Weekly Archive for November 11, 2007 : TreeHugger

Cara Smusiak is a journalist and regular contributor to NaturallySavvy.com's Naturally Green section. She grew up in a family that recycled just about everything, avoided harsh cleaners and heavily-scented products and often turned to natural medicines, and her efforts in environmentally friendly living continue to grow. She is also passionate about healthy and natural living, environmental awareness and policy, and holistic health care. Writing for NaturallySavvy.com is a perfect match for her interests, and she loves learning about new ways to become more eco-friendly in her daily life. www.NaturallySavvy.com is a website dedicated to educating people on the benefits of living a natural, organic and green lifestyle. Andrea Donsky, Registered Holistic Nutritionist (R.H.N.) and Randy Boyer are the co-founders of NaturallySavvy.com and are passionate about living a naturally healthy lifestyle. They walk the walk and talk the talk and are always looking to dispel the myth that natural and/or organic products don't work as well as their conventional counterparts. To reach Cara e-mail her at: cara@naturallysavvy.com. To reach Andrea and Randy, e-mail them at: andreaandrandy@naturallysavvy.com....

Last year, we wrote about how the US Naval Station on Guantanamo completed installation of a pair of wind turbines designed to meet a quarter of the base’s average power needs during the windy months. Following in these eco-savvy footsteps, the U.S. Navy has bought itself a biodiesel processor to clean used cooking oil from Guantanamo Base and mix it with diesel fuel to produce a biodiesel blend. Currently, the base produces about 1,500 gallons (5,680 litres) of used cooking oil a month in its galleys, restaurants and home kitchens. That oil was being poured directly into a landfill. Landfill space is tight on the base, which is rented from Cuba and completely cut off from the rest of the island because of chilly relations between the U.S. and Cuban governments. "Every gallon of cooking oil we put in the tank is another gallon of diesel oil we don't have to buy and ship down," said Navy Cmdr. Jeff Johnston, public works officer for the base. :: Via Planet Ark...

We often write about clever designs that address the problem of waste and energy inefficiency. But what about designs that solve other kinds of environmental problems, like biodiversity loss? According to WWF, nearly 250,000 endangered loggerhead, leatherback and other turtles, as well as thousands of sea birds, sharks and sea mammals, are accidentally caught every year by long-line fishermen trolling the seas using treacherous J-shaped hooks. WWF has been working with fishermen from Ecuador to Mexico to make the switch from J-hooks to circular hooks, which make better ecological sense. Recent data collected by WWF suggests that using circle hooks saves 70 percent to 90 percent of the turtles caught by long-line fishermen and has little effect on catch rates, Moises Mug, a senior official at WWF, told Reuters. The circular hook is wider and its tip protrudes less than the J-hook, increasing the change that it will lodge in the turtle's lip rather than the throat or stomach, which is fatal, according to WWF. The point of the hook actually curves into the hook shank. If the bait is swallowed, the hook will come right back up the throat without hooking the turtle. The circular hooks are also easier to remove from the mouths of turtles and prevents them from bleeding to death. :: Via Planet Ark...

A year ago in TreeHugger, we were celebrating America Recycles Day (and deploying some tips for taking action on the big day) and it was so much fun, we celebrated again this year. Recycling was a hot topic last year: in BUST magazine; in the construction of an entire cardboard car; with some nice outdoor furniture; with a nice DIY project for a business card holder; and a huge online resource for British recycling. This year, we noted Recycline's new kitchen gear, checked out Brazil's new recycled homewares and gawked at some nice recycled jewelry. Guess there's something to this recycling thing, after all...check out the rest of what was on our radar this week last year right here. ...

Photo: Tungabhadra River

Imagine my delight when I got to interview Bangalore-based designer Mohan Rao of Integrated Design (ID), whose small, multidisciplinary firm is now working on a sustainable restoration scheme of the reservoirs around the small but legendary town of Hampi, in the Indian state of Karnataka – a World Heritage site and certainly one of most magical places on the subcontinent and where the surrounding ruins mark the historical location of the fourteenth-century South Indian empire of the Vijayanagara. Firms such as Rao’s in India are interesting because they present alternative methodologies in an already-blossoming sustainability movement in India – synthesizing and building upon traditional/historical experiences with modern, holistic know-how to address problems of conservation and heritage preservation. In a nation where each new, big hydrological dam spawns more environmental and social problems than it solves, Rao is busy challenging large-scale methods of resource management and hydrological restoration with alternative, sustainable and small-scaled approaches of revitalization in Hampi. Rao also recently finished up some disaster management consulting on the Nicobar Islands and an urban habitat project in Morocco....

This toy windmill is as good as it gets for budding TreeHuggers. Made out of steel in the good old USA. No poisonous, plastic parts from China (although we did not examine the small red hub pictured). And, it would look nice even on a balcony railing or in a flower pot on the deck. Small enough that the child would not have to live in the suburbs to enjoy its functioning. The only drawback is, this model isn't set up to add a mini-generator to drive a motor or pump. Lehman's online catalog lists it for US$17.95 and it was in stock at the time of this posting. Kids can assemble the Lehman turbine toy, but it looks as if adult involvement would be needed: a good time to engage in a "teachable moment." Green shopper caution: we considered including a photo of the KidWind project toy wind turbines in this post because that project offers a variety of toy wind turbine kits and spare parts. Unfortunately, most of the KidWind turbine and stanchion materials are apparently PVC, as shown in this link. Might be possible to add the ancillary generation parts from KidWind to the Lehman's turbine, and skip the potential for exposing kids to Chinese-made vinyl containing lead stabilizer compounds?

Note:Lehman's windmill "Takes about an hour to assemble and a tweezers is highly recommended (Many small screws.) # 16 ¾"H, 1 ft. to 1" scale."

Clarification:: This writer has no problem with PVC components of any kind being included in commercial wind turbines. Kids are not exposed to them. There's no problem, either, with kids being given age appropriate toys with rigid PVC parts if lead stabilizers are demonstrated not to be present. But, given this year's experience with Chinese made toys containing lead colorants and Chinese formulated vinyl commonly containing lead stabilizers, until it is demonstrated that the KidWind kits are lead-free, we can't in good conscience, suggest them as gifts. Summary: Made In The USA, and Lead Free are the qualities that make Lehmans a "Best Ever" unless someone points us to a better model, in which case we'll make a correction or addendum to this post....

This is wonderful. A bi-partisan political storm is brewing over New Hampshire because Al and Arnold have found a clever way to inject serious climate discussion into the coming US presidential primary season. Timing could not be better, with the IPCC about to 'drop the big one'- a 5-year update report that even talk show hosts can understand - and Al Gore about to receive White House recognition for his Nobel prize. Sadly, this will make it even harder for CNN to get debating candidates to take a pass on climate in favor of questions about grooming and appearance.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and former vice president Al Gore are planning a bipartisan presidential forum on energy and climate change in New Hampshire in December, the governor's office confirmed Thursday. The forum, which is still in the planning stages, is being designed so presidential candidates from both parties will attend. Adam Mendelsohn, a spokesman for the governor, said the format was not completely developed, but the former vice president was handling the Democratic candidates, while Schwarzenegger would handle the Republicans. Schwarzenegger's office confirmed the forum after Sen. John McCain said at a Sacramento news conference Thursday that he had agreed to attend. The GOP presidential candidate said the climate change issue had not been discussed enough in the race, either by Republicans or Democrats.

Via::USA Today, "Gore, Schwarzenegger to plan presidential climate forum" Image credit::Jeff's Weather Blog, Thunder Storm Over New Hampshire...

Though we're likely still a long ways off that vaunted hydrogen economy, it's been encouraging to witness the string of breakthroughs in storage and production technology that have taken place over the last few months. Now a team of scientists from the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, have created a new class of hydrogen storage materials that could make the development of high-performance fuel cells a possibility in the near future. Physicists Adam Phillips and Bellave Shivaram took up a proposal originally made by Taner Yildirim of the National Institute of Standards and Technology - who had calculated that a material made out titanium and ethylene, a small hydrocarbon, could form a stable complex that would bind 14% of its weight in hydrogen - and brought it to fruition. ...

Image courtesy of WaPo's Kevin Clark As devastating as Hurricanes Katrina and Rita may have been, the amount of pain and destruction they inflicted on Louisiana and Mississippi may have just been a prelude to the larger ecological disaster they now pose. Though largely unreported until now, new satellite data from NASA has shown that the hurricanes may have struck down or severely damaged as many as 320 million trees in the two states. James Cummins, executive director of Wildlife Mississippi and a board member of the state's Forestry Commission, has described this as, "the worst environmental disaster in the United States since the Exxon Valdez accident ... and the greatest forest destruction in modern times." He was critical of the poor response this catastrophe had received so far, arguing that it needed to be both "really broad" and "aggressive."...

Jeremy%20Leggett%20principle%20voices.jpg

Jeremy Leggett, who we interviewed here, will be appearing on CNN International’s Principal Voices program, tonight at 7.30pm GMT, 8.30pm CET. Each year, Principal Voices gathers together a series of the world's foremost thinkers in their respective areas. For 2007 the focus is on social entrepreneurship, technology and innovation, and alternative energy. For a short clip of what Jeremy Leggett has to say, follow this link. Other voices to be featured on the program include Juliet Davenport, CEO of UK company Good Energy, and Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran, an award- winning journalist and environmental commentator. For more thoughts on cleaner energy, check out our guide on How to Green Your Electricity.::Principal Voices::via Solarcentury:: ...

Michel Moynier, the mayor of Narbonne has vision. And his vision is becoming reality. The city recently celebrated the opening of a school that uses zero fossil fuels, relying on solar and geothermal as main sources of energy. Narbonne also boasts a biogas production facility for fueling city vehicles. Legislative commitments ensure city streets free of cars over 8 years old and free parking for clean burning or electric cars. But all this is merely a prelude. Narbonne's full plan is music for the ears. The city will build a 650 house subdivision with the goal to create a zero CO2 community. Cogeneration will fuel and heat the sustainable subdivision. The Narbonne 'du Theater' neighborhood will benefit from a silent waste collection system to manage three streams of separated wastes. This sustainable urban zone will mix small commercial concerns into a community of diverse social population relying on environmentally friendly modes of transportation....

The bald eagle has soared off the Endangered Species List with a with a little help and an 8-foot wingspan. Willie Nelson shares his recipe for DIY biodiesel brewing at home. The polls are closed, the votes have been counted and the winners of the British Environment and Media Awards 2007 are... The American Beverage Company (AmBev), the largest drink and bottling business in Latin America, recently opened a 1,500 square meter (that's over 16,000 square feet) recycling facility near Rio de Janiero. Gooaaallll!! Indoor air pollution is one of the top five threats to public health, but a simple solution can help: houseplants....

There may be something luxurious about slathering on sexual lubricant, but the cultural quandaries posed by the increasing use of these products are complex. ... Why would a woman who is neither on the Pill, breastfeeding or going through menopause have trouble producing her own lubrication? Most observers link this to a lack of decent foreplay in the rush to get to the ‘goal’ of penetrative sex. If this is the case, it would seem to link into reports of women’s increasing lack of satisfaction with sex in general. ... Those thorny questions aside, there are genuine reasons to rethink the use of personal lubricants. Sex should be a healthy act, but lubricants can contain a range of unhealthy ingredients. Yet in our research we found that some manufacturers of lubricant products (Durex Play, for example) do not even declare the product ingredients on the package, making safe comparative choices impossible....

Nothing goes down as smooth as a nice cool drink from TreeHugger Forums; here are some highlights...

1) Forums user tadowguy is crunching some numbers, and wondering about the relative greenness of synthetic versus dinosaur-derived motor oil. "I change my own motor oil in my car. 4 quarts (1 gallon) every 3,000 miles is the book's recommendation. That's about 25g of motor oil that I've used currently. It pales in comparison to the probably 3000 gallons of gas I've used, but used motor oil is nasty stuff. I switched to synthetic oil around 30k miles. The synthetic costs about 2x-3x the regular oil, but, I only change it about every 10-12k miles. Does anyone have any information on the impact of making synthetic oil versus refining motor oil?"

2) User shadygrove is new to the vegetarian lifestyle, and looking for some help. "I could use some advice, recipes, tips etc. about living a vegetarian lifestyle. I have no real interest in going strictly vegan, (i love cheese too much), but I am open to recipes that are vegan." A good "red sauce," to go with pasta and other starches, along with a handful of handy sites are suggested. In a slight tangent, one commenter suggests that the protein deficiency that can accompany vegetarianism is dangerous business...hmm.

3) Lastly, Forums user jcoffman has stumbled into a bit of a random question: "Ok, while wandering around the store the other day I found paper made from rocks.... I was initially skeptical, but still thought it was interesting. I looked up how this paper is actually made and I have to wonder, is it really better than traditional pulp paper? Obviously one could say its better because it doesn't require trees. Thats not the complete picture though. What about the manufacturing energy, and the biodegradability of this product?" Before you rush to click on over, there's already a few jokes about rock paper and scissors. Ha.

Round-ups of the best conversations in TreeHugger Forums appear several times a week here at TreeHugger; register for free and login to become part of the conversation for a greener future today....

How does sweet-potato-and-ginger soup sound for a Thanksgiving starter? Moving? Before you start hoarding boxes and bubble wrap, here's what you need to know Promote global literacy by buying used books Boost your healthy home IQ by by learning to pay attention What is the Meatrix? Uncover the top-ranking polluters in your neighborhood Living the good, car-free life is easier than it sounds Why waste money on waxed paper when you have a free alternative right in your kitchen cabinet?...

TreeHugger has covered the current wars between Edison and Tesla before, Edison did everything to defend his beloved DC, he even made a movie of an "execution" (you can watch it here) which he called being "Westinghoused." The rest is history and we thought DC was dead and gone. So imagine our surprise to find that in New York City they just shut off the DC supply today. There are still quite a few buildings that use it, primarily for elevators (big AC motors were very hard to build) but now most of them have rectifiers to convert AC to DC and Consolidated Edison is finally shutting it down, replacing it with giant elevator-sized wall-warts. Doesn't smell like progress to me. ::New York Times...

Ring the bells! Pop the (organic) champagne! TreeHugger's 2007 Gift Guide is here!

We've made this guide the most comprehensive yet, with 180+ gift ideas in three shades of green, making it a perfect reference while shopping for everyone on your gift list. In addition, we'll be adding organizations to support and useful tips for making your holidays more efficient.

Go to Part II here and Part III here.

For more great ideas, don't forget to visit our past guides from 2006 and 2005.

...

Designed to adapt to the requirements of the user, VerteDRAIN is a clever dish-draining system that's perfect for getting the most function from the least space. Featuring a handful of movable parts, the system can be reconfigured each time you do the dishes to match whatever you have drip-drying, from wine glasses and plates to pots and pans. We're especially fond of the green tower, which can hold a combination of plates, glasses, stemware, and, we assume, most anything you stick in there; like a good city, goes up rather than out to get the most from the smallest possible footprint. Verte also features a removable flatware dryer and a handful of pegs good for propping up bigger pots and helping the drainer elevate your dishes, to get optimum use from the surface area. Hit the jump to see what Verte looks like in real life. ::Sarah Brayshaw at Coroflot via ::Yanko Design...

We've expanded so much that we've had to add on!

Welcome to Part II of TreeHugger's 2007 Gift Guide! See Part I here and Part III here.

We've made this guide the most comprehensive yet, with 180+ gift ideas in three shades of green, making it a perfect reference while shopping for everyone on your gift list. In addition, we'll be adding organizations to support and useful tips for making your holidays more efficient.

For more great ideas, don't forget to visit our past guides from 2006 and 2005. ...

Leaping right from from the possibilities of tree-free e-paper to the future uses of digital paper, here's Paper IV, a 'fourth generation' of interactive paper for use in packaging and displays. Paper IV is a layer of paperboard - which Sweden with its big forests produces abundantly - with digital information embedded in the honeycomb. A top layer of paper is printed with electronically conductive inks so that when it is touched, audio streams right out of the paper, from speakers also printed onto it (a separate power supply is currently needed). Apart from the display pictured, Paper IV could be used in applications such as music sampling stations - you know the ones currently in every major book and music store. Since the printed paper display would be relatively inexpensive according to project manager Mikael Gulliksson, it could be changed frequently, and the old display simply 'tossed into the recycling bin'. Cool concept, but is it truly treehuggable? Gulliksson says it is not totally clear how environmentally-friendly Paper IV can be -it's not in commercial production yet - though he said it has to beat graphic electronic advertising and interactive displays created with a lot of acrylic and/or other plastic materials. Gulliksson's team is now trying to master printing batteries on the paper to lose the separate power source. Perhaps spray-on solar cells for the power source could be next? Via ::Paper Four (English)...

Nobody is surprised when TreeHugger is appalled by wasting water, but when the Wall Street Journal starts complaining you know the issue has gone mainstream. Robert Frank writes in the Journal about Nelson Peltz and how: "He used about 21 million gallons over the past 12 months, which works out to an average of 57,000 gallons a day. Just to put that in perspective, the average single-family household in southern Florida consumes about 54,000 gallons PER YEAR. In other words, Mr. Peltz’s place uses more water in a day than most homes use in a year." Frank concludes in very un-WSJ tone: "I’m all for people spending money however they please. Mr. Peltz earned it, he has a right to buy a oceanfront big estate and run it as he pleases. But when he’s using more than a million gallons of water per month during one of the worst droughts in history, conspicuous consumption has gone too far." ::Wall Street Journal ...

I just love it for the name, Greenwash Soap, giving greenwashing a whole new meaning. It is the first of their palm-oil free soaps; Lush's director of ethics, Hilary Jones, was interviewed at Smartplanet News and says "we were very concerned about palm oil. The land is being sucked up by big multinationals that are clear-cut felling and planting palm oil, displacing the local people and the orangutans. The buyers said they could drive for a whole day and not come out of the palm plant plantations. It was the sheer scale of it -- we came back from Sumatra and decided we didn’t want anything to do with palm oil." Lush hopes to roll out its new formula for all its soaps, reducing palm oil use by 250 tonnes. ::Lush via ::Smartplanet More TreeHugger on ::Palm Oil...

Peter DaSilva for The New York Times The New York Times calls it a "Low-Guilt Potato Chip" because it comes from an "eco-friendly factory." And the California Frito-Lay factory certainly is; they are aiming for net-zero. It is almost off-grid, running on renewable fuels, using recycled water, and "Over the next several years, Frito-Lay plans to install high-tech filters that would recycle most of the water used to rinse and wash potatoes, as well as the corn used to make Doritos and other snacks, and then burn the leftover sludge to create methane gas to run the plant’s boiler. The company will also build at least 50 acres of solar concentrators behind the plant to generate solar power. A biomass generator, which will probably burn agricultural waste, is also planned to provide additional renewable fuel." They call it an environmentally benign potato chip. But isn't this much like a LEED rated parking garage, an oxymoron? When green also means healthy, can a potato chip be "low guilt" because of its carbon footprint? ::New York Times This needs a survey, coming Monday......

Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times This is a recipe that is going to become part my repertoire. If you are looking for a great side dish for Thanksgiving, or maybe an antidote to turkey for the Friday after this is a good choice. It is also a good choice if you are just having some friends around for a casual dinner. The entire thing is made in advance and has to sit and rest for at least 4 hours and up to one day. Take half an hour in the morning to make it and get on with the rest of your day. Toss it in the oven an hour and a quarter before you plan to eat, add a green salad then sit back and bask in the compliments. That's it. The best part about serving this is when your guests arrive you can sit down and have a drink and a chat with them rather than racing around the kitchen at the last minute. And isn't that why we have dinner parties in the first place?...

We love green roofs but can't afford a full size one right now; that's why this "mansion planter" designed by Japan's Nobuhiro Sato is so cool. it is only 5 inches high, and solidly made of mortar, glass and brass. According to shopping site Mollaspace, Sato founded Pull+Push products in 2002 "to pull and push new ideas in and out. Every item is personally handmade. Every product is Nobuhiro Sato’s style to convert things we take for granted into inspiring new ideas." ::Pull+Push (japanese) via ::Mollaspace via ::Roadside scholar...

Between its materials and multi-functional design, die fabrik's Chair777 is not your normal chair. It's made from cardboard, a material that has proven time and again that it's not just for boxes anymore, and might go quite nicely with the designers' table 433, made from recycled Venetian blinds. The lightweight chair can handle a variety of seating "modes," so take a load off and sit, lounge and relax in this curvy beauty. We like how this and other cardboard chairs is helping to re-brand the easy-to-recycle material as more than just a handy-but-disposable material used for shipping and packaging and then tossed aside. Maybe Frank Gehry was really on to something....::die fabrik via ::Design Spotter...

Yurts are almost a no-go zone on TreeHugger along with Birkenstocks and ponchos, but when I learned that David Masters of the Luna Project lived in one just a few minutes away from Cambridge, Ontario, I had to check it out. He actually has two of them made by Oregon's Pacific Yurts, a 30' diameter 706 square foot classroom, and a 24' diameter home unit. ...

The message on the lips of every major auto executive at the LA Auto Show this year essentially seemed to boil down to: "Trust us, we're green." And, truth be told, most companies did make some effort to stress their green credentials by featuring an interesting array of upcoming/concept clean vehicles. Too bad their efforts - for the most part - fell flat on their faces. As many commentators have noted, there seems to be somewhat of a disconnect when companies that are out trumpeting their green message to consumers are also furiously lobbying the government against imposing higher fuel efficiency standards. That's not to say none of the models on display didn't catch our eyes (peep VW's space up! blue above, for instance)....

Lloyd posted the other day on Camelbak’s intention to be the first company to offer consumers an bisphenol A free plastic alternative to durable polycarbonate bottles. And while their outdoor sports customers are looking forward to those rugged bottles being available in February 2008, another customer niche, that is equally as demanding of their product, already has an alternative. Green to Grow produce baby bottles from Polyethersulfone (PES), BPA-free plastic that is stable of a wide range of temperatures and is said to be able to withstand repeated sterilization. It approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as safe for repeated use in contact with food. (Mind you, the FDA do give their stamp to some strange practices.) Green to Grow also spot test their line to ensure their remain free of phthalates (as found in PVC) and lead, providing further transparency by publishing those test results as PDFs on their site....

Okay, Peace Love Earth's seven wishes bracelet isn't exactly backed by the scientific method, but a little positive thinking never hurt anyone. Designer Anna Mkhitarian has expanded her line of recycled-silver jewelry by looping delicate charms—you get your choice of the peace symbol, a heart, our planet in miniature, or a flower—on surplus string. Tie a knot for each of your seven wishes on the string; according to Armenian tradition, when the bracelet falls off, your wishes will manifest. Handmade in Los Angeles, each bracelet will set you back $30. ::Peace Love Earth and ::The Green Loop ...

The newsboys aren't on streetcorners anymore; there are so many ways to get information now. However we were surprised to learn from April's post that the old fashioned dead tree edition can in fact have less environmental impact than reading it on the computer (if it gets passed around a bit). Newspapers around the world are losing circulation, but where is it going? UPDATE: I am so sorry about forgetting public radio like NPR, CBC and BBC. I cannot change a poll once it is up without losing all the votes.

View MicroPollSurvey SoftwareFree Online PollEmail Marketing Software

...

Image courtesy of Kango Traveler If you believe Washington's political chattering classes, Al Gore's decision to remove himself from consideration for the upcoming presidential election is essentially a fait accompli. Indeed, his recent move to join KPCB's high-powered team seemed to dash any remaining hope that he would stage a late entry in the 2008 campaign. Or did it? Gore told the Financial Times a few days ago that he had not yet made "a Sherman statement" - conventionally seen in politics as signifying a putative candidate's definitive lack of interest in pursuing an elected position. Whether or not he does eventually decide to enter the race (or clarify his position) - we can at least take comfort in knowing that he is advising candidates from both parties on their environmental plans. ...

George Monbiot, everyone's favourite controversial climate commentator, launched the Be The Change conference with a bang here in London yesterday. He leaped off the starting blocks with the statement that not only is it imperative that we reduce Co2 emissions by 100%, but that it's perfectly possible to do so. This makes the UK government's promise of a 60% reduction by 2050 look frankly wimpy. How can we reach this lofty target you ask? Monbiot's argument rests on two clear points: diversification of renewable energy sources and the use of current transmission services. He is confident that we have the technology that would allow countries like the UK to make use of Iceland's geothermal or Africa's solar energies through direct current cables....

It appears that we may have maligned Mukesh Ambani and Perkins+Will in an earlier post; we called his 60 storey house a new Versailles and a garish display of excess. Ralph Johnson of Perkins + Will tell Architectural Record that “There’s been a lot of crazy things floating around,but there’s actually a lot of positive things to talk about because it’s an interesting building.” Evidently the family is only occupying 35,000 square feet, positively modest by American billionaire standards, and it is clad in "vertical gardens" to help shade the building and reduce the urban heat island effect. “You can use the whole wall almost like a tree and increase the green area of the site by five or 10 times over what it would be if you just did a green roof,” Johnson observers. “It’s a prototype for buildings of the future.” We stand so corrected. ::Architectural Record...

Earth is a spectacular new documentary made by the BBC that follows the lives of three wild animals over a year. Filmed over a 5 year period, it tracks polar bears in the Arctic, elephants in the Kalahari and a humpback whale, through the trials and tribulations of 4 seasons in their lives. Narrated by Patrick Stewart, with his sexy smoky voice, the high-definition photography is revelatory and a delight. The baby polar bears stick their little noses out of their cave into the light and tumble down hills of snow. Forests bloom from snow drops to blue bells to daffodils in an instant. Shot in 200 locations worldwide, the details of wildlife in their habitat are fascinating. Magnificently plumed birds of Paradise do a mating dance in the rain forest of New Guinea and three million caribou flee for their lives with killer wolves in hot pursuit. The message is veiled. The narration talks about changes happening and the world changing and makes reference to the rain forests drying up as weather patterns change. But the big issue--climate change--is never strongly articulated. This could be because the BBC has recently been accused of liberal bias in its coverage of political issues or it could be that the producers wanted to reach as wide an audience as possible. Or maybe it's just so obvious that one doesn't need to say it. Even with these quibbles, the film conveys the fragility of our world and how we are all at the mercy of the environment. Opening today, November 16 at a cinema near you. :: Earth ...

We've written about Intel's Penryn chip before: it is fast, sleek, small and now green. According to 21c, Intel released the new chipset last Saturday and Israeli labs in Haifa helped fashion its micro-architecture to make the chip feasible at a commercial scale. Is the Penryn now the greenest computer chip in the world? ...

Pioneer Carbon, the project origination and sourcing arm of UK-based offset company Climate Care (who only recently announced they had offset over 1 million tonnes of CO2 since they were founded), has just launched a partnership with Camco International to undergo a trial installation of 400 Chinese cooking stoves that could save up to 8 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions each per year. If the trial proves successful, the organizations are hoping to roll out funding for over a million stoves. They claim the accumulated emissions savings could be as high 28 million tonnes in the first five years of the project. This from their press release: ...

Epson proudly announced that it has won a 2007 Ecohitech Award for the Epson Stylus Pro 3800 printer. The award is Italy's most prestigious recognition of environmental achievement by a technology company, and covers hi-tech processes, products, systems and services. The jury appraisal of Epson's award, given in the "Energy Saving and CO2 Reduction" category, says, "The Epson Stylus Pro 3800 is a compact printer developed and produced in accordance with Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). In comparison with the previous models, the estimated CO2 emissions during the whole product life are reduced by 44% and the amount of the resources used during the production is reduced by 55%. The printer is Ecoleaf certified." The Ecoleaf is a Japanese eco-label that recognizes that an LCA has been carried out on a product, which is probably where they calculated the emissions reductions. Surprisingly on the Epson website for this printer there is no mention of the eco-label or award. Via: Design Taxi. Image credit: Techfresh....

When I recently opened my inbox I saw that I’d received an invitation from the Green Charter Schools Network to get involved with what they’re doing and being the curious creature I am I took the opportunity to check them out. Turns out there’s a growing movement of charter schools focused exclusively on educating kids by utilizing the environment as a tool to foster their knowledge of the world around them, and I certainly believe that’s a positive thing. And while I certainly don't know whether or not you'll find an owl in one of them, the reality is that most children will never attend a charter school in their lifetime. Whatever the reasons, the bottom line is that our public school system is the one that we, as a public, inevitably own. And undoubtedly the future that we and the owls share is inextricably linked with the future of that system. ...

It's green to be lazy. Really Turn used makeup compacts into solid-perfume carriers Build a modern, stylish bird feeder for less than a buck Clear the clutter in your wardrobe by hosting a swap party Save carbon-dioxide emissions, as well as some cash, by installing a water-efficient showerhead Managing a carpool schedule for your kids is a snap with this free, new online service Is the thought of giving up your car making you shudder? Baby steps, people Looking for a gift with a little more bite? Give a crocodile ...

BeeCeuticals Organics puts the "tea" in TLC for your stressed tresses. Both the Bee-Hair-Now Hydrating Honey Shampoo and the matching Bee-Hair-Now Hair Repair Conditioner ($9.95 for each 12 fl. oz. bottle) are primed to resuscitate your 'do from a don't. An antioxidant-packed blend of organic- and fair-trade-certified roobois and green tea suds it up with honey, bee pollen, and royal jelly, as well as fortifying organic-certified ingredients such as calendula, grapeseed oil, chamomile, white grapefruit, and sage leaf. Free from parabens, sodium lauryl sulfate, and synthetic fragrances—and never tested on animals—this luster-boosting duo is out to save the bees, as well, with a portion of their profits going to research and conservation efforts. ::BeeCeuticals Organics...

Made from two flat-pack pieces, the 2pac (get it?) chair is made from FSC-certified birch plywood by UK-based designers rawstudio. Brilliantly simple, with only two shapes and four pieces, it requires no hardware for assembly -- just snap it together -- and is even suitable for outdoor use. Sustainable materials, thoughtful, resource-minimizing design and easy assembly/disassembly all adds up to a slick TreeHugging chair. Available in the UK at Greenhaus. ::rawstudio via ::swissmiss2...

The Gaby dress, available at Modify With her Toggery collection, 26-year-old designer Kate D'Arcy melds sleek vintage-inspired silhouettes with a relaxed versatility that makes her pieces look novel yet timeless. Dressed up or dressed down, they are, in a word, yummy. Made in Pennsylvania from 100 percent organic cotton and bamboo fibers, Toggery comes with flat, bold colors that provide subdued, unfussy backdrops for more-intricate accessories or experiments in layering. Pricing is remarkably affordable, too—expect these togs to range from $30 to $100. ::Toggery by Kate D'Arcy...

As airlines and airplane manufacturers continue to concentrate on increasing capacity, the European Union (EU) took an important step in regulating greenhouse gas emissions from the civil aviation sector. Earlier this week, the European Parliament approved a plan that would require EU-registered airlines to apply for emissions permits beginning in 2011. Similar to other polluting industries within the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme, airlines will be required to reduce their emissions or offset excess emissions by purchasing additional credits or investing in international climate protection projects. This announcement is of particular importance as emissions from aviation have doubled since 1991, and were expected to increase by an additional 50% by 2012. Under the new plan, each airline would be allowed to emit 90% of its average emissions for a 2004-2006 reference period. The aviation plan is part of the EU's effort to reduce its total greenhouse gas emissions by 20% by the year 2020. See also ::Boeing's Zero-Emission Plane Set To Take OffSite and ::Virgin Atlantic testing Bio-fuel on Jumbo Jet ...

What did you toss into the trash today? New Yorkers discard almost 62,000 tons of trash every day, according to the New York City Department of Sanitation—enough to fill the Empire State Building. Meanwhile, the city spends more than a billion dollars a year to spirit away the detritus of daily living. In The Garbage Game, produced by The Gotham Gazette, you get to make personal choices about the fate of your trash, whether you decide to compost your kitchen waste, give up bottled water, or choose cloth diapers over disposable ones. Then, you take on the role of a sanitation commissioner and help the Big Apple decide where its trash should go for processing: a landfill, another state—or even another continent. ::The Garbage Game...

This took awhile; but, Atlanta's suburbs at last seem headed in the right direction, considering, for example, ordinances that favor more water efficient toilets. Unfortunately, local officials seem not to have discovered, yet, the nearby presence of the worlds largest potty (pictured). One thing at at time.

Dekalb County Commissioners will take up CEO Vernon Jones' desire to require homes built before 1993 to install low-flow bathroom fixtures before they can be resold. Jones also wants stricter penalties for outdoor water violators: a written warning for the first offense, followed by a $250 fine on the second, $500 on the third and service cutoff following a fourth violation. Gwinnett County Commissioners will consider tougher fines, including up to a $1,000 penalty for repeat offenders and doubling the water rate for large users who don't reduce consumption by 10 percent. They'll also discuss a rebate of up to $100 per toilet for customers who replace older models with low-flow commodes. The new measures would also ban commercial pressure washing and car washing that doesn't use recycled water as well as reduce the time landscapers will be allowed to water new lawns.

...

We've written about e-paper here and while the idea seems nifty, it's hard not to think that improving online readers might be the best option rather than adding another electronic gadget to the overladen waste stream. But in a new study from the Swedish Royal Institute of Technology, impact depends on number of readers and length of time a 'paper' gets read. The researchers tried their best to set up an accurate comparison - what they called a 'screening' LCA (life-cycle analysis) between a printed newspaper, a web-based newspaper and an e-paper newspaper - using Sundsvall Tidning which ran an e-paper pilot employing the iRex ILiad tablet....

According to researchers at the University of Michigan, organic farms can produce more than enough food to support the world’s population without converting any additional land to crop production. Cooks David Crooker and Daran Poulin have been sustainably feeding a much smaller population of 1,700 college students at Bowdoin College in Maine for years. They’re profiled, along with Arnold Luce of Luce’s Meats in UCS’s latest installment of Green Cuisine, an ongoing feature that follows food from sustainable farms to the kitchens of leading chefs. Check out Crooker and Poulin’s environmentally-friendly recipe for braised beef and root vegetables with blueberry wine....

Inniskillin was one of the first decent Niagara wineries, starting as a small independent in 1975 and making fine wine when all they made up here was Baby Duck. They also make an award winning bottle of that vile cough syrup known as ice wine. Now they are teaming up with StormFisher Biogas to use grape pomace, the seeds and skins that used to go to the landfill, to make electricity. About 1,000 to 2,000 tonnes of it will be processed in an anaerobic digester produce methane gas which will run generators. According to the press release, "StormFisher produces renewable energy from food and beverage processing by-products when it is digested in industrial tanks and either used to generate electricity or processed as natural gas. Much of Europe’s food and beverage processing by-products are used to generate biogas, and the process is rapidly gaining favour in North America." ::StormFisher, ::Inniskillin, ::Globe and Mail See other posts in TreeHugger tagged Biogas....

When he started The Simple Leaf, Nikhil Roychowdhury wanted to sell tea, not save the planet. A few months into business though, and he saw just how aligned these two goals were. Four months ago, he partnered with Carbonfund.org to offset all parts of his business, and was bitten by the green bug- he's been working to make his business even more sustainable since then. We spoke with him about tea's connection with climate, childhood inspirations, and going carbon-neutral. TreeHugger: Did you originally intent for The Simple Leaf to be a carbon-free business? Nikhil Roychowdhury: When I started The Simple Leaf, I knew that I wanted to build a socially responsible company, but eliminating our carbon footprint wasn't at the top of my list at the time. Then I found Carbonfund, and their mission immediately struck a chord....

Of course, every TreeHugger knows that it is America Recycles Day, (for TreeHuggers every day is a recycling day) started ten years ago to increase awareness of the importance of recycling. There are activities across the country, that you can attend, or you can "Make an Effort to Make a Difference. As our slogan says, it all comes back to you. Even a small shift in your attitudes and actions, multiplied many times over by others accepting this challenge, can change the world." But it is not catching on. Founders Kevin Tuerff and Valerie Davis are commemorating the initiative’s anniversary today by camping out in a landfill in Texas to express their dismay at the country’s lack of recycling progress. ...

This news item from USA Today clarifies what might happen to the people of Atlanta, Georgia, should a worst-case drought condition last another year. Sure, a few businesses might plan to relocate across the State line in the interim; but, once the decision is open, nearby Chattanooga Tennessee is only one of many possible destinations. Economic development bravado aside, folks won't be moving all the way to Detroit should there be a severe water crisis. Plenty of drinking water is about an hour's drive or so away. You could bike it if you had to. And all this talk of taking up arms against pipelines from the Great Lakes and drought-driven diaspora is just nuts.

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — First, the mayor wants it known that his water-rich city 118 miles north of drought-stricken Atlanta isn't bragging. Second, though, he wants businesses considering locating in the Southeast to know that his city has an abundance of water, thanks to the Tennessee River.

...

We have not been kind to Innovative Home's past issues, but they seem to be finding a new footing. The editorial promises "a new tagline and a fresh face" and "with each issue forward, will delve deeper into the green aspects of the home...as our focus continues to sharpen." The first house shown fills the bill- Duke University's "Home Depot Smart Home" is interesting, followed by Rocio Romero's LV. in an article with the title "Some Assembly Required" which we have heard before.. The houses in the Innovative Homes section revert to type, being huge, unaffordable and not particularly green or innovative, but then there are some decent urban renovations and additions,and a good article titled "Sprawl no more" on urban neighborhoods....

Maybe Wisconsin should pay for its CO2 sequestered in Illinois by lowering the toll fees on SUVs from Chicago-area tourists driving to Wisconsin? Just joking. Here's a real question: if the FutureGen carbon sequestration project goes to Texas instead of nearby Illinois, what's Wisconsin Governor Doyle's climate management strategy? An all the eggs in one unproven technology basket could well lead to a "we better make it happen" project with high budget over runs and missed deadlines. And who would pay for the heavy-duty pipelines headed south to Illinois, carrying C02 at supercritical pressures? Dream on.

Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle on Tuesday signed on as a supporter of the nation's first ultra-clean coal-fired power plant sought for Illinois. A critical component of the project, known as FutureGen, involves storing carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas released by coal-fired power plants into the atmosphere, deep underground. The coal would be converted into a gas and then into hydrogen, for potential use in powering fuel cells. Illinois and Texas are vying to host the $1.5 billion FutureGen project, a joint effort of the U.S. Department of Energy and a consortium of coal producers and electric utilities. The project's goal is to test and show that next-generation coal technology will be ready to help coal-fired power plants curb their contribution to global warming.

...

2.2 -- the percent of worldwide power generated by renewable energy in 2005. Compare that to... 15.2 -- the percent generated by nuclear power, up from 3.3% in 1973. And the biggest energy producer on the list? 40.3 -- the percent of the world's energy that comes from coal, which stands to stomp on the little steps we take to go green, and costs us, big time, in more ways than one. ::International Energy Agency via ::The Economist...

Instead of Governor Sonny Perdue praying for rain, or any of the great ideas Martin Lewis has at Huffpo, he might have been better off having a few quiet words with Chris G. Carlos, a homeowner who used 440,000 gallons of water in September, or about 14,700 gallons a day. Mr. Carlos has apparently been using the water not only to flush nine toilets and maintain a swimming pool but also to refresh nearly four acres of lush landscaping around his white-columned, red brick home. Mr. Carlos says “I honestly didn’t realize the extent of my water use and regret I didn’t act sooner.” Neighbors scoff. “With the water crisis that we’re in down here, I just think it’s ridiculous that he would take advantage of the situation,” said Ken L. Scott, who lives across the street from Mr. Carlos. But it turns out that through a loophole in the rules, everything he did was perfectly legal. ::New York Times ...

In China, the UN's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) -- which allows industrialized countries to offset their carbon emissions by investing in projects that cut emissions in developing countries -- is a boon for green companies, both domestic ones and the foreign firms that provide technology and services. Though China only has some 40 clean projects through the CDM, it controls the lion's share of the developing world's CDM's funds. Now the government is hoping to divert some of the money pouring in for CDM projects into a state-owned fund, which officials say will be used to invest in more carbon cutting projects. All that's left is for the United Nations to give approval to a pipeline of 885 carbon-cutting Chinese business projects. Those projects (listed at this helpful government website) will cut China's greenhouse gas emissions by around 1.5 billion tons and result in an estimated $15 billion in carbon credits, $3 billion of which will go into the government fund. Since last year, the carbon credit market has tripled in size to be worth around $37 billion....

This is not exactly breaking news, but somehow it slipped through our net until now. Due for release in April 2008 Mercedes-Benz will offer not some new fangled hydrogen fuel cell car, but a folding bike. Designed, we’re told, to fit into the boot (trunk) of something like their CLK Cabriolet. Created with assistance from German bike maker ADP Engineering GmbH, A.K.A. RotWild, the folder is said to collapse in two separate stages down to about 80 x 80 x 28 cm, all without getting one’s hands dirty, apparently. It comes with front suspension via a spring in the front forks and a dampener between the aluminium alloy frame and rear forks (shades of the early Moultons, the dual suspension bike from the 60’s & 70’s) Other cute features run to disc brakes that double as the bikes lock, which the media release suggests acts like a cars immobiliser. The rear rack is integrated into the bikes fold so it and the matching seven litre pannier bag can be still attached and accessed even when the bike is folded. Via ::ridethisbike.com ...

Remember the award winning ECO Thermo inflatable sleeping pad from Pacific Outdoor Equipment, which was green right down to its hemp cord in the stuff sac drawstring? Well, not wanting to let the grass grow under their feet the same guys have been at it again, but this time have turned their attention to drybags. The ECO Pneumo's are a line of “non-dyed, single coated bamboo based fabric” waterproof bags for sea kayakers, river rafters or anyone who wants to keep their gear dry in overly moist environments. The usual choices are PVC-based, so this is a pleasant change, even if they’re a bit heavier and more expensive than their less green brethren. For extra kudos the three sizes (5, 15 & 25 litre) of ECO Pneumo sport purge valves (so you can release air to make the bag more compressible) made of recycled aluminium, and their production energy has been offset through the purchase of wind power credits. ::Pacific Outdoor Equipment, via web search....

Some suggest that the professional journalists in the Main Stream Media are responsible and carefully edited while bloggers have no principles, checks or balances, but if a short seller came to our editor with a tip, with the intention of driving down the price of a stock, he would either tell her to take a hike or look at her claim awfully carefully. The New York Times appears to have done neither in their "investigation" of Lululemon, which has been picked up around the world. They took a Lululemon shirt purporting to have seaweed in it to labs, which found none. They say the fabric contains fiber from Seacell, and call it a "seaweed fiber." I googled it and found that what should come up first but a 2-1/2 year old TreeHugger post that says Seacell fabric "incorporates 5% seaweed content", the balance being "wood pulp fiber made by a unique Lyocell process." ...

It turns out a white onion will do in a pinch in case you've lost your charger and need to juice up your beloved iPod. All you'll need is said onion, 2 cups of Gatorade/Powerade, a screwdriver and your USB cable (not all commonplace items, we know, but it's better than nothing); then just follow the handy directions provided in the above video and you'll be on your way. So how exactly does this all work? As Mike Schramm at TUAW hypothesizes, it might lie in the ability of the Gatorade's electrolytes to break down the onion's cells, releasing some form of harnessable energy in the process. Via ::TUAW: Charge an iPod with an onion (blog), ::Household Hacker: How to Charge an iPod using electrolytes and an onion (blog) See also: ::UnTreeHugger: Onion Goggles, ::DIY iPod Bicycle Charger...

Not everyone was pleased about the opening of the new Eurostar train and the St. Pancras International Station. On the big day of the first Eurostar journey to Paris, 100 hardy members of the Camden Cycling Campaign were driving around in circles, literally, at the station. Then protesters invaded the station and blew whistles before they were evicted by police. They were protesting the lack of safe, secure bicycle parking facilities nearby. They were also upset at the one-way traffic system which complicated and endangered cyclists' approach to the place. In addition, Eurostar, despite its much publicised green policies, only allows bicycles on board "within 24-hours"; that means not necessarily on the same train as the passenger is on. Happily there appears to be a resolution to these issues. Eurostar has agreed to let bicyclists bring their bicycles with them on the same train that they are travelling. St. Pancras has now provided 100 safe and secure parking spaces. And who said that protests don't work! :: Camden Cycling Campaign...

It seems like only yesterday we were complaining about the confusion that is resulting from so many standards being set up by everyone and his PR agent's dog to define "sustainability" and "green." Others are trying to get a handle them as well; ecolabelling.org asks "who's deciding what's green?" and has started collecting, organizing and explaining as many standards as they can find. They call it "a global catalogue of ecolabels. You can use it to find labels for green products and services around the world and then keep an eye out for the ones you like when you go shopping....We recognize that people need to consume things and you won’t see us looking down on you if you drive a car to work. We might suggest you drive a more fuel efficient car that will cost you and the planet less." They are "Neutral & Inclusive- There are no judgment calls in this database about what is or is not an ecolabelling scheme. We aim to include every single ecolabel out there, in any language." so they won't tell you which labels are greenwashing and which are substantive and real, but it is a start. ::Ecolabelling.org Their associated ::Blog is following the the news and is full of interesting opinion....

We have shown one-off custom versions of this that cost thousands, yet here is a simple fold-down desk that you can carry anywhere. Jai at Cool Tools says "I use this portable desk as a stationary desk at work and love it. If you need to relocate your workspace for whatever reason, it folds into a large portfolio style case with handles, so it's quite easy to move your 'hub' with you. You have to provide two pieces of plywood, which slip into two pockets to create the rigid surfaces. Installation is a snap: two metal "O" rings on either edge allow for easy hooking on any sturdy screw/nail/hook." ...

Now you can look like a complete dork and be solar powered too; the Iqua Sun bluetooth headset has an integrated solar panel and battery. On a full charge it has 200 hour standby time and nine hours talk time hiding in a dark room, longer in lit spaces. You can walk sunlit streets looking like you are talking to yourself all day long. Works with the iPhone, available in UK only at this time for £50. ::Tech.UK...

A disaster of epic proportions is shaping up in the Bay of Bengal-but you wouldn't know it from following most mainstream news outlets. Tropical Cyclone Sidr, which has been rated a Category 4 storm (verging on Category 5, by some estimates), is headed towards Kolkata, India, and the west coast of Bangladesh. The storm, whose winds had strengthened to 150 mph (241 km/h) yesterday night, is expected to make landfall later today. Meteorologists believe it will lose some of its steam before reaching Bangladesh and Kolkata; however, as Chris Mooney points out, those predictions have so far proven unfounded and, with little time remaining-having already left 40 ft high waves in its wake-Sidr is still likely to bring a massive wave of death and destruction. ...

Ethical Heroes: Interview with Hank Green - EcoGeek.org by Jason Elliott "Ethical Heroes (formally known as The Compost Heap) is dedicated to short, informative and, hopefully, inspirational interviews with some of the many people who are now working in one way or another within the ethical sector. Society's "Ethical Heroes" for want of a better definition." Get with Green: Raintube picks up top Honors by Will Kelty "Fall is here and the leaves are starting to fill your gutters, unless you have RainTube that is. We covered this product several months ago, and it remains one of our favorites here at GetWithGreen.com. This week the RainTube team garnered several awards at the Green Building Industry Awards. Read on below, and make sure you check out RainTube’s product made from 100% recycled materials…"...

Yesterday was the big day: the first trip of the new, improved, carbon neutral Eurostar train to Paris, leaving from its brand new headquarters at St. Pancras International for Paris. It is now the world's first train operator to make all its trips carbon neutral. The CO2 impact of a Eurostar rail journey between London and Paris or Brussels is at least 10 times less than the same trip by plane. The new Eurostar is working hard on its green credentials, hence their invitation to this lucky treehugger and a host of other green organisations, and bloggers to make the historic trip. And how did it feel? Well, fast--the speed in England is now an ear-popping 186 mph, cutting the journey time to Paris by 20 minutes. It really was thrilling as the train pulled out of the station at 11:03 a.m. to the strains of the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra and the announcements came on reminding us of how carbon neutral we were. Realising that we were surrounded by fellow greens such as the Women's Institute, Boy Scouts, Sustrans, hippyshopper, every action counts, and Friends of the Earth prompted some great conversations. And worrying about what to do when we arrived since all of Paris was on strike. But the burlap goody bag (pictured) filled with Innocent and Green & Black chocolate lifted our spirits...

Just how much people are willing to sacrifice in the effort to cut global warming is a subject of perennial and heated debate here at TreeHugger. From calls to ‘ban the bulb’ to proposals for cigarette-style warnings on foreign holidays, there is no doubt that there are some tensions in balancing personal choice versus the common good. We’ll be very interested to see how UK academics will react to reports about a new discussion paper that claims they should be prepared to give up their long summers in the interests of energy efficiency. This from the Guardian: ...

With all the fascinating eco-destinations in the world there are to travel to, it sometimes amazes me to see how easily a simple, local stream can excite and motivate kids to get involved in one way or another protecting the environment. Take these kids at the Glendowie Primary School in New Zealand, who found that cleaning up the simple winter stream behind their school building as a beautification project has helped them understand the concept of sustainability and the benefits of thinking long term in a way they never did before. ...

With the holiday season just around the corner, it seems to me that the hydrogen powered rocket my students' and I gave a test run a couple of days ago may just be the perfect thing for that kid on your list who has everything but craves something unique, cool, and fun too... When I broke out the rocket and introduced it to my room of 7th graders' they couldn't wait to give it a shot. And when you realize that to understand the mind of a middle school student is to recognize on a most visceral level that they certainly don't want to appear to like anything too educational, I think you'll understand that's saying something.... ...

Who says recycling isn’t sexy? Remember Superuse, the online community interested in inventive recycling, initiated by Recyclicity in the Netherlands. These guys, together with Ed van Hint, Césare Peeren and Jan Jongert have released their first book: Superuse, Constructing New Architecture by Shortcutting Material Flow. It’s a great book, practical as well as inspiring and surprising. Superuse have an eye for people who superuse. People who know their existing waste materials and have the skill to construct new buildings from them. This is hopefully just the beginning of what can be done in architecture, to eliminate the vast amount of waste deriving from it. The book talks about the bigger challenges and opportunities that lie in recycling, and then divides up into chapters dealing with the various techniques and elements. One of the first chapters for example, talks about ‘Stacked Walls’, ‘one age-old principle the Greeks were very good at’, featuring the tornado safe house made from worn out carpet tiles. 'From the Ground Up’ is a chapter about keeping transport energy down by using local and lightweight materials. This also applies to building substrate put on roofs. One of the examples explains that in the case of installing a green roof, the most ‘fruitful prospective soil element that can possibly be found close to houses is inhabitants’ excretions’. So the idea here is to superuse diapers: fertilising (due to the urine they contain), lightweight, and often otherwise non-recyclable. Plenty of architectural uses for old car windows, broken washing machines and car tyres can be found under ‘Machines and Commodities’ and ‘Taking Measures’ superuses the hardly ever considered ‘super useful’ old windows, window frames and doors into building extensions and entire shelters....

We're excited to announce that Emmy Award-winning television personality Steve Thomas has just signed on to be one of Planet Green's experts on green building and renovations. Most of you might recognize him from his 14-year stint on the home-improvement show This Old House. Thomas was honored with a 1997-1998 Daytime Emmy Award for “Outstanding Service Show Host,” and he has received a total of nine nominations throughout his career. A former spokesman for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Home Performance with Energy Star program, Thomas has encouraged sustainable building and energy-conservation technologies in new and old houses for over two decades....

There were three keynotes today at OpenWorld; this TreeHugger has been busy enough with surveying the eco-scene to have missed the keynotes from the previous days, so was interested in taking the green pulse of today’s addresses in hopes that it could offer a glimpse into where green flies on the radars of some of the technology world’s heavy hitters. The addresses were given by Jonathan Schwartz, President and CEO of Sun Microsystems, Inc., Michael Dell, CEO of Dell Inc., and Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle....

Twelve-year-old Sgt. Podge, a Norwegian Forest Cat, vanishes from his owner's home each night. The next morning, he can be found in exactly the same place: a pavement about one and a half miles (2.4km) away. His owner, Liz Bullard, takes her son to school before collecting the wandering feline from the pavement between 8 a.m. and 8.15 a.m. (GMT). The good sarge, however, doesn't acknowledge weekends or school vacations—Bullard has to pick him up, in what looks like an SUV, even when her son is fast asleep at home. Anytime you'd like to discuss your carbon pawprint, Sgt. Podge, give us a ring. ::BBC News...

Whether you're making soups, stews, or sauces, you want to start off with a hearty vegetable stock The PC formerly known as the "$100 laptop" returns—and you have until Nov. 26 to buy one for yourself and another for an impoverished child in the developing world Skip the dryer sheets: Here's how to get sweet-smelling laundry without using toxic chemicals Lloyd shows us how to consume our books and magazines, without felling one single tree Learn how to create an ocean-friendly saltwater aquarium, with an excerpt from 50 Ways to Save the Ocean Who needs petrochemical lubricants when you have jojoba oil? Green tea isn't just good for your body, it's also an excellent tonic for your complexion Want to reduce lead contamination in your home? Try on this tip for size...

Recycline, fabled makers of recycled and recyclable toothbrushes and razors, are now busting some new moves in the kitchen. Made from 100 percent recycled #5 plastic and 100 percent Forest Stewardship Council-certified post-consumer recycled paper, the Preserve Kitchen line includes two types of cutting boards, a colander, and both large and small food-storage containers. And they're all dishwasher-safe, to boot. Preserve Kitchen is available exclusively at Whole Foods Markets, except for stores in Florida, the Midwest, and the Pacific Northwest. We did spot the cutting boards in Recycline's online store, however, so don't start sobbing on us. ::Recycline [Via ::Sustainable is Good]...

The MAGIC Team did. MAGIC stands for Mid Atlantic Grid Interactive Car, and they just resurrected the EV in a hot "wired" incarnation, with V2G technology on board. "For a new technology to be truly effective it must have the appearance of magic." Remember that line from Mosquito Coast? It's still true. MAGIC revived the electric car, in vehicle to grid (V2G) incarnation, by applying a jolt of AC and adding Internet connectivity, after implanting top of the line rechargeable batteries, network interface, and some amazing power controls. This particular resurrection is no rich man's sports car either (although this one and the famed Tesla share some EV technology). Externally, and in the passenger compartment, it's more like a wired green box for the masses, with a webby twist. MAGIC's "eBox" is a modified Scion xB, custom re-manufactured by AC Propulsion, that relies solely on an alternating current (AC) motor for propulsion. So, of course, there's no exhaust pipe, and no fuel port. With ICE engine, transmission, and fuel systems gone, and the new V2G and propulsion systems added, curb weight is roughly 20% above the OEM's designed weight. When it's parked and connected to the power grid, however, this car is also connected to, and interacts with, third parties, via Internet. "What's up with that," you're thinking? No big brother stuff. This is about greening the grid. Hang with us and we'll give you the details, in a series of posts, beginning with this overview....

This is a difficult issue. There are so many beautiful spots in the world that are inaccessible to those in wheelchairs or to the infirm. One could leave them inaccessible, or do the quick and dirty utilitarian job that has added so many unattractive ramps to buildings and sites of interest that we see in North America. In Norway, the National Tourist Route gave young, talented architects a chance to build bridges and rest stops in previously inaccessible but beautiful parts of the Norwegian countryside. In the past six years over 140 architects – mostly start-up practices – have been invited to take part. The new structures now provide tourists in wheelchairs access to the fjords and the spectacular views of the mountain ranges....

Jena Thompson is the Director of The Conservation Fund’s Go Zero program; she’s a former Fish & Wildlife brat who was a director of international sales and marketing for a software firm before she ran to the conservation world in 2002. Before becoming the Director of the Go Zero program, she was the director of The Conservation Fund’s marketing and communications. She spoke to TreeHugger from OpenWorld (check out the rest of our coverage of the event here), where she’s representing The Conservation Fund and their partnership with Dell and Carbonfund.org to help Dell’s customers reduce their carbon footprints. TreeHugger: What does green mean to The Conservation Fund?...

Richard Florida quotes Wendy Waters in "All About Cities" noting that City planners and economic development specialists are spending increasing amounts of time trying to make their cities attractive to younger, educated workers and the companies that wish to hire them. She quotes Dave Atkins: "The bike component is a key feature for any city to achieve the kind of living balance that so many of us want these days. We don’t want to commute by car in from the suburbs. We want to be a part of where we live and work. The bike can really help that feeling of connectedness." She concludes that " Being able to travel by bicycle somehow makes a giant metro area seem more friendly and relaxed. And, I agree could be a factor in attracting and retaining talented people". Richard Florida thinks it is a "class" thing."To some, cyclists on skinny tired road bikes decked out in lycra are "rich folks." More than once people have by yelled nasty things at me, including questioning my sexual orientation. All in all, I take it as class anger and frustration, especially in places where class divides are stark." ::Richard Florida ...

It is the Hotel Everland, a project by Swiss artists L/B (Sabina Lang and Daniel Baumann) "Everland is a Hotel with only one room including a bathroom, a king-size bed and a lounge. The bounteous dimensioned room represents the subjective dream of a hotel: the architecture, the playful details, as well as the request to steal the golden embroidered bath towels. All Everland guests are partaking in the project." Last year in Leipzig; this year it is in Paris until next December. ...

TreeHugger had the pleasure to chat with Michael Dell, CEO of Dell Inc. this morning here at OpenWorld. Watch the video to see what Dell has at the top of their "to do to go green" list, and how they plan to become "the greenest technology company" in the world. ::YouTube and ::OpenWorld...

So, what does green mean to you? Here is more video from day two of Dell's Innovation booth at OpenWorld; watch the video to see what the technology world thinks when the word "green" pops up -- in daily conversation, at technology conferences, at work -- and check out the rest of our OpenWorld coverage here. ::YouTube and ::OpenWorld...

Just last night we listened to a lecture by Charles Jencks, who invented the term "adhocism", "the art of living and doing things ad hoc- using materials at hand, rather than waiting for the perfect moment or "proper" approach. As a principle of design, it begins with everyday improvisations, such as bottles for candle holders and tractor seats on wheels for dining chairs." Professor Jencks would probably love this toilet themed restaurant in Taipei. It was inspired by a Japanese cartoon featuring rest room images; the toilet themes run through the food and drinks menus. We hope, for this one time only, that the furniture was not recycled....

The winter season's first snow has started blanketing Scandinavia, and the shopping predictions are starting - the Swedish Retail Institute (Handelns Utredninginstitut or HUI in Swedish) is guessing that a hand-held global positioning system (GPS) will be the most popular holiday gift in Sweden this year. You couldn't really consider a GPS to be a green gift, though if you drive and habitually get lost perhaps it could cut your fuel use by getting you more effectively to your destination. But amazingly, the electronic GPS was nearly edged out by none other than...an organic holiday ham! One reason the ham didn't quite make it to first place, according to HUI spokesperson Jonas Arnberg, is that there aren't enough organic pigs to go around right now. So supplies of organic hams (Swedes eat them slow-roasted with cloves and mustard as part of the holiday smörgåsbord) will run out long before demand does. Yet is is perhaps the third most-popular predicted gift - a soda-water machine - that may turn out to be one of the greenest. ...

Almost wo years ago we warned TreeHuggers about monoxide meat: "The Food and Drug Admin in the US allows supermarkets to pack red meat in carbon monoxide gas- just as your lips get a lovely shade of red when you leave the car running in the garage, the meat stays red and fresh looking for weeks." Two months ago Jeremy updated the story. Now it turns out that the Agriculture Department approved the process even though the tests of it were so questionable that the employees at Hormel and Cargill didn't believe them, sending confidential emails saying "Believe me, we are also puzzled by the data," (Hormel writes to Cargill) "Please let me know if you see any other funny data . . ." he wrote later. "Quite honestly, this test seemed to raise more questions than what it answered." Now the meatpackers are backtracking and saying that they will accept labels suggesting that "Color is not an accurate indicator of freshness." Why not just ban it, like they do in Canada, the EU and Japan? ::Washington Post...

"A well-designed home is not a transient entity. It can withstand the trials of time." We learned about open building earlier; it recognizes that house components and parts age at different rates and need to be serviced or replaced if we are going to get the maximum life out of them, and designs the building so that its systems are all accessible. A prototype is being built at Unity College in Maine, working with MIT and Bensonwood, a builder covered in our earlier post with experience in open building. ...

Image courtesy of NASA The leading éminences grises of science, policy and industry convened a few weeks ago to hash out what has become one of the thorniest issues in climate science today: the place for iron fertilization as a strategy to combat global warming. At issue were relevant concerns about the ecological consequences of the practice and the current absence of any clear regulations for conducting these experiments at sea. While many of the participants raised concerns about the efficacy and safety of large-scale iron fertilization, others seemed to acknowledge that the urgency of the climate crisis warranted the continuation of carefully designed experiments—pointing out that, if done appropriately, they could provide a win-win for both scientists and businesses interested in selling carbon offsets. “We’re in a learning process that involves a balance of science, commercial, and a whole variety of social activities and interests. We’ve got to set up a measured process for moving forward,” said Tony Michaels, director of the Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies at USC....

Though it may sound primitive, it’s not. Building with earth is a venerable world tradition dating back at least 4,000 years, with the oldest surviving specimens found in the Middle East and South America and ending up today in places like Britain, France, USA, Peru, Yemen, Iran, Iraq, India, Morocco, Mali – the list goes on. In the Future of Mud: A Tale of Houses and Lives in Djenné, a documentary on the rich heritage of earth architecture in one town in Mali, Africa, one gets a true sense of love of craft combined with a love for the creative and integrative possibilities of earth. Directed by Susan Vogel, the film follows the life of a real mason in the town of Djenné (Mali, Africa) named Komusa Tenapo. Using research culled from Canadian anthropologist Trevor Marchand, the film has an interesting approach to demonstrate the everyday realities and overarching socio-cultural issues of earth building in this historical African town, using real-life and fictitious characters, re-enactments, interviews and live footage to present a very believable, instructive and compelling narrative about traditional building practices and how it intertwines a rich, underlying dimension to Djenné’s social and urban fabric....

It is almost a contradiction in terms; if there are so many standards, then there is no standard. What is being measured? Is it the most important criterion? Is it a single criterion? If you see a greenguard sticker on a piece of furniture, that is good, but it measures only one thing- outgassing of VOCs. There are now so many standards that specifiers, architects and clients are getting confused and frustrated. According to Architectural Record, talk to anyone who specifies, designs, builds, or certifies green products and you’ll hear the same frustration lurking in their voice. “We’re trying to balance delivering what the client wants on schedule and on budget, so adding this other level of complexity of having to understand what standards and what certifications to take seriously is difficult,” complains Melissa Mizell, an interior architect at Gensler’s San Francisco office. “You either have to embrace the challenge or give up.”...

The X Bike is a folding bicycle concept from MAS Design, who worked on the Strida bike project, and were commissioned by the same company to come up with a small wheel idea. Unlike another of their folding bike creations, which we'll post on soon, this one never came to market, but looks like it contained some intriguing features. We quote from their website: • The frame – two main frame elements fold in a scissor action by a skew joint. This allows the wheels to fold side by side. • Steering – this was by auto-tensioned cables via variable ratio pulleys. These provide a good steering feel to hub-centre steering. • Drive – this was by internal belt or miniature chain. • Construction – this uses injection-moulded long fibre carbon and glass shells ultra-sonically welded together. Fusible core, foam and gas injection technologies were also used. • Tyres – solid tyres were developed as an option with PU versions performing better than pneumatic equivalents. ::MAS Design. See also BuyGreen: Small Wheel Folding Bikes....

Yep, so you know that you can have water soluble golf balls, reused golf balls, bamboo golf clothes and even certified organic gold courses. But did you that you can now lug your clubs and irons from tee to tee aboard a human-powered vehicle. Oh yeh, you can. The Turf Trike, was developed by Jason Deal, a keen golfer and cyclist and he figures it is “the world’s first cycle powered golf cart.” On the bike side it is a three wheeler with a 7005 aluminium frame and seven speed SRAM mountain bike gearing and dual from brakes. On the gold scorecard (and has a holder for such things) it uses custom oversized 4 ¼” (~11.5 cm) wide tyres for use on turf grass. The front wheels fold against the frame, so fits more easily on car bike rack. The front rack which holds the golf bag can be removed and used as shopping trolley (has its own small wheels). Oh, and the feature no self respecting, self-powered golf kart should be without: the ever important drinks holder—for when it is taking too long to get to the 19th hole. An electric assist model and a kids version are also in the pipeline. ::Turf Trike, via a web surfari. ...

It must be one of those newfangled intarweb things; over at 10questions all kinds of people have funny arrows pasted over their mouths and when you press the arrows, they actually talk and ask questions for the presidential candidates. It is the last day before questions close so if you want to post a question, paste an arrow over your mouth and go to 10Questions. Meanwhile energy will a burning question in this election, as oil supplies continue declining and concern about CO2 emission continue increasing.

View MicroPollSurvey SoftwareFree Online PollEmail Marketing Software

...

Fashion is notoriously sizeist. Even the world of ethical fashion seems all too often to be living in a pretty skinny world. Not so for the folks at GreenKnickers, 2005 Eco-graduates and proud purveyors of now officially fair trade undies. According to their latest promotional email they are now offering bigger sized, higher wasted cuts, as modelled here by a larger lady. They are also offering 20% discount on all early-bird Christmas orders taken before next Tuesday, and they are offering a chance to win a Fair Trade chocolate hamper. Presumably to create more demand among us chocoholics for their larger styles… ::GreenKnickers::via promotional email:: ...

UPS does not want a dirty Southern fleet, in spite of Level-4 water restrictions in the Georgia drought. Hence, they have found a waterless cleaning method using, of all things, a commercial grade furniture polish.

The UPS Roswell [Georgia] facility used to be where 225 vehicles were washed every few days, but not anymore. The hoses are now idle because of the level four watering restrictions. But the fleet hasn't lost its luster. Big Brown has gone green with waterless washing. “It’s a dry mopping method. We use a mop, and we put a solution on it and it kind of like leaves a little bit of film, almost a wax,” explained area automotive manager Philip Aiello...He said the product is called Shine-Up but it’s actually just furniture polish, and it repels dirt.

Background for inquiring minds:- Pledge Shine-Up is a commercial cleaning product distributed by JohnsonDiversey. The MSDS for the original Shine-Up indicates that the product formulation includes the following: Triethanolamine; Poly (dimethylsiloxane)/Silicone fluid; and, Solvent Naphtha (petroleum) Medium aliphatic/Mineral Spirits. That last one is quite clearly a volatile organic carbon (VOC) so there is a small trade-off here (increased ground level ozone formation potential for reduced water use). ...

Photo credit: DaveSW Kelly Rossiter is taking us through cooking basics; start here and see them all here. If you are vegetarian or have a family member who is, you can always substitute vegetable stock for chicken stock in any recipe. The flavour of the stock varies with the kind of vegetables you use and you can always tailor your stock to a particular recipe. If you are making stock for an Asian style menu, then you can add ginger and soy sauce to the cooking water. Onions, carrots, celery, turnips, potatoes, red peppers, parsnips, garlic, mushrooms, and fresh herbs are all good choices for making stock and you can use them in any combination. Don't use vegetables such as cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, or strong green leafy vegetables (kale is okay) because the flavour is overpowering and that is all you will taste....

The winners at the British Environment and Media Awards included some familiar faces and some interesting newcomers. The Guardian newspaper was named paper of the year, and it does deserve the award; their coverage of the environment has been comprehensive and reasonable, as opposed to the scaremongering of other papers in the UK. The Sunday Times magazine and BBC Radio won, as did the successful campaigner against plastic bags in the town of Modbury. The students' People and Planet was also a winner with its campaign to end world poverty and save the environment and human rights. But our favourite has to be the Surfers Against Sewage. These indomitable and tough surfers (pictured by the cold British waters) have run a stylish and clever campaign for clean and safe recreational water, free from "sewage effluents, toxic chemicals, nuclear waste and marine litter". They have protested at plastics industry meetings, ferry boat ports, and sewage treatment plants. They even protested at the awards ceremony, presenting one of the sponsors with a gold toilet brush for “showing a disregard to the health of the marine environment”. :: British Environment and Media Awards Via :: Hippyshopper...

Based around the simple concept that cities incubate new businesses, connect people, ideas, money and markets while their ports and airports connect us to the world, a non-profit group called CEO’s for Cities seeks to help augment and revive cities by helping them to throw off the negative connotations so often associated with them. And now it seems they’re working to find ways to encourage young families to stay in cities and raise their children in a more sustainable atmosphere than your average suburban neighborhood. Part of that means recognizing that for 50 years having a first child often meant heading out of the city in search of a more “family-friendly” lifestyle. But they point out that currently young adults are 33 percent more likely than other Americans to live in close-in neighborhoods, and that progressive urban leaders are asking if they can break the traditional pattern of family migration to the suburbs. As a lifelong suburbanite myself, I have to admit I wonder if it’s even possible... ...

Kelly presents a delicious, easy-to-make soda bread Fall's bounty of radishes makes for a delectable winter salad You can lose weight and save the planet, simply by walking 30 minutes each day Find out if you have the option of purchasing green, renewable power from your utility company An innovative way of beating debt: Do those dirty dishes Build an inexpensive passive solar water heater. The result? You get a continuous supply of hot water for next to nothing Need to gussy up your windows? Nature provides In part two of our series on creating an eco-friendly baby nursery, learn what to look for (and avoid) at the paint store Don't waste your money on cheap, short-lived items—spending more upfront makes better sense for you and the environment...

So, what does "green" mean to the attendees of OpenWorld? Watch the video to see where it fits into the lives of IT and other technology professionals, and catch up with our OpenWorld coverage here. ::YouTube and ::OpenWorld...

How's this for a smart idea to better harvest what you're already using: if you've got an old-school radiator, skip the goofy USB mug warmer and let your heating do double duty. "Natural Wave" is ceramic plate that fits tidily over your radiator, sucking up a few of the BTUs that would otherwise float off into space; put a coffee cup there, and you won't be running back to the microwave when you're half way done for a quick nuke. Sort of reminiscent of AGA stoves, without all the wasted heat and always-on functionality, this slick idea is a handy reminder to waste not, want not. ::Yanko Design via ::Core77...

Picture by aussigall, original here. Creative Commons license. See our bee coverage: ::Saving the Bees, ::No Tinfoil Hats for Bees, ::Sweet News: Organic Bees are Thriving, ::Honey Bee Mystery Solved?, ::Where Did the Bees Go?, ::Honey Bees have a Tough Union, ::The Latest on the Disappearing Honeybee Mystery, ::Creating Better Bees, ::Unexpected Haven for Bees, ::Tinfoil Hats for Bees, ::Hives for Lives: Fighting Cancer has Never Been Sweeter...

For those who prefer moving pictures and sound to reading and imagination, here's a video tour of Dell's booth here at OpenWorld, conducted by Sean Donahue, whom we just interviewed, along with a tasty tidbit from The Conservation Fund's Jenna Thompson, whom you'll be hearing more from soon. Check out the rest of our OpenWorld coverage here. ::YouTube and ::OpenWorld...

This is the latest post in TreeHugger's series covering Oracle OpenWorld in San Francisco. Click here for the other entries, and stay tuned for more! Sean Donahue thinks everyone should think about going green. That’s what he’s doing here at OpenWorld: spreading the good green word about Dell’s environmental commitment and helping customers, partners and other businesses alike connect to find better ways to help green the planet. We caught up with Sean to chat for a few minutes about “the wall,” Dell’s growing commitment to the planet and what it means to go green an OpenWorld. TreeHugger: You’ve spent a lot of time here at OpenWorld talking to people about “the wall” and Dell’s various green programs. What do you think most people associate with “green”? Is that good or bad?...

Photo credit: anniebee

A friend of my daughter’s was complaining about how many loads of wash she had to do every day for her small family. When my daughter suggested that she have her family wear the same pair of jeans a second time if they were clean, her friend became angry at the very thought. The reality is that if clothes still appear clean and don’t smell, there is no harm in wearing them again. I have never heard of anyone dying or getting some exotic disease from wearing their jeans a second or third time or even for a week, but I have known of children who have been needlessly mistreated by grumpy, angry and overworked moms....

This is the fourth post in TreeHugger's coverage of Oracle OpenWorld in San Francisco. Click here for the other entries, and stay tuned for more! Data centers and mega-storage isn’t always considered a very sexy “green” implementation, but as the digital world continues to grow and grow, is really on the tip of the tongues at many substantial IT departments. Scaling up often requires more and more real estate, cooling capacity, and money, but it doesn’t have to, according to Compellent Technologies....

Image courtesy of Bruno Girin You can call it drip irrigation 2.0: a growing number of Spanish farmers have decided to sign onto an ambitious digital initiative linking up their fields to a national grid controlled from Madrid. Its main purpose, of course, would be to conserve water and costs - authorities estimate the new irrigation system could save 20% of the water Spain currently uses, or close to 1.3 trillion gallons every year. Another benefit would be to simply overhaul a now dated infrastructure - in use since the 13th century when it was first introduced by the Moors. According to Juan Valero, secretary general of Fenacore, the irrigation farmers' federation, 200,000 farmers have already signed up for the project. By 2010, he hopes to raise that number to 500,000, which would then represent the vast majority of Spain's irrigation farmers....

Join us this Friday, November 16th, as Spring and Thwart Design host a design competition like no other (and I have seen a lot of design competitions). Make Time for a Green Cause invited designers to conceive and prototype sustainable clock designs, with the winners being presented during the opening event this Friday at 6pm. Standard design contest fare so far, but here's where it gets interesting: people who come to the opening will have the chance to bid on each of the clock designs, walking away with a piece of design history. Half of the proceeds from the auction will go to the designer, the other half to Trees for the Future, a non-profit that will plant ten trees for every dollar raised (certainly strikes me as a bargain). The organizers hope to plant 100,000 trees and send visitors home with some striking green design objects. The opening is this Friday, November 16th from 6pm – 9pm, at the Spring gallery: 126 Front Street, Brooklyn, NY (DUMBO). ...

Ice hotels are a hot' tourists spot The Swedish travel industry is woefully under-prepared for a changing climate, says researcher Stephen Gössling. Tourism to and from Sweden contributes 10 percent of the country's total measured CO2 emissions, according to Gössling's research (that's twice the global average) and with an explosion of budget air carriers and charter companies there's no end in sight - though greener train charter trips have appeared on the scene. Scandinavians and Germans, with their super-long paid vacations, are avid travelers. They are, the Germans at least, also less likely to choose greener travel alternatives than both the Brits and the Spanish, according to a recent survey, in spite of the availability of CO2 travel offsets. ...

Image courtesy of the Food Poison Blog It looks like there may be some reason to the USDA's madness: see, it's just that the agency has deemed it A-OK for meat companies to cook and sell you meat on which E. coli - yup, that's the one - has been found during processing. Affectionately termed the "E. coli loophole," this little glitch has allowed companies to sell millions of pounds of infected beef to blissfully ignorant consumers each year - provided they add a little "cook only" label. That may help account for why there have been so many incidences of contamination this year....

Image courtesy of Rossiya TV Channel/AP Some are already calling it the worst ecological disaster to hit the region in years; this past Sunday, as many as ten ships, including a Russian oil tanker, were sunk or run aground by a strong storm that pelted the Black Sea and Azov Sea. The tanker, Volganeft-139, dumped almost half of its 1.3 million gallon (5 million liters) cargo into the strait. Nakhichevan, one of two freighters broken up during the storm, released close to 7,150 tons of sulfur into the waters before taking the lives of most of its crew. Unlike the recent spill in San Francisco Bay, it seems as though both local and national authorities have been fairly quick to respond, though questions remain about why the oil tanker was allowed to set sail in the first place - according to a regional prosecutor, it was only designed to transport oil on rivers. ...

Fresno State University in California has installed a 1.1 megawatt solar power system that will supply the university with 20% of its annual power needs. The solar cells were installed over the university's park lots by Chevron Energy Solutions. The system is expected to save Fresno State more than $13 million in utility costs over its 30-year lifespan. The 10 structures, which provide the only shaded parking on the campus, comprise 3,872 photovoltaic panels mounted on top of more than 700 carport stalls constructed in parking lots on the southeast side of campus. ...

Campaign%20Against%20Climate%20Change.jpg

With the recent launch of the I Count Communities Map, and the Mayor of London calling for pollution taxes on aviation, it seems the momentum may be building, in the UK at least, for tough political action on climate change. What better time, then, for the UK’s National Climate March which will take place in London on the 8th of December (as part of a global day of action). For TreeHuggers living in the UK who want to step up and demand change, Bibi van der Zee’s blog post over at the Guardian has a few ideas on getting organized: ...

Jill Connors writes about design, architecture, and green-living topics for various publications, including This Old House, the Boston Globe Sunday Magazine, and pointclickhome.com. Currently an intern at TreeHugger and a graduate student at the University of Massachusetts, she lives in Middletown, Rhode Island, with her husband, son, and two sweet cats....

Grandma might lament about the youth of today, but the Earth Island Institute founded 25 years ago by renown environmentalist David Brower, continues to celebrate those younger than itself. Late last month they announced the winners of the 2007 Brower Youth Awards. And their choices indicate that there is light at the end of the tunnel. For although the wrinklies seem intent on ‘growth for growth sakes and screw the future,’ the inheritors of that future are not sitting idling by. Six young North Americans were selected for their “outstanding leadership on a project with positive environmental and social impact” and awarded $3,000 USD as well as training and mentoring to help them carry their message to a broader audience. The award winners for 2007 were Carlos Moreno, 19; Q'orianka Kilcher, 17; Alexander Lin, 14; (pictured above), as well as Erica Fernandez, 16; Jon Warnow, 23; and Rachel Barge, 21. Read a snap shot of their achievements after the fold....

After first seeing this rather dark and shaky video we’ve continually dug around to try and find you better pics. But none seem yet forthcoming. So we’ll go with what we have. Millet, a French-based outdoor company, whom we previously noted for their climbing rope recycling program, exhibited this Solar Pad at the Summer Outdoor Retailer Show. It’s like the showercap-style rain cover that many people use to protect their packs from inclement weather, but with a twist. A flexible solar panel is fitted that attaches to a cigarette bayonet connector, such as you might use to charge electrical gadgets via your car. Connect up a mobile phone and they reckon you’ll be charged in one hour, a global positioning system (GPS) in two and a camcorder in four. The weight penalty is 600 gm (21 oz) but you might save that in batteries. Plus, if you combine two of the panels, while in camp, charge times are said to halve. More details might emerge in time for the Northern summer of 2008. ::Millet, via Spadout Video See also the Solio and similar products. ...

I recently spent several valuable minutes of my life trying to coerce, force (plead) up a zipper without a handle. The zipper is one of now two broken zippers attached to my suitcase, which happens to be...Olympia. As the zipper and I battled to the death (and the time to my flight ticked away) I came to the realization that some ominous rips around the seams made the zipper the least of my worries. Yes, I could actually plunge my whole hand through the suitcase and out the other side. Granted, it has been tossed around several countries, but this suitcase is six months old. Is Globe-Trotter's new hard case, Onehundred&ten (110) designed by Ross Lovegrove the answer to all my problems? ...

Brazilian home deco magazine Casa Claudia announced the winners of its annual awards for sustainable materials for construction and home products. Among the winners, we found a few interesting ideas coming from Brazil, which is showing great development in what comes to green products development. Those include alternatives for all tastes: an attractive recycling bin, a water saving toilet cistern, a panel for construction from recycled paper, a wind turbine with parts from natural fibers, and a set of furniture with vegetal materials and recovered wood. Keep reading to see bigger pictures, more info on the products and information on where to get them. Via Planeta Sustentavel...

Many people assume that it is the nature of all petrochemical based polymers to be not biodegradable simply because they are made from petroleum. This is not true. It is the manner in which the organic molecules are linked and the secondary properties of traditional 'plastic additives' which make petro-plastics slow to degrade. BASF Corp has designed and is commercially selling a petroleum based polymer that is readily biodegradable in compost heaps, whether used on its own (as pictured) or as a coating for a natural material like a paper crate or starch based container. Breakdown is apparently so complete the company describes it as a "fertilizer."

Researchers at BASF have developed the world's first food wrap that even acts as a fertilizer. It is made of the fully biodegradable plastic material Ecoflex®. Films and wrappings made of Ecoflex rot along with the organic waste. In the composting system, microorganisms decompose the plastic refuse and leave only natural residues like water, carbon dioxide and biomass behind.

...

When the 'small and creative' team up with the 'big and experienced' we know that something productive is going to happen! This month the Ethical Fashion Forum (EFF) and the International Trade Centre (ITC) are setting off for Kenya, with 25 designers + industry people in tow, to visit local artisans in their communities. The project is called Africa Inspires and aims to create new fair trade links between the global fashion industry and the skills and materials that can be found in Africa. The EFF explain: "The rich culture and diverse traditions and skills of Africa have long been a source of inspiration for the international fashion industry. However it is rare that the communities from which this inspiration is derived have seen the benefits of the fashion trade. In response to this, the International Trade Centre has designed a programme of support for the fashion sector. This focuses upon linking designers and retailers/distributors in fashion markets with designers, producers (especially community projects or informal manufacturers) and businesses in Africa, to develop win-win supply chain models."...

Ceramic or paper cups? Deciding which is the greenest and most environmentally friendly should be a no-brainer. Intuititively we go for the ceramic. But an article by the that intrepid green goddess Lucy Siegle, causes one to pause. She quotes an analysis that concludes that you would need to use your ceramic mug 1,600 times for it to break even, in energy terms, with paper cups. This is due to the fact that kilns use incredible amounts of energy, as do dishwashers, whereas plastic cups are recycled quite efficiently in the UK. However with the insane growth of coffee cafes and caffein addicts, the use of coffee cups has exploded. Brit's consume 70M cups of coffee a day and in the US, Starbucks alone fills 2.3Bn cups a year. Added to this is the fact that paper cups are coated with polyethelene plastic. This makes separation, and hence recycling of the paper cups even more complicated. Starbucks has introduced a cup which is 10% recycleable, Tully's is completely compostable but available only in the USA. So it looks like carrying your own is the answer for now or cut back on the java. :: Observer Magazine. ...

After reading and posting about the issues with toys made in China throughout the summer and into the fall I started thinking a bit about other means by which kids might be exposed to various contaminants during childhood, particularly through items they often use every day at school. While most who’ve had the opportunity to visit a preschool or early grade elementary classroom have seen the children’s’ creativity, have they wondered, as I have, if those cheap pens and magic markers – possibly made in China – could be as hazardous as the Chinese-made toys?...

One area that hasn’t been covered much, if at all on TreeHugger, is eyewear, although quite a few of us writers wear glasses as you can see here. We have also come across Stuart Haygarth’s beautiful chandelier made from eye glass lens, but don’t actually know what the ultimate green spectacles would be. If Haygarth doesn’t turn them into chandeliers, and we’re not donating them to people in developing countries- where do spectacles go at the end of their lives? Last year, we got excited about “wooden” sunglasses no.0085 (they don’t seem to have a name) by Diesel, only to find out that they were made from wood imitating plastic. Since then we have been wondering about spectacles made from wood and recently came across some gorgeous ones by Gold & Wood, Paris. Their model Star is entirely created in wood; ebony Macasar wood for a very dark veined black emphasis, iroko wood for a more shimmering effect. Stunned by the luxurious finish of the wood, we dug deeper to find out how sustainable the product really is. ...

Ready to bake up a storm? Here's how to stock your kitchen Kelly reviews Vegetable Harvest by Patricia Wells In part one of our series on composting, learn why you should make your own fertilizer Save those empty plastic milk jugs and create a functional piece of window art Extend the life of your shaving razor, without spending a cent Turn your used wine and beer bottles into a set of drinking glasses So you've upgraded your hard drive. Turn your castoff into an external drive...

This is the third post in TreeHugger's coverage of Oracle OpenWorld in San Francisco. Click here for the other entries, and stay tuned for more! TreeHugger has had its eye on the Vectrix 100% electric scooter for a long time, since we first spied it back in 2005 all the way until we had proof that it really existed, and really worked, too. So, while seeing one here at OpenWorld might not be a big shock to the regular TreeHugger reader, it’s still important: to see an innovative product come to market from start to finish; to see that green tech can be sexy and cool; to see a quick glimpse at the future of urban transportation technology and know that it’s just the tip of the iceberg. ...

This is the second post in TreeHugger's coverage of Oracle OpenWorld in San Francisco. Click here for the other entries, and stay tuned for more! The highlight of the Dell booth here at OpenWorld is definitely “the wall.” Attendees and other exhibitors are walking up, many sort of timidly, scoping it out, reading other entries so far; it’s a great conversation piece. The entries themselves, as more and more folks have come by, have provided interesting ideas and insight into the “state of green,” as it were, of those attending and presenting at the conference. The ideas range from the personal -- “Better air for my kids” -- to the proactive -- “Buying CFLs” -- to the theoretical -- “Less consumption is the key to less recycling” -- to the downright silly -- “Kermit the frog” and “Soylent green is people.” While well-meaning and interesting, none of the ideas on their own are terribly earth-shattering, and picking one to serve as “the best” or “most important” or “most actionable” reason would be an exercise in futility, and just plain silly, really....

At a stage in life where most girls their ages are obsessing over popularity and boys, Molly and Carly Houlahan, aged 15 and 13, respectively, are selling honey to benefit the American Cancer Society (ACS). After their grandfather passed away from throat cancer four years ago, the sisters "wanted to do something to remember him and to make sure that others would not get sick and die like he did," according to their Web site. Their plan: To harvest honey from their grandparents' bee hives, sell it, and then donate all the profits toward funding cancer research. Three years into their philanthropic undertaking, the Hives for Lives girls have donated over $22,000 to ACS....

Didja ever wonder why the paperless office never happened? It's no secret; the proverbial 'we' introduced a second data stream into the equation, the digital stream. So now we need to convert paper faxes into emails, emails into text, scans into images... you get the picture (yes, it's a pun.). Read The Myth of the Paperless Office to put the skin on the bones....

This week, TreeHugger is blogging from Oracle OpenWorld, an annual information technology conference in San Francisco. We'll be reporting on some of the green innovations and new technology highlighted at the show on Dell's blog, Direct2Dell, as well as here on TreeHugger. Hello, and welcome to Oracle OpenWorld 2007! 50,000 of TreeHugger’s newest friends have descended upon San Francisco for four days of information technology, innovation and fun. Among the thousands of people, hundreds of exhibitors and attendees, it’s great to see a green focus from some of the high profile companies that are here pushing technological innovation and newer, better, faster ways of doing things. There’s a lot to cover here, and we’ll do our best to put a green spin on as much of it as we can. We’ve covered many of the represented companies on TreeHugger before, so it’s a great opportunity to dig a little deeper and get the details about what’s really going on in green technology. Dell, of course, will be in the spotlight, along with other big-time IT names like Intel and Fujitsu. Transportation is also well represented, with the Vectrix electric motorcycle and Subaru at the top of the list. We’ll get to those and more in the coming days; for now, let’s take a quick peek at Dell’s efforts through the eyes of a TreeHugger. ...

In Antarctica: Exploring a Fragile Eden (2007, Collins), award-winning wildlife photographers Jonathan and Angela Scott have assembled more than 130 breathtaking photographs and drawings that underscore the breadth and beauty of our southernmost continent. Click below the fold for more images from the newly released book—a pictorial requiem for what we are in terrible danger of losing forever. ::The Guardian ...

::Featured photos taken in Iceland, via ::Reddit See also: ::Green Roofs (A Primer), ::TreeHugger Picks: Green Roofs Go Big Time, ::Canada's Largest Green Roof, ::White Roofs to Fight Global Warming, ::First-ever analysis of green roofs’ ability to keep buildings warm in winter...

If your interest in biodegradable containers was piqued by Potting Shed Creations' Organic Rice Hull Gardens, but you'd rather do your own potting, take a look at GreenPots' all-natural containers. Made from rice husks and starch-based, water-soluble binding agents, these freeze-and-thaw-resistant bowls and urns will decompose in the landfill or compost heap, but not before giving you several years of indoor and outdoor use. Prices start at $6.50. For $21, you can get a pot, with your choice of three herb-seed packets, as part of a garden kit. ::Olive Barn...

This past Thursday, Business Roundtable hosted its sixth Climate RESOLVE Responsible Environmental Steps, Opportunities to Lead by Voluntary Efforts) workshop, attracting more than 75 executives from 56 companies to Washington. Why make a Fall trip to our nation’s capital? To gain insight into the landscape of current climate change policy and to share best practices in corporate America’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs).

Business Roundtable president, John J. Castellani kicked off the workshop by emphasizing the Roundtable’s commitment to being an influential leader in the climate change discussion and highlighted our ground breaking climate change statement released in July.

The workshop was fortunate to have a key player on climate policy in attendance, the Honorable Rick Boucher (D-VA), Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality. Chairman Boucher addressed attendees beginning with his, admitted, initial skepticism around the specifics of climate change. Detailing how his views have evolved in recent years, Boucher then delved into the key parameters of climate change legislation, highlights included:

...

Photo credit: Eric Risberg/AP With dozens of dead and injured seabirds found coated in black goo, scientists say that the 58,000-gallon (220,000-liter) oil spill in the San Francisco Bay could threaten wildlife for years. ::National Geographic...

In hip hop, we usually hear more about smoking trees than saving them. Enter the inimitable dadaist Dr. Octagon (aka Kool Keith, aka Black Elvis). As an environmental spokesman, the Dr. may be the anti-Al Gore. His environmental treatise, “Trees,” off 2006's The Return of Dr. Octagon, ain't exactly logical, let alone completely comprehensible, but it gets the message across: “Watch your atmosphere and pesticides / Control damaging trees and roots / A bunch of chemicals y’all turnin’ it loose.” The video, directed by Georgie Greville and produced by MTV for its THINK campaign, has strong, dark, yet fun visuals and lots of those people often forgotten within but central to climate change talk: kids. And with its 80s synth beat, it's much more danceable than a PowerPoint presentation. ...

Well folks, the Go Green Initiative’s School of the Week honors go to the Robert Graves Elementary School in Port Ewen, New York! They became a “Go Green” school back in February and have been hard at work ever since to get their 440 students and their parents involved making a difference. As just one great, unique thing they’re doing to teach kids and make a difference take the fact that their vermi-composting efforts center around the need to grow fresh, organic vegetables for the school turtle; a 150 lb. “sand turtle” that has free run of the school hallways! ...

Remember Björn Borg? The former world famous Swedish tennis star is busy in Europe selling a lot of expensive underwear. At first thought it may seem hard to understand exactly how buying overpriced knickers could be part of a treehugger lifestyle - but wait. Bjorn Borg's latest campaign is a call for us all to send our ugly, worn out and full-of-holes old undies to the world's worst warmongers. Admittedly it would be better if Borg was one of the Swedish retailers now selling 'intimates' with organic and/or Fair Trade cotton. He's not. Yet when you think of the waste of human and material resources that war represents, than Borg's campaign kind of makes sense. All that marching some of us might have done to stop the war in Iraq didn't seem to do any good. Perhaps instead a more graphic demonstration of how war is just a tired, old paradigm is required. And if while digging through the underwear drawer you find you really do need a couple new pairs, instead of buying from Björn, check out Swedish companies' Polarn och Pyret (Europe only), and H&M (U.S. too!) for some organic underwear inspiration....

It's a new fluorescent bulb that could have a bright future — the cold cathode fluorescent lamp (or CCFL). These bulbs contain half the mercury of conventional "hot cathode" fluorescents. They have a thinner tube diameter, which allows them to run cooler, and last up to four times as long (a lifespan of 25,000 hours). This means that the mercury is reduced by 85% over the life of a cold cathode bulb, because a regular CFL would have to be replaced three times during that period. Another big advantage of CCFLs is that they are fully dimmable, and "on/off" cycles do not shorten their life. This means they can be used with motion detectors and standard incandescent dimmers. ...

The NYT's newly-minted blogger (and all-around excellent climate change journalist) Andrew Revkin follows up his earlier post exposing Peabody Energy's (laughable) ad campaign aimed at sliming Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius for making the (right) decision to bar two applications for new coal plants with one looking at one organization's heroic efforts to rebut Big Coal. The team behind the snide mock attack ad (which you can see by clicking on the image above) is actually The Wichita Eagle's writing staff which, in addition to crafting a video takedown of Peabody, also penned a more conventional (but no less witty) editorial. Oh, Mahmoud, when will you learn that only Putin's soul friend, George W. "Boosh," gets to call him "Pootie-Poot"? Via ::Dot Earth: Striking Back at Big Coal, on Video (blog), ::The Wichita Eagle: Evil madmen plotting our energy future (newspaper) See also: ::Greenwash Watch: Kansans for Affordable Energy, ::Big Coal To America: 'New US Power Plants Not So Important.' ...

A couple of years ago we suggested bicycling families might want to take a peek at the Danish trioBike. It is a sleek, modern rendering of the Dutch Bakfiets (here and here) with the added benefit of being modular. It is a carrier bike, that also converts into a bike and a two kid stroller. Now, emerging from the USA, we have the Zigo Leader, which, thanks to some clever design, takes the concept that little bit further forward. The Zigo Leader also does a city bike (eight speed hub), three wheel carrier bike and a stroller, but ups the ante with the jogger option as well. (The trioBike might be able to do this too, but its plastic shell is no doubt heavier than the fabric utilised by the Zigo Leader.) The designers reckon you change to any mode in thirty seconds or less. And this might be the case, but claiming it as “the first mom or dad-powered family transportation vehicle” is just plain silly, as the above examples indicate. You can see a slick, but rather disjointed, video of the bike in action, but it won’t be on sale until after April 2008, when it starts to become available both in the USA and Canada. Some more info on the website, though it is very much a work in progress. :: SOMA Cycle...

According to a recent study by an environmental watchdog, it appears that despite the Indian government’s efforts to tackle pollution in the capital of New Delhi, harmful particulates are once again reaching levels before its CNG (compressed natural gas) program began in 2002. The report issued by Delhi’s Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) found that last winter, pollution increased for the first time since 2000 and that already this year levels are fast approaching what they were before the city’s CNG program. Nitrous oxide (N2O) is also rising to hazardous levels. The report comes at a time when the government has attempted measures to improve air quality and encourage public transportation. The inauguration of the Delhi Mass Rapid Transit System in 2002 and the launching of the Green Delhi afforestation campaign in 2004 to plant hundreds of thousands of native trees to absorb pollutants were both geared to reduce congestion and pollution....

Image courtesy of B. Matthews In a worrying sign that scientists may be slowly succumbing to the siren song of geo-engineering, a panel of top climate researchers cautiously endorsed a proposal to fund more research looking into unorthodox ways to stop global warming. While no formal statement was released, Phil Rasch, a modeler with Boulder's University Corporation for Atmospheric Research and a member of the panel, spoke for the great majority of his colleagues when he stated: "We're not saying that there should be geoengineering, we're saying there should be research regarding geoengineering." Even once vehement opponents of such schemes - the best-known of which would consist of pumping aerosols into the stratosphere to mimic a volcano's cooling effect - said that they were slowly warming to the idea. In light of the gravity of current conditions, Daniel Schrag of Harvard University and David Keith of the University of Calgary argued that the controversial field deserved further scrutiny. ...

LEED is tough. LEED costs money. Builders don't like paying for something that the customer can't see, any more than their customers do, which is why there are more granite kitchens than there are energy star rated houses. LEED penalizes big houses; builders like building them. LEED is developed by a third party non-profit Green Building Council; lots of people are unhappy with how rigorous it is and how long it takes, which means they are probably doing a good job. Builders want speed. So they took a page out of the lumber industry's book and wrote their own standard. Like Greenglobes, it is better than nothing at all; like SFI compared to FSC, it is easier, cheaper, written by the industry, and perhaps confusing to the public who has to juggle yet another standard on top of LEED and Energy Star. It also sets a very low bar for hopping onto the green gravy train....

The iconic iPod music player has for many years been challenged by new so-called iPod Killer products entering the market. The Eco Media Player is unlikely to be one of those. But it does add a new dimension to the genre. The media player bit comes into play as the unit is a video player, music player, fm radio, LED torch, photo viewer, hi-fi recorder, memo recorder, data storage device and a mobile phone charger. The eco prefix is applied because it does all of this without need of replacement batteries. Power comes simply from winding a fold-out handle on the rear of the unit (or, if you want, charging it via USB cable to your computer). 40 minutes of audio play requires one minute of self powering. An onboard lithium ion battery has a maximum playtime of 20 hours. Audio will play back in mp3, wma, asf, wav, ogg formats (no mention of aac, the iPod default). The 1.8" colour screen shows videos in asv (and wmv, avi, mpeg, after conversion) and photos as jpeg, bmp, gif images. With 2GB of built-in memory the media reader supports SD cards to increase this. Microsoft Windows seems to be the supported operated system when connected to computers with no indication of compatibility with Macs. Sells for £155 in the UK, and $425 in Australia....

The following news story excerpts need little added explanation. But, we do have a suggestion as to an especially suitable water source that Spiritual Brands might want to consider for its debut product line. The rain which is expected to fill Lake Lanier, just north of Atlanta, has been receiving some spiritual attention of late.

A drinks company is banking on some divine help in a new venture -- selling spiritual water in bottles featuring Jesus and carrying prayers -- despite warnings this promotion could backfire. Spiritual Brands Inc., a start-up company from Florida, is hoping to make a splash in the competitive bottled water market, worth over $11 billion a year in the United States alone, with its new Spiritual Water. Available in 10 varieties, one flavor "Balance" features a picture of Jesus on the front with The Lord's Prayer on the back in both English and Spanish while "Focus" carries a likeness of the Virgin Mary...

...

Dr. Levine told us two years ago that we are designed to move, not sit. That's why he has his computer mounted on a treadmill. Then Steelcase came out with an integrated treadmill workstation, but it is too expensive and just sucks more power. The smart kids at MIT have a better idea; they converted an exercise bike to charge a battery, that generates more than enough juice to run their notebook computer. As the bike's instructions note, if you have trouble "squeezing in that daily exercise," you can now "multitask with no problem--[you can] bike while you work!" ::MIT News via ::Splurch Nothing new here, folks: Look also at Solar Swadeshi and notions of expenditure...

The old girl has some life in her yet. The Palace of Westminster, built in 1835-65 is going to become a green building. Currently the building uses enough electricity to power 6,500 households but (secret) plans to slash its carbon footprint by almost a third are under study. A borehole is planned for drinking water and another will replace some air conditioning units which now cool the debating chambers. A 35 metre high wind turbine in a neighbouring garden and fifty 3 metre submerged turbines along the Thames are mentioned. Millions will be spent on double glazing the hundreds of leaded glass windows in the building. Miniature power stations in the cellar will make the palace off-grid. It should cost at least £20M. The Palace has set a target of reducing its CO2 by 8% by 2012. But the glorious building is an important historical edifice, and is listed as a World Heritage Site. Opposition by heritage and planning groups will be strong and the negotiations will be very delicate to achieve this end. But as one MP said: "We can't afford to do nothing and that is exactly what parliament has done for too long." :: Guardian ...

TreeHugger has been all over bottled water for years, but has also warned about bisphenol A and the dangers of gender bender chemicals, both from polycarbonates and in municipal water. There are so many trade-offs, and now we have to worry about not only what we drink but what we drink it out of.

View MicroPollSurvey SoftwareFree Online PollEmail Marketing Software

...

Governments, NGOs and even CEOs will soon convene in Bali for the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of the Parties (COP) for talks on a post-Kyoto framework. Debate in this area seems to be at a tipping point, with carbon emissions reductions of 50% or more by 2050 being seriously discussed worldwide. “To meet such targets, both society and business must change with some urgency and on a huge scale,” said WBCSD President Bjorn Stigson during the Council’s October meeting in Brussels. “Governments and business are increasingly working together, giving us a window of opportunity to influence framework conditions through concrete proposals.” Companies will also unite on December 10th to tell governments what business wants in the post-Kyoto framework. This Bali Global Business Day (www.balibusinessday.org) will bring together 200-300 decision-makers from companies, governments, inter-governmental and non-governmental organizations. The event will send a strong message that business wants a successful completion of a new global climate change framework beyond 2012 that includes a clear and ambitious long-term strategy for reducing global carbon and greenhouse gas emissions. ...

We are big on carrying your own instead of buying bottled water, but what kind of bottle? We have suggested earlier that it was time to ditch the Nalgene polycarbonate bottles because of the possible leaching of Bisphenol A. This gender-bender mimics estrogen and could be causing all kinds of problems in men, such as breast enlargement and reduced sperm counts, and that they might make you fat.. (Some have ditched their Nalgenes for other reasons) We had few alternatives other than Sigg metal bottles; Now, Camelbak is launching a line of bottles made from Eastman Tritan copolyester, a new material that works in molds designed for polycarbonates but that is completely Bisphenol A free. “Consumers have been asking for a BPA-free alternative with the strength, clarity and vibrant color of polycarbonate bottles,” said Sally McCoy, CamelBak CEO. “We’re very happy to be the first company to give them that choice.” Too bad they are not available until February. ::Camelbak...

Brazilian site Planeta Sustentavel (Sustainable planet) has published an interview with architect Jaime Lerner, an environmental star that has turned the city of Curitiba into one of the greenest cities in the world. With a poetical tone, Lerner takes on the meaning of sustainability, his obsession with educating children on ecological issues, and what he calls 'urban accupunture'. Interviews are in Portuguese, but we have translated his words for you. Jump to the extended to read what this visionary that is now aiming to transform the city of Luanda (in Angola) has to say (Picture: Lerner at a rapid bus station in Curitiba). Via Planeta Sustentavel...

Transition%20City%20Bristol%20Big%20Event.jpg

Hailed by Rob Hopkins as “possibly the biggest peak oil/climate change/Transition event to take place in the UK”, Bristol’s Big Event looks set to be a huge collective exploration of the future for this city of 400,000 residents as fossil fuels become more and more expensive. To be held at the city’s Council House on the 25th of November, the event is organized by Transition City Bristol (who we wrote about here) and will include key note speeches from Richard Heinberg, Jeremy Leggett, David Starhan and Dr Chris Johnston. Talks and workshops during the day will cover Peak Oil, Climate Change, Positive Action, Sustainable Transport, Carbon Reduction Action Groups, Community Composting, Alternative Energy, Permaculture, Community Gardeners Question Time, Local Economics, Medicinal Herbs, Sustainable Building, Restorative Justice, Community Learning, Climate Change and the Landscape, The Work That Reconnects, Global Recession and Transition, Local Food Groups, Community Supported Agriculture, Films, Open Space, Environmental Stalls and Bookshop. [Disclaimer: In the interests of transparency, this author used to live in Bristol and has friends involved in this project, but we'd still be writing about it even if we didn't]::Transition City Bristol::via Transition Culture:: ...

Photosynthesis in plants utilizes a complex arrangement of proteins, enzymes, and other chemical components to turn electromagnetic energy from the sun into chemical energy for the plant. Evolution has resulted in photosynthetic pathways that are optimized systems engineered down to the quantum level. However, researchers at the University of Illinois wanted to know if they could tweak the photosynthesis pathway for better food productivity. Conducting these kinds of tests on real plants would require considerable time and experimentation, if it is possible at all. Instead, the scientists were able to model the entire photosynthesis pathway digitally, and begin to 'evolve' the model through evolutionary algorithms that allow rapid testing on the computer. The scientists found that by rearranging the use of nitrogen in the system, they could almost double the efficiency of plant productivity. ...

What ever happened to that flip flop you lost while walking on a beach pounded by heavy waves? It might have ended up on the coast of Kenya, harming sea life and sullying pristine beaches. Fortunately, members of a handful of Kenyan coastal communities are rescuing the rubbery trash and transforming it into colorful, crafty items. In 1997, villagers from northern Kenya began collecting washed up flipflop rubbish from as far away as Japan, Indonesia, and Malaysia to make toys, fishing buoys and cushion stuffing. At the same time, Julie Church, a Kenyan, was leading a marine conservation and development project at the Kiunga Marine National Reserve for the World Wide Fund for Nature. According to Church, the flip flop flotsam was not only a hygienic problem for the people, but was also preventing female turtles from laying their eggs on the beach and the freshly hatched turtles from returning to the ocean. In 2003, the initiative was highlighted in the documentary "Flip Flotsam" by Journeyman Pictures. And in 2005, Church helped to launch UniquEco and The Flip Flop Recycling Project to ramp up production for the recycled products made from flip flops and offer more coastal community members opportunities to improve their livelihoods. Today, the workers behind the Flip Flop Recycling Project run the gamut from beachcombers to bead-makers and artisans and sculptors and are producing jewelry, sculptures, toys, household products and accessories. Part of the project's mission remains social -- to create jobs for people with limited opportunities. Recently, the project expanded to begin reusing the garbage of low-income communities in Nairobi such as Kibera, Musongari and Ongata Ongai. :: UniquEco ...

How did it come to this? Take the most evil fuel burning device this side of a Hummer or a gas-powered daquiri maker and outfit two teams with them, fire up the leaf blowers and blow the ball towards the goal. The "first ever leaf blower hockey game in the history of the world" was played yesterday in Toronto, which now has yet another reason to hang its head in shame for having one of its citizens, an ad exec named Michael Paul, invent such a crime. According to the Star: With an official band for inspiration (Air Supply) and an unbreachable code of conduct ("No aggressive blowing"), the inaugural game began yesterday morning at an outdoor rink. when the Windbreakers faced off against the Fallen Leafs. ("No harm intended to the other Leafs.") The game surface was slick with rainwater, not ice, but players from each team strapped on diesel-powered leaf blowers over their red and white jerseys, left their Tim Hortons coffee cups on the bench, and stepped up to do battle. ...

verne%20ehlers%20michigan%20republican.jpg

A water shortage can bring out the 'Yosemite Sam' in the most genteel of persons, as well as join politicians in a common defense against water pilfering outlanders. On TreeHugger posts, and elsewhere, Great Lakes-area residents' comments on the acceptability of Great Lakes water transfers to quench the thirst of other states boil down to this: 'If you want our water, move up here.' When the well runs dry, snowbirds will just have to move back home to the land of ice, snow and water. Due to a US Congressional committee effort, it looks as if this topic is heating up a bit. And, as parochial as some of this sounds, we think it's a good thing to make the debate public through verbal provocation-- before the worst case might come to reality. More on that down-post.

Two Michigan members of Congress fired a stern warning Thursday to colleagues in faster-growing, drought-stricken parts of the nation: Don't even consider using a seemingly harmless bill to study the nation's water usage as cover to begin a process aimed at taking Great Lakes water. "I don't think I'm being too alarmist about this," said Rep. Candice Miller, a Harrison Township Republican. "Do not look to the Great Lakes to solve the nation's water problems."

...

Memorize those words on the label "No artificial growth hormones"; after January 1 they will be illegal in the state of Pennsylvania, where DOA stands for Department of Agriculture but Dead on Arrival is probably better. Evidently consumers are demanding hormone free milk and even the big dairies are doing it, not just the organic ones. According to the New York Times, Monsanto has been lobbying states and the feds for years to ban or restrict non-rBGH labels on the grounds that there is no difference in milk from cows that are treated with the hormone and those that are not. They found a friend in Pennsylvania's agriculture secretary, who has announced a crackdown on “absence labeling” on milk, meaning labels that tell consumers what isn’t in a product rather than what is. He is also banning “pesticide free” and “antibiotic free,” saying “It confuses them,[the public] ” he said. “It seems to imply there is a safe, nonsafe dimension.” ::New York Times...

We started our veritable Victoria's Secret runway show of strange Japanese bras with the Warm Biz Bra, an answer to a nationwide government campaign urging workers to bundle up and save energy on heating. It had removable pads that can be heated in a microwave or hot water -- as well as long, furry straps that wrap around the neck like a scarf, and matching shorts. "Warm Biz lets you add a little fun and chic to office wear, and prevents global warming," says the manufacturer, also responsible for the chopstick bra and the handy shopping bag bra. Aspen Skiing Company has been a regular at TreeHugger with every announcement of LEED buildings, wind power and eco moves while catering to an audience that flies in on private jets and gets winched up the hill. The incongruity of it all came out when a disillusioned Aspen VP Auden Schendler finally admitted to Business Week "Who are we kidding?" Some of the most popular posts we have ever had on TreeHugger have been on alternative stoves; Justin started a career of it two years ago. In a shameless bid to drive traffic we link again to our pellet stove posts here and here and here and here and here. Oh, and James Howard Kunstler predicted that oil prices were going to rise in time for Thanksgiving and Christmas. ...

The Bioregional Charcoal Company, a brainchild of the London-based Bioregional Development Group, has already been featured on our pages for its decentralized network of suppliers that greatly cuts down on transport emissions when compared to traditional distribution channels. Major chains are able to call one centralized number to place orders for stores across the country, and supplies are then dispatched to each store from the producer that happens to be the nearest. Now we hear that the folks at Bioregional have expanded their offerings through this network to include firewood and kindling this winter which will be in stock at B&Q stores, and which can be used to replace inferior quality firewood that may have been shipped from across the country or beyond. To further improve their environmental performance, Bioregional are also offsetting the emissions associated with transport through Climate Care. For more on Bioregional’s ground breaking approaches to environmental problems, check out our interview with founders Pooran Desai and Sue Riddlestone. ::Bioregional Development Group:: via site visit:: ...

Where can you learn what to do with "underappreciated produce"? And where can you get fish once reserved only for royalty? Find out in this month's issue of green*light which takes readers on a tour of the top 10 farmers markets in the USA. If you don't live near one of green*light's picks, you can peruse these examples for ideas to make your local markets even better. ...

Latest TH Radio

Latest THTV

Keep Rolling. Hit the Front Page >

We add over 30 posts each day
to our archive of over 35,000. For example...

Denim Trends: Vietnamese Factory Plans for Sustainability in 2010

Qualcomm's Upcoming e-Reader Will Mimic Butterfly Wings for Energy-Sipping Color Displays (Video)

Green NBC: Jimmy Fallon's Bamboo Set, Sustainable Production Guides, Green Week Programming, and More (Photos)

Linking and Pageviews 1850 Style: The American Bookbinders Museum

Are Cities Green, Or Are We Just Pigs in a Factory Farm?

Feetz Tribike: The Kid Carrying, Cargo Hauling, Folding Trike

Brandeis U. Students Create Green Peer Progress Program For Dorms

The Sound of the Earth is Music--To Some

Meditation: Heart Healthier Than Organic O's?

French Nuclear Energy Policy - A Cake The US May Do Well To Not To Consume Too Much Of

The Country's Cleanest Air: New Jersey?!

The Week in Pictures: Rot-Proof Apple, Surprises at GreenBuild, Bacteria Lights Up Landmines, and More

CMYK Folding Electric Bike: Award Winning Prototype Available in 2010?

Al Gore On Acting Crazy: "What Up With That?"

From the Forums: Does Oil Have a Role to Play?

Photos of Strange Deep Sea Creatures from Marine Census Beyond Sunlight

Latest TH Radio

Latest THTV

Entries for November 11, 2007 - November 17, 2007

Total this week: 161

by Naturally Savvy on 11.17.07

by Eliza Barclay, Washington, D.C. on 11.17.07

by Eliza Barclay, Washington, D.C. on 11.17.07

by Collin Dunn, Corvallis, OR, USA on 11.17.07

by Kimberley D. Mok, Montreal, Canada on 11.17.07

by John Laumer, Philadelphia on 11.17.07

by John Laumer, Philadelphia on 11.17.07

by Jeremy Elton Jacquot, Los Angeles on 11.17.07

by Jeremy Elton Jacquot, Los Angeles on 11.17.07

by Sami Grover, Carrboro, NC, USA on 11.17.07

by Christine Lepisto, Berlin on 11.17.07

by Team Treehugger, Worldwide on 11.16.07

by Jasmin Malik Chua, Jersey City, USA on 11.16.07

by Collin Dunn, Corvallis, OR, USA on 11.16.07

by Jasmin Malik Chua, Jersey City, USA on 11.16.07

by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 11.16.07

by Kara DiCamillo, Newport, Rhode Island on 11.16.07

by Collin Dunn, Corvallis, OR, USA on 11.16.07

by Kara DiCamillo, Newport, Rhode Island on 11.16.07

by April Streeter, Gothenburg, Sweden on 11.16.07

by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 11.16.07

by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 11.16.07

by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 11.16.07

by Kelly Rossiter, Toronto on 11.16.07

by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 11.16.07

by Collin Dunn, Corvallis, OR, USA on 11.16.07

by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 11.16.07

by Jeremy Elton Jacquot, Los Angeles on 11.16.07

by Warren McLaren, Sydney on 11.16.07

by Jasmin Malik Chua, Jersey City, USA on 11.16.07

by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 11.16.07

by Jeremy Elton Jacquot, Los Angeles on 11.16.07

by Leonora Oppenheim, London, UK on 11.16.07

by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 11.16.07

by Bonnie Alter, London on 11.16.07

by Karin Kloosterman, Tel Aviv on 11.16.07

by Sami Grover, Carrboro, NC, USA on 11.16.07

by Jenna Watson, Barcelona on 11.16.07

by Kenny Luna, North Babylon, NY on 11.16.07

by Jasmin Malik Chua, Jersey City, USA on 11.15.07

by Jasmin Malik Chua, Jersey City, USA on 11.15.07

by Collin Dunn, Corvallis, OR, USA on 11.15.07

by Jasmin Malik Chua, Jersey City, USA on 11.15.07

by Eric Kane, New York, NY on 11.15.07

by Jasmin Malik Chua, Jersey City, USA on 11.15.07

by John Laumer, Philadelphia on 11.15.07

by April Streeter, Gothenburg, Sweden on 11.15.07

by Union of Concerned Scientists on 11.15.07

by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 11.15.07

by Joey Roth, Brooklyn, USA on 11.15.07

by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 11.15.07

by John Laumer, Philadelphia on 11.15.07

by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 11.15.07

by John Laumer, Philadelphia on 11.15.07

by Collin Dunn, Corvallis, OR, USA on 11.15.07

by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 11.15.07

by Alex Pasternack, New York, NY on 11.15.07

by Warren McLaren, Sydney on 11.15.07

by Warren McLaren, Sydney on 11.15.07

by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 11.15.07

by Jeremy Elton Jacquot, Los Angeles on 11.15.07

by Bonnie Alter, London on 11.15.07

by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 11.15.07

by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 11.15.07

by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 11.15.07

by Jeremy Elton Jacquot, Los Angeles on 11.15.07

by Leonora Oppenheim, London, UK on 11.15.07

by Bonnie Alter, London on 11.15.07

by Sami Grover, Carrboro, NC, USA on 11.15.07

by Kenny Luna, North Babylon, NY on 11.15.07

by Kenny Luna, North Babylon, NY on 11.15.07

by Petz Scholtus, Barcelona, Spain on 11.15.07

by Jasmin Malik Chua, Jersey City, USA on 11.14.07