- Emily Pilloton Discusses the Hippo Roller and other Designs for Humanity (Part One)
- Janine Benyus on Biomimicry in Design (Part Two)
- Janine Benyus on Biomimicry in Design (Part One)
- Andy Revkin - Climate in the Obama Age
- Fred Pearce - Confessions of An Eco-Sinner (Part Two)
- Fred Pearce - Confessions of An Eco-Sinner (Part One)
- Chris Goodall - Ten Techs to Save Our Butts (Part Two)
- Chris Goodall - Ten Techs to Save Our Butts (Part One)
Entries for April 20, 2008 - April 26, 2008
Total this week: 155
Nuclear Waste Clean-up Breakthrough
by Christine Lepisto, Berlin on 04.26.08
Climate crisis. While alternative energy options grow, the nuclear option is also back on the table. In spite of the complexities of permitting, hazards of nuclear energy and challenges that the investment and construction timelines pose in the race for solutions, humanity's growing energy hunger may require reliance on this well-established greenhouse-gas-emissions-free technology.
One problem looms above all others, though, every time the nuclear question is raised. What about nuclear waste? A recent study by Professor Mercouri G. Kanatzidis at Northwestern University may promise some answers....
NYC Electronic Waste Recycling Event April 26 - 28, 2008 -- Win a MacBook Air!
by George Spyros, New York City, USA on 04.26.08
The Lower East Side Ecology Center and Tekserve Team Up For Electronic Recycling of iPods, Computers, Batteries and More
New York City area residents can properly recycle their electronic waste free of charge on Saturday and Sunday, April 26th & 27th from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Monday, April 28th from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. The collection point will be at 119 West 23rd Street in front the Tekserve store. To celebrate the event, anyone bringing electronics to be recycled can register at Tekserve for a raffle to win a MacBook Air or one of three 16GB iPod touches. All participants in the event will also receive a $25 discount on a new computer purchased within 30 days after the event....
Bioplastics: The "Other" Biofuel?
by Jeremy Elton Jacquot, Los Angeles on 04.26.08
If there's one thing we've learned over the last few weeks, it's that burning large quantities of staple foods to produce a relatively small amount of fuel is a thoroughly misguided practice -- with grave implications for the world's most vulnerable populations. And though the barbs directed at biofuels from all sides have been merited, we must not forget one of the other main culprits in this global food crisis: bioplastics. ...
Pumping Sulfate Particles into the Stratosphere: Not Such a Hot Idea After All
by Jeremy Elton Jacquot, Los Angeles on 04.26.08
Image courtesy of NASA
Talk about a lose-lose proposition: According to a new article published in the journal Science, a proposed geo-engineering scheme to inject sulfate particles into the stratosphere to mitigate the impact of global warming could damage the ozone layer. Yet another article, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, has determined that allowing for a complete recovery of the ozone layer could actually intensify global warming's impact in the Southern Hemisphere....
Backyard Permaculture in Oregon: Peak Moment TV
by Sami Grover, Carrboro, NC, USA on 04.26.08
Sponsor a Lifestraw Family Water Filter with Project H Design
by Collin Dunn, Corvallis, OR, USA on 04.25.08
We've oohed and aahed at the Lifestraw, the cigar-sized personal point-of-use water filter produced by Vestergaard Frandsen. While it certainly has the potential to provide clean drinking water to a lot of people, a family of five would potentially need five Lifestraws to insure access to clean water. That's why they developed the Lifestraw Family, a water filter system designed to filter enough water for an entire family....
Today on Planet Green
by Jessica Root - Brooklyn, NY on 04.25.08
:: Bring a little piece of the outdoors inside with this DIY living wall.
:: Bake bread and save dough.
:: Get peak oil down pat.
:: Enter the chance to win an Earthwatch expedition in Costa Rica.
:: Compensate for electromagnetic fields with the help of cactus. ...
Catch A Sneak Peak Of Planet Green This Weekend
by Jessica Root - Brooklyn, NY on 04.25.08
This Saturday, starting at 7/6c, The Learning Channel (TLC) will air a special preview of Planet Green television. Episodes of Wa$ted and Greenovate will run back to back, whetting your appetite for June 4th when Discovery’s 24-7 green TV programming hits the airwaves. It will be just a sampling of the plethora of green goodness that Discovery will roll out this summer. ...
Cube 6: Modern Dining Room Furniture for Small Spaces
by Collin Dunn, Corvallis, OR, USA on 04.25.08
Dining Room Furniture For Small Spaces
TreeHugger is always on the lookout for sleek ways to do more with less; it's a good thing any time you can, say, get six extra seats from a cube slightly larger than one cubic foot. That's the idea behind Japanese designer Naho Matsuno's Cube 6, an ingenious construction that fits six stools into a diminutive cube just bigger than a foot (35 cm) each way. Dinner party time? Bring out the cube! Party's over? Put the cube away; no need for a whole dining room to store a full set of full-size chairs.
Matsuno showed the design in the Salone Satellite at the recently-concluded Milan Furniture Fair; like Cube Style's Dining Set, it'd go great with the amazing BEDUP, the bed that retracts into the ceiling, and any other compact living solution that helps you live large in a small space. It isn't quite a whole apartment in a box or a whole apartment's worth of stuff in 43 square feet, but it's a pretty great way to add tons of possibilities to small space without adding tons of stuff. See how it works, and see the three-stool version, below the fold.
More on the Cube 6, Modern Dining Room Furniture for Small Spaces::Naho Matsuno via ::dezeen
...
GM Volt Milestone: First Prototype Running on Lithium Ion Battery
by George Spyros, New York City, USA on 04.25.08
Look Out Eco-Extremists, the General Motors Chevy Volt is On the Road
The ever Volt-vigilant and perennially in-the-GM-loop Lyle Dennis over at GM-Volt.com tells us the Detroit News is reporting that the first Chevy Volt prototype with an actual full-sized lithium ion battery is up and running. Dennis sees this as a "critical turning point" in the car's development as he deems this particular iteration to be the "Proof of Concept" for GM's would-be game-changer. ...
Most Huggable: A Vegan Passover, Exotic EcoCities, Little House On The Freeway + More
by Team Treehugger, Worldwide on 04.25.08
Is it possible to keep Kosher and still keep a vegan diet?
Wales, China, and South Africa are only a few of the places with sustainable cities in the works.
An urban family in Pasadena, California turn their average city lot into a sustainable homestead.
Pedal powered telephones hit the streets of Nicaragua.
Conscious companies in the U.S. commemorate Arbor Day with tree plantings.
Most Huggable is a regular roundup of some of Hugg's top green news stories. Why not submit your own green news?...
Canühome Unveiled at Green Living Show
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 04.25.08
After World War II, Edward Larabee Barnes, Henry Dreyfuss and Bucky Fuller all tried to use aircraft technology and ideas to build housing but it never took off, so to speak. Perhaps their mistake was modelling it after the wrong planes, going with metal, instead of looking at the Mosquito and building it out of plywood.
I am not certain if that is where the inspiration for the canühome came from, but the designers have used the latest CNC technology and a lot of other ideas that make it one of the more interesting test beds we have seen. It is almost entirely built out of laminated plywood, bolted together in a couple of days as a demonstration project by CMHC (Canada Mortgage and Housing) and George Brown College's Institute Without Boundaries. We first saw it as the ecohome last year, proposed as a standalone or as a rooftop addition.
...
MIRA 'Plugless' Plug-In Hybrid Car Has Removable Battery Packs
by Michael Graham Richard, Ottawa, Canada on 04.25.08
The Motor Industry Research Association (MIRA), a British automotive design, development and certification consultancy, has done what many TreeHugger readers have been suggesting in the comments of many posts about plug-in hybrid cars: Removable battery packs that can be swapped for full batteries that have been charged from the grid.
Their test vehicle is a modified Skoda Fabia which they call the H4V (Hybrid 4 wheel drive Vehicle) because the gasoline engine powers the front wheels while two 35kW electric motors power the rear wheels. The regular gasoline version of the car gets 32 mpg (7.24 L/100km) while their 'plugless' plug-in hybrid prototype returned 53 mpg (4.4 L/100km)....
Is it Time to Bid Greenland Farewell?
by Jeremy Elton Jacquot, Los Angeles on 04.25.08
Are Greenland's days already numbered? And, if so, can anything be done to avert the looming disaster posed by a massive sea level rise? The simple answer is that though Greenland's fate is not yet set into stone (at least when it comes to a specific date), the present melting trends do not bode well.
Calling Greenland's potential collapse another climate "tipping point" would be doing it fair justice -- after all, scientists have estimated that were its ice sheet (which holds one-twentieth of the world's ice) to melt completely, global sea levels would jump 7 meters. As Alexandra Witze reports in the latest issue of Nature (sub. required), Greenland's disappearance is one of the foremost concerns weighing on climate researchers' minds. ...
Call for Entries: Discovery Young Scientist Challenge 2008
by Collin Dunn, Corvallis, OR, USA on 04.25.08
The Discovery Young Scientist Challenge is back, and they're looking for a few good students and teachers. The premier national science competition for students in grades 5 through 8 (and their teachers) is accepting entries through June 15, so if you are (or know) a student interested in science, create a short (1-2 min.) video about one of this year's scientific topics -- The Science of Space is the theme -- and you could win a trip to Washington, DC to compete in the finals later this year.
Here's how it works: create a video that demonstrates the student's understanding of the scientific concepts explained and his or her comfort level discussing science in general. Between June 15 and early September, judges from Faraday Studios will review the submissions and choose 51 semifinalists: one from each state and the District of Columbia. Students will be judged on the scientific merit of their video and, just as importantly, on their ability to communicate science. Keep reading to learn how entering the challenge might get you an appearance on Discovery Channel's Mythbusters TV show....
Forums Are So Web 1.0
by Alan Graham, Portland, Oregon on 04.25.08
Yeah I know, online forums seem so, like, 1998...it's all Twitter and Digg and Social Networking these days. But if you aren't signing up and spending some time in our forums, you are missing out on a lot of quality stuff.
While we provide a valuable service out here on the blog by doing outstanding reporting on all that is green, in the forums we take that a step further by putting you in touch with thousands of people who are living and sharing their green lifestyles, including myself.
For example......
Lounge Constructed from Seat-Belt Scraps
by Mairi Beautyman, Berlin, Germany on 04.25.08
Seat belts save lives and recycling saves the planet: Now the two create the perfect union with the Seatbelt lounge chair by designer Nuttapong Charoenkitivarakorn and manufactured by Boonchucharoenkit. Thai villagers take seat belt scraps -- made of a crash-dummy tested cotton-nylon -- and weave them in a criss-cross pattern around the plywood frame. The result is high design, available through the Future Perfect in Brooklyn, New York. via ::Interior Design ::The Future Perfect Also check out this recycling machine that miraculously transforms auto parts into fuel. More on recycled seat belts ::Recycled Bags from Alchemy Goods ::Classics: Freitag Recycled Freeway Bags ::Low+Tight Bags: Buckle Up For Style ::HauteGREEN 2007 Sneak Peek: Peter Danko's Kumo Chair...
Volkswagen Golf Turbo-Diesel Hybrid Too Expensive for Production
by Michael Graham Richard, Ottawa, Canada on 04.25.08
Volkswagen Golf Turbo-Diesel Hybrid too Expensive to Make
Volkswagen introduced a turbo-diesel hybrid-electric Golf concept car at the Geneva Motor Show, and the specs were impressive: 70 miles per gallon (3.3 liters per 100 kilometers), a 7-speed direct shift gearbox (DSG) with a twin-clutch, minor modifications to reduce aerodynamic drag, CO2 emissions of 89 g/km (lower than a Toyota Prius hybrid), and Tier 2 Bin 5 tailpipe emissions. And of course, the ability to run on biodiesel (waste cooking oil or algae, preferably).
But it was too good to be true. VW contradicted its earlier statement in the March 27 issue of Auto, Motor und Sport and said that the Golf turbo-diesel hybrid would be too expensive, so they're not going to make it (not as specified above, anyway). It's stillborn, in other words....
Beijing Auto Show: Escalade SUV is GM's Star, Huge Cars are in Fashion
by Michael Graham Richard, Ottawa, Canada on 04.25.08
While record oil prices are responsible for a small car comeback and solid growth in hybrid car sales in the USA despite a sector-wide slowdown, China seems to be falling in love with big cars.
"If you look at the fastest-growing market segments in China, there are two — SUVs and luxury cars," said Joseph Y.H. Liu, GM China's vice- president for sales and marketing. That's why GM put its ginormous Escalade front and center of its display at the Beijing Auto Show. Dongfeng and Auto Works, Chinese automakers, even have models clearly descended from Hummers....
Pop Quiz: Calories in Per Calories Out
by Dominic Muren, Philadelphia, USA on 04.25.08
...
Ontario Gets 407 Megawatts of Solar Power Contracts, Originally Expected 88 Megawatts
by Michael Graham Richard, Ottawa, Canada on 04.25.08
As we reported before, many solar power farms are planned in the province of Ontario, Canada. Major players include SunEdison of Baltimore and Skypower of Toronto, who just broke ground on a solar project, and OptiSolar, a California manufacturer of thin-film silicon solar cells (the composite image above is of their Sarnia project).
The Toronto Star reports that the province now has contracts for 407 megawatts, while it initially predicted that it would get 88. We suppose that's enough to call their program a success! But it's not surprising considering that they are paying 42 cents (!) per kilowatt hour for electricity produced via solar power farms....
Washington State Farm Markets Booming
by John Laumer, Philadelphia on 04.25.08
This one's all good news. Farm markets are growing at an unprecedented rate across the US State of Washington, which now has over 100 of them. In metro areas, every neighborhood wants one. The latest trend is to go year-round:The West Seattle Farmers Market, which last year saw $1.1 million in vendor sales -- a 300 percent increase over the previous year -- is the latest to go year-round.The offerings are expanding....
More from Montreal's EXP08
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 04.25.08
FBI Develop Full Size Folding Bicycle: Onyerbike
by Warren McLaren, Sydney on 04.25.08
Folding Bike Innovations (FBI), trading in Australia as Onyerbike, are, by their own admission “designers, importers and retailers of innovative bicycles.” They offer several full size folding bikes, such as their top of the range ‘Hawk’, with its magnesium alloy rim, 6 spoke, 26” wheels. The 7005 aluminium frame folds at a massive hinge in its centre, to make for a fairly compact package. The Hawk weighs15.8 kg and costs just shy of $2,000 AUD....
Survey: How Will $10 per Gallon Gas Affect You?
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 04.25.08
We asked in a recent survey if you thought you would be driving in thirty years; now economist Jeff Rubin thinks gas prices could be $7 to $10 per gallon in just four years, and that this is going to cause massive changes in the way we live and work.
...
German Kindergarteners Answering Call of the Wild
by Kenny Luna, North Babylon, NY on 04.25.08
If you’ve ever wished you could play outside all day, running through forests and playing in the mud until the sun went down you just may be fascinated to learn that there are kindergarten schools in Germany that now eschew classrooms in favor of the forest floor, and head outside to learn all day, come rain or shine....
Utility Builds Replica 1930s House to Test Renewables
by Sami Grover, Carrboro, NC, USA on 04.25.08
We had to do a double take on this one. A UK energy company is building a brand-new house, to 1930s standards, in order to go green. The idea isn’t entirely as daft as it sounds. E.On, one of the largest energy companies in Britain, is teaming up with the University of Nottingham to build a replica 1930s house to test retrofit low carbon technologies. The house will be on campus, and will be lived in by students, and will be used to collect real-life data about the technologies that are utilized:
“"It will be lived in. We want to show the real savings, to get real data, from real people," said Dr Mark Gillott, research and project manager for creative homes at the university. Gillott said that more than 21m current homes - about 86% of the total - will still be in use in 2050. "It's vitally important that we identify and research technologies that are aimed at reducing the energy consumption associated with existing homes,"
...
Gas $7 Per Gallon in Four Years
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 04.25.08
Time to buy a bike: Gasoline prices in North America will soar over the next four years to $7.00, causing a massive jolt to the continent's manufacturing base not seen since the oil shocks of the 1970s, a leading economist is warning. Jeff Rubin of CIBC World Markets was laughed at three years ago when he predicted $ 100 per barrel oil, and now thinks it will climb to $225 in four years. (Houston Chronicle quotes him as saying gas will cost $10 per gallon) From the National Post:
"Stripping out natural gas liquids, oil production has not grown for over two years, which certainly goes a long way to explaining why oil prices have doubled over that period," Rubin said. "It is increasingly clear that the outlook for oil supply signals a period of unprecedented scarcity."
Rubin predicts hybrids will go "from marketing and PR fluff to the core of car production." People will move closer to where they work. "I think there will be fewer people on the road in North America in five years than there is right now." ::Houston Chronicle and ::National Post
See also Stop Whining About Gas Prices and Truckers to Protest High Gas Prices...
Working Together Makes Bikes Race-Track Fast
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 04.25.08
Manodo's Screen Is The Big Brother Of Energy Saving
by April Streeter, Gothenburg, Sweden on 04.25.08
In the hallways of 15 apartments at a complex in the city of Gothenburg is the ultimate smart-home gadget (fancier and smarter than Joule's Home) from Swedish start-up Manodo - it's a screen that tells you everything you want to know about your consumption, plus a few stats you maybe didn't want to see - like how many pounds of CO2 emissions that long, hot bath you just took is worth.
The pilot Manodo project in a handful of Swedish cities gives apartment dwellers lots of other information, including how long before the next tram will pass by their nearest stop, what the weather's expected to be, and a bird's eye view of who's outside ringing their doorbell. It might seem a little too Big Brother for some - I prefer the Danish Flower Pod approach - but one of the test dwellers told Metro he's gotten much better about turning off the lights, the TV and the stereo in the hopes to see the green smiley face that denotes comparatively low energy consumption. Via ::Metro.se...
From Fortune 500 to CLIMACT, Offsetting At The End Of The Line
by Karin Kloosterman, Tel Aviv on 04.25.08
(A Few Good Men: CLIMACT’s Pascal Vermeulen, Dimitri Mertens and Hugues de Meulemeester)
Those following the carbon offset market closely might be wondering about the differences in missions and motives between providers who are in it for profit, versus the ones who have gone the non-profit route.
Today Carbon Catalog, the resource that offers a directory and fair glance at the world’s offset providers selling online, interviews the for-profit Belgian-based provider CLIMACT, never-before featured on TreeHugger.
An interesting point that CLIMACT raises in the interview is that it’s easier to motivate companies to go carbon neutral, rather than individual TreeHuggers; and that fighting climate change shouldn’t be perceived as a punishment, but as a positive thing. In other words, companies and individuals should be able to make money from their offset investment.
Also CLIMACT only offsets its clients “at the end of the line,” after other routes to reduce carbon dioxide emissions have been exhausted.
Given that its founders have left impressive high-end careers in their wake (at Fortune 500 companies), they have a lot at stake to make their new business, founded last November, work.
...
Real Food Festival
by Bonnie Alter, London on 04.25.08
It's billed as the biggest farmer's market yet, with more than 500 vendors setting up stalls to show their wares. The best of British foods, by local producers and growers, has arrived and the show is awe-inspiring in the breadth of products and the commitment of the participants. There are gourmet cottage industries, boutique food producers, workshops, cooking classes and, of course, tastings galore. Real food, slow food: it is a movement dedicated to reconnecting with the land, farms and natural cycles, sustainable production rather than the mass consumerism of the supermarkets. Not everyone fitted that description exactly but here we go with the best of the show. As always, it is the people you meet and the conversations and stories that make an event memorable.
Our first (and only) celebrity spotting was Craig Sams, former owner of Green & Black Chocolate, and now proud proprietor of Judges Bakery in Hastings. Looking very relaxed, he was hanging around his stall, urging people to taste the spelt bread, which is delicious. Sams doesn't ship his goods to London, it is too far and too complicated; he does a much more local business. ...
Pedal for Positive Climate Change
by Mairi Beautyman, Berlin, Germany on 04.25.08
It makes sense to use one of the world's most energy-efficient vehicles to spread the word on climate change: That's why we are excited to hear about Climate Ride 2008, a new initiative bent on raising awareness for positive climate change and renewable energy legislation. Participants will bike for five days -- that would be a total of 320 miles -- from New York City to Washington, D.C. Each rider will raise $2250 to support educational organizations Clean Air–Cool Planet and Focus the Nation. ...
Today on Planet Green
by Jessica Root - Brooklyn, NY on 04.24.08
:: Work out the weight of your water consumption.
:: Avoid long lines and reduce carbon emissions using USPS's online postal store.
:: Use your noggin' and seek out smart, socially responsible wood furniture.
:: Welcome ABC News anchor, Bob Woodruff, to the Planet Green line-up.
:: Scour your local farmer's market and then cook up some Creamy Spinach Soup. ...
The TH Interview: Doug Fine—Kiss Your Subaru Goodbye (Part Two)
by Jacob Gordon, Nashville, TN on 04.24.08
The challenge is a rather simple one: set up a life that is local and low-carbon without sacrificing the beloved creature comforts. The kicker is not getting electrocuted, shot, burned, crushed, bitten, or driven insane. Doug Fine has assumed this challenge and actually seems to be doing a bang-up job. He spoke to us from the Funky Butte Ranch, his own low-carbon Neverland. ::TreeHugger Radio Listen to the podcast of this interview via iTunes, or just click here to listen, right-click to download. You can find part one of our interview here. Special thanks to Calabash Music for the soundtrack. Full text after the jump....
US Environmental Destruction Agency: Making National Parks Coal-Friendly
by John Laumer, Philadelphia on 04.24.08
"USEDA" (formerly know as the US Environmental Protection Agency) is proposing revisions to decades-old air quality regulations that will make it easier for coal-fired generation plants to obtain construction and operating permits for sites where air quality is currently good: in and around national and state parks. Must be a coincidence. For you AQ techies, the proposed rule changes would:
•Substitute an annual average of emissions for the current "maximum" emissions that is measured over a few hours, up to a single day. •Exclude from pollution estimates output from existing industrial emitters that have been granted variances. •Switch from calculating emissions using the two most recent years of data to any time period "more representative" of normal operations. •Grant discretion to state regulators to use whatever data and information in their judgment would be most reliable in calculating emissions....
EcoCab Offers Toronto Green Short-Distance Transportation
by Michael Graham Richard, Ottawa, Canada on 04.24.08
EcoCabs has just arrived in Toronto, Canada. The 3-wheel vehicles are powered mostly by the driver's legs, but there's also an electric-motor assist to help them reach a cruising speed of up to 12 kph (7.5 mph) in city streets. Perfect for short distance trips, especially if you are a tourist (free rides will be offered during summer street festivals and special events), EcoCab claims to exceed the road safety standards that apply to it. "They will ride in the right-most lane and in bike lanes, where the average speed of traffic is 6 km per hour," says Will Kozma, president of GO Mobile Media, the company that sells advertising on the ad-supported cabs....
Green Living Show is Scary Big
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 04.24.08
Last year I found the first Green Living Show in Toronto a bit overwhelming; this year it is twice as big. I asked for a list of who is in it and it goes on for ages. Just the categories go on forever- eco-tourism, energy, environmental groups, food and drink, (80 companies in that category alone! if they all give out samples I won't be able to bike home) green building, green business, health and wellness, home and garden, and transportation. Over 300 exhibitors; I may not get out of there until Sunday.
I can't make Bill Clinton talking about "Embracing our Common Humanity" Friday night, but will try to catch Ed Begley Jr,. and Robert Kennedy Jr. on Saturday. :Green Living Show...
Hispanic Voters Overwhelmingly Concerned About Global Warming, Environment
by Greg Haegele of Sierra Club on 04.24.08
I want to share with you some fascinating results we got when the Sierra Club teamed up with Bendixen & Associates in March to conduct the first-ever national survey of Hispanic voters on energy and environmental issues. Previous studies show that environmental pollution and the effects of global warming are felt disproportionately in Hispanic neighborhoods, and some 91% of Hispanics in the United States live in metropolitan areas, where polluted air may increase the risk of illnesses including asthma and cancer.
We wondered: How important are these issues to Hispanic voters, how much responsibility do they feel in helping to solve them -- and are their feelings strong enough to move them to action? The answers, in short: They're deeply connected to nature and are concerned about the environment enough to take action to protect their communities and their families.
First, we found that 80% of Hispanic voters view "energy and global warming" to be one of the two most important environmental problems for their families (the other was clean air and water)....
Bush's New Fuel Economy Rules Look Good... Until You Read All 417 Pages
by Michael Graham Richard, Ottawa, Canada on 04.24.08
The Bush administration's plan to make federal fuel economy standards stricter and regulate a mandatory 31.6 MPG fleet average by 2015, an addition to last year's energy bill that mandates 35 MPG by 2020, has been well received so far. Some of our eco-friends even applauded the initiative. But (and there's often a 'but') now that a few experts have had time to read the whole document in its 417 pages glory, a big problem became apparent:
"Tucked deep into a 417-page 'Notice of Proposed Rulemaking' was language by the Transportation Department stating that more stringent limits on tailpipe emissions embraced by California and 17 other states are 'an obstacle to the accomplishment' of the new federal standards and are 'expressly and impliedly preempted' by federal law."
California and the states that decide to adopt its more stringent laws instead of the US federal ones are mighty angry and feel that this is a direct attack on their ability to keep regulating.
...
World Food Markets in Turmoil, Washington Sleeps
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 04.24.08
Guarding rice in Manila, Romeo Ranoco/Reuters via the star
They are rationing rice at Sam's Club and Costco; in Manila they have to post guards around it. All over the world, food prices are rising and supplies are disrupted as people start hoarding.
In Washington, the $300 billion Farm Bill plods on as it has for months. It has $5.2 billion dollars in direct payments to farmers as their income hits record highs. David Herszenhorn writes in the New York Times:
'It will not change biofuel mandates that are directing more corn to ethanol and contributing to a global rise in food prices. It will do little to ease worldwide food shortages. And at a time of high volatility in the futures markets, it will not require tougher regulation.In other words, Congress seems oblivious.
“It really is astounding,” said Representative Ron Kind, Democrat of Wisconsin, who has pushed for broad changes in farm subsidy programs. “It’s as if this farm bill is being negotiated in a vacuum.” ::New York Times
UPDATE: Great post on Grist by Bill Chameides: How Congress is shortchanging our health and sweetening things for the food industry...
What's Next for the IPCC?
by Jeremy Elton Jacquot, Los Angeles on 04.24.08
Image courtesy of the World Economic Forum via flickr
Topping a Nobel Peace Prize-winning performance won't be easy, but the IPCC is hoping to do just that with its next report, set to be released no later than 2013, by honing in on two key themes: practicality and precision. Meeting last week in Budapest, Hungary, the government delegates to the multilateral organization agreed to several procedural changes that would help streamline the process -- and ensure the next report is released on time.
Science's Eli Kintisch reports (sub. required) that the scientists agreed to focus on providing more information about the actual impacts of global warming and what can be done to reduce GHG emissions growth. In order to get the report out by 2013, within the usual 6-year time frame, they decided to omit several sections -- primarily the more data-heavy scenarios some researchers use to build their global warming models....
National Association of Manufacturers Volunteers 10% Energy Efficiency Boost
by John Laumer, Philadelphia on 04.24.08
Officials of The National Association of Manufacturers, or "NAM" have apparently met with USEPA Administrator Johnson and as a result have agreed to "try to" reduce energy use in the industrial sector by 10 percent or more. We don't know if what was agreed to was verbal and sealed by executive handshake; or if the agreement is documented; nor do we know if individual NAM members are, by reference, all supporting a 10%+ energy efficiency improvement goal. However, the memorandum of understanding between the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the National Association of Manufacturers sets no deadlines for reaching that goal, nor does it set any penalties for failure to do so. Still, it is the first-ever such agreement between the EPA and the nation's oldest and largest industrial trade association, EPA officials said. The industrial sector uses one-third of the energy consumed each year in the United States and is responsible for nearly that percentage of carbon dioxide emissions.On cue and as expected, the featured on item on the NAM website is "NAM and ACCF Unveil New Study Highlighting the National and 50-State Economic Impacts of the Lieberman-Warner Climate Change Bill See...cap and trade regulations aren't needed. 'Nothing to see here Congress:...move along."...
Interface Carpet Keeps Cleaning Up Its Act
by Collin Dunn, Corvallis, OR, USA on 04.24.08
File this one in the 'how to do it right' category: earlier this week, Interface Inc., the world's largest manufacturer of modular carpet tiles, released their 2007 "ecometrics," measuring the impact of their operations on the planet. Among the impressive numbers: greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are down 82 percent from the 1996 baseline, while total energy intensity (use per unit of output) is down 45 percent from 1996. In a nutshell, these numbers mean that they've learned how to make more carpet with less energy, emissions and pollution.
In addition to typical financial metrics like profit and loss, Interface began tracking their ecometrics in 1996, measuring energy and water intake, waste streams, greenhouse gas emissions, and raw materials streams, to evaluate its progress towards the goal of sustainability and doing business in ways that minimize the impact on the environment....
Alligator Calls 911 “There’s a Kitchen on My Habitat!” — Today Show Satire
by George Spyros, New York City, USA on 04.24.08
An alligator finds its home invaded by a kitchen and frantically dials 911. WATCH EXCLUSIVE VIDEO BELOW THE FOLD!
"HOME INVASION" screams a graphic across the Today Show screen, but exactly who has invaded the home of whom? The MSM and the internet is atwitter about a certain critter, namely an alligator, that found its way into a Tampa Florida resident's kitchen. However, only fifty years ago, the American Alligator was nearly hunted to extinction in Florida, were placed on the endangered species list in 1973, and then delisted in 1987 when their population rebounded. Today, the greatest environmental threats to alligators are habitat Loss and pollution....
From the Forums: Heirloom Veggies
by Alan Graham, Portland, Oregon on 04.24.08
It's that time of year again, and inkabinkaboo182 is sharing a good site resource he's found for heirloom veggies.
Plants like these are very environmentally friendly, because planting them preserves biodiversity and if the plants are natives they require less maintenance (ie, water and fertilizer and the like).BobTrips goes on to point out:
Heirlooms, the seeds that our grandparents and their parents often planted, were often saved and shared because of one important quality. The food they produced tasted good. Modern seed development has often been oriented toward creating produce that had good visual appeal, stored and shipped well. ...
Sandra Bullock Launches Line of Lead-Free Soy Candles
by Jasmin Malik Chua, Jersey City, USA on 04.24.08
Bisphenol A Could Be In Your Teeth
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 04.24.08
And you thought all you had to worry about was the mercury in your fillings; according to Carly Weeks in the Globe and Mail, studies have found detectable levels of BPA in the saliva of patients after they received sealants or fillings, but experts are divided as to whether this low exposure constitutes a health risk. Mainstream dentists deny it`s a problem: "We're a small part of what is perhaps a much larger problem," Darryl Smith of the Canadian Dental Association told the Globe. "The amount of bisphenol A is extremely low in dental materials and in some [it] is non-existent."
But "a study published in the Journal of the American Dental Association in 2006, found some dental products leach BPA and could result in low-dose exposures within the range in which health effects have been seen in rodents." ::Globe and Mail...
China Short Of Coal: 12-Day Reserve And Counting
by John Laumer, Philadelphia on 04.24.08
Everybody has noticed the worldwide grain shortages: starting with the hungry; eventually the Washington DCs pundit class noticed. Maybe the pundits will have answers to these new questions - How will Wal-mart fill our economic belly with low cost goods when the Chinese machine sputters to a halt,...run out of coal? Will the summer Olympics go dark? China only has enough coal for 12 days of consumption, three days less than a month ago, state media reported Wednesday, sounding the alarm bells over the nation's most important source of energy. In certain parts of China, such as densely populated Hebei province in the north, reserves are down to less than a week, Xinhua news agency reported, citing the China Electricity Regulatory Commission....
Air Bags to Protect Those Outside the Car, Not In It
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 04.24.08
A "Moederfiets or Motherbike" in the Netherlands
In North America, putting three kids on a "motherbike" is unheard of, let alone without helmets. It just isn't safe in a culture where bikes are an afterthought. In the Netherlands, it is the other way around, and now the Dutch Cycling Federation is demanding the installation of air bags on the hoods of cars to protect cyclists. "In the past many measures have been taken to protect those sitting inside cars but hardly anything has been done to protect people outside cars," it said in a statement on Monday. "The federation calls on politicians and the car industry to take measures that could limit the chance of serious injury."
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Why Not Add Wind Turbines to the Queensboro Bridge in NY?
by Petz Scholtus, Barcelona, Spain on 04.24.08
Bounce Back: Wilson’s Recycled Basketball
by Warren McLaren, Sydney on 04.24.08
The next time Tom Hanks finds himself marooned as a castaway on a tropical island maybe his companion will be a green basketball, instead of a white volleyball.
The Wilson ‘Rebound’ has a surface comprising 40% recycled rubber. 70 such basketballs are said to be equal to taking one car tyre out of landfill. "Think Globally, Hoop Locally" is the accompanying catch phrase. We’re not sure why a product as robust as a basketball requires packaging in a box. But at least Wilson have opted to to make it from nearly 80% recycled cardboard. Though they are ambiguous as to whether that is pre or post consumer content. ::Wilson, via tip from Amy K....
SolesUnited by Crocs: A Step in the Right Direction
by Warren McLaren, Sydney on 04.24.08
we mulled over the notion of whether colourful Crocs footwear might be the Birkenstocks for a new generation. Many respondents argued that without containing recycled content or at least a way of recycling the worn-out shoes they couldn’t be considered ‘green.’
Earlier this year Crocs seemed to have taken steps, if you will, to address these issues. Their new line of SolesUnited are made with grounded up old crocs. The new styles have 20% of this recycled content. Going one further Crocs plan, for 2008, to develop partnerships with shipping companies and worldwide non-profit organisations, so they can donate 2 million pairs of shoes globally....
Survey: Who is Right, the Pie-er or the Pie-ee?
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 04.24.08
Author and New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman spoke at Brown University about globalization, energy and green technology. He said that the federal government needs to put a price on carbon, set regulations and pour money into research and development and let American ingenuity meet the market force for clean energy. “I do believe clean power is going to be the next great global industry, I know that for sure. ”
Before he started his speech, he got pied by two "environmental activists" who said: “Thomas Friedman deserves a pie in the face because of his sickeningly cheery applaud for free market capitalism’s conquest of the planet, for telling the world that the free market and techno fixes can save us from climate change. From carbon trading to biofuels, these distractions are dangerous in and of themselves, while encouraging inaction with respect to the true problems at hand” UPDATE Video of Friedman getting pied added below the fold.
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Jeremy Leggett on a "Crisis to Dwarf Previous Crises"
by Sami Grover, Carrboro, NC, USA on 04.24.08
We’re pretty avid watchers of Solarcentury CEO Jeremy Leggett here at TreeHugger. From our interview with him back in 2006, to his recent musings on why greed is good for the renewables industries, Leggett never fails to stir up an interesting and impassioned debate. As a former oil man, he is also pretty well qualified to talk about the coming energy crisis and peak oil, and he certainly doesn’t hold back in his latest interview on the Principal Voices website, though it’s not all positive reading. On the one hand, he is as up-beat as ever about the potential for renewable energy, given the right support and the right conditions:
“Here there is good and bad news. Yes, we can run the world on renewables and efficiency. Any self-respecting solar energy company--hooked up with the right partners--can put up zero carbon buildings in a matter of weeks. Around 50% of CO2 emissions come from buildings, directly or indirectly. Meanwhile, as traditional power prices soar, solar manufacturing costs are falling.”
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JP Morgan's Bruce Tozer on Purchasing ClimateCare and the Future of Carbon Offsets
by April Streeter, Gothenburg, Sweden on 04.24.08
The announcement last month that ClimateCare had been bought by JP Morgan signaled the Wild-West climate offset business has reached a milestone - it's now a business big enough ($9.4 billion in offsets traded last year) for the traditional financial services industry to get involved. Another milestone: Kyoto CDM offset projects now number over 1,000 and have offset 135 million tonnes of CO2 (the picture is of a Cambodian cook stove efficiency project). It may be a while before there's sufficient regulatory structure in the offset business - major offset company Eco Securities lost 70 % of its stock price recently after announcing it would not deliver one-quarter of promised emissions reductions - to reassure consumers. Below, JP Morgan's Bruce Tozer answers questions about offsets and ClimateCare's future.
TH: Is there some truth to the idea that offsetting is just obscuring the work that needs to be done in terms of legislation and reforms to tackle emissions? What should individual offset companies do to contribute to a holistic approach to global CO2 reductions?
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TH Blog Love - Our Favourite Greens Of The Week
by Leonora Oppenheim, London, UK on 04.24.08
Babelgum: Arctic Meltdown Video
"According to the world’s scientists sea level rise is “arguably one of the world’s most important potential impacts of global climate change.” This Greenpeace documentary explores two remote regions of the world, The Marshall Islands and The Arctic."
DH Love Life: Luvlife - R Hero For Spring by Daryl Hannah
"I have always admired Julia greatly ever since I first heard of her "Luna" tree-sit. Often referring 2 the hope that 1 day I would pull my "butterfly" out. That I might find an action to take which I am passionately connected 2 + will speak clearly to help create a better world. What I called my "butterfly" Julia has eloquently renamed "What's your tree?"...
Royal Festival Beehive
by Bonnie Alter, London on 04.24.08
The life and times of a beehive on the roof of the Royal Festival Hall. This is what happens when a filmmaker and an artist, both beekeepers, get together at a pub and have a great idea. They concocted a plan to create a hive in the shape of a scale model of the Festival Hall in honour of the reopening last June. Plunk the hive on the roof, and follow the bees' progress for a year. Invite some artists to visit the bees to add a touch of class and culture. And so they did. It is English eccentricity at its most lovable. To mark the first day of spring, they had a poetry reading: " The bees are flying. They taste the spring." The author of "The Cloudspotter's Guide" did a reading under Altostratus clouds ("the boring cloud") and a choral trio sang a traditional English 'round' written in 1260, "Summer is Icumen". Over the coming months they will be visited by other musicians and writers.
There is a serious point being made here. The filmmaker says: "It is a statement about urban agriculture and the idea of growing food in cities using spaces like rooftops." The pollen will come from all the surrounding greenery such as churchyards, trees across the river, St James's Park and even windowboxes.The hive is in full swing (buzz?) with a Queen bee and 15,000 bees. As the beekeeper says "there are getting to be so many now it’s becoming harder and harder to remember each of their names."
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Recycled Gas Station Touches Hearts, Minds
by Kenny Luna, North Babylon, NY on 04.23.08
When artist and environmental activist Jennifer Marsh realized there were over 200,000 abandoned gas stations marring the landscape across America she realized there was something simple she could do to make a statement; recycle one into art, and ask students the world over to help.
The idea being they just might make a statement simple enough to be understood by all.
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Today on Planet Green
by Jessica Root - Brooklyn, NY on 04.23.08
:: Bone up on bamboo fiber with help from eco-fashion expert, Summer Rayne Oakes.
:: Forget calories. Count your breakfast, lunch and dinner's carbon footprint.
:: Keep baby safe from Bisphenol A.
:: Dig into some sauteed dandelion greens for dinner.
:: Display books, startling seeds and houseplants with this DIY, multipurpose bookcase....
Most Huggable: The Th!nk City Car, A Solar Fix, A Gorilla In The Greenhouse + More
by Team Treehugger, Worldwide on 04.23.08
Is the Th!nk City Car the functional, affordable electric dream ride we’ve all been waiting for?
SolarCity makes ‘going solar’ affordable with a leasing program.
The masterminds behind the Meatrix present a new web-based kids show.
A little moth sparks big pesticide debate in California.
A recent survey measures the greenwashing gap.
Most Huggable is a regular roundup of some of Hugg's top green news stories. Why not submit your own green news?...
Östra Kvarnskogen by Brunnberg & Forshed
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 04.23.08
My Swedish is a bit rusty so I can't say much about this project, other than it won a big prize from the Swedish wood promotion organization Skogs Inustrierna. "Östra Kvarnskogen has been constructed within a large nature reserve with sharply sloping terrain. Here, nature holds sway, and there are houses which stand partially-upported by 7m-high steel pillars as a result of the mountain’s steep slope. The man-made and the natural appear to co-exist peacefully here. Its uniqueness leads heart and mind to a tranquil state."
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Planet Green Lands ABC Anchor
by Mairi Beautyman, Berlin, Germany on 04.23.08
There's much excitement here at TreeHugger, as our sister site Planet Green will soon bring the first-ever 24-hour eco-lifestyle television network into 50 million homes (that would be June 4, for those of you programming your TVs.) The network will be action packed full of celebrities and personalities, and Bob Woodruff is the latest addition. Beginning in July, the ABC News anchor and familiar primetime face will head up an eco-newscast on the network, as part of an ABC News production. Each week, Woodruff will dish on a long list of green issues -- climate impact, environmental policy, and world events -- in a format ranging from studio-based round table discussions to narratives and political debates. The award-winning journalist -- who was seriously injured by a roadside bomb in Iraq in 2006 -- joined ABC in 1996 and was named co-anchor of ABC's "World News Tonight" in December 2005....
Food Shortages Drive Global Prices to Record Highs
by Lester Brown, Washington, D.C on 04.23.08
A fast-unfolding food shortage is engulfing the entire world, driving food prices to record highs. (Check out the full report or podcast.) Over the past 50 years grain prices have occasionally spiked due to weather-related events -- such as the 1972 Soviet crop failure that led to a doubling of world wheat, rice, and corn prices. The situation today is entirely different, however. The current doubling of grain prices is trend-driven, the cumulative effect of some trends that are accelerating growth in demand and other trends that are slowing the growth in supply....
Wind Power Produces 123% of Residential Energy Demand in Rock Port, Missouri
by Michael Graham Richard, Ottawa, Canada on 04.23.08
That's not a typo in the headline. The meters are running backwards and they're exporting the 23% extra.
Rock Port, Missouri, is a small city of 1,300 people, and they just made history by being the first city in the US to be 100% powered by the wind, also making them #1 in the US for percentage of renewable energy. The Loess Hills Wind Farm, built by the Wind Capital Group, employing 500 workers from 20 states for about a year, is expected to produce about 16 million kilowatt hours annually, while Rock Port only uses 13 million. The excess wind power will be sold to other communities in the area....
Girl Scouts Not Dying For A Cookie
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 04.23.08
Leisa Thompson/ Ann Arbor News
One of the side-effects of the race to print TRANSFAT FREE! on the side of every package is a big boom in production of palm oil, on plantations cut from the rainforest home of orangutans. 12 year old girl scouts Madison Vorva and Rhiannon Tomtishen of Ann Arbor, Michigan have stopped selling Girl Guide Cookies, and have started an education drive, website and petition against palm oil.
Palm oil production leads to conflict between orangutans and people, the girls said. "We've seen pictures of orangutans set afire and beaten.You really just want to reach out and do all that you can to help save them," Madison told the Ann Arbor News.
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Bill Maher's New Rule for Earth Day
by Michael Graham Richard, Ottawa, Canada on 04.23.08
Bill Maher, the host of HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher, posted a short video of his "new rule" for Earth Day over at 23/6. We suppose he's found the site FUH2 while preparing the show...
For the record, we don't think these tactics are productive. They just antagonize people and make them dig in their heels and reject ideas that they might support if emotions didn't enter the picture. Better to share information, show solutions, and help people see for themselves. In short: Good for a laugh, but don't actually do it. The video can be found at: ::Bill Maher: Exclusive Video: Truck Off...
Photos from Russian Seal Death Camp
by Michael Graham Richard, Ottawa, Canada on 04.23.08
After Beijing's Cat Death Camps, here come the Seal version in Arkhangelsk, Russia.
Seal hunting is controversial, and there's a lot of propaganda coming from both sides. One says that there's nothing special with it, it's traditional and profitable, no big deal. The other claims it's particularly cruel, citing independent studies that show that almost 80% of sealers don't check if the seal is dead before skinning it, and that half of them get skinned alive. But regardless of where the truth lies, we think most people would minimally agree that the unnecessary suffering of sentient mammals with nervous systems similar to ours is bad, and that people who purchase products made from seals should know what their money buys so they can make an informed choice. Below are more photos from the Russian seal camp....
Another Reason We Have Roads Instead of Rails
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 04.23.08
We love our highways; in the 2008 American federal budget they get $40 billion while rail gets $1.08 billion. But Bradford Plumer of the New Republic notes that it isn't just the disparity in amounts, it is the way it is handed out.
"Under current law, the federal government usually covers about 80-90 percent of the costs for a new highway project, compared with only 50 percent of the costs for a transit system. Local communities have to pick up most of the rest of the tab for public transportation, with state governments chipping in what's left. Since doing that usually requires raising property taxes, most local governments just prefer to build highways." ::New Republic via ::Andrew Sullivan
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From the Forums: Tankless Water Heaters
by Alan Graham, Portland, Oregon on 04.23.08
This one is from me.
Looking to install a tankless water heater in our home in the next few months. Sorry, solar really isn't an option at this point, but tankless looks like a really nice alternative. The problem I have is that Consumer Reports doesn't have any ratings yet on these and I'm not sure which one to invest in......
SustainStyle: Earth Day, Eco Beauty, Recycled Material + More
by 1plus1 on 04.23.08
Welcome to SustainStyle, a weekly digest from the writers at 1plus1, a blog dedicated to eco-friendly fashion. SustainStyle runs every Wednesday.
With committing ourselves into a year round awareness we celebrate Earth Day with "Earth Day resolutions".
ELLE magazines supplies us with a Eco Beauty Guide built by the pros.
Eco Tools offers us animal-free bamboo make-up brushes that are super affordable.
We introduce you to our favorite moisturizer with lavender from Avalon Organics that can be worn everyday all day.
CARGO cosmetics partners up with celebrities to formulate an eco-friendly lipstick line.
Convoy Apparel has us rethinking our feelings on the vest with an organic/hemp racer back style.
Dynomighty tricks us with a wallet that looks paper weight thin but is made with super durable recycled materials.
xo....
With committing ourselves into a year round awareness we celebrate Earth Day with "Earth Day resolutions".
ELLE magazines supplies us with a Eco Beauty Guide built by the pros.
Eco Tools offers us animal-free bamboo make-up brushes that are super affordable.
We introduce you to our favorite moisturizer with lavender from Avalon Organics that can be worn everyday all day.
CARGO cosmetics partners up with celebrities to formulate an eco-friendly lipstick line.
Convoy Apparel has us rethinking our feelings on the vest with an organic/hemp racer back style.
Dynomighty tricks us with a wallet that looks paper weight thin but is made with super durable recycled materials.
xo....
Boing Boing Blogger Tests Solar Gadgets in the Woods
by Mairi Beautyman, Berlin, Germany on 04.23.08
Well this is a nifty idea -- even if it isn't quite going as expected. Joel Johnson of Boing Boing Gadgets has packed his bags (and they are heavy, he says) full of solar powered gear and gone native. The blogger is currently somewhere in Harriman State Park, one of the largest parks in New York, attempting to blog using only solar power and satellite internet. The kink in his plans is a missing a connector, so his solar run may be short lived. Power is rapidly depleting on his Lenovo X300 laptop....
Throw Energy Out the Window With Thermique Heated Glass
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 04.23.08
Ooooh, there is nothing lovelier than a floor-to-ceiling window, and there are few better ways to waste energy, given the low R-value of most glass. Until now, that is, when you can throw electricity out the window with Thermique. This new invention burns up to 25 watts of electricity per square foot by turning the glass into an electric heater . They say it is more energy efficient because it eliminates drafts, and the conventional heating system doesn't have to work as hard." With heated windows, you can lower the set-back temperature for your HVAC system without changing the indoor temperature. The greater the total window area, the more dramatically you can alter the set-back temperature."
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Pop Quiz: Climbing Cost of Chow
by Dominic Muren, Philadelphia, USA on 04.23.08
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43 Lame Earth Day Comix
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 04.23.08
It was a surprise to see that so many cartoonists would all do special Earth Day cartoons (Jasmin predicted 45), more of a surprise that so many of them were so unfunny and less than inspiring, but the biggest surprise of all was how many comic strips there still are in print. I mean, Mary Worth was almost dead when I was a kid, and Mandrake the Magician? No wonder nobody under 30 reads papers anymore, Joy of Tech was much more to the point about Earth Day than any of these.
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Architectural Lessons from the 60s Counterculture
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 04.23.08
The Om Dome
Alastair Gordon writes a wonderful article in Architectural Record, suggesting that it is a good time to look back at the seeds of green architecture, the Drop Cities, geodesic domes, Arcosanti and other strange and spaced-out shelters.
"It was just there, somehow, in the air, the back-to-nature vibe, the need to make shelter, the need to uncomplicate one’s life. There was scrounging and recycling of old materials, living off the spoils of straight society. “Trapped inside a waste economy, man finds an identity as a consumer,” wrote Bill Voyd. “Once outside the trap, he finds enormous resources at his disposal—free.” Voyd and other pioneers at Drop City learned to chop the metal tops out of junked cars and shape them into building panels. Other free-form builders learned to work with bottles, mounds of earth, mud bricks, old tires, and bales of hay."...
Survey: Should Food Labelling Show Water Footprint?
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 04.23.08
We have noted that it takes 2500 gallons of water to produce one pound of beef. An Australian academic has suggested that there should be water labelling on food to let us know how much water has been used in producing it. "The majority of water consumption is by agricultural industries and in particular things like rice and also meat production. I think perhaps if consumers knew the quantities of water embedded in those products they might question or they might change their purchasing decisions.”
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Moms' Responses to Expensive Food and Fuel: A Mixed Bag for the Environment
by Sami Grover, Carrboro, NC, USA on 04.23.08
We’ve already learned from the BBC how families around the world are changing their eating habits to deal with rising prices, but what does all this mean for the growing movement towards more sustainable lifestyles? We’ve already caused some healthy debate on why economic challenges might be good or bad for the environment, but now CNN has an interesting feature on how mom’s across America are dealing with more expensive food and gas. It certainly seems like there are both pluses and minuses from a sustainability angle.
On the one hand, mothers like Christina Pond are planting herb and vegetable gardens, making their own baby foods, breast feeding instead of buying formula, making better use of leftovers, and cutting back on meat and eating out. On the other hand, the rising popularity of organic food in the stores may fall victim to tightening family budgets:
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Hemp Houses for Australia
by Warren McLaren, Sydney on 04.23.08
One of the people excited about NSW’s newly legal industrial hemp crops is researcher Klara Marosszeky. She has been developing a commercial viable hemp building material, and will now be able to source her raw materials locally rather than trucking them all the way across the country.
A project of Klara’s has been hemp concrete. Mixing hemp hurds (the pithy core of the stem) with a lime-based binder, plus water and a little sand, sets off a chemical reaction akin to petrification. The fibre becomes a mineral and sets like cement and can be moulded into robust building blocks. These are fire-retardant, pest proof and light, while still having the ability to ‘breath’- allowing the passage of moisture vapour....
How Old Is the World's Oldest Tree?
by Bonnie Alter, London on 04.23.08
Here it is, in all its lonely glory: the world's oldest living tree. Found in western Sweden, scientists believe that this spruce is 9,550 years old. Before, pine trees in North America had been called the oldest at 4,000 to 5,000 years old. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, a bristlecone pine named Methuselah in California's White Mountains was aged 4,768. But this discovery changes that view dramatically.
Just to be clear about this: the tree itself is new. But scientists found a cluster of about 20 trees that are 5,660, 9,000 and 9,550 years old. They used carbon dating on the cones and wood, found underneath its crown, and that showed that its root system had been growing for 9,550 years. Spruce trees grow by cloning so they produce exact copies. It was explained that "while any individual tree growing in the area would itself not be more than a few hundred years old, any tree found on site over the centuries would be generated from the same genetic root system. There is constant turnover in what is actually growing above ground but genetically, the trees growing today are the same as those from thousands of years ago.” A fence is being erected around the tree to protect it from trophy hunters. :: BBC News
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"The Rivers' Garbage Man" on CBS News Video
by George Spyros, New York City, USA on 04.22.08
Chad Pregracke and Living Lands & Waters Inspire Us to Clean Up Our Acts and Our Rivers
If today's Earth Day is getting you pumped about helping the planet, we following up on Green Deets 017 with some more inspiration: a really great little news feature package on Chad Pregracke and Living Lands & Waters from a CBS morning show airing on Sundays -- you know, that time when people are supposed to be asleep rather than waking up to what Al Gore recently framed as the great environmental challenge that is our generational mission. Well, welcome to internet video where we unearth clips at will and serve 'em up to you! So that you can as do as Mr. Gore suggests and "approach this challenge with a profound sense of joy and gratitude."...
GREEN DEETS 017: Ben Harper in Conversation with Graham Hill Part 2 -- VIDEO
by George Spyros, New York City, USA on 04.22.08
Enviro Causes, Obama and the Nobility of Finding Solutions
Ben Harper:There's no nobility in glorifying the problem. The nobility is in finding the solution.Video running time 3.5 minutes ...
Zerofootprint Offers Earth Day Carbon Calculator
by Ron Dembo, Zerofootprint on 04.22.08
Zerofootprint’s Earth Day Carbon Calculator offers a means to honour the day by measuring your personal impact on the earth. Check it out here:...
Today on Planet Green
by Jessica Root - Brooklyn, NY on 04.22.08
:: Find a last-minute event to celebrate Earth Day.
:: Outfit your home with green wood furnishings.
:: Lower Fluffy's carbon pawprint.
:: Follow Ed Begley Jr.'s lead and make an Earth Day pledge....
Greensburg, Kansas: Extraordinary Transformation
by John Picard on 04.22.08
John Picard is a sustainability expert, TreeHugger guest contributor, and consultant for the City of Greensburg, Kansas. A 13-part series about Greensburg, which was leveled by a tornado and is being rebuilt green, produced by Leonardo DiCaprio, will air on Planet Green television beginning in June.
Right now in nearly the exact geographic center of the continental United States a town in America’s heartland is rebuilding from scratch after a taking a direct hit from a category 5 tornado. All that was left were the sidewalks and the underground sewer lines. That effort merits a story in itself but what makes it even more noteworthy is that the people of Greensburg, Kansas have chosen to move from ordinary to extraordinary......
Milan 2008: Cappellini's 'Eco Sustainable' Collection
by Leonora Oppenheim, London, UK on 04.22.08
Yesterday Collin, TH's resident design guru, reported that there's been proof at the Salone del Mobile of some high profile design studios taking a greener approach to some of their products. The theme started by the 'One day paper waste' table at Droog,was continued over at another design giant's stand with Stephen Burks' recycled paper tables. While designboom noted ''a lack of seriously minded sustainable products'' we're glad to see that they still managed to find a few gems like the new 'Cappellini Love' collection by Burks....
The Amazon Jungle and a New York City Girl
by Jessica Root - Brooklyn, NY on 04.22.08
Never did I think I’d find myself nestled in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon, sitting cross-legged in a jungle bungalow with local hero—Dr. Eugenio Netto. Eugenio is a medical doctor and the founder of Projeto Saude e Alegria, or, The Health and Happiness Project, a Brazilian NGO that has been working to restore health and social equality for at-risk indigenous Amazonian communities since 1987.
As we sip Caipirinhas under the soft glow of kerosene lamps, it’s easy to let my thoughts drift and lead me to believe I’m on a glamorous Amazonian expedition. But all it takes is a firm and passionate reminder from Eugenio to remember that I’m not there on vacation, but there on a press trip because they’ve asked me and other journalists to capture Projeto Saude e Alegria’s important efforts to save the Amazon and garner international buzz and support for their traveling exhibit, Amazonia Brasil–which seeks to educate children and the world about the rainforest. This night, like most other nights with Eugenio and my fellow American journalists, is spent talking intensely about the forest, its threats, and its often too foreign relationship with non-Amazonians. ...
From the Forums: What Are You Doing for Earth Day?
by Alan Graham, Portland, Oregon on 04.22.08
Very apropos topic in the forums today.
deepcsuf asks what you are doing for Earth Day today?
I am going to the Green Apple Festival - Los Angeles, America's largest Earth Day celebration! It's going to be on the Santa Monica Pier? If anyone from going, please contact me, I'd love to meet up!aj......
We Recycle for Earth Day: Composting, Growing Your Own Food
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 04.22.08
Collin did such a fine job of putting together our Earth Day posts last year that we decided to practice what we preach, conserve energy, and recycle them.
When it comes to strategies that help your garden grow, adding compost is a great way to mulch and add nutrients without using industrial fertilizers (not to mention a good use of food leftovers and other organic waste). Here are some tips and products that can help you compost and help the planet for Earth Day. Getting Ready for Earth Day: Compost Your Organic Waste
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Time Magazine's Top 15 Green Websites (Now With Index!)
by Michael Graham Richard, Ottawa, Canada on 04.22.08
Inspired by our friends at Valleywag and their post about Time Magazine's Top 25 Blogs (in which TreeHugger.com was #4), we've decided to compile Time Magazine's list of The Top 15 Green Websites. This time, TreeHugger is #2 (though we're not sure if the list is ordered by rank or not), and many of our friends from the green web-ecosystem are there.
As Valleywag points out, they spread it over 15 pages and don't give you an index, so we decided to remedy the situation by creating one for your viewing pleasure. Note that we're not quite sure if it's an ordered list or not, as there isn't any ranks on the Time pages, but we've put them in the order that they're listed:...
AIA Names Top 10 Green Projects
by Mairi Beautyman, Berlin, Germany on 04.22.08
We love it when architects and designers get green building right. So what projects are rising to the top this year? Today, the American Institute of Architects announced the 2008 COTE Top Ten Green Projects. Judges were keen on sustainable principals and low energy consumption -- not to mention slick design. Above is the Cesar Chavez Library in Laveen, Arizona by Line and Space which uses its hat-shaped roof for rainwater collection. More winning projects......
We Recycle for Earth Day: Green Cleaning, Water
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 04.22.08
Collin did such a fine job of putting together our Earth Day posts last year that we decided to practice what we preach, conserve energy, and recycle them.
Cleaning products are everywhere in our homes, and get everywhere when we use them; on our dishes, countertops, floors, hands...the list goes on and on. They're so pervasive that we follow this general rule: if you don't want it on your skin or in your body, don't use it. Thankfully, there is a large (and growing ever larger) contingent of green cleaning products, strategies and ideas to help you keep your house clean and green. ::Getting Ready for Earth Day: Green Cleaning...
UN Taps Chinese Siren As First Eco Ambassador
by Alex Pasternack, New York, NY on 04.22.08
When the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) announced its first National Goodwill Ambassador to promote environmental responsibility yesterday, they picked the right person: actress Zhou Xun. Sure, Zhou has green cred -- she turns off the tap while brushing, she prefers bikes to SUVs, and she urges her film crews to use reusable chopsticks, she says. But more importantly, she's Chinese.
In a country where the rhetoric on environmental protection seems inversely proportionate to public awareness (especially among young people!), celebrity environmentalism may be one of the more effective ways to get the message out. And aside from fur-wearing Gong Li (or Leo, on a recent stop in Hong Kong), few stars in China have become known for their green choices. Too bad. Star-powered campaigns can be a relief from the typical government initiatives, not least because they are cool (and hot, see below) in a way that China's apparatchiks just aren't (sorry guys!)....
Are Sigg Aluminum Bottles BPA Free?
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 04.22.08
In our post on Bisphenol A from Nalgene water bottles and other polycarbonate bottles, a number of commenters asked about the lining in SIGG aluminum bottles, expressing concern that their linings might leach BPA. So we asked them, and received a response from the CEO, Steve Wasik. He says that SIGG uses a proprietary liner formula from a Swiss supplier with "an impeccable reputation for quality" but that "as there are many copy-cat manufacturers in the market (most based in China) that would like to get their hands on this formula, our supplier has an agreement with SIGG to keep his formula confidential."
Wasik continues: "Very thorough migration testing in laboratories around the world is conducted regularly and has consistently shown SIGG aluminum bottles to have no presence of lead, phthalates, Perfluorooctanoic Acid (PFOA), Bysphenol A (BPA), Bysphenol B (BPB) or any other chemicals which scientists have deemed as potentially harmful....
Removing the Hair Down There
by Kristin Underwood, Sacramento, CA on 04.22.08
The hair on your legs, silly! If there is a way to improve on leg-waxing, then Moom has done it. This Canada-based product works just like regular wax in theory, only its better because its nicer on your skin, Certified Organic and has reusable applicator strips. We aren’t here to argue the merits or politics of hair removal, but if you’re in the market (male or female) for an easy, eco-way to rid yourself of hair then Moom is a great option. ...
MTV Celebrates Earth Day with Special Programming
by Kara DiCamillo, Newport, Rhode Island on 04.22.08
Photo courtesy of: Robert LaRosa
If you happen to be indoors on this beautiful day that celebrates Mother Nature, turn on the tube or go online and check out MTV. In celebration of Earth Day the network will begin rolling out new series’ and features that celebrate eco-friendly living. The programs are designed to inform and inspire young people to become active participants in conservation because, well, they are the upcoming future. You can also catch the specials online at Think.MTV.com and, if you’re walking through Times Square, make sure to look up at the giant 44 ½ foot HD screen.
Special programming includes:
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Survey: Are You Doing Anything about Earth Day?
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 04.22.08
So much hype everywhere. We asked earlier if Earth Day was past its best by date, and the majority of you thought that it still had value. But what are you doing about it?
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Earth Day Roundup: Cool Things You Can Do
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 04.22.08
Earth Day 1970
Perhaps we are a bit blasé about Earth Day; certainly most of the Earth Day stuff in the mainstream media is old hat to TreeHugger readers. Other green sites are making a point of ignoring it completely, which is perhaps better than their crapping all over it last year. Perhaps Jasmin is right, that Earth Day is the New Christmas, and that Corporate America has co-opted and monetized it.
On the other hand, perhaps it is a useful marker on the calendar for those of us not in a green bubble, for the media, businesses, and citizens to think about things other than flag pins and mortgages. Perhaps it is useful that for this one day that everyone is a bit greener. Maybe for some it will stick.
In the mood to celebrate? Click through to check out some Earth Day activities that are actually cool.
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First Eco Browser Debuts on Earth Day
by Mairi Beautyman, Berlin, Germany on 04.22.08
Wouldn't it be nice to support a green cause by just being online? Today, just in time for Earth Day, the first green browser breaks onto the scene. Maybe you've already heard of Flock, a social web browser that in effect, puts all your social networking sites under one roof (Facebook, Flickr, and YouTube, blogger, etc.). Powered by Mozilla Firefox and using a Yahoo search engine, the Flock Eco Edition (more editions are in the works) comes loaded with some of the top green content on the web -- and 10 percent of proceeds go to an eco cause selected by users. "This is a new way of thinking about using a browser," explains Flock vice president of marketing Dan Burkhart. "We are creating an out of the box experience -- gathering the best of the best."...
Earth Day: Latin Celebrities Give Green Advice
by Paula Alvarado, Buenos Aires on 04.22.08
In the first year Earth Day that has gathered attention in Latin America, a couple of the region's biggest musicians, actors and performers have participated in a campaign held by National Geographic to raise awareness in society about our part in the global warming cause.
Under the theme "What you do matters," these celebrities have recorded small television segments giving pieces of advice on energy and water saving, reusable bags, working at home, not-printing, planting trees, and unplugging. The segments are being broadcast during special programming this week.
Artists involved include Argentine musicians Fito Paez (pictured), Charly Alberti and Diego Torres, Argentine actors Cecilia Roth and Ricardo Darin, Mexican singer Julieta Venegas, Mexican actors Bruno Bichir and Plutarco Haza, Brazilian singer Daniela Mercury, Argentine dancer Julio Bocca, and Colombian musician Andrea Etcheverry, among others.
Keep reading for videos and more....
Cast Your Vote to Help Solve Great Copy Machine Epidemic!
by Kenny Luna, North Babylon, NY on 04.22.08
When over 23,000 students at 30 schools in 13 U.S. States and the Island of Curacao recently attempted to solve The Great Copy Machine Epidemic of 2008 they came up with some very creative, fascinating ideas about the strange, contagious disease causing school photocopiers everywhere to chew up trees and spit them out as paper, contributing to global warming and deforestation in the process.
But a crisis this large is impossible for even the most committed group of student scientists to solve on their own, and even with the generous help of an internationally renowned expert on rare diseases like Dr. Oleg C. Kalapushkenitz.
Which is precisely why the folks at Copy Crisis Headquarters are asking TreeHuggers everywhere to help uncover which contagious disease is behind it all by casting their vote for the winning entry this Earth Day.
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Plant a Billion Trees
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 04.22.08
A lot of trees get planted on Earth Day; perhaps it should merge with Friday's Arbor Day. Some do paltry greenwashing efforts like Subaru's lame160 trees others scale it up to a meaningful number. Like a billion. That is what the Nature Conservancy is going for, in support of the United Nations Environment Programme's (UNEP), Billion Tree Campaign, and with sponsors including Planet Green. The Nature Conservancy campaign focuses on replanting 2.5 million acres of the Atlantic forest in Brazil, which rivals the Amazon as one of the greatest repositories of biodiversity on Earth, and which is 97% gone. It's easy, just a buck a tree with online shopping at ::Plant a Billion Trees ...
13W LED Bulb Replaces 100W Incandescent
by Sami Grover, Carrboro, NC, USA on 04.22.08
Back in 2007, our post on a 9W LED replacement for a 70W incandescent generated a huge amount of interest and debate. While some were excited to see the dawn of a new lighting technology, others felt it was overpriced and under-powered, in terms of lumen output. We wonder, then, what our readership will make of the new EvoLux 13W LED bulb, which the manufacturers claim will replace a 100W incandescent, or a 13W CFL, and can apparently last as long as 50,000 hours (for comparison purposes, this CFL manufacturer claims that an incandescent will last 750 hours, and a CFL will last 10,000). The price point is still high, coming out at a whopping US$109 (though it is currently on sale for $95), but for those early adopters who just hate changing light bulbs, this might be worth a try. More from the manufacturer’s website:
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Graphic Of The Day: Historical Water Use And Scheduled Depletions Of The Colorado River System
by John Laumer, Philadelphia on 04.22.08
There's not enough time and money to build a Great Lakes pipeline; nor will there be enough water in the Great Lakes to sustain Lake Mead (Colorado River System). If the climate coin flips the wrong way - there's an estimated 50% chance that "live storage" in the major reservoirs will be gone inside of 14 years, as discussed in the following abstract - those with enough money will be moving to Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, etc. And poor Mexico...
See also::Jeremy's coverage of this in "Las Vegas Strip Could Run Dry by 2021" AND for further background see Tim's "Water Weirding: American Southwest on Uncertain Ground" AND for some good news see " Upper Colorado River Basin Flows Projected Best In A Decade"
Abstract of the paper "When will Lake Mead go dry?" follows:...
Al Gore Readies Sequel to "An Inconvenient Truth"
by Jeremy Elton Jacquot, Los Angeles on 04.22.08
In an exclusive interview with the British newspaper The Sun, Al Gore finally revealed what many had long been hoping for: a proper sequel to his game-changing 2006 documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth." Lamenting that relatively little - aside from a more receptive public mindset - had changed since the release of his first film, Gore said that only concerted action from the world community could now prevent the worst excesses of global warming.
"I have to say the situation has not improved since I made the movie in 2006. Sure, awareness has grown and more people are concerned since scientists said we had just ten years to take action to halt rising sea levels. But the situation has got worse. The entire North Polar ice cap is melting and could be gone in some areas in as little as five years," he told The Sun's Clodagh Hartley. ...
Conservation Alliance Disburses $450,000 in Grants
by Warren McLaren, Sydney on 04.22.08
Seventeen grassroots environmental organizations across North America are receiving funds from a $450,000 pool of grants allocated by the Conservation Alliance.
The Alliance is 130 member outdoor industry companies who make a yearly contribution to grant fund. Since its founding in 1989, by industry leaders REI, Patagonia, The North Face, and Kelty, the Conservation Alliance has supported environmental organisations to the tune of $6.5 million. This financial assistance has helped protect more than 35 million acres of land, stop or remove 26 dams, and preserve access to thousands of miles of rivers and several climbing areas. ...
We Recycle for Earth Day: Electronics, Recycling
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 04.22.08
Collin did such a fine job of putting together our Earth Day posts last year that we decided to practice what we preach, conserve energy, and recycle them.
When it comes to equating everyday behavior with saving the planet, few things are as high on the list as recycling. Here are some tips and resources for incorporating recycling into your life, not just on Earth Day, but every day.::Getting Ready for Earth Day: Recycle!...
Does Anyone Hug the Tree Huggers?
by Sean Fisher, Cincinnati, Ohio on 04.22.08
That title was one of the many great TreeHugger-worthy entries to The Green Life, our six-word memoir contest in conjunction with SMITH Magazine. Now, in honor of Earth Day, we're unveiling the top entries from the contest. The grand prize winner--and recipient of an iPod nano etched with the winning memoir? "Saw the light, turned it off" by KayR. "Brilliant! I read my porn online now," by Marcus Eder, was snarky enough to capture second place. Eder can take a break from the hot online action to watch his new prize, a set of Planet Earth DVDs. Check out the four runners-up and honoroable mentions, or submit your own green six-worder after the break....
Should Food Labelling Show Water Footprint?
by Warren McLaren, Sydney on 04.22.08
The size of food product packaging may have to increase, not contract, if recent thinking on providing more information on environmental impacts was to be enacted. We’ve heard about carbon labelling for food in the UK, now an Australia academic is proposing also adding water impact labelling to the mix.
Speaking from last week’s Water Down Under conference in Adelaide, James Hazelton, a senior economics lecturer from Macquarie University, floated the concept of packaged food carrying a label indicating how much water was used in its production....
135 Million Tons of CO2 Saved - And Counting
by April Streeter, Gothenburg, Sweden on 04.22.08
Red dots denote large-scaled CDM projects, orange are medium-sized, yellow small
The UN's Kyoto Protocol is sometimes considered a bust because it doesn't include the US, yet recent statistics from Det Norske Veritas, the certifying agency of Kyoto's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects in the developing world, are heartening Earth Day news. Thus far 1,000 projects in 49 countries have "saved" carbon dioxide emissions of 135 million tons, and are expected to "save" a total of 1.2 billion tons of CO2 by the end of 2012, when Kyoto's first mandate period ends. For comparison, Norway emits about 54 million tons annually.
There are another 2,000 CDM projects in the pipeline, and if all these manage to get verified, the UN estimates 2.7 billion tons of CO2 will be saved. That's the good news. The bad news is as a global village we emit more than 8 billion tons of carbon from fossil fuel burning annually, and some scientists say we've got to get to near zero man-made emissions to stabilize a cooler climate. Via ::UNFCC
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Five Best Green-Ass Video Ads
by Christine Lepisto, Berlin on 04.22.08
Bamboo In A Bicycle Built For Two
by April Streeter, Gothenburg, Sweden on 04.22.08
Carbon composites (mixed material, unrecyclable) remain the materials of choice for high-end racing bikes, but for the rest of us in the biking masses, bamboo may soon come into its own as a better way to cycle. Calfee Design, which already has a bamboo-based mountain bike and road bike, has now come up with a bamboo tandem - wrapped at the joints with hemp fiber.
Calfee founder Craig Calfee earlier this year visited Ghana in order to train local framemakers to construct heavy-duty transport bikes (Calfee wrote a great travelogue of his adventures at the company's site) in bamboo. Bamboo now accounts for 25 percent of the company's total production, and a third of the road frame production. OrganicAthlete, a team of bikers promoting a vegan lifestyle for athletes, has signed up to ride Calfee bikes, and OrganicAthlete founder Bradley Saul had this to say to Bike Biz about his bamboo bike:
“I’ve riden a bamboo bike for over a year. I can honestly say it’s the best riding bike I’ve ever had."Calfee bikes are high end, but if you've got the bamboo itch, check out this DIY. Via ::Bike Biz and VeloNews...
Visit a Garden
by Bonnie Alter, London on 04.22.08
Happy Earth Day. And if you can't grow a garden then visit one. Wake up and smell the roses and enjoy the beauty of nature on an urban scale. It's easy and fun here in Great Britain. The National Gardens Scheme is a country wide programme that collects funds for charity by asking people to open their garden for a single Sunday afternoon. Garden lovers adore looking at other people's creations; it's a chance to admire, snipe, envy and copy the lives of the rich and famous in the gardening world. Many of the owners provide home-baked cakes and biscuits and tea--ginger cake is a particular speciality (and favourite) and it all goes for a good cause. Here is the great garden voyeur's chance: wander around the loveliest private gardens, chat with the owner, sit and have tea on their patio, they do the clean up--and it's all for charity.
The open gardens, from March through to October, are listed in a small yellow book, available in local book shops and the internet. Every Sunday there are openings ranging from 7 floating barge gardens (July 27, if you are here) to a roof garden on a small house that you have to climb up a ladder to see. If the garden is behind a row house, you can tiptoe through the house to get to the back--an extra plus! Just don't pick the flowers. :: The National Gardens Scheme
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Droog Design Adds a "Touch of Green" in Milan
by Collin Dunn, Corvallis, OR, USA on 04.21.08
Droog Design may have unleashed the most un-TreeHugger design we've ever seen on the world, but they're turning over a new leaf, starting with their contribution to this year's Salone del Mobile in Milan. "A Touch of Green" is an interesting collection that recognizes that there isn't one absolute answer to sustainability, and provides examples from all kinds of angles.
Above is "One day paper waste," a table that shows one days' paper waste in a more static form. They note, "Does it help the environment to recycle a one day gathering of paper waste from the office into a resin treated piece of furniture? Maybe not literally, but the intention to limit waste is at least one step in the right direction."...
Today on Planet Green
by Jessica Root - Brooklyn, NY on 04.21.08
:: Compute your carbon footprint with this new and improved calculator.
:: Observe your neighborhood to see if it's greening up its act.
:: Play with mud to make this simple, DIY skin-firming facial mask.
:: Shop online with friends to reduce costs and wasteful packaging.
:: Detox your diet to feel light and healthy this spring....
Introducing the BYD E6 Electric Car
by Michael Graham Richard, Ottawa, Canada on 04.21.08
Update: Click here for BYD Electric Cars Slideshow
BYD, China's biggest battery maker, isn't wasting any time carving its niche in the new world of electric cars and plug-in hybrids. It all started with the F6DM plug-in hybrid sedan, followed by the smaller and less expensive F3DM plug-in hybrid compact car. Now BYD has introduced its E6 electric car at the Beijing International Auto Show. It takes the shape of a crossover, or MPV, and will be built on on the F6's platform (same as the F6DM, which could be sold in Europe by 2010)....Most Huggable: Vertical Farming, The Cost of Corn, Eco-Toys for Tots + More
by Team Treehugger, Worldwide on 04.21.08
The Pacific Northwest caps the U.S. in the least gas consumption.
Old fashion toys foster creativity and goodwill for the earth. Will tots trade in Bob the Builder for plain old building blocks?
Will future farms resemble skyscrapers?
The Green Parent gears up kids for Earth Day with eco-inspired party ideas.
An interactive map of the U.S. reports on the price of corn-based ethanol.
Most Huggable is a regular roundup of some of Hugg's top green news stories. Why not submit your own green news?...
The Air-Powered Motorcycle by Jem Stansfield
by Michael Graham Richard, Ottawa, Canada on 04.21.08
Jem Stansfield is not exactly the average tinkerer. He has a degree in aeronautics and is an inventor and special effects technician. But still, his DIY air-powered motorcycle, the first of its kind according to him, is quite cool.
How Does an Air-Powered Motorcycle Work?
Unlike the hilarious single-piston air-powered bicycle that he previously made, this air-powered bike can actually be used in real-world situations.
He took carbon-fiber air tanks that are usually used by firefighters as part of their breathing equipment and connected them to two rotary air engines that drive the rear wheel. One of the benefits of using compressed air over batteries is that you can recharge in a few seconds....
Monowheel by Ben Wilson
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 04.21.08
I dunno about this, I wouldn't want to ride through any puddles, and it might be bumpy going over potholes, although the big radius might be great for jumping them.Dezeen says that it was commissioned for the XXI Century Man exhibition in Tokyo. Designer Ben Wilson is quoted below:...
Over-Packaging is a Low-Hanging Fruit to Help the Environment [Updated]
by Michael Graham Richard, Ottawa, Canada on 04.21.08
Over-packaging might seem fairly benign to some, but when you stop and think about how many millions (billions!) of items are wastefully packaged, how these almost-empty big boxes take up more space than necessary in shipping trucks, forcing them to make more trips for the same amount of cargo... It all adds up to a huge waste of materials and energy that could fairly easily be avoided without much negative consequences....
Rationing Comes to Costco
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 04.21.08
Nobody gives up much in North America for our troops in Afganistan or Iraq, or for our changing climate. Whether it's big cars, low taxes or water, we defer death and taxes for our grandchildren to worry about (Or at least the next administration). However the reality of the Peak Food situation is beginning to hit us in the face; In parts of the US they are rationing rice.
It appears that Asian rice, flour and cooking oil is disappearing from the shelves in America, as Asian demand outstrips supply. the New York Sun quotes a shopper: “Where’s the rice?” an engineer from Palo Alto, Calif., Yajun Liu, said. “You should be able to buy something like rice. This is ridiculous.”
Costco is limiting purchases to one bag per customer. In New York, bakers are hoarding flour. In the west, an "anonymous high-tech professional" bought 10 50-pound bags of rice, saying “I am concerned that when the news of rice shortage spreads, there will be panic buying and the shelves will be empty in no time. I do not intend to cause a panic, and I am not speculating on rice to make profit. I am just hoarding some for my own consumption,” Yeah, right. That is what causes the panic in the first place. 500 pounds? ::New York Sun...
Mother Jones' Energy Issue: The Nuclear Option, Fossil Fools, Poop Power and More
by Jeremy Elton Jacquot, Los Angeles on 04.21.08
The blaring headline on the front cover of the May/June issue really says it all: "It's behind the war, the recession, the ice caps: if we don't confront our energy crisis, we're screwed." As far as "green" issues of major/independent news publications go - and we've certainly seen our fair share over the last few months (Vanity Fair, Time, NYT and The New Republic to name a few) - MoJo's effort stands out as one of the best. ...
Great River Energy Headquarters Aims For LEED Platinum
by Justin Thomas, Virginia on 04.21.08
In Minnesota, Great River Energy is seeking LEED Platinum certification for their newly constructed headquarters, which will open tomorrow on Earth Day. Solar cells on the building's roof will generate power, together with a 160-foot-tall wind turbine, that will generate 225 kilowatts of electricity. The headquarters will have a geothermal heating and cooling system that utilizes an adjacent lake. Rainwater will be captured in cisterns, and be used to flush toilets, and irrigate the restored native-plant gardens on 12.5-acre site.
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EcoTech Daily Hosts Carnival of the Green
by Kara DiCamillo, Newport, Rhode Island on 04.21.08
This week is Carnival of the Green # 124 and it's being hosted by EcoTech Daily, a brand new site helping you to make sense of technologies that are changing your home and community. So head on over to the site to check out a round up of green news and events from the past week, submitted by other bloggers and green sites. Or, as EcoTech Daily calls it, "The Earth Day 2008 Edition!"
To learn more about Carnival of the Green, where it will be and how to host (we are now accepting hosts for the second half of 2009!), please click here to link to our previous post....
Dine While You Drive with the Exhaust Cooker
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 04.21.08
The Exhaustburger we showed earlier is just lame compared to this Exhaust Cooker that was cooked up in 1930. It has a steam pressure cooker, so an hour's drive and it's done like dinner. After all, "Motor tours are much more pleasant when one is assured of a well-prepared meal at the end of the trip," although the way people eat in cars these days, it might make more sense to mount it in the center console where the cup holders are so that one doesn't have to stop to eat. We are not sure about how much goulash per gallon one gets, but it makes sense to wring a few more calories of heat out of that car trip. ::Modern Mechanix...
Patagonia Add Five Products to Footprint Chronicles
by Warren McLaren, Sydney on 04.21.08
Patagonia have updated their Webby Award nominated Footprint Chronicles website with five new product lifecycle assessments (LCAs). The additions are their Nine Trails shorts, Sugar and Spice shoe, Capilene 3 bottoms Vitaliti strappy dress and Puckerware shirt.
That last product (seen above) traveled 22,000 km from its fabric source to distribution centre expending enough energy per shirt to run a 18W light bulb nonstop for 49 days. The shirt created the of 41 times it’s own weight in CO2 emissions and created waste equal to 2/3rds of its weight. And Patagonia can’t yet find a recycled polyester that meets their standards. Although, being blended with organic cotton, it wouldn’t be chemically recyclable anyhow....
From the Forums: Why do "Green" products cost so much?
by Alan Graham, Portland, Oregon on 04.21.08
goldwave84 is asking about the eco-economics of why green costs so much green.
From detergent to face cream, the green choice is just so much more expensive. Is it because of cost of these materials are just higher?A cursory glance around some shopping sites at laundry detergent shows that the green detergent we use, Mrs. Meyers, comes in at $.20 per fluid oz, while another green product, Seventh Generation, comes in at $.14 per fluid ounce. However, All 2X Concentrated Laundry Detergent comes in at roughly $.09 per fluid ounce. Quite a difference for families on a budget with a lot of laundry. For some, this likely makes going green a harder decision to make. mikebeavis points out that economics of scale and hidden costs have some role to play: ...
How They Store Bikes In Tokyo
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 04.21.08
Four Aveda Ingredients Get Cradle to Cradle Certification
by Jasmin Malik Chua, Jersey City, USA on 04.21.08
Photo credit: cloverity
Four of beauty company Aveda's most prominently used botanical ingredients have attained Cradle to Cradle certification (C2C): Its rose and lavender essential oils come from a sustainable organic farm in Bulgaria, while its wild Australian sandalwood is sourced from the Mardu people of Western Australia based on standards of an indigenous raw materials certification.
Meanwhile, organic uruku, a pigment Aveda uses in lipsticks, is sustainably harvested by the Yawanawa people of the Brazilian Amazon.
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Jargon Watch: 100 Mile Style
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 04.21.08
Brent Comber's Alder Collection, Vancouver
All TreeHuggers know about the 100 mile diet, but watch out for the next trend, the 100 mile style, first heard (by us) via the Globe and Mail. We quote: "Consumers are becoming increasingly aware of the cost to the planet of transporting heavy things from a factory in the Far East or Europe to their North American homes," says Graeme Spicer, director of retail strategy at DW + Partners Inc., a retail branding and design consultancy in Toronto. "They also have more confidence that their purchases are being created in an environmentally friendly or at least environmentally neutral manner if they're made locally instead of in, say, China, which has a shaky environmental record at best."
It is an interesting concept which supports local artists, designers, manufacturers and smaller retailers, an entire infrastructure of design....
Native American Kids Receive Gift that Shines with Opportunity
by Kenny Luna, North Babylon, NY on 04.21.08
When school kids on the Paiute Indian Reservation in Nevada look up at the sun for years to come they’ll have an increased appreciation for all that solar energy can do thanks to the tireless efforts of the good folks at Black Rock Solar who’ve teamed up yet again with Sierra Pacific Power and MMA Renewable Ventures to ensure kids at schools in need have access to the sun’s energy.
Not too long ago they’d teamed up to present the largest green Christmas gift in history to the Gerlach school campus in Nevada, and now they’ve coordinated a massive, 60KW system for installation on the Natchez Elementary School that serves children from the adjacent Paiute Reservation that will not only educate students about the benefits of solar power, but alleviate some of the cash concerns their district faces as it pumps out more than half their energy needs each year.
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Wine Tour On Wheels, With King David
by Karin Kloosterman, Tel Aviv on 04.21.08
Tourism is growing again in Israel and along with it the awareness of eco-tourism. Long-time residents or tourists to the Holy Land looking to travel a bit off the beaten path, should consider the one-week cycling and winery tour laid out by the Ministry of Tourism.
Although the onus is on you to map out your route and find places to lodge at night, a fairly detailed outline on how to do that, while sampling the wine from some of the country's better establishments is mapped out here: Cycling Through Israeli Wine and Biblical History.
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Boy Scouts Turning Racks Into Riches
by Kenny Luna, North Babylon, NY on 04.21.08
When it comes to recycling; leave it to the Boy Scouts to come up with one of the most unique and resourceful programs around.
It turns out for decades they’ve been turning antlers into cash after collecting, sorting, and bundling them for their annual auction. With over 200 scouts and troop leaders spending a total of close to 2,000 hours of labor to put together an event that draws international buyers to Wyoming each spring to bid on antlers in bulk.
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Stair of the Week: MDRDV, Didden Village
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 04.21.08
They must have run out of money before they got to the bottom, but fortunately it is not a long drop from the last tread to the floor below, and there is a rope to help make the leap....
Big Steps In Building: Ban Formaldehyde
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 04.21.08
As we know courtesy of FEMA's optimization experiments, Formaldehyde exposure is not a good thing. It gets worse; a new study links it to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), or Lou Gehrig's disease. As we know courtesy of the Environmental Protection Agency, energy efficiency is a good thing, which is why they promote Energy Star houses, which have effective insulation, high-performance windows and tight construction.
One would think that a standard coming from the EPA would care about health and air quality instead of energy (isn't that another department?) but no, they recommend tightly sealing houses to reduce air leakage, the biggest energy loser. A leaky old house might change the air once an hour; a tightly sealed house designed for Energy Star might be as little as 1/100 of an air change per hour.
What happens when you don't change the air enough? The concentration of toxic chemicals gets higher. Formaldehyde, as an example, found in particle board, MDF, (medium density fibreboard) fabrics, glues and paints, and most fiberglass insulation. (More info here) ...
Pop Quiz: How Much Poop Does A Worm Poop?
by Dominic Muren, Philadelphia, USA on 04.21.08
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Art and Accessories with Recovered EVA Foam, by Carla Tennenbaum
by Paula Alvarado, Buenos Aires on 04.21.08
Brazilian artist Carla Tennenbaum has found a way to turn tons of EVA foam leftovers into colorful pieces of art and accessories. Tennenbaum explains that her aim is to, "explore the frontiers between graphic arts, artisan work and objects design through the development of de-construction and reconstruction techniques to apply with industrial waste."
She began working with EVA foam in 2000, when she found this material was not recycled and, therefore, used to end in landfills. Her two main lines are called Party and Kinetics. The first is a set of puffs in which the transparent plastic covering shows the hundreds of small pieces of EVA foam inside (picture above). The second is a collection of pictures 'painted' with the same material.
Keep going for more pictures!
Via Casa Claudia....
Funny Pages Go Green for Earth Day
by Jasmin Malik Chua, Jersey City, USA on 04.21.08
The funny pages are yukking it up for the environment with Earth Day-themed strips on Tuesday, April 22. Forty-five King Features cartoonists are taking part in this first-of-its-kind comics initiative to raise awareness about the environment and the health of the planet.
Participating strips include favorites such as Blondie, Hägar the Horrible, Beetle Bailey, Mutts, Zits, Baby Blues, Bizarro, and Dennis the Menace, as well as King Features’ newer strips such as Arctic Circle, The Pajama Diaries, Retail, Ollie, and Quentin and Tina’s Groove.
Click below the fold for a sneak peek. ::King Digital...
Food Shortage Pulls Genetically Modified Grains Into Formerly Closed Markets
by John Laumer, Philadelphia on 04.21.08
With world grain inventories running low, grain buyers who once were choosy are eying GM wheat and corn and rice sources as a cheap way to rebuild inventory. New York Times covers the story in depth. Of course, supporters of GM food can (some did) use famine as an argument to have governments and food distributors drop bans on GM food planting or sale. The logic is flawed.And a new international assessment of the future of agriculture, released last Tuesday, gave such tepid support to the role genetic engineering could play in easing hunger that biotechnology industry representatives withdrew from the project in protest... Hans R. Herren, co-chairman of the project, said providing more fertilizer to Africa would improve output much more than genetic engineering could. “What farmers really are struggling with are water issues, soil fertility issues and market access for their products,” he said....
Survey: Will You Be Driving A Car in 30 Years?
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 04.21.08
The New York Times says "The number of cars and trucks is projected to double in 30 years— to more than two billion — as developing nations rapidly modernize." We say huh? Isn't climate change an issue here? Are we really going to just keep producing cars or are we going to be looking at alternatives?
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Pay As You Drive (PAYD) Insurance: A Way to Address Negative Externalities
by Andrew Posner, Providence, Rhode Island on 04.21.08
We're all familiar with the concept of negative externalities: the behavior of one person has negative impacts on another person (or society as a whole), yet the person causing those impacts doesn't pay for them. Writing about this concept as it applies to driving, Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt, authors of the best-seller Freakonomics, point out that driving has three negative externalities: congestion, carbon emissions and traffic accidents. They go on to quantify the cost to society of each of those negative externalities: $20 billion a year from carbon emissions; $78 billion a year from congestion (due to lost fuel and productivity); and a whopping $220 billion a year from accidents. They conclude that "with roughly three trillion miles driven each year producing more than $300 billion in externality costs, drivers should probably be taxed at least an extra 10 cents per mile if we want them to pay the full societal cost of their driving."
Unfortunately, most of the options for implementing that tax--higher tolls, congestion pricing and gas taxes--are not very politically feasible, especially with today's high gas prices. So what to do? Well, according to Dubner and Levitt, the answer is to be found in automobile insurance. ...
Duke Energy CEO On Transition To Low Carbon Economy
by John Laumer, Philadelphia on 04.21.08
The greatest successes in overcoming human-caused environmental problems have come slowly, with collaboration. For example: ozone depleters were not "banned" in a year, they were phased out over decades. Mandates are situational: use of DDT is constrained to nations where malaria is present, and toxicity to birds not in evidence.
In corollary, the climate crisis requires a collaborative decision as to how fast coal must be phased out, and what electricity sources or conservation steps will replace the phased out 'coal-tricity'. Hence it was a pleasure to read Duke Energy's CEO James Rodger's recent speech, in which he advocated energy policies to see the US through a transition period, leading to a low carbon economy. ...
Hemp Crops Become Legal for NSW, Australia
by Warren McLaren, Sydney on 04.21.08
Commercially legal crops of industrial hemp have been approved for the Australian state of New South Wales. The NSW Minister for Primary Industries reckons the approval could open up “the establishment of a new viable industry” for the state.
“For example, it could be used as an additive to wool in soft textured durable yarns, for insulation, as an alternative to fibreglass, in paper products and textiles and also for load bearing masonry for building. Hemp seed oil can also be used as a base for skin care products and paints.”...
Solar Payback Reasonably Profitable, Even in the UK
by Sami Grover, Carrboro, NC, USA on 04.21.08
Last year Guardian columnist Ashley Seager crunched some numbers on whether solar was a good investment for his London home, and after including government subsidies he concluded that an installation would be more profitable than putting his money in the bank. But how have his calculations worked out one year on? The payback is looking pretty good it seems, if his latest update is anything to go by:
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Adidas Goes Guerilla Gardening
by Bonnie Alter, London on 04.21.08
Here's an ad campaign for Adidas new eco range, Grun, that is bringing together quite a few green concepts into one curious melange. First we've got the product--Adidas has a a new line of shoes which are made from recycled and natural materials. They are also making clothing from hemp and bamboo; the new Reground range is fully biodegradable, including the first ever completely biodegradable zipper. Their Recycled line is made of materials such as old tires. Then the advertising and green link: they have joined up with dazed & confused (magazine) to encourage people to do guerilla gardening in grim and ugly places; swapping spray cans and tags for seeds and bulbs. Submit a picture of your efforts and the ten winners get a discount on any Adidas gear.
Then they have added a sculptural "art" element--this sinister looking "hand" (pictured) made of wicker and wire is 12 feet high and is perched on a shop roof, overlooking a busy street in London's hip east end, as part of the promotion. Another creation, now gone, was a skip full of flowers. They are planning ten more of these around town. It's all interesting, but what it adds up to is a bit of a confusing mish mash of green elements. :: Dazed...
Book Review: Earth: The Sequel
by Tim McGee, Western Massachusetts on 04.20.08
The Race to Reinvent Energy and Stop Global Warming
The Earth's environment has limits. Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) has long recognized that those limits can ignite economic growth and ecological prosperity at the same time. Earth: The Sequel written by Krupp and Miriam Horn, a journalist and staffer at EDF, begins with a case study of how we can solve global warming and improve our economy by addressing the need for limits.
In the early 1980's sulfur dioxide emissions from coal fired power plants caused acid rain, damaging forests and aquatic life. We had reached the limits of how much sulfur dioxide we could pump into the atmosphere. The knee-jerk reaction to this problem was to create strict 'command and control' regulations that required adding expensive scrubbers to smoke stacks. But this solution was not addressing the problem......
Shocking Space Debris Images
by Christine Lepisto, Berlin on 04.20.08
The German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ, German only) today published an article on space junk. The shocking image is an eye opener. Humankind continues to repeat the mistake of strewing waste into common spaces (no pun intended) without a thought to the consequences, leaving costs we don't want to pay today for the future generations. The FAS article spurred our curiosity, leading us to find even more spectacular video and potential solutions to the problem (overleaf).
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A Primer to Iceland's Geothermal Power Stations
by Jeremy Elton Jacquot, Los Angeles on 04.20.08
Amusing Reuse: Recycling At Copenhagen's Tivoli
by April Streeter, Gothenburg, Sweden on 04.20.08
Spring has finally reached the northern reaches of the Northern Hemisphere, and that means amusement parks, and in Denmark's case, lots of beer drinking (it's legal to imbibe on the streets). In addition to amusing and not-so-amusing public drunkenness, the drinking policy also leads to mountains of street trash after a warm spring night.
But at the famous Copenhagen amusement park Tivoli (one of the world's very first in-city large scale permanent parks) there's no trace of plastic cups on the grounds or even in the bins, and that's not because of overzealous maintenance staff - it's due to Tivoli's plastic cup deposit and return system that gets an approximately 80 percent return rate. When purchasing a beer or soft drink at any of the numerous concessions in the park, an extra 5 Danish kroner (US$1) is added to price, and the thick polystyrene cup can be dropped off at one of a dozen on-site recycling kiosks, which refunds the money. The system has been in place for nearly a decade, and studies are showing that with a 5-time reuse (cups are washed off-site and average five to nine uses) the cups score better in life-cycle analysis than disposables and at a break-even cost to the concessions. Seems like a proven technology whose time, with oil at near $120 a barrel, surely must be here. Via Tivoli
P.S. Hit the jump to see the return kiosks and reusable cups...
The "Big Thirst"- for Oil
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 04.20.08
From a great graphic by Bill Marsh of the New York Times
The New York Times writes about the factors causing the rise in the price of oil, which hit $ 116 per barrel this week. Jad Mouawad hits all the usual suspects, such as the weak dollar, worries about terrorism (?) and demand, saying "Producers are struggling to pump as much as they can to quench the thirst not only of the developed world, but fast-growing developing nations like China and India, the two most populous countries." However he then goes on to say "The number of cars and trucks is projected to double in 30 years— to more than two billion — as developing nations rapidly modernize. And twice as many passenger jetliners, more than 36,000, will in all likelihood be crisscrossing the skies in 20 years."
And how much fuel is there to power all this? "A small band of skeptics view today’s record prices as evidence that oil supplies have peaked — that half the globe’s oil supply has already been used up. But most experts believe that there are still enough oil reserves, both discovered and undiscovered, to last at least through the middle of the century."
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Pop Quiz: How Many Bike Commuters?
by Dominic Muren, Philadelphia, USA on 04.20.08
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Obama Appeals to Crucial Train Swing Vote
by Andrew Posner, Providence, Rhode Island on 04.20.08
We are already familiar with Senator Barack Obama's appeal to the crucial bicycle swing vote (between the three remaining candidates, his platform is the only one that even mentions cycling). Now, with the all-important Pennsylvania primary fast approaching (like a train, perhaps?) Senator Obama scrambled for votes on Saturday by taking an all-day, 100 mile trip by train "along the Philadelphia area's Main Line and on west to the capital in Harrisburg."
Certainly, Obama is not the first to campaign by train. Harry Truman is famous for his 1948 whistle-stop tour that covered 22,000 miles, and even the car in which Obama rode--a Georgia 300 Lounge Car--has in the past "carried Presidents Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton." But as the presidential campaigns have become more hectic and demanding, the carbon footprint of campaigning--done usually by SUV or private jet--has skyrocketed. Trains, as we've seen, are less carbon intensive than either SUV or private jet. And millions of Americans rely on trains to get to work, especially in busy corridors such as New England. So perhaps Obama was pandering to the train swing vote? Is there even such a thing?...
Farmers' HelpPoint Anti-Bike Ad Gets Slammed
by Sami Grover, Carrboro, NC, USA on 04.20.08
New York Times Magazine: The Low-Carbon Catalog
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 04.20.08
The Times commissioned artist Gyongy Laky to create sculptural titles for each section.
Every newspaper and magazine on the stands has a green issue right now, and they are getting to be a bit repetitive. The New York Times has taken a different approach, calling it a catalog and covering dozens of issues, some obscure and some mainstream . It kicks off with a wonderful article by Michael Pollan, who answers the question "Why Bother?" Our own Jasmin Chua advises about pets in the "Live" section, while Planet Green's Bill Nye describes his very green house and greener lifestyle. Even the real estate ads are green in the::New York Times
UPDATE: I admire Joe Romm at Climate Progress, but he has to get over his reviewer shtick where he says "One of my most tedious jobs here at Climate Progress is to read all the Common BioFuel Myth: Corn-Based Ethanol To Blame For Global Food Shortages
by John Laumer, Philadelphia on 04.20.08
Sure, government subsidy of corn based ethanol production is a contributing factor to the global food crisis now ensuing. However, there are multiple, significant independent causes; and, the interplay of contributing factors is far more complex than news headlines might lead you to believe (in the US media, especially).
Climate change is a factor. But so it the "Chardonnay Effect" - leading to a significant Australian reduction in rice exports to Asia-Pacific and Middle Eastern markets. So is population growth, especially in developing nations. So is increased use of grains to produce animal protein for Asia and India.
Add this to the 'limits to growth:" GM crops can have on average a 10% lower yield than the conventional varieties. Genetic modification actually cuts the productivity of crops, an authoritative new study shows, undermining repeated claims that a switch to the controversial technology is needed to solve the growing world food crisis. The study – carried out over the past three years at the University of Kansas in the US grain belt – has found that GM soya produces about 10 per cent less food than its conventional equivalent, contradicting assertions by advocates of the technology that it increases yields.See photo credit link for detailed example of what field practices can contribute to the yield fall-off. Again: no simple answer. ...
