- Vijay Vaitheeswaran (part one)
- Vijay Vaitheeswaran (part two)
- Vinay Gupta
- Alyce Santoro
- Mathis Wackernagel
- Tom Price
- Martha Marks
- Paul Hawken
- David Suzuki
- Wal-Mart's Green Gurus
- Alisa Smith and James Mackinnon, authors of Plenty
- Bob Perkowitz of ecoAmerica
- Ed Begley Jr.
- The Weather Channel's Dr. Heidi Cullen
Entries for November 4, 2007 - November 10, 2007
Total this week: 178
Study At Sea, On Land
by Karin Kloosterman, Jerusalem, Israel on 11.10.07
Ever dream about sailing away for a year and a day with “school at sea” and teachers named Sven and Olaf? Learning on a sea-faring vessel could be a dream, but not for those who prefer dry land instead.
A chance to study at sea, but on land, is the basis of a new study-abroad program offered by Tel Aviv University. The new 6-credit summer school course suited for an undergrad (with at least one credit in the area of the environment) will focus on Israel’s unique variety of water resources and how to make them sustainable.
Israel has a lot of water – most of which is not potable. In one small area, you can find four very unique bodies of water: there is the Red Sea, the Dead Sea, the Med Sea and the Sea of Galilee....
Portland Oregon Considering Green Tarriff/Reward System For New Construction
by John Laumer, Philadelphia on 11.10.07
Continuous, rapid progress is a must if we are to reduce our carbon footprint enough to make a difference. Portland Oregon USA has long been a pioneer and prototype test center for green ideas. We wish them luck on this one as well.
Portland’s Office of Sustainable Development is drafting a proposal for a “green” building policy that, if approved, would mandate a carbon fee for all new commercial and residential buildings and major commercial remodels unless certain green building standards are met.
Those exceeding the standards would be paid an incentive by the city, funded by carbon fees paid by others...
The policy would operate on the basis of three concepts: the carbon footprint (the amount of carbon dioxide emissions that a building causes, mostly through the energy use) as well as education and technical assistance for meeting the building standards, and energy-efficiency rating and upgrading.
The nuts and bolts of the fees and standards still are being discussed.
Via::Jetson Green, LEED-H Silver, Energy Star, Earth Advantage - Dolph Creek Townhomes
Via::SustainableLife, "City: Build green or pay up"...
Fungus Among Us: LED Shroom Lights for Underfoot Lighting
by Collin Dunn, Corvallis, OR, USA on 11.10.07
For growing underfoot and appearing with fickle irregularity, mushrooms have amazing utilitarianism, appearing on these pages as insulation, a new business venture with recycling mushroom compost, biofuel. They'll even lubricate your chainsaw and feed your dog, and now we can add "ambient lighting" to their list of uses.
We've seen shroom lighting before; this example utilizes LEDs for increased energy efficiency and sense of magical wonder in an otherwise ordinary living space. Australian designer Simon Duff decided to forgo Grateful Dead bears for tasteful realism; Duff's site is in the process of being built, so we'll have to wait for the rest of the tasty details. ::Simon Duff (under construction) via ::Core77...
One Year Ago in TH: Climate Skepticism, Kids Taking Action + More
by Collin Dunn, Corvallis, OR, USA on 11.10.07
It's always interesting to take a peek at the archives from last year; in some ways, it shows us how far the green world has come over the past 365, but in other ways, it highlights that the more things change, the more they stay the same. When it comes to the former, last year, a group of climate skeptics hit YouTube with a barrage of videos; this year, we were able to help debunk the top five climate red herrings. Last year, we noted that only four of the ten biggest businesses had targets for reducing carbon dioxide; this year, we learned that sustainability has made it all the way to a greener supply chain.
Still, there are a few constants, and that's a good thing. A year ago this week was Shout Out for the Climate Week for students who want to become active in the environmental world; this year, it was Powershift, the first national youth summit to help solve the climate crisis. Last year, the New York Times was high on bamboo, and we're glad to say that we still like the grass.
Check out everything on our radar one year ago here; what will we be talking about next year? Stay tuned......
Quote of the Day: Michael Grunwald on the Florida Everglades
by Jasmin Malik Chua, Jersey City, USA on 11.10.07
Photo credit: Getty Images
The Everglades was more than a river of grass, and it contained more than swarming bugs, slithering reptiles, and lacerating annoyances.
The river of grass was only the most distinctive link of an interconnected ecosystem that once blanketed almost all of south Florida, from its headwatchers atop the Kissimmee Chain of Lakes near modern-day Orlando down to the coral reefs of the Keys, an area twice the size of New Jersey. The ecosystem was a watery labyrinth of lakes and lagoons, creeks and ponds, pine flatwoods and hardwood hammocks. It encompassed Biscayne Bay and Florida Bay, the St. Lucie and Miami Rivers.
And in addition to its extensive marshlands, it included genuine swamps, most notably the Big Cypress Swamp, a Delaware-sized mosaic of pinelands, prairies, and blackwater bogs just west of the sawgrass Everglades. ...
Taking Back The City Dept: Public Fountains
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 11.10.07
In many European cities, public fountains are important gathering places. In North America, we have private waterparks and our city's public spaces lack such gracious amenities.
Last year Brooklyn artist Charles Goldman built Public Fountain: "a self-contained, portable and solar powered fountain. It is designed to bring the gathering point -- that the traditional urban fountain often is -- into the city's more tangential zones." He then pushed it fifteen miles across town and like all fountains, people gathered. “Just turn that thing on and it's a magnet for people,” says Goldman.
::Charles Goldman via ::Pruned
...
Bad PR Week in Fort McMoney
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 11.10.07
It has not been a good week for the flacks in Calgary who stomp on little old ladies to keep the lid on news about Canada's environmental embarrassment, the Alberta tar sands.In Sydney, Australia, they call it " black gold with a black heart." In New York City, the Times headline reads "Study Finds Carcinogens in Water Near Alberta Oil Sands Projects.", about how the Athabasca River is poisoning the native people downstream at Fort Chipewyan. To top it all off, it gets the full Kolbert in the New Yorker, who describes the wild growth of this industry that has turned an area the size of Florida into a close approximation of Mordor: "For every barrel of synthetic crude that Suncor eventually produces, forty-five hundred pounds of tar sands have to be dug up and separated....It’s estimated that by 2012 tar-sands operations will consume two billion cubic feet of natural gas a day, more than every house in Canada."
Read TreeHugger on how The Tar Sands are eating our dinner , they are Stupid to the Last Drop, and Andrew Nkiforuk on Canada's Highway to Hell...
58,000 Gallons of Oil Spill into San Francisco Bay
by Jeremy Elton Jacquot, Los Angeles on 11.10.07
State and local officials were left wondering what exactly went wrong in the wake of a 58,000 gallon oil spill in San Francisco Bay - the largest such spill since 1988 - this past Wednesday. The Cosco Busan, a South Korea-bound container ship, struck one of the Bay Bridge's steel and concrete buttresses Wednesday morning as it was being guided out; the impact gouged the hull, precipitating the massive spill.
The U.S. Coast Guard has come under heavy criticism for initially underestimating the size of the spill, describing it early on as a 140 gallon fuel leak; the estimate was quickly revised on Thursday morning to a hefty 60,000 gallons. Officials are now worried about the impact the fuel slick will have on surrounding beaches and the local wildlife, including shorebirds, seals and other marine organisms. ...
A Picture is Worth... The Future of Spain Under Climate Change?
by Jeremy Elton Jacquot, Los Angeles on 11.10.07
Photograph courtesy of Pedro Armestre
Is this what a future Spain besieged by global warming look like? The digitally retouched picture - part of a new book, Photoclima, released this week by Greenpeace - uses statistics gleaned from the UN panel on climate change to paint a revelatory picture of a La Manga del Mar following a sea level rise.
Via ::Guardian Unlimited: Spain shown perils of climate change (news website)...
Cows Happy on Recycled Beer
by Christine Lepisto, Berlin on 11.10.07
image credit: ::law_keven on flickr
We all know beer has great nutritional value, that's why you drink it ...or? And of course the beverage supplies energy. Therefore past beer recycling projects have focused on the beer-to-energy angle, or turning waste beer to fuel your auto. If that seems a waste of good beer to you, you will welcome the announcement by Greene King Brewery of Suffolk, UK, to build a beer recovery plant. Greene King will take back keg dregs and expired beers so that the benefits of yeast and the fresh ingredients can be given back to the local farms that supply Greene King--in the form of cow-feed flavorizer. Yummmooooo....
G-Wiz it's Nearly Christmas!
by Sami Grover, Carrboro, NC, USA on 11.10.07
OK – the G-Wiz is popping up so often on our pages it’s in serious danger of becoming a cliché. However, that doesn’t seem to stop its ever growing popularity, or its attractiveness to funky designers. We couldn’t resist, then, to bring our London readers’ the news that a few of these cute electric vehicles are still available for a Christmas delivery - heck, they’ll even gift wrap it for you! More exciting holiday gift ideas to come soon when our 2007 Gift Guide is launched – in the meantime, check out our 2006 version for a teaser of what’s in store! ::GoinGreen:: via site visit::
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Stars Offset U.S. Tour
by Sean Fisher, Cincinnati, Ohio on 11. 9.07
There's an awfully lot of great music coming out of Canada these days, lead by the bands on Toronto-based label Arts & Crafts. One of those bands, Stars, is now trekking across the U.S. on a fall tour and plans to make sure that they, and their fans, are jamming a carbon neutral tune. Leading the charge for Stars is Reverb, an environmental organization for musicians out of Maine. Reverb, as we mentioned a few months back, "assists artists and tour managers in everything from obtaining organic food to recycling guitar strings." For the Stars tour, the Reverb is helping to purchase renewable energy credits to offset the band's shows, transportation and accommodations. At U.S. shows, fans will be able to get in on the energy credit act by purchasing Stars Carbon Offset Stickers for a suggested donation of $5. Stars fans, we'll see you at the merch booth. ::Via Arts & Crafts ...
EPA Initiates Online Town Hall
by Jasmin Malik Chua, Jersey City, USA on 11. 9.07
Photo credit: dantekgeek
Have you ever felt compelled to say, "Hey U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, can we talk?" Appeal in vain no longer! "Ask EPA", a program that began Nov. 1, serves up senior EPA officials every Thursday to answer your questions on various environmental and human-health issues.
You can submit your questions up to two days in advance via the Web site or wait until the live session. Transcripts of previous sessions are archived on the site, as well. A spokesman rather ominously said that the agency plans to evaluate the program after the first few sessions. ::Ask EPA
[Via Daily Journal Online]...
Dell Rings In Energy Star 4.0
by Jasmin Malik Chua, Jersey City, USA on 11. 9.07
Dell's new Inspiron 531 is the PC manufacturer's first consumer desktop to achieve Energy Star 4.0 requirements. (With the latest iteration of Energy Star requirements, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that only the top 25 percent of energy-efficient PCs will qualify for its vaunted stamp of approval.)
Featuring a 80 percent-efficient power supply and a paperless owner's manual, the machine is also set to switch to a low-power sleep state after 15 minutes of inactivity. Entry-level configurations, which start at $369, include an AMD Athlon-64 X2 dual-core processor, 1GB of DDR2 memory, 160GB hard drive, CD-RW/DVD-ROM combo drive, nVidia integrated graphics, Windows Vista Home Basic, and a one-year limited warranty with at-home service and support. ::Dell
See also: ::Buy Green: Desktop Computers...
TH Forums Highlights: If Not Al Gore, Who?, Convincing Green Arguments + More
by Collin Dunn, Corvallis, OR, USA on 11. 9.07
1) Forums user goldh37 asks a really good question: "Have you had trouble getting your friends to be greener? What techniques, if any, did you use? I find statistics to be boring and I hate using them. I used to use the fact that often times it saves money, but that doesn't seem to bother people because everyone is concerned about the short term." This is a huge issue, with no simple answers. Anyone care to weigh in?
2) User stevenchen18 notes that Al Gore's former life as a politician might not have positioned him well to appeal to everyone: "I greatly respect him solely because he worked very hard on environment issues, most importantly the Global Warming. To my surprise, some genuine environmentalists have reservations about Al Gore. Because of this, many of Al Gore’s political foes, disguising themselves as environmentalists, launched attacks to him. It confused people and had negative impact on environment movement." So the question is: if not Al, who?
3) Lastly, user tangmonkey notes that, "If you spend a lot of time on green/environment sites you could be fooled into thinking the environment is a big deal online but it's really a small niche. How can we expand the reach of green on the web to include more people and get green ideas out to the masses?" Branding "green" as "fun" and making green products cheaper than conventional products have been suggested; both easier said than done, unfortunately, so what else can we do to spread the good word?
Today on Planet Green
by Jasmin Malik Chua, Jersey City, USA on 11. 9.07
We've been hard at work hammering out the Planet Green blog, which we're launching in conjunction with the new 24/7 Discovery channel of the same name. If TreeHugger is the "what," then Planet Green is the "do," and PG is bursting with smart tips, easy-to-understand advice, and inspiring anecdotes to help you tread more lightly on the only Earth we've got. So make yourself a cup of tea, pull up a comfy chair, and take a peek at what we have in store for you.
Serve up a green Thanksgiving
Rescue cold, aching toesies with a rejuvenating DIY foot scrub
Get rid of unwanted catalogs with a free online service
Stream breaking environmental news and find local produce with a free desktop widget
Here's a revolutionary way to boost your energy level: go outside
Why buy a car when you can share one?
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Event Alert: Net Impact NYC Presents TreeHugger Graham Hill
by Collin Dunn, Corvallis, OR, USA on 11. 9.07
Attention NYC-area TreeHuggers: mark your calendars for Monday, November 12 for an evening of drinks, elbow-rubbing and general merriment with TreeHugger's intrepid founder, Graham Hill, courtesy of the good folks at Net Impact NYC Professionals Chapter (we've mentioned them before). The Chapter of the international non-profit, whose mission is "to make a positive impact on society by growing and strengthening a community of new leaders who use business to improve the world," is committed to using the marketplace to positively impact the economy, society and the environment, starting in New York and spreading around the globe.
If you'll be in or around the city on Monday, we encourage anyone interested in helping to leverage business to help green the planet and its inhabitants to check it out. Learn more and RSVP here for the event and check out the rest of Net Impact's worldwide network of goodness here. ::Net Impact...
Who Will Save the Everglades?
by Jasmin Malik Chua, Jersey City, USA on 11. 9.07
The restoration of the Florida Everglades, the largest and most-expensive environmental rescue project in the world, is running low on financing and years behind schedule, reports The New York Times. Meanwhile, thousands of acres of wetlands and wildlife habitat continue to be paved by developers or blasted by rock miners to stoke the fires of the construction industry.
Seven years into what was supposed to be a four-decade $8 billion effort to reverse generations of destruction, Congress and President Bush continue to play tug-of-war over the federal purse strings. ...
Quote of the Day: Peter Wallerstein on Victims of the Fishing Industry
by Jasmin Malik Chua, Jersey City, USA on 11. 9.07
Photo credit: mikebaird
Humans are definitely responsible for most of [the distressed marine mammals and sea birds along the Pacific coast]. They are still laying fishing nets off the coast of California and animals still drown in them. Those able to fight their way out still have net remnants wrapped around their head and neck, eventually causing them to die from strangulation or infection.
Just last year, this poor sea lion pup had yards of gull netting tangled around his neck, and he had somehow trapped himself on a bell buoy outside King Harbor in Redondo Beach. Baywatch lifeguards contacted me and we set out to save him. The water was really swelling and the boat bouncing like a toy as we tried to reach the seal....
U.N. Chief Bound For Antarctica
by Jasmin Malik Chua, Jersey City, USA on 11. 9.07
United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon will be the first UN secretary general to set foot in Antarctica today as he sets off to the planet's southernmost continent to observe the effects of climate change first-hand.
"Galvanizing international action on global warming is one of my main priorities as secretary general," he said Thursday in Santiago, Chile alongside the country's president, Michelle Bachelet....
Cohda Designs' Live Factory: Plastic Becomes Design Before Your Eyes
by Collin Dunn, Corvallis, OR, USA on 11. 9.07
The guys at Cohda (remember their awesome RD4 chair?) have always had a pretty unique vision of what "recycled" means; this is clear when you look at the designs they create from materials that are usually destined to be milk bottles, or are former plastic bags. It's a great example of upcycling, as they create products that are truly useful and really cool.
As part of the Design Councils dott07 Festival (that's "design of the times" -- something we mentioned here), they recently held a "Live Factory," where the public was invited to watch this unique version of recycling in action. Visitors brought recyclable plastic with them, and it was turned into chairs, lighting and other pieces right before their eyes; now that's what we call recycling. A few lucky winners even got to take the old plastic/new designs home with them at the end of the show. Hit the jump to see more pics of the factory in full production mode, and click on over to their site for more info and details, including time-lapse movies of the show. ::Cohda...
Sweden's Green Car Explosion
by April Streeter, Gothenburg, Sweden on 11. 9.07
At this week's Clean Vehicles and Fuels conference in Stockholm, city officials released an updated survey showing that 50 percent of city residents would consider shopping for a "miljöbil" when they buy their next car. That's a huge increase from 2004, the last time the survey was done, when just 20 percent of respondents said they'd consider buying a green, or environmentally friendlier car.
One reason for the mental shift has to be Stockholm's congestion tax, newly implemented this year after a 2006 trial. Registered green cars are exempt from the automated tax, and thus are becoming highly sought after - a total of more than 25,000 have been sold since May, to both consumers and for fleets. ...
Climate Change May Hit Kids Harder
by Jasmin Malik Chua, Jersey City, USA on 11. 9.07
Photo credit: sharynmorrow
If climate change is going to disproportionately harm the health of our kids—as it more than likely will—politicians need to launch "aggressive policies" to mitigate the oncoming dangers, according to a report by the American Academy of Pediatrics last month.
As temperatures begin to rise, children will be particularly vulnerable in several ways, says the report. Waterborne infections that hit children especially hard, including diarrhea and other gastrointestinal problems, will thrive with more rain, which is anticipated as the climate warms.
The malaria zone is expanding because mosquitoes are able to move to higher ground. Seventy-five percent of malaria deaths occur in children younger than 5. ...
$450 Million Hotel To Be Powered By Rainwater, Solar
by Justin Thomas, Virginia on 11. 9.07
Robert Congel, owner of the Pyramid Cos., says he will build a $450 million, 40-story green hotel as part of the Carousel Center mall. The unnamed hotel will be powered (in part) by electricity generated by its solar panel facade and by hydro-electric turbines utilizing rainwater collected on its roof. It is intended to be the cornerstone of Destiny USA: a 75-million-square-foot retail, hotel, and entertainment complex touted as the world's most sustainable project.
The hotel's green theme will be carried throughout its design, Destiny officials said. A rendering of the hotel shows a V-shape structure on the north side of the Carousel Center, with a green facade that makes it look like six giant blades of grass soaring into the sky next to Onondaga Lake....
Green Build: Environmental Life Cycle Declarations Ready for Use
by Jenna Watson, Barcelona on 11. 9.07
We couldn’t make it to the annual GreenBuild conference and expo in Chicago this year, but it looks like it is and probably was a great session. Including a panel dicussion on one of our favourite topics: environmental life cycle declarations. You know - those declarations that tell you the environmental impacts of a product, like a building material, over its life time (i.e. from the extraction of raw materials to the end-of-life waste management. They base the info on ISO 14040 life cycle assessment studies and are a great way of helping consumers be better informed about what they are purchasing and putting in their homes. Did any of you make it to this event? Please give us your thoughts below. Via: Scientific Certification Systems
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Book Review: GreenTOpia: Towards a Sustainable Toronto
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 11. 9.07
"PM to Cities: Drop Dead"- that is the headline in the print version of the Toronto Star today, as the Canadian Prime Minister says that the cities are not his problem and can look to the provinces instead. (while he rolls in surpluses and cuts taxes). Meanwhile the roads are cracking up, transit fares are rising, the well-meaning mayor is so cash-poor that he cannot do anything but whine for pennies and many begin to wonder if there is any future in this city.
Then along comes GreenTOpia: Towards a Sustainable Toronto, edited by Alana Wilcox, Chritina Palassio and the wonderfully named Jonny Dovercourt. It is a collection of articles and visions including Mark Fram on "planning walking zoning greening: Catherine Nasmith on "Buildings are not Garbage" (previously seen on TreeHugger here) and noting that "the average Victorian building has enough embodied energy to drive a vehicle around the world five times."...
Ask TreeHugger: Don’t Eat Yellow Snow…or Black…or Brown…or Pink…
by Helen Suh MacIntosh, Cambridge, MA, USA on 11. 9.07
Question: My kids always want to eat snow. If I can help it, I don’t let them, but I can’t watch them all the time. It’s driving me crazy. What do you think?
Response: If the snow is yellow, black, brown, pink or otherwise dirty, it should not be eaten, as the colors each point out the presence of a different kind of pollution – yellow pollution from animals, black and brown pollution from dirt, cars, and people, and pink from bacterial contamination. The snow can collect these pollutants once it falls to the ground by being stepped on, splashed on, peed on, or otherwise having pollution fall on it. More surprisingly to some, perhaps, snow can also become contaminated by pollution as it falls to the ground.
It turns out that snow is a fairly efficient pollution collector when it is in the air. Snow is formed by water vapor that moves in clouds in cold air. As the water vapor moves in the cold air, it can stick to a tiny piece of dust and then have other water molecules attach to it, forming a crystal. Once formed, the crystal can continue to grow and can stay in the air for hours before it falls to the ground. It is during this time that the snow crystal can collect or “scavenge” pollutants that are present in the air....
Yug Gug Gug! - Popeye Clunks Climate Change.
by Leonora Oppenheim, London, UK on 11. 9.07
Olive Oyl would be so proud! Popeye is back in action and he's on for "the mos' arful battle". His old foe Bluto has returned in the dastardly form of Climate Change, but Popeye is going to use his cans of 'New Green Energy' to fight his way out of this one! We're definitely going to enjoy this new tongue in cheek awareness raising campaign from UK renewable energy company Ecotricity....
A Picture is Worth... Nature Creates a River
by Jeremy Elton Jacquot, Los Angeles on 11. 9.07
Check out the whole amazing sequence Dispatches from Designboost: Visualizing the Spokes
by Team Treehugger, Worldwide on 11. 9.07
[Ed. note: This is the latest in a series of guest posts by David Carlson, co-founder of Designboost, an inaugural event that's focusing on sustainable design. Check out the other posts here and stay tuned for more!]
The boost show (or exhibition) of the Swedish design event Designboost is a visualisation of the seven “spokes” of the imaginary sustainable wheel, which is the foundation for the event 2007. The different themes of the wheel, which I mentioned earlier, includes environmental influence, innovation, emotional connection, aesthetics, quality, authenticity and compatibility.
At the different images below you will see some different projects/products that according to us are good examples of sustainable design according to our thesis of a holistic view on the subject. All projects are presented both with a product and also a written description of the strategy behind it. In addition to Tejo Remy's "Accidental Carpet," above, you can see a short description of the projects/products below the fold. The Boost show runs until November 17th at Fridhemstorget in Malmö, Sweden.
As mentioned before specially made interviews with different involved designers will be presented here at TreeHugger in the near future. Stay tuned!...
Make Rain, Not War
by John Laumer, Philadelphia on 11. 9.07
Maybe praying for rain will unite Georgians around the idea that something needs to be done besides standing around watching Lake Lanier recede (as pictured), threatening to sue Federal agencies or neighboring states, or telling people to buy two weeks worth of bottled water.
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No Space to Park or Walk in Athens
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 11. 9.07
In Athens, people park anywhere. If you complain or participate in the popular sport of "car vaulting", you get arrested. “All I did was exercise my right as a pedestrian,” he [Tassos Pouliasis] said in an interview. “No one, neither the police, the car driver or even a single bystander, could see beyond my action to realize that there was a blatant traffic violation to begin with.”
Evidently in Greece, the concerns and rights of pedestrians are widely disregarded. “Step on a sidewalk or try crossing any street here, and chances are you’ll instantly feel like the prey of a safari hunt,” said Vassilis Theodorou of the Hellenic Association of Road Traffic Victim Support. “This is the only place in Europe where the golden traffic rule — that pedestrians have the unconditional right of way — is so brazenly disrespected.”
Some are fighting back, putting Dayglo stickers on windshields depicting a donkey in a car above the message, “I park wherever I want.” ::New York Times
Of course, in places like New York City things are so much better:
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The Complexities of Keeping It Small and Simple
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 11. 9.07
Harry and the Harrier: Prince Questioned Over Illegal Killings
by Sami Grover, Carrboro, NC, USA on 11. 9.07
TreeHugger isn’t best known for its coverage of British Royalty (heaven knows they get enough press elsewhere). However, when it relates to greenness, we are not averse to the occasional post. We have already looked at Prince Charles’ attempts to cut his own environmental footprint , and the Queen’s plans to install hydro power at Windsor Castle also made it onto our pages. It’s a shame then, that this royal post sees one of the Windsor’s making the headlines for all together more negative reasons. It seems that the reserve warden and two visitors at the Queen’s Sandringham estate in Norfolk were watching two hen harriers in flight (a protected species) when they heard shots before first one, then the other, bird of prey plummeted from the sky. The police were called in immediately to investigate the illegal killings which carry a potential sentence of 6 months in jail or a £5000 (US$10,000) fine. The suspects? Three men, including none other than Prince Harry, Charles’ youngest son and third in line to the throne. For some strange reason, charges were not brought:
...
A Novel Strategy to Counter Ocean Acidification
by Jeremy Elton Jacquot, Los Angeles on 11. 9.07
Kurt House's idea to bolster the oceans' ability to sequester carbon dioxide sounds straightforward enough. Because higher atmospheric levels of the greenhouse gas have blunted the oceans' ability to act as a carbon sink by making them more acidic, House - a graduate student in Harvard's Earth and Sciences department - contends, pumping in more basic solutions should help reverse that trend.
Arguing that it would take much too long - several thousand years - for the oceans to return to their equilibrium state naturally , House's proposal, known as electrochemical weathering, would accelerate a normal process that dissolves rocks on land to form alkaline solutions. The reactions that form the solutions, which eventually find their way to the sea, would be sped up by using a much stronger acid to dissolve the rocks.
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Issues Survey: Chemicals in our Kids
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 11. 9.07
Now that we are in the American election spin cycle, what would we ask the candidates if we could? What would we expect to hear? For the next few days you can do it at 10questions, but we will use a survey per week to look at issues big and obscure that we might want our candidates to think about.
We recently noted that the FDA has a long list of "grandfathered" chemicals that have been around for so long that they are assumed to be safe, and they go into stuff that we use on our kids, even though some are associated with brain and nervous system damage, hormone disruption, allergies and cancer. Many are common ingredients in baby shampoo, lotion, diaper cream, and sunscreen.
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Recipe of the Week - Curried Chickpea, Lentil and Swiss Chard Stew
by Kelly Rossiter, Toronto on 11. 9.07
My husband and I disagreed quite strenuously about this recipe. I have always said that cooking for him was a joy because he would eat anything except lima beans, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to add lentils to the list. I always knew that lentils weren't his favourite thing, but I love them, and I'm the cook. But this week he had two mouthfuls of this soup and put his foot down. I, on the other hand thought the stew was delicious, so I'm going to share it with you in spite of my disgruntled (and hungry) spouse.
I can tell you the stew gets better the next day because I've been eating it all week. It's also really healthy and clocks in at 293 calories. If you can't find any swiss chard, feel free to substitute spinach....
"Supervolcano" Pushing Yellowstone Ever Upwards
by Jeremy Elton Jacquot, Los Angeles on 11. 9.07
Though barely perceptible to all but the most well-trained eye, Yellowstone National Park has been rising at an alarmingly fast rate - up to 3 inches a year since mid-2004 - according to a new study published in the journal Science. A buildup of magma about 6 miles, or 10 km, underground is causing the surface to almost visibly "inflate".
The park is located on a so-called "supervolcano" - a huge, geologically active feature that is "hundreds of times bigger than Mount St. Helens," according to Robert Smith, a professor of geophysics at the University of Utah who co-wrote the study. The caldera, or crater, in which it is situated formed when the "supervolcano"'s cone fell apart during an eruption 640,000 years ago....
The Virtue of Humility: Why Coke's Ethical Store Failed
by Jerry Stifelman, The Change, Chapel Hill, NC on 11. 9.07
The news that Coke’s prototype store for its “Far Coast” ethical coffee chain concept is set to close comes as no surprise to those of us in the circle of good-for-the-world branding and marketing. But that doesn’t mean we rooted for it to fail. The world would sure be a better place if transnationals behaved as responsibly to humanity and the planet as they do to their shareholders (novel concept – but maybe we are all shareholders of this planet). We suggest the store failed because everything about Far Coast was designed to hide the association with its parent company. And in a world where the internet brings instant access to vast amounts of corporate information and news, having something to hide is just not smart. Especially when the kind of customers you’re appealing to are turned on by the virtues of transparency and ethical consumption.
As we argued in this guest post a while back, authenticity is a huge asset in terms of branding and marketing. Many companies, from Coke to Starbucks, spend millions trying to cultivate it. Yet, if there is any kind of dissonance between that impression of authenticity, and the institutional realities of a company, then the whole brand is a house of cards. No one likes to feel manipulated, least of all when their ethics are being appealed to.
But what if Coke had taken a different route? What if they’d embraced the truth?...
Nu Magazine: Fashion Laid Bare
by Bonnie Alter, London on 11. 9.07
A new ethical fashion magazine has appeared on the London scene. It is good timing now that the fashion world is beginning to recognise the impact of its production on the world and that ethical fashion can be stylish. Started by two young social entrepreneurs, it will showcase only fair trade, organic, recycled, vintage, and UK-produced clothes and accessories. It's small in size and length so it is perfect reading for a long trip on the bus or subway. The range of topics is broad: health and beauty, home wares, hot fashions as well as some serious pieces. What's nice is that they are presented in an accessible and attractive format so that ethical fashion looks sexy and desirable; not boring. Also nice is that they give a complete list of the websites for the featured products; there is nothing more frustrating than wasting time looking for an obscure label.
Here's a little tim bit (Canadian joke) : an article on Feng Shui for the office suggests that you clear your desk before you leave at night so that you are not held back by stale energy, empty the waste bin every day, clear window sills and have a plant...(you never know). Initially the magazine will come out quarterly and is already available at some very cool shops around London. The website will be up soon, which will be a great resource for London fashionistas. We wish them well in this exciting and very relevant new venture. :: nu magazine...
Child Creativity Linked With Outdoor Free Time
by Kenny Luna, North Babylon, NY on 11. 9.07
I’m not sure about you, but I certainly remember a time when electronic toys were a novelty and the idea of a “play date” meant you rang the doorbell down the street to see if “Mike” could come out to play… But certainly all of that has changed in large degree since the early to mid eighties when I was pedaling around town on a bike and playing manhunt in “the woods” with friends.
I call it “the woods” because that was the name we gave it, though in reality the place we used to play was more of a vacant lot with loads of trees on it, a few old tires, and empty beer cans from older kids the night before. But we certainly weren’t aware of the fact that it wasn’t Yellowstone, and it never dawned on us to care either... To us it was simply our place to hang out and create whatever new creation was possible out of the materials available, before running around like a bunch of lunatics while chasing each other and having a blast.
Intriguingly, studies now show that free time to play outdoors is critical to developing creativity in kids that can blossom in later life. Seemingly, it’s one of their first opportunities to create on their own, outside the realm of adults, and often through collaboration with peers of all kinds, shapes and sizes.
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Neurosis River: Coal Power & Wastewater Create Toxic Fish
by Tim McGee, Helena, MT, USA on 11. 9.07
Coal is dirty. In late October of 1948 a temperature inversion occurred over the towns of Donora and Webster, Pennsylvania along the Monongahela River. The odd inverse of hot and cold air trapped the coal smoke and pollution billowing from a zinc smelter and a steel mill. The thick pollution nestled into the towns and resulted in the deaths of about two dozen people. The shocking toxicity eventually inspired federal air pollution legislation in the 1960s and 1970s.
Today, coal is still polluting Pennsylvania. Mercury and selenium are well known pollutants emitted through the burning of coal for power generation. A study conducted by researchers from the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health now sheds light on how dangerous levels of mercury and selenium are winding up in the fish downwind of coal plants. ...
Post-Consumer Recycled Goods: Recycling Waste Into Stuff
by Collin Dunn, Corvallis, OR, USA on 11. 8.07
What is "post-consumer recycled"?
Once a material or finished product has served its intended use and has been diverted or recovered from waste destined for disposal, it is then considered "post-consumer." Having completed its life as a consumer item, it can then be recycled as such. This differs from "pre-consumer" or "post-industrial" waste, which is generated by industrial or manufacturing waste.
Post-consumer recycled starts with our waste
Just about all industrial processes generate waste; the paper and printing industries, for example, recycle ends of paper rolls, misprints, scraps from trimming, etc. This pre-consumer waste is produced in large quantities in a relatively small number of locations; this is the polar opposite of post-consumer waste, which generally comes from our homes. As such, post-consumer waste is more difficult to separate and collect, but very important as it keeps tons of material from going to the landfill....
BuyGreen: Office & Desk Chairs
by Collin Dunn, Corvallis, OR, USA on 11. 8.07
Anyone that sits at a desk or in a chair for part or all of their work knows that what you sit in really matters. Not only does it affect how comfortable and productive you are, but poor seating can have some pretty negative long-term health effects, limiting your ability to earn the green.
The chairs you'll find here are designed to help you feel better at work, not only providing relief to your arching back, but relieving some of the pressure your office puts on the environment. Choose from lots of colors and fabrics to fit your budget and style; since they've all been designed with sustainability in mind -- spanning the spectrum from infinitely adjustable to so smart that it adjusts to you -- each one can make a case for being the last task chair you'll ever have to buy. Hit the jump to start sitting pretty....
Wrap Your Laptop in Organic Cotton
by Jasmin Malik Chua, Jersey City, USA on 11. 8.07
Lovingly cradle your precious electronic cargo—and protect it from accidental spills and drops—with one of Passenger Pigeon's chic and contemporary organic-cotton laptop sleeves.
Starting at $66 and available in two sizes (15 inches and 17 inches), the lightly padded sleeves come in either gray or orange fabric, peppered with miniature birds and wind turbines, respectively. ::Reform School
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Enterprise Rent-A-Car: Now With Terrapass
by Jasmin Malik Chua, Jersey City, USA on 11. 8.07
Photo credit: Business Week
Enterprise Rent-A-Car has buddied up with TerraPass to enable its customers to offset the pollution created by their rentals, effectively rendering their rides carbon neutral.
Starting January 1, 2008, the world's largest fleet of rental cars—1.1 million at last count, including 3,000 hybrids and 54,000 flex-fuel vehicles—will be the first major rental-car company to offer a carbon-offset option in the United States. Plus, Enterprise will be matching its customers' offset purchases dollar for dollar up to $1 million.
This is a major coup for TerraPass; and, if just 100,000 customers pay the extra dollar or so for a TerraPass, the program will offset 12 millions of pounds of carbon-dioxide emissions—or the equivalent of taking 2,000 Toyota Corollas off the road. ::Inc. and ::TerraPass
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Other States to Adopt California's Emissions Standards, Sue Pants Off EPA
by Jasmin Malik Chua, Jersey City, USA on 11. 8.07
Photo credit: ramella
The 11 other states that have clutched California's tough emissions standards against their legislative bosoms: Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey (whoo hoo!), New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington.
Five states that have said they plan to jump on board are Arizona, Colorado, Florida, New Mexico, and Utah....
A-Squared Goes For Rain Barrels Too
by John Laumer, Philadelphia on 11. 8.07
A few weeks back we saw the LED street lights going up in Ann Arbor Michigan USA. Now this same City is experimenting with rain barrels on a large scale. That's a good thing. Rain barrels not only provide free water for gardening, they reduce the intensity and volume of storm water runoff, and provide an emergency water storage option in the event of a extended drought. Are you listening Atlanta?
Volunteers from the Huron River Watershed Council rolled out the barrels Sunday afternoon - rain barrels, that is. After selling 700 of them in just three weeks through pre-orders, Laura Rubin, executive director of the Huron River Watershed Council, was ecstatic. So ecstatic, in fact, that she promised another sale next year. Also thrilled with the ability to purchase the environmentally friendly, 60-gallon, dark green barrels were the about 450 customers who arrived at the Huron High School parking lot to pick them up after paying a bargain price of $75. But people from Ann Arbor weren't the only ones purchasing the rain barrels. They came from all over southeast Michigan - including Chelsea, Ypsilanti, Redford, Detroit, St. Clair Shores, Brighton and Howell....
The Circuit Board Bakers of Guiyu
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 11. 8.07
Andrew Leonard at Salon introduces us to eDump, a 20 minute film about the business of exporting American toxic garbage to China. And why not? The shipping containers are going back empty and garbage is about the only thing left that America is producing lots of. Leonard notes that "The U.S. is the only industrialized nation in the world in which it is not illegal to export hazardous waste to less developed countries."
It is the first film by Michael Zhao of Wuhan, China, and it is, like Manufactured Landscapes, a powerful indictment. The woman in the picture above is baking circuit boards on a coal fired stove to separate the components. Watch ::eDump by Michael Zhao via ::Salon
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A Brownfield Site Restored and Put to Work
by Jasmin Malik Chua, Jersey City, USA on 11. 8.07
After years of industrial pollution on the shores of Syracuse's Onondaga Lake, the Solway Settling Basins is now setting a precedent for the restoration of contaminated brownfield sites, or parcels of land that previously housed industrial facilities.
Rather than fencing off the area, capping it with clay and plastic, and then posting "Keep Out" signs, a partnership of engineers, scientists, and new corporate owners decided to restore the ecosystem, remediate the environmental concerns, and turn the site into something beneficial....
Potting Shed Creations' Organic Rice Hull Gardens
by Jasmin Malik Chua, Jersey City, USA on 11. 8.07
The perfect gift for your environmentally savvy party host or hostess: Potting Shed Creation's ready-to-grow container flowers and herbs. Packed in burnished urns made from rice hulls, an abundant agricultural byproduct (read: waste), these gardens are 100 percent biodegradable—and USDA certified organic, to boot.
You get your choice of butterfly amaryllis, garlic chives, lemon basil, parsley, or paperwhites. Prices start at $15.50. ::Potting Shed Creations...
Is Lack of Sleep Making Your Kids Fat?
by Jasmin Malik Chua, Jersey City, USA on 11. 8.07
Scoffing down too much cake and candy may not be the only thing expanding Little Timmy's burgeoning waistline. Kids who aren't getting enough shuteye could also be at an increased risk for being overweight, according to research published in the November issue of the journal Pediatrics.
In a study that examined the relationship between sleep duration and overweight risk for third-grade and sixth-grade children, researchers from the University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children's Hospital discovered that children who got fewer than 9 hours of sleep each day were more likely to be overweight, regardless of gender, race, socioeconomic status, or quality of life at home....
Top Five Climate Skeptic Red Herrings
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 11. 8.07
DeSmogBlog provides answers to the usual lame arguments that come up in comments and deranged websites. Their top five, abbreviated here:
1. A group of "experts" signed a letter stating that there is no consensus on climate change: Science is a process of proposing an hypothesis, testing it and then publishing those results in a peer-reviewed research journal. A letter signed by a bunch of people stating that the theory of human-caused global warming is wrong does not prove anything scientifically.
2. The climate is always changing - it's natural: The fact that there has been historical variation in temperature and greenhouse gas levels is well known in science. But natural variation is not what has been observed since the industrial revolution.
3. Scientists predicted global cooling in the 1970's: And in the 1950's scientists were using LSD to treat alcoholism.
4. Al Gore flies around the world in carbon-emitting jets. What would you have Gore do? Walk to China?
5. The Mann "hockey stick" graph: the Hockey Stick is just another red herring propped up by those who insist on keeping their heads firmly planted in the nice warm (and getting warmer) sand.
Read the full versions at ::Desmogblog
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Intriguing Electric Bike: The EV-X7 Prototype
by Justin Thomas, Virginia on 11. 8.07
Quote of the Day: Jonathan Porritt on Saving Our Seeds
by Jasmin Malik Chua, Jersey City, USA on 11. 8.07
The number of people out there today seriously worried about the health of all the plants and seeds on which modern agriculture depends must be very limited, and the number of people actively campaigning to protect them vanishingly few. ... Of the Earth's 250,000 plant species, only 200 are cultivated for food on any serious scale.
Even more extraordinary, the vast majority of the world's food comes from just 20 crops, in just eight plant families. Most of these monocultures are dangerously vulnerable to diseases (both old and new), pest infestations, and a rapidly changing climate....
Strange Stairs
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 11. 8.07
Earlier this year all the internets were showing a stairway with storage built into it; Here are more innovative designs via Deputy Dog. Staggered stairs are usually found in industrial spaces, but gabriella gustafson and mattias ståhlbom have built this stunning one. It looks dangerous but they are really quite comfortable and safe, with twice the rise for the same run, so they are very efficient for small spaces. However they don't usually look this good.
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50 Ways to Green Your Business
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 11. 8.07
Lots of green reads in the November issue of Fast Company: 50 Ways to Green Your Business- "Imagine asking today how the Internet affects business. It's an absurd question, like asking how electricity changed business. Asking the same about sustainability, it turns out, is equally absurd. Like the Internet, sustainability spurs innovation in everything. ::More
Motorhead Messiah: Johnathan Goodwin can get 100 mpg out of a Lincoln Continental, cut emissions by 80%, and double the horsepower. Does the car business have the guts to follow him? ::More
Old Bird, New Feathers- Patrick Martins has brought once-endangered turkey breeds back to the Thanksgiving table. ::More...
Wayback Machine 1933; Vertical Rotors Move Ship in Lightest Winds
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 11. 8.07
There have been TreeHugger posts on modern versions of this and other modern sailing designs, and it looks similar to Jacques Cousteau's Alcyone . Way back in 1933 aeronautical engineer Laurence Lesh put vertical wings on boats that can sail directly into the wind. "Once the pointed, vertical wings of the Lesh boat begin spinning, they keep on until the wind dies down or the brakes are applied. The lightest of breezes, tests have shown, will start them whirling and move the ship." It is another demonstration of the magnus effect, first seen on TreeHugger with the Magenn air rotor. ::Modern Mechanix...
Book Review: Softies by Therese Laskey
by Jasmin Malik Chua, Jersey City, USA on 11. 8.07
Office Building Lit By 100% LED Light
by Justin Thomas, Virginia on 11. 8.07
Here's an example of an office building that has been converted to 100% LED light. The new bulbs consume 48% less energy than those they replaced (mostly fluorescents lights). The workplace in question is the headquarters of Cree, a company in North Carolina that specializes solid-state LED lights. The parking lots, entryways, lobby and conference rooms at Cree’s headquarters are now lit by eco-effective XLamp LEDs. Even the high-pressure sodium parking lights and spotlights were converted to LED lights....
Skinny Swedish Packages A Staple In China
by April Streeter, Gothenburg, Sweden on 11. 8.07
There's always clung to the Tetra Pak a bit of uncertainty regarding its environmental credibility: is it or isn't it green? Tetra Pak recycling rates are lousy, but in at least one life cycle analysis it came out ahead of glass and PET plastic in energy use and greenhouse gas emissions.
Now one of Tetra Pak's heirs, Swede Hans Rausch, has put a lot of money and time behind Ecolean, which might be called Tetra Pak's next generation. Ecolean is a packaging film made of 40 percent calcium carbonate (chalk) and about 60 percent polyolefin (yup, plastic).
The biggest markets for Ecolean thus far have been developing nations, especially China, where demand for dairy products is growing exponentially. But now in Europe Ecolean is getting more shelf space and is even starting to show up in grocery stores in Scandinavia....