brother,
Woot! Woot! A rolling party it ain't, but Japan's newest super-train has something better than DJs and disco lights to smiling all the way to Sendai: Hybrid Power. The Kiha E200 packs a diesel engine and electric motors like most passenger trains, but adds banks of lithium ion batteries on it's roof. The result is a 20 percent boost in fuel efficiency, and up to 60 percent fewer emissions and noise....
She’s adopted a Tsunami orphan, has given money towards a Cambodian wildlife sanctuary and now Angelina Jolie is off to the south of France with Brad Pitt to take residence at Chateau Val Joanis. The 1,000 acre estate is home to one of the oldest vineyards in the world that is still operating and, what’s even better is that it’s an eco-friendly one. The wine from Chateau Val Joanis was once sipped by the Romans and the Chateau still features visible remains of the Roman Villa that once existed there. According to its website, the French estate has survived many revolutions and has not had a change in its boundary lines since 1575. Along with organic grapes, the property also boasts a sustainable vegetable and herb garden that “makes up the first terrace” in addition to an olive orchard and loads of flowers and fruit trees. The estate seems to be one-of-a-kind, and we concur with Ecorazzi that we hope the Jolie-Pitt family recognizes its beauty and continues to operate with the green values of its previous owners. Via ::Ecorazzi ::Chateau Val Joanis (photo credit)...
Pet food. Toothpaste. Thomas the Tank Engine and Polly Pockets. Even BatMan! Suddenly everyone is shocked, shocked to find that low prices come at the expense of quality. The fascinating discussion in Kenny's post blames America as well as China; no matter who is to blame, people's attitudes are changing. Some people are even avoiding Chinese food restaurants.
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coffee nursery at Hacienda la Esmeralda
In Vancouver, a good cup of coffee costs fifteen bucks. "It reminds me of a fine glass of cognac," said customer Borislav Trifonov, as he sat sipping the pricey dark brew at Caffe Artigiano in downtown Vancouver yesterday afternoon. "You detect all kinds of flavours," Mr. Trifonov said. "Flowery," he said was the most apt description.
It is Hacienda la Esmeralda Especial, which snagged the "world's best coffee" title at the Specialty Coffee Association of America's Roasters Guild Cupping Pavilion Competition and got US$ 130 per pound at the wholesale auction. You can take it home from the Caffe Artigiano for C$135 for half a pound.
The growers profess sustainability and fair trade practices: "First comes sustainability of people. Our business practices must always be such that our products will readily sell at a level which will keep everyone (owners and workers) fed, clothed, educated and in good health." however it cannot be classed as Fair Trade, which is applied to co-ops, not private farms.
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Ever wondered what to do with the endless amount of energy your child seems to possess at all the wrong times? Well, how about considering a new line of toys that uses an LED and has batteries that are constantly recharged by your own child’s boundless enthusiasm for playing with them? They’re the brainchild of Sun Yu, co-founder and president of the Zen Design Group, who’s decided to call them “SEE Toys”, for safety, ecology, and economy. He admits that the timing is terrific as people are becoming more and more environmentally aware, but confesses that when he came up with the idea it was really part of a quest to get rid of batteries; that bane of parents and the assorted relations of small children everywhere. Ultimately, the toys are designed for kids 5 years and up, prices range from $19.99 to $29.99, and the initial line of 5 toys includes creatures like Dynafly, a bug with moveable arms and head and flexible antennae whose crank when turned causes the bug to buzz and laugh while the LED factors in to make his bug eyes light up and his tail glow red while your child is busy running around the house enjoying the process… Of course, if you can convince them to play with it exclusively you may never have to buy batteries again, so if you want to take a closer peek check out the group’s website where they’ll be available for purchase sometime next month.
via:: The Detroit News...
John coined that name for the former Lake Superior in his earlier post on its falling water levels; now the New York Times tells us why. It appears that it may not be climate change or declining snow melt in Canada, but the Army Corps of Engineers, renowned also for their levee design and maintenance in New Orleans. Starting in the mid sixties, they dredged and widened the St. Clair river between Lake Huron and Lake Erie. The Times says: The flow may be eroding the riverbed. The erosion may in turn result in increased outflow, more than can be replenished by rain or snowmelt, according to a study by a group of Canadian coastal engineers. If the new estimates are correct, 2.5 billion gallons a year are being lost through the expanded parts of the St. Clair, roughly the equivalent of the amount diverted annually for Chicago’s needs....
The Camp Arowhon of my childhood was never like this; the Camp for Climate Action at Heathrow Airport just keeps getting more exciting. All kinds of activities are planned, although kite flying is off the schedule. Like many summer camps, there will be a dressup night where campers wear formal clothing and stewardess uniforms for a song and dance number. Grumpy outsiders think the costumes are to infiltrate airport security, but camp director John Jordan says "If BAA think they are real stewardesses they have got really bad fashion sense."
Rarely have campers been so well protected; up to 1800 police officers are expected to coddle the 2000 campers expected this weekend. They are a diverse crowd; the Daily Mail describes them as "eco-zealots, professionals, modern warriors, hardliners and nimbys." It is even being blogged minute by minute in the ::Guardian. ...
Only in Portland would our leftover crap get treated so well, in a solar powered, LEED platinum storage building! Expect growth in storage facilities as we migrate to smaller spaces and can't part with grandma's treasures, but here it is absolutely coddled with 100,000 square feet of solar panels, water taxi access, rainwater collection, fish and wildlife habitat restoration along the seawall, and a small footprint (relative to regular storage buildings which are usually bland, low, cheap structures). Waterfront site, great views; their big problem is going to be keeping people from renting a 10x20 and moving in....
Perhaps the old ways were the better ways. Some of those remedies that your grandmother told you about really did work, and were purer, more environmental and cheaper than the complicated, hyped products that we are bombarded with today. Plus there was very little packaging and fewer chemicals. And let's not even think about the disposal of all these "necessities". We all know about using vinegar to clean windows (still haven't tried it) and honey and lemon for a cold. But there are so many more clean and easy "old-time" remedies and the Guardian, in a new weekly column, is going to showcase one every week.
They are starting off with a recipe for bubble bath--of all things! Is this a reflection of the British psyche--discuss in one thousand words or less. You can choose between making Love Potion, Pure Sunshine (wishful thinking), Cold Season (more like it) and Sweet Dreams. They are created from distilled water, essential oils, castile soap and liquid glycerin. With ingredients such as patchouli, lavender and eucalyptus, they sound good enough to make. :: Guardian...
"The world thin-film photovoltaics (TFPV) market is forecast to reach $7.2 billion by 2015, compared to just over $1.0 billion today, according to a new report that is being released by NanoMarkets LC."
"The market is being driven by the inherent advantages of TFPV including low cost, low weight, and the ability to manufacture on flexible substrates and embed solar power capabilities into walls, roofs and even windows. Unlike more conventional PV that uses crystalline silicon, TFPV also has the ability to operate under low light conditions. The report notes that to support the growing demand for TFPV, most manufacturers are ramping up production capacity and several - including First Solar, Fuji Electric, Nanosolar, Sanyo, Uni-Solar and G24i - are building plants with more than 100 MW in capacity." Via:: NanoMarkets.net Image credit:: ECD Ovonics...
The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) has released a study that shows that "the aggressive development and implementation of a full portfolio of advanced electricity technologies could reduce the economic cost of cutting future U.S. CO2 emissions by more than 50 per cent while meeting the continuing growth in demand for electricity." All this, and they haven't even accounted for the economic loss that would result from the "do nothing" alternative.
"Previous EPRI work has shown that absent investments in advanced technologies, significant reductions in future emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases will result in higher prices for electricity and natural gas, and reduced economic growth."
"However, by developing and deploying advanced electricity technologies, such as a "smart" electricity grid, plug-in hybrid vehicles, new advanced nuclear reactors, and clean coal technologies with carbon capture and storage, this EPRI study shows that the same cuts in future U.S. CO2 emissions could be accomplished at much lower cost, saving as much as $1 trillion in future U.S. economic growth under some scenarios analyzed." Via::Power Engineering Image credit:: EPRI report cover excerpt. TreeHugger comment after the fold....
The Gaia hypothesis proposes a fantastic means exists for keeping the earth stable enough for life, in part reliant on climate controls exerted by living organisms. As Wikipedia says: "...living and nonliving parts of the earth are viewed as a complex interacting system that can be thought of as a single organism. Named after the Greek earth goddess, this hypothesis postulates that all living things have a regulatory effect on the Earth's environment that promotes life overall." A newly documented climate-positive plant succession has been documented that is consistent with Gaia, and suggests there is hope for a more stable Climate future.
"The thawing of vast stretches of Canadian permafrost -- widely seen as a "ticking time bomb" of climate change because of its expected liberation of billions of tonnes of pent-up methane and carbon dioxide -- may be much less of a threat than previously believed, according to a new U.S. study of freshly unfrozen peat lands across Western Canada's northern frontier.
Although the melting of underlying permafrost will release huge amounts of the greenhouse gases blamed for fueling global warming, researchers who sampled three sites in boreal Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba have discovered that the warmer, softer, wetter soil that results also promotes the growth of new mosses that capture and store about as much carbon from the atmosphere as the thawed ground releases."...
Margaret Thatcher is supposed to have said "A man who, beyond the age of 26, finds himself on a bus can count himself as a failure." The sentiment is still strong as the private car continues to be dominant. Lynsey Hanley pulls no punches in the Guardian, blaming most of our social and environmental ills not on the car, but the driver, saying
"The real enemies of the environment are the obdurate millions who refuse to accept they can function without driving." and "the car does more damage to our bodies, our built environment, our climate and our communities than anyone who drives a lot seems prepared to admit, even to themselves."
Strong language. "People who have always driven, and were driven around as children, have no idea what it's like to be a pedestrian. They don't care about the fumes they emit, because they can't smell or sense them inside their cars. They don't care about the noise they make, because all they can hear while locked inside their car is a low, comforting purr." He damns the government for investing in highways and runways instead of transit; he thinks we have a responsibility to give up our cars and take transit, and concludes: "I'm over 26 and regularly find myself sitting on a bus, I'm Thatcher's definition of a failure. Anyone else care to join me?" ::Guardian...
Instructables user, TheNaib, has written a tutorial on how to create a solar thermal water heater for under five dollars. It will involve a fair amount of DIY, but nothing too complicated. It's designed as a fun project, but with some tweaking it could see real applications, "Its a great way to learn about using the renewable energy of the sun to produce useful effects, in this case hot water. You can use these instructions to build a device that will actually heat enough water to use in the home, but it would require modifications."...
Jatropha has been hailed as one of the best biodiesel crops in existence. Some of the more impressive features are the large yields of quality oil, and the ability to grow the plant with minimal water or fertilizer. As one of the most agriculturally gifted nations in the world, Brazil has a keen interest in all things biofuel. So it is no surprise the two were going to meet, and find a spark. Green Car Congress reports:
I've just finished reading The Lazy Environmentalist by Josh Dorfman. While not every chapter was for me (babies and children?!) the book contains a gigantic amount of information on how to make good, informed, green decisions. Without condescension or guilt trips Dorfman lays down easy to digest information on how to live a cleaner greener life that isn't a big pain in the ass.
We recently had a chance to talk to Josh about his book, which you can get at Amazon.com
EcoGeek: What is a Lazy Environmentalist?...
In a move that should help lighten the large amount of sulfur pollutants emitted from their cruise ships, Royal Caribbean Cruises has signed up to purchase a boatload (couldn't resist) of biodiesel from Imperium Renewables. For 2007, Royal Caribbean will buy a minimum of 15 million gallons, and for the four years after a minimum of 18 million gallons. Imperium believes this purchase to be "the single-largest long-term biodiesel sales contract to an end user in the US." Here's to making the high seas a little cleaner - and may the other cruise companies follow suit or be forced to walk the plank! ::Via Green Car Congress
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The National Gallery of Scotland has an exhibition of the work of Andy Warhol on the twentieth anniversary of his death. They have wrapped his famous images of soup cans around the columns, an architectural trend that we hope stops here. The images of banal consumer packaging as art seem more powerful today than they did then.
Jonathan Jones of the Guardian says "Twenty years have passed since Andy Warhol died during what was expected to be a routine gallbladder operation. He was 58, and his sudden end was neither a bang nor a whimper, but meaningless. Every year since, his art has become more perversely alive."
Andy Warhol: A Celebration of Life ... and Death, National Galleries of Scotland, The Mound, Edinburgh, August 4-October 7.
::Guardian ::Slideshow...
The results are in for Design21's "Heated Issue" global warming design contest -- we mentioned it here awhile back. They were looking for an educational campaign to raise public awareness about global warming and the contribution of our daily lifestyle and activities make to this problematic phenomenon. First prize, pictured above, goes to "Re-written Aesop's Fables" by Hwani Lee for the World Wildlife Federation; it's a collection of the lesson-bearing tales of morality, re-written with global warming as the punchline. The combination of the iconic imagery of the tales combined with an updated story of a feverish planet was very effective, thought the judges, and we certainly agree. Hit the jump to see more examples of powerful graphic design on behalf of the planet. ::Design21 Heated Issue...
If the "if it's yellow let it mellow" debate still rages in your home, have we got the solution for you: a waterless urinal. Though most often relegated to restaurant bathrooms and the like, urinals in the home make tons of sense: they save thousands of gallons of water and you don't have to worry about remembering to put the seat down. Add the waterless -- as in, no flushing required -- element and you've got a device that conserves a remarkable amount of water. Take this sleek option from Kohler (above); it's tubular design is not only a refreshing take on the more typical blocky designs, but it "virtually eliminates splashing". Because you don't have to flush it (more on that in a sec), it saves an astounding 40,000 gallons of water per year....
As Collin has mentioned, TreeHugger has teamed up with Instructables and Popular Science to bring you a super-cool contest promoting DIY eco-friendly projects. You don’t have to be as craft-tastic as Martha Stewart to have a shot at a prize. All you need is a little inspiration, a camera, and decent instruction-giving skills. What are you doing to go green? Recycling floppy discs? Greening your roof? Perfecting your recipe for homemade yogurt? Use TreeHugger as your muse and search our archive for “DIY,” or, peruse our guides for How to Go Green. Hit the jump to see a few examples of the submitted projects in living color....
Though its intentions were sound — presumably attempting to shine a light on global warming deniers and their funding resources — Newsweek made several significant mistakes and used outdated science in its cover story last week. According to John Christy and Roy Spencer of the University of Alabama, the story erred in its portrayal of satellite collected global climate data — a dataset that they maintain — by misrepresenting a January 2000 report from the National Academy of Sciences.
After writing recently about the attention paid by Nude Skincare to their packaging design, which uses recycled and recyclable plastic and biodegradable cornstarch sleeves, we were contacted by Symren Skincare. New York based Ingrid Anderson wrote to let us know that her natural skincare company has been working on their eco-packaging as well. They have recently introduced the use of biodegradable boxes for their PET bottled products. Ingrid tells us, "Our packaging (boxes) is made from 100% bagasse, which is the pulp that remains after extracting juice from sugar cane. Note that bagasse is often considered to be a tree-free alternative for making paper." It's great to see that skincare companies are beginning to think about not just what they put in their products, but also what they put their products in....
Squawk if you've heard this one: The government of Argentina is creating a new marine park along the isolated Patagonia coast to officially safeguard more than half a million penguins and other rare seabirds, according to the Bronx Zoo-based Wildlife Conservation Society.
Prime turf for waddling, diving, and whatever else it is that tuxedoed flightless fowl do, the new protected area, located in Golfo San Jorge, covers 250 square miles (647 square kilometers) of coastal waters and nearby islands, with almost 100 miles (160 kilometers) of largely undeveloped shoreline for feathered hijinks....
A project jointly undertaken by a group of Central Michigan University researchers and Dendritic Nanotechnologies Inc. has resulted in the creation of a groundbreaking new technology that can absorb toxic chemicals from ground water — a technology that could soon find its way into water purification systems. The partnership was recently granted a contract from the U.S. Department of Defense to refine the method using Dendritic Nanotechnologies' Priostar dendrimer-based nanotechnology. Dendrimers are spheroid or globular structures engineered to carry specific molecules in their interior empty spaces or on their surface.
The primary target for the purification system will be perchlorate — a groundwater contaminant found in several regions of the U.S. — which has been found to adversely affect the health of women by interfering with iodide absorption in the thyroid gland. Once brought over to the public sector, researchers believe it will also prove effective at removing and recovering metals such as chromium and lead and contaminants such as arsenic from groundwater. Company and university officials expect the system to be launched commercially in September 2008, with manufacturing, sales and technical support to be housed in CMU. ...
The days of having to deal with large, bulky batteries may soon be coming to an end: a team of scientists from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY, have created a small paper-like battery that could herald a new generation of tiny, cheap and more eco-friendly energy sources. While attempts have been made in the past to build smaller, more flexible batteries — with varying degrees of success — scientists were never able to find an efficient way to combine a battery's different components into a thinner material.
Thinking a paper-like film might prove to be the ideal solution, the scientists created such a material by combining microscopic carbon nanotubes with cellulose dissolved in a liquid salt solution. The result was a film that resembled a piece of paper — white on one side and black with nanotubes on the other. Soaking the cellulose in a lithium hexafluorophosphate solution and covering the white side with lithium metal completed the novel battery — with the carbon nanotubes serving as one electrode and the lithium metal the other, the solution serving as the electrolyte and the cellulose functioning as the spacer....
Recycline, makers of the Preserve Toothbrush, among other recycled and earth friendly products, are no strangers to TreeHugger. We’ve covered their flagship product here, and we’ve talked about their attempts to expand into more mainstream markets here. Now our spies tell us that this forward thinking company has made it into the top 20 of the Forbes.com Boost Your Business competition. This is no mean achievement, given the starting line up was made up of 1000 hopefuls, all vying for the $100,000 prize money. Anyone wanting to help Recycline win can vote via this link.
Eric Hudson, President of Recycline, says that winning the competition would be a huge boost to expanding the company’s market share:
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Originated by the transit plan that pretends to reduce the number of vehicles in Buenos Aires, a neighbor has come up with the very first carpooling website: Compartocoche.com.ar (which means something like I share a car). For those not familiar with the term, Carpooling is an activity that goes back to the seventies, and consists of the “shared use of a car, in particular for commuting to work, often by people who each have a car but travel together to save costs and in the interest of other socio-environmental benefits” (Wikipedia). Those benefits are of course the carbon emissions that can be reduced by using one car instead of two. The Argentine site is pretty simple and works with a classifieds system, where people publish their available trips and places, and others share their needs for transport. The man behind the idea is Fernando Cardona, a citizen from Liniers neighborhood, who says he aims “to improve transit and pay less, while reducing contamination”. Typical from Argentina: most times, green actions come from economic needs (check Scraplab or Silvina Romero’s work for examples). Even though according to Clarin newspaper, Compartocoche.com.ar gets 300 sign ups per week, reactions to the proposal are diverse in this blog (in Spanish), since some people think it is insecure. Our advice: there is no need to get paranoid, but of course be careful and maybe try the first time with a friend. ::Comparto Coche...
When news came yesterday that Cheung Shu-hung, a co-owner of the Lee Der Industrial Corporation responsible for the lead contamination of approximately 1.5 million toys that recently had to be recalled by Mattel committed suicide at one of his warehouses, I must admit that I was really not that surprised. After all, it’s not uncommon for disgraced officials in China to commit suicide in response to the immense amount of public shame their actions bring on both themselves and their families. With Thomas and Friends being recalled this year for similar concerns, and another round of recalls coming shortly from Mattel, it seems as if there is, in fact, no end to the problems with Chinese manufacturers and the production of toys. And with over 80% of the toys sold in the world being produced in China, I’d be willing to bet that there are a whole lot more out there just waiting to be recalled as it becomes more and more apparent that Chinese suppliers having been cutting every toxic corner imaginable to gain an edge in the fierce competition for a piece of the business. ...
Claire Morisette was an impassioned cycling advocate in Montreal, fighting City Hall since 1976. She thought cars made no sense in an urban environment: "They take up all that space and leave me a little strip," she once told the Montreal Gazette. "They pollute and throw their noise in my face, and in traffic we go at the same speed." She came up with great stunts to promote bikes; when the transit authorities would not let people bring bikes on the subways, she and other protesters carried toboggans, ladders and skis, all allowed, to point out the foolishness of it. Another famous event was the 1976 "die-in" where a a hundred people lay down and played dead at the corner of Ste. Catherine and University Sts., using ketchup to symbolize blood and mangled bicycles to demonstrate the effect of the car culture on cyclists and pedestrians.
In 1994, Ms. Morissette published Deux roues, un avenir (Two Wheels, One Future), a study of the global cycling movement and the humble bicycle's potential to change cities for the good.
She founded Cyclo Nord-Sud which has sent over 20,000 bicycles as aid to third world countries. "the bike is a simple and efficient solution, perfectly adapted to the Third World. In these countries, the car is a complete disaster." They have shipped bikes to 13 countries. "It tears my heart out when I see a bike thrown in the garbage heap," she said. "A bike can have a 20-to-30-year life span, but the average length of use here is about five years." ::Globe and Mail...
This is the urban bicycle-rental stand, which won an award at this year's Spark Design & Architecture Awards. It's designed to allow one-way journeys, with drop off and pick-up points in various locations around a city. Each bike would be fitted with an RFID chip to track and log journeys, and customers would pay a small charge to rent a bike. It was designed by Dutch agency, Springtime, who have worked for Nike, Coca Cola and Toyota.
Several cities have implemented bike rental or free-bike schemes, and this system, excluding initial investment, could help to keep costs down. Of course, there are problems with it, such as the fact that you are relying on the previous renter to return the bike in good condition. Presumably there is no way for the machine to know if the bike it is handing out has a flat tire or other problem. ::BikeDispenser via ::TrendHunter via ::Gizmodo...
Sydney is white Australia's birthplace, settled as a penal colony in 1788. Many of its first white inhabitants would be very surprised to learn that it is now often recognized as one of the world's top ten most liveable cities. Earlier this year it was ranked as the world's most favourite city by the Anholt City Brands Index. And Grist dubbed it 10th in their list of the worlds top fifteen Green Cities. And there is much to be thankful for in this city of about 4.3 million souls, which is also considered one of the globe's most cultural diverse metropolis, with around 140 different ethnic groups. Sydney is the capital city for the state of New South Wales (NSW), but contrary to popular international misinterpretation, not of the nation. That is Canberra.
Geographically Sydney has the largest natural harbour in the world, is famed for its beaches (having over 70 of them), and is blessed with mostly sunny, mild weather, lending the city a very outdoorsy lifestyle. Particularly when surrounded on three sides by national parks, one of which is the world's second oldest (after Yellowstone), and another a World Heritage area. With the Pacific Ocean taking up prime position on the fourth side, Sydney has become a victim of its own success. It has reached the limits of its natural basin, and there is no room in the inn. Land for housing and infrastructure is at a premium. ...
CNBC anchor Erin Burnett, on Friday's Hardball:
Call it environmental art, public art, whatever, more and more artists are getting interested in working with nature to alter the environment and create outdoor art with plants. We saw it on the walls of the National Theatre in London, where artists grew grass on the outside of the building for 6 weeks. Now in Japan, as part of an annual celebration, rice farmers grow wonderful pictures in their fields of rice paddies. Since starting the tradition in 1993, the farmers in Aomori prefecture have become famous, attempting more and more complex pictures every year. In the past they have grown the Mona Lisa, japanese warriors, and this year they have done two images from the series of woodblock prints, 36 Views of Mount Fuji, by the famous wood block printmaker Hokusai. The view of the great wave and Mt. Fuji are in two adjoining fields, in purple and yellow rice.
To do this, the farmers grow some purple and yellow-leafed kodaimai rice along with their regular green-leafed tsugaru-roman variety. The paddies will be on view until September, when the rice is harvested. :: psfk...
Due to the combination of drought lowering flows in the Catawba River and the added heat of midsummer, coal fired power plants that rely on Catawba water withdrawals for cooling are being forced to shut down or limit operations due to discharge permit limits on daily average temperature. But, we don't want to kill the bass now do we?
"On Friday, a new problem arose when Duke had to curtail power generation at two coal-powered plants on the Catawba River, Duke spokeswoman Paige Sheehan said. The river's water temperature is too high to use for cooling. Low lake levels already had cut the hydro generation that Duke usually taps at peak times. Duke uses river water to cool its coal-powered steam operations. That heats the water, which then is discharged back into the waterway. But when the water is too hot to begin with, the state won't allow Duke to add to the heat, because the resulting temperature would be too hot for wildlife and cause other environmental concerns."
'Now, who would ever have expected climate change to cause problems like this?'
Via::The Charlotte Observer, and Knight Ridder Tribune Business News. Image credit::Hilton Pond Nature Center, Catawba River
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"At the World Bank -- heavily influenced by its largest shareholder, the United States -- the effect of projects on climate change is not even calculated.
In February 2006, for example, the World Bank's operating vice presidents gathered to discuss a draft of a progress report, requested by the Group of 8 leading industrialized nations, titled "Climate Change, Energy and Sustainable Development: Towards an Investment Framework." The bank executives endorsed the report, according to minutes obtained by the Government Accountability Project and authenticated by The [Los Angeles] Times.
But afterward, the summary noted, the office of then-World Bank President Paul D. Wolfowitz -- a President Bush appointee -- "asked the team to refocus the paper shifting from a climate lens mainly to a clean-energy lens." A note of uncertainty should be injected, a top Wolfowitz aide instructed: "Elaborate on the challenge of mitigating climate change and reducing the vulnerability to the impact of climate change."
"Climate change" was duly removed from the name of the paper, which was issued within months as "Clean Energy and Development: Towards an Investment Framework.""
Via:: Los Angeles Times Image credit:: Belmont University
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Have you made the switch? For tips on how to or the powerful impact on global warming of your light bulb switching actions, check out Philips’ beautiful online campaign A Simple Switch, launched last month. There are quizzes, hints & tips, a glossary and lots of ideas how to get involved in the light bulb changing movement. The best thing about it is the measuring tool of the global impact. At the moment they count 169.086 light bulbs switched which is equivalent to taking 11.836 cars off our roads. Although the campaign in the end mainly promotes Philips’ own products, we still like the globalness of it as well as the hints & tips which are very thorough. Fascinating, go loose yourself in this charming web site. ::A Simple Switch
Other light bulb campaigns:
A Light Among the Nations, Mr Luna’s Bright Idea, Change a Light, Change the World...
This week is Carnival of the Green # 90 and it's being hosted by Miss Malaprop! 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 and have less than 20 dates left!), please click here to link to our previous post....
You read that right: a study linking something other than climate change to adverse weather events in Africa. A group led by J. Curt Stager of New York's Paul Smith College has just published a study citing a possible connection between sunspots and heavy rain, flooding and even incidents of insect-borne diseases in East Africa. The key element driving the rains is not the sunspots themselves but the added brightening of the sun that accompanies them, explained Stager.
Though not particularly intense, the brightening may be sufficient to slightly warm the oceans and the surrounding land — increasing the region's humidity and prompting the creation of more rain clouds, leading to increased precipitation. "So you get a double-whammy amplifying effect from what would otherwise be a weak solar signal," Stager said. Furthermore, the solar cycle (which occurs in 11-year phases) can cause more rain by affecting winds in the upper atmosphere and changing the flow of air. ...
Exploring the versatility and maximizing the functionality of one small sheet of birch plywood, designer Elil Chissick came up with "The Bend," a clever series of fruit bowls (though you could probably put some veggies in there, too, if you wanted to) that use the hand-bent ply to create some neat shapes and some functional structure. Two of the three are pictured above; we love the way so little material creates so much dimension, and that the whole thing could be put in a big envelope for shipping before you build it. Check out the third version after the jump. ::Eli Chissick via ::Produce Dose...
There are 10,000 abandoned houses in Buffalo, New York; instead of just wrecking them, non-profit Buffalo ReUse is taking them apart and selling the materials and components. From the Buffalo News: “We saved 4 million pounds from the landfill each year,” says consultant David Bennick. “It’s like an urban forest. Every building in Buffalo represents ‘X’ number of trees . . . If you just demolish that building it’s like those trees are done and they’re in the landfill.” They are filling a warehouse with materials: “The goal here is to sell local,” Manager Michael Gainer said. “It’s very affordable material and it’s high quality material.” It is happening across America as a new economic model: "Nonprofits take on the job of deconstruction and open Home-Depot-like warehouses of used materials. A growing number of deconstruction related organizations have nonprofit status, such as Buffalo ReUse." ::Buffalo News and ::Buffalo ReUse...
Anyone who grew up in rural parts of the US knows that corn growers who raise dairy animals rotate the corn to alfalfa periodically. It's a legume that enhances the soil, fixing nitrogen and carbon in abundance. Apparently, there is a faction at the USDA that believes that ethanol can be made economically from alfalfa leaves, and if used for both soil enhancement and fermentation for alcohol, would keep alive a traditional soil stewardship choice. This is a key topic when high market prices for corn might otherwise tempt farmers to plant corn fence line to fencel ine, year in and year out: a formula for soil destruction.
"Proponents of alfalfa describe it as a wonder crop. It is self-fertilizing — fixing nitrogen from the air — and adds carbon to the soil, creating its own carbon sink and enriching the soil. Its long roots prevent erosion and improve soil and water quality...But on an energy-per-acre basis, alfalfa cannot compete with corn. USDA researchers found you could get about 137 gallons of fuel per acre for alfalfa stems, compared with about 473 gallons for corn. If farmers could also throw in corn stalks for cellulosic ethanol, that would increase corn yields to more than 600 gallons per acre — more than four times as much as alfalfa.
Alfalfa’s competitive edge could be its leaves, which are more nutritious for cattle and much higher in protein than the feed mix that is marketed as a co-product of corn ethanol. But removing leaves on a large scale is no easy task, and there is no commercial equipment currently available to do the work."
Via:: Greenwire (subscription only) and Earth Portal Image credit:: Alfalfa, Blue Sky Herbs
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Though we knew that trees alone wouldn't provide the silver bullet needed to single-handedly fix global warming, a new study from scientists at Duke University in North Carolina seems to have cast doubts on the notion of using trees at all as a strategy to reduce carbon emissions. It's not that trees in themselves can't store carbon dioxide well: it's just that, to do so, the trees need to receive substantial amounts of water and nutrients — a requirement not always easy to meet (especially in the case of adverse weather events).
Ram Oren and his colleagues spent a period of 10 years bathing plots of pine trees in extra carbon dioxide every day (1.5 times the current levels of GHG in the planet's atmosphere). This project — dubbed the Free Air Carbon Enrichment (FACE) experiment — compared 4 different plots exposed to higher levels to 4 matched plots lacking the extra carbon dioxide. They found that while the trees typically grew more — producing approximately 20% more biomass on average — only those trees supplied with the most nutrients and water could store enough carbon dioxide to effectively offset the effects of global warming....
Eugene de Salignac, NYC Municipal Archives
We need investment in green infrastructure, but there is so much of the old stuff hanging around. Matthew Wald of the New York Times asks "Is the country relying too much on decaying infrastructure, the capital investments of generations long gone?"
He notes that there is a good reason why big old things — pipes and bridges, nuclear reactors and even spaceships — stick around. In many ways, they are like your grandmother’s dining room set: big, bulky and hard to remove. And in a lot of ways, it makes more sense to keep the old stuff than replace it with something from Ikea.
However he concludes by noting that climate change may make infrastructure replacement necessary. "Airlines fly some very old airplanes, but new ones promise to save so much fuel that the old ones may be finally put out to pasture." ::New York Times...
Designer Miquel Mora looks at the new techniques of printing electronics and wonders "What if we could 'enhance' paper instead of getting rid of it? What if we could merge the printed world with the digital one?" He says "Through printed electronics we can create processors, displays, batteries on flat and flexible surfaces like paper. Objects will wear technology instead of carrying them inside. It will become their skin." It is all conceptual, so we can forgive him for suggesting "What if objects are made of paper? How are we going to interact with them? For instance, the disposable Paper Alarm Clock needs to be scrunched up in order to turn it off. It brings new ways to experience electronic products."
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While TreeHugger is used to seeing transformer furniture that goes from bench to table and obelisk to chairs, this is the first luggage-to-seating arrangement we've come across. While the others cross functions in the same space (like the living room), this quaint concept is more of a comfortable suitcase, or chair with wheels that holds a bunch of clothes sometimes. By crossing platforms, it insures that there are few situations that it couldn't be functional; the only bummer is that it looks like it has to be a suitcase full of clothes, or a chair (without the clothes) and not both. Still, it's an awesome idea; more pics below the fold. More of this, please! ::TechEBlog via ::SciFi Tech...
The good people at Metropolis magazine have posted a transcript of a terrific talk given by Herman Miller's Scott Charon and Susan Lyons about their Design for Environment, their sustainable design program based on the Cradle to Cradle protocol.
Using their task seating as an example (the Mirra chair, pictured above, is divided into its 96 percent recyclable pieces on the left and the other 4 percent on the right), they talk about materials chemistry, usability, recycling and more. If you've ever wondered why TreeHugger gets in to this stuff, it's a worthwhile read; they talk at some length about the process required to design, assemble, disassemble, reconfigure and recycle their projects, which is no easy task. Hit the jump to take a quick bite out of the transcript, and read the whole thing at ::Metropolis via ::Core77...
We’ve recently featured some prominent UK initiatives promoting ambitious targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions and boosting renewable energy generation. We’ve seen Dale Vince, of UK renewable energy company Ecotricity proposing a ‘zero carbon’ Britain by 2050 (meaning zero carbon emissions, presumably, rather than an eradication of all carbon-based life forms!), and we’ve seen the folks from the Centre for Alternative Energy upping the ante by claiming that this target is achievable by 2027. The UK government, however, seems to take a different view. According to a report in today’s Guardian, government officials have secretly briefed ministers that there is no chance of meeting the renewable energy targets that Tony Blair signed up to earlier this year, and are suggesting that they need to start looking for escape routes:...
We all want to help save the oceans but how? While most of our attention has been fixated on solving terrestrial problems — whether it be deforestation, floods, droughts or other climate change-related weather events — we have largely glossed over the issue of elaborating innovative and sweeping new initiatives aimed at preserving or strengthening the state of our oceans. Sure, we talk about erecting more marine protected areas (MPAs), reducing overfishing pressure and stopping the unregulated flow of treated sewage and nutrient-rich runoff, but are there other viable solutions?
Fortunately, Conservation Magazine took it upon itself to gather some of the brightest minds in ocean conservation and ask them what solutions they would propose to help us save the oceans. The result was 10 unique and innovative ideas. ...
The Mortgage Interest Deduction in the States costs a hundred billion dollars per year, and may once have served the purpose of encouraging home ownership, but now just penalizes the poor and others who rent and is a gift to homeowners and builders, who can charge higher prices and sell bigger homes. It doesn't even really work; Canada doesn't have it yet has just as high a rate of home ownership as the USA. No politician will have the guts to get rid of it, but Rep.USA John Dingell has a great idea: Eliminate it on the portion of the house over 3,000 square feet. If you want to own a McMansion, why should the taxpayers subsidize it?
What a great idea. Continue helping people get into home ownership, encourage smaller houses, and stop subsidizing McMansions. Builders are apoplectic, but Dingell says "These are all new ideas," Dingell said. "I know I'm going to catch hell for them," but "if we are serious about global warming, we need to reduce consumption by making it more expensive." ::Desmogblog...
We look forward to it all summer and planned to sleep outside to watch; then the clouds moved in and we couldn't see a single star. Others say it was a fabulous meteor per minute.
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They may be sucked into the vortex of cellphones and Myspace while living life on land, but when kids are out sailing on the A.J. Meerwald, and 80-year-old oyster schooner turned education center they seem to get a whole new view of the world. That’s probably because the whole experience of sailing itself leaves some kids breathless. As Trinity Carey, an 11-year-old from New Jersey said after what may well have been his first trip aboard a seafaring vessel without a motor puttering along behind, “It felt pretty awesome, I felt kind of like a pirate,” and then “You feel like you’re floating but flying at the same time.”
As for the education part, the Bayshore Discovery Project aims to immerse kids in an experience that simply can't be re-created in a classroom. During a day-long camp last week, nine kids charted their course on a nautical map, learning boating terms and hand signals in the process, and working in teams to hoist the canvas sails up the 68-foot mast as well. And after using that knowledge to get themselves around New York Harbor, Jesse Briggs, the ship’s captain, took the time to show them how runoff carries pollutants with it from farmland and factories alongside streams that wind up polluting the bay. Simply using a net from the stern to pick up jellyfish and oysters for the kids to check out helps them make the connection with living things that are actually present in the water as well... As Briggs puts it, "We like to give folks a chance to get in touch with the water and see how what they do on land affects the water. Hopefully, we'll instill a better sense of stewardship for the water." And with over 5,000 students a year getting that experience aboard the Meerwald, it seems to me that he’s most definitely leaving a positive lasting impression on both his student’s minds and the environment we all share. via:: Daily News...
Ontario Minister of the Environment Laurel Broten says "do as I say, not as I do" and is introducing green licence plates for for low emission and alternative fuel vehicles. Perks include access to the high-occupancy lanes, free parking and lower registration fees.
"Now we're saying we're going to also put some more factors on that table to help you make a decision that's good for your family and good for the environment," she told a news conference. NDP environment critic Peter Tabuns sniffed "small potatoes given the scope of the problem before us."
Just don't drive to Ohio or Wisconsin, where legislators are proposing green licence plates for sex offenders and pedophiles. "Can you imagine, you're a granola cruncher, you've got a green plate, and you wonder why everyone hates you in Ohio?" said Opposition member Tim Hudak. ::the Star
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When we asked for dumb questions, we got some very smart ones, including dwightstreetrenter's very long "Why don't housing architects design more energy-efficient homes in large subdivisions? When they cut down all those trees, they're basically building huge homes in a desert of dirt...and encouraging people to consume massive amounts of electricity for air conditioning.... and suburban sprawl is promoted in such developments."
Why do builders build these homes? Because they could, and it was more profitable to do so. There were a number of reasons:
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Residential air conditioning in the US has become the norm for all except the poor. By now there's probably more tons of cooling capacity per household than there are flat screen TV's. Air conditioning use has always been highest in the coal-reliant Southern states, where it gets hot and stays that way for longer periods. Climate change, coupled with continued economic development and population growth, may intensify this need. For example, "As Georgia experiences unrelenting soaring temperatures, Georgia Power has met three straight days of record-breaking demand for electricity with a new record of 18,216 megawatts (MW) set on Wednesday."
Georgia Power, a Southern Company subsidiary company, recently suggested some energy saving tips for its customers, via press release. We've included the list below, highlighting in bold the suggestions we've not emphasized on TreeHugger before. We think you'll agree that a whole lot of human behavior will have to be relearned to accomplish these ideas consistently, meaning its not just about buying more high tech stuff. You can't fully buy your way out of inefficiency, even if you have great wealth. The lifestyle equation demands behavior change for everyone.
Tell us what you think should be added to the list.
Via:: PR Newswire Image credit:: Cupertino Orthocare
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Treehugger has had so many posts on plastic bags, it would seem that there is nothing more to say about the subject. So maybe it is time to switch to pictures, worth a thousand words, of course. The Photographers' Gallery has asked people to send in photos of plastic bags to the Gallery, to show the extent of the problem across London and beyond. " Reminding us of our ability to consume and dispose, this project provides the public with their own platform for visual expression." And the pictures show it all. The bags are of every size, shape and colour and they are everywhere: on stairways, in the sky, in trees, on buses, doorways, at night, in storms and in water.
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Agriculture systems in Quebrada de Humauaca, Jujuy province (in the North of the country), are very fragile, since they depend of a price defining market that sometimes forces small-scale producers to sell under the production costs. Given this situation, the Argentine National Institute for Industrial Technology (INTI) has come up with the idea to differentiate the farmers’ fruits and vegetables and to give them longer life by helping them elaborate dehydrated products. In this line, they developed a low-cost solar dehydrator (of about 1500 pesos, which equal 500 dollars), especially adapted to the climatic and productive conditions of the region. We thought this was a great idea: making the crops last more and add value without spending a lot in processes but using simple materials and the natural energy of the sun. Read the extended to find out how it was developed. And if you're inspired and want to put this to practice in other communities, the building plans are available by request....
The founder of Tesla Motors, Martin Eberhard, has stepped down as CEO of the company, worrying some that delays with Tesla production are possible. He explained in an email to customers that he will carry on in the organization as chief technology officer, "In my new job, I will focus on the final details of the Roadster and on advancing Tesla's leadership in our core technology. I will also be able to spend more time with you, our customers."
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The catastrophic decline and extinction of our planet’s amphibians, some believe, is due to a virulent fungus spreading around the globe. Scientists now find another strain of fungus, called Ug99 (or stem rust), has claimed a new victim: Our global wheat crops. According to The Jerusalem Post, the wheat fungus first found in Uganda eight years ago, is moving like wildfire through Africa. It now threatens to destroy some 70% of the world’s wheat crops.
But this fungus, currently in Yemen and making its way north to Israel, may just get a dose of medicine: A native Israeli species of wheat, Sharon goatgrass (Aegilops sharonensis), found on Israel's coastal plain and in a few locations in Lebanon, is highly resistant to the fungus.
Scientists from the University of Minnesota and Tel Aviv University are proposing that genetic engineers take the “resistance” from Israel’s Sharon goatgrass and transplant it to at-risk varieties of wheat. ...
There are natural reserves and then there are natural reserves: Alladale Estate — a peaceful 23,000-acre Highland estate offering luxury digs and wildlife sightseeing for a couple hundred visitors every year — aims to become Britain's first fully-fledged ecological game reserve by reverting it to a state of nature 2,000 years old. Paul Lister, the millionaire owner of Alladale, having just obtained a dangerous wild animal license — enabling him to reintroduce elk, wild boars, lynx and others — now hopes to complete his life-long dream of recreating Scotland's once remote wilderness.
Working with neighboring landowners, he wants to convert his and adjoining estates into a reserve for indigenous flora — including juniper, hazel, Caledonian pine and round birch — and fauna. "We received our dangerous animals licence last week and as soon as the foot and mouth regulations die down we'll be bringing in two young elk from Sweden as part of the first step," said Hugh Fullerton Smith, the general manager of Alladale. "We already have wild boar and have fenced off 440 acres as part of a game reserve trial which scientists from Oxford University are monitoring."...
Try matching it up to the record in solar cell efficiency recently set by two University of Delaware scientists — 5.4% vs. 42.8% — and it certainly doesn't sound worthy of a new world record. However, there is an important caveat: the record-setting solar cell technology created by Plextronics, a Pittsburgh-based organic semiconductor startup, is organic.
Organic solar cells — made out of plastic-like polymers — are much cheaper when compared by the conventional inorganic, silicon and metal-based solar cells typically favored by the solar industry. Their one main disadvantage, of course, is their relatively low efficiency (measured as what percent of light is converted to electricity): when compared with the 20 - 40% efficiencies regularly attained by inorganic crystalline solar cells, the 5.4% efficiency sounds almost disappointing. ...
Richard Thalheimer, the guy who started up The Sharper Image, has his own online store over at richardsolo.com, which he's filled with slick, Sharper Image-like gadgets, gizmos and toys. Some of them are a bit extraneous, but one of the things we like is the Forever Last Radio, the newest in a growing number of handy hand-cranked radios. In addition to the AM/FM radio, it's got a flashnight/nightlight combo (so you can see what station tune to, we guess), and one minute of cranking gets 20 minutes of listening pleasure or 40 minutes of flashlighting. The answer the "Who cares?" question, Richard says, "People need a stylish radio and flashlight but do not want to keep buying batteries." Well said. ::Richard Solo via ::Notcot
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Nissan has said that it will remain dedicated to it's efficient continuously variable automatic transmission systems, despite other manufacturers dropping the technology. Director of Nissan's product planning, Mark Perry, told reporters that the system can provide a 7-10% efficiency boost over a traditional four-speed automatic gearbox. "We're expanding CVTs across the lineup. We have great confidence in the technology. Our engineers are confident they can make further fuel-efficiency gains."
Like a surprising number of clever inventions, continuously variable gear systems were first invented by Leonardo Da Vinci, so they're hardly new. Some production cars appeared in the 50's that featured similar systems, allowing them to change gears gradually and constantly, with no noticeable jump between each ratio. In a CVT, two pulleys are connected by a belt, and the ratio between the pulleys changes when the axle size changes. This allows a car to always be in exactly the most efficient gearing ratio all the time, and improves mileage. ::FreeP ::Picture source...
Ikea has announced that all management staff in Spain who have company cars will be switched over to Toyota Prius' as soon as the current leasing period expires. The number of cars changing isn't huge, but is another small step for the increasingly green furniture company.
The move is the latest of many small but positive changes from the company, such as initially charging for, and then banning, plastic bags in the US and the UK, handing out free CFL bulbs to customers and giving staff free bicycles. All these are part of a larger plan which aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from transport by 9 percent before 2010. We've previously written about other moves that the company are making, and highlighted just how big an impact a small change in working practices can be for a huge company like Ikea. ::Auto Blog Green ::Picture source...
In the wake of Minneapolis' tragic bridge collapse, policymakers and economists have been scrambling to reassess the state of the nation's oft deteriorating infrastructure. Concerns about their potential vulnerabilities to extreme weather events — such as hurricanes, flash floods and sharp temperature abnormalities — brought about by climate change have also pushed these reevaluations to the fore. And not a moment too soon, says University of Alaska resource economist Peter Larsen.
When he first started calling transportation officials across Alaska in late 2006 to ask whether climate change had damaged any roads or bridges he would often get laughs. But that didn't stop him: he continued calling — searching for infrastructure that was deteriorating as the permafrost thawed beneath it and for facilities threatened by coastal erosion and flooding — until he and his colleagues had mapped every inch of Alaska's infrastructure and put a price tag on what climate change might do to it. And a hefty price tag it is: up to $6.1 billion dollars between now and 2030 to fix or replace structures and up to $7.6 billion between now and 2080 — figures he came up with after tracking down the state's 16,000 structures and putting dollar signs on the potential wear and tear with the help of engineering estimates and the latest climate projections. ...
A crematorium in Bath, in the UK, is taking steps to reduce its carbon footprint by making their cremation schedule more efficient. New burners have been installed, and cremations are only undertaken when enough bodies are waiting. Rosemary Tiley, the local council's bereavement manager, said, "we need to manage our workload as effectively and as efficiently as possible, both to minimize gas usage as an environmental issue and to look after our new cremators, which we hope will last a long time. In order to do this we will fire up only one cremator if there are insufficient cremations to warrant both being used. We will store coffins overnight to achieve a balanced workload and gain the greatest efficiency from our cremators."
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Sunday's New York Times has cracked open story on the latest US consumer fad. Cage-free eggs, "from chickens raised in large, open barns instead of stacks of small wire cages, have become the latest addition to menus at universities, hotel chains like Omni and cafeterias at companies like Google. The Whole Foods supermarket chain sells nothing else, and even Burger King is getting in on the trend."
Apparently there are shortages as a result of the spike in demand. And, as you'd expect, the egg industry had originally moved to chicken skyscrapers (lap-top sized cages, stacked in rows, warehouse-like) because of reduced capital and operating costs. Now, because of consumer awareness, they are being asked to flatten not the cost structure, but the chicken houses, putting the bird herd (our term for flightless avian roamers) on the loose.
The unanswered question is: how does this trend affect chicken manure management options? Hopefully poop power, as enabled by the caged operations, will be pursued as well.
Via:: New York Times. Image credit:: Feathersite....
Yeasterday we posted on The River Cottage Meat Book, a comprehensive collection of ethical musings, practical advice, and extensive recipes for all those not willing to go vegetarian, but wanting to make wiser, more humane choices about their meat consumption. This got us thinking, what if there’s a similar resource for seafood lovers (aside from the fabulous advice offered on TreeHugger TV of course) ? Well it looks like there is.
One Fish, Two Fish, Crawfish, Bluefish: The Smithsonian Sustainable Seafood Cookbook offers 150 recipes from some of America’s top chef’s all in the name of more sustainable seafood. It also includes a useful guide to what fish can be eaten with a clear conscience (assuming you have no moral objections to eating fish of course), and which species would be best avoided. The following is from the customer reviews on Amazon:
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You might have been following the recent debate about surfing a black web, even received a viral email or two on the topic. We have discussed some facts and figures around using a black Google, and other alternatives sites such as Blackle. In spite of all the recent press, mysteries and myths still abound, here are 5 of the most common.
1. Every monitor uses 74 watts to display a white background, and only 59 watts to display a black background.
Answer: Nope, and it's probably the biggest misconception. The original post that started this whole thing pulled these numbers from the US department of energy, but these numbers almost certainly refer to CRT monitors only....
The Toshiba Portégé R500 hitting stores this month can boast a battery which lasts 8 hours. But the trick is not in the battery. This machine has no hard drive, relying on the same memory technology that makes your USB stick work. In addition to being less susceptible to shocks and temperature swings, the no-moving-parts technology uses half as much power as a traditional hard drive. And with 64 Gbytes of memory, the technology is not a compromise on storage capacity. However, like many things green, you will pay a premium to be the first in your neighborhood with this low-power alternative: it will cost you $550 to swap in the SSD compared to the lower-end traditional model.
The Toshiba's 12" screen uses backlit LED technology and is trans-reflective, high-tech speak for you can use it while sitting in the sunshine on a riverbank and still see good contrast in the image on screen. Since it weighs in at less than 800 grams (1 and 3/4 pounds), getting it to the riverbank is not a problem either. Reviews give the Toshiba points for better performance than the Sony Vaio TZ150, which is also available with SSD data storage....
