Weekly Archive for July 13, 2008 : TreeHugger

Image: Ecotopia Biketour 2007, pid.blog.hr
With all their gear and tents strapped to their bicycles and trailers, a small group of young people from several European countries are slowly but surely making their way from Bulgaria to Turkey on the annual Ecotopia Biketour. Despite their self-described status as a “totally chaotic tour, with constantly changing sleeping places, group composition and food quality,” it’s no ordinary bunch of cyclists and it’s no run-of-the-mill road trip. Over cross-border routes that change every year, the tour itself is a mobile demonstration unit dedicated to showing that low-consumption, ecological and “do-it-yourself” methods of travelling are not only possible, but fun. Besides that, there’s also a central element of “action” along the way: Biketour participants also organize and help in events dealing with environmental issues that confront the communities they ride through....

On the inside. Europe Manages Risk: USA Pretends It Doesn't Exist. There's a pattern here. European Union nations phase out the more hazardous of the pthalate plasticizers: USA lobbies against it and resists it in the US. Europe tests animals for Mad Cow disease: USA makes it illegal to test them. Europe takes climate action: USA resists. There are plenty more where these come from. You get the idea: when it comes to protecting children from dye marketed mainly to children, Europe leads....

Image from ScienceNOW Bombed out reefs might not immediately come to mind as areas that could harbor large aggregations of healthy corals. Yet that's exactly what Bernhard Riegl, a scientist at Florida's Nova Southeastern University, found in the waters off Puerto Rico's Vieques island, which has been used as a U.S. Navy training ground for the past 6 decades. As he told ScienceNOW's David Malakoff, the results of his survey weren't "quite what some people expected". Indeed, his study, published in the Journal of Coastal Research, found that the coral reefs found in these waters were in slightly better condition than corals found in adjoining marine protected areas (MPAs). ...

Image from Tjeerd It is difficult to imagine what must have been going through the heads of Rio de Janeiro beachgoers in recent months as they have seen hundreds of baby penguins wash up onshore dead. At last count, more than 400 penguins, swept from the shores of Patagonia and Antarctica, have been found dead on Rio de Janeiro's beaches, reports the AP's Michael Astor....

Which of the following is Bamboo NOT used for? ( surveys)

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Summercase applies a reusable cup service by Ecofestes photo

all image credits: Sergio Carratala It is nice to see that Sinnamon, the organisers behind the yearly music festivals Daydream and Summercase in Barcelona, are keeping up the green efforts even without Radiohead asking them to do so. Like for the Daydream festival, Summercase, in collaboration with Intermon Oxfam, are motivating festival goers to actively participate in their water bottle recycling scheme by giving out free water bottles for every 5 empty bottles collected. This facilitates recycling and raises awareness about the waste issue. Other NGOs like Amnesty International spread insights about fair trade products regarding festival merchandising. To save trees, the festival information is available via Bluetooth in the Nokia tent. However, what we liked most at this year’s Summercase festival, apart from the amazing line-up (Sex Pistols, Blondie, Kaiser Chiefs, Kings of Leon, 2MANYDJS, Cornelius…) are the brightly coloured reusable cups that beam from everyone’s hand or hip. ...

TreeHugger is proud to be contributing original content to the Huffington Post Green section. This week's posts: Do Big Homes Mean Bigger Happiness? Nowadays, you can take a stroll through a suburban street and actually come across the White House. Well, not the actual residence of George W., but a scarily accurate, humongous replica. Yep, despite the woes of the housing market, Americans are still super-sizing their homes. ::Graham Hill Ludicrous Lawns, Wasted Water, and Solid Solutions NASA has studied satellite data and concluded that lawns in the US are taking up as much space as the whole state of New York (not the city, the state). That's fifty thousand square miles of grass! ::Michael Graham Richard Five Products to Green Your Cat Yep, they may be the world's most independent creatures, often scornful, superior, unpredictable, and affectionate only when it comes down to the tuna, but we still love our cats. Here are five products for a tree-hugging kitty. ::Mairi Beautyman Does Recycling Really Do Any Good? The words "recycled" and "recyclable" often conjure up similar notions of relative greenness; the general idea is that, as long as you aren't pitching it directly in the trash, you're doing something good for the planet, right? Turns out, it isn't quite that simple. ::Collin Dunn Tortillas, Ethanol, and High Fructose Corn Syrup What is lost in all the biofuel controversy is the fact that tremendous amounts of land are devoted neither to fuel nor nutritive food, but rather to non-nutritive uses like tobacco, high fructose corn syrup and cane sugar.::Andy Posner Carbon Tax? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Carbon Tax, We Already Have One. The debate about carbon taxes is over; we are already paying them, and they are working the way environmentalists said they would. The problem is, instead of collecting the carbon tax and using the money for conservation or alternative energy or even reducing income taxes, we are paying the tax to Big Oil, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and Iran. ::Lloyd Alter...

Where LEED Once Led: California Has A Conservation Rush. California has proposed a new statewide building code aimed at improving energy efficiency and water consumption.

In what was described as the United States' first statewide "green" building rules, the California Building Standards Commission said the code would help reduce the carbon footprint of every new structure in the state.

Via::Inquirer.net, Agency France Presse. The Commission proposal is still in the public comment period, but let's assume that something resembling what was proposed will be made final in the winter of 2009. What does it mean; what's next?...

This post is one in a series of video blogs about biking across America with WE ADD UP to raise awareness about how to stop global warming. Check out more posts in this series here. Hi there. We're Carson and Eric, friends and transportation consultants in Boston, where we share an office adorned by a large pirate flag. We've taken some shorter trips (Mount Washington, Death Valley, etc.), but when Carson, the endurance athlete, came up with the idea of biking across America, Eric, the planner, figured it was a good excuse for a much bigger adventure. The plan: Carson will bike the whole distance, while Eric -- who will bike some of the way -- provides support, all in the name of raising awareness about how to reduce our carbon footprint. With the nod from our bosses, and in partnership with WE ADD UP, we set out on a sunny Saturday morning from Boston, joined by many of our friends and colleagues at a cheery send-off....

The Bombardier CSeries: Marketed as a "green jet" (image from Wikipedia). Life hasn't been easy for the airlines lately. As fuel prices wreak havoc with the industry's bottom line, carriers have responded by dumping older, less efficient jets, lowering flying speeds and carrying less weight - not to mention charging for checked bags. This week, however, the airlines got a bit of good news when Canadian conglomerate Bombardier announced its intention to release the CSeries in 2013, a passenger jet which it claims will use 20% less fuel than its nearest competitor....

While the world (understandably) remains focused on the melting Arctic ice caps, those of us living in California have been worrying about a melting of a different sort. And, according to a new study published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, the problem may be getting worse. Indeed, Noah Diffenbaugh, an associate professor of earth and atmospheric sciences at Purdue University, believes the melting of California's snowpack may be accelerating at a higher rate than previously thought. By 2100, spring snowmelt could begin up to 2 months earlier in the western U.S. (see here for a description of the image). ...

Love music? Summer festivals like Fuji Rock are huge events here with hundreds of thousands of participants and bands from all over the world. Organizers are adding lectures about the environment, and inviting NGOs to promote their causes. This weekend you can join the AP Bank Festival - an outdoor music festival in Tsumagoi in Shizuoka Prefecture, south west of Tokyo. All profits from the event are used as seed money for lending to environmental projects and for AP Bank's activity fund. The festival's highlight is the live music of the Bank Band, anchored by Takeshi Kobayashi and Kazutoshi Sakurai, and guest musicians. Festival-goers get to enjoy organic food and check out environmentally friendly products for sale, presentations on various environmental topics, hands-on workshops, and booths showcasing AP Bank-funded environmental projects. Time Magazine listed Kobayashi and Sakurai as Heroes of the Environment in 2007. Ironically, perhaps, that nature intervened with a typhoon last year, and many of the concerts had to be cancelled. We are hoping this weekend will be rain-free!...

Unless you’ve been asleep for the last year or two, you’ll know by now that Colony Collapse Disorder is posing a very real and imminent threat to the world’s honeybees, and consequently to global food production (one third of all agricultural crops rely on bees for pollination!). Luckily, many corporations involved in food production are pitching in to support research and action to help save our furry flying friends – the latest being Haagen Dazs who have set up Help The Honeybees as a means to raise money and awareness (WARNING: The site is annoyingly Flash heavy!). Among the actions recommended on the site are plant wildflower seeds, support your local bee keepers, and donate to research. Haagen Dazs are also selling a brand new flavor, Vanilla Honey Bee, profits from which will be used to fund research at Pennsylvania State University and University of California at Davis. And, just in time for the weekend, we bring you Haagen Dazs’ 'bee boy' interpretation of the famous dances that bees use to communicate. More reading on Colony Collapse Disorder after the fold. ...

While the numbers are not official, it's estimated that about 20 million people practice yoga - and that adds up to lots of well-loved, grimy and sweaty yoga mats. Luckily, mats can last for years and they can be washed. According to Yoga Journal, just a wipe down with "four drops of dish soap" then clean water and a terry cloth towel-dry are all that's needed, or machine washing in a front-loader. (Tip: Too much soap residue in either case can make a mat slippery, so go easy on the soap.) Greener yoga mats Generally, those ubiquitous purple mats are made out of PVC, but there are other greener material choices, including jute, natural rubber, and wood pulp. Once a mat reached the point of no more Down Dog, however, there was no organized way to keep it out of the landfill. Until Stephanie Stano thought up and recently founded Recycle Your Mat in Eugene, Oregon. ...

...New moms rejoice! Even the seemingly perfect Angelina needs to work to get her pre-pregnancy shape back. With her twins not even a week old, she's already put herself on an organic diet - one that's high in fresh vegetables and Omega-3. According to her friend, Angelina's menu includes "organic salmon with tomatoes, brown bread and herbs for breakfast, while mackerel or grilled fresh tuna with watercress, spinach tomatoes is typical for lunch or dinner." Via: ecorazzi ...

Image credit: Shall.us
For many people, Paul Hawken is a man who needs no introduction at all. As an author, a speaker, a theorist, and a business person, Paul Hawken has shaped the discussion of what sustainability is, and how it can be achieved. His Ecology of Commerce was an eye opener for many people (including Ray Anderson, last week’s interviewee), and Natural Capitalism, that he wrote with Amory and Hunter Lovins, can often be seen in the hands of Bill Clinton, brandished as a wakeup call to industry. Paul’s new book, Blessed Unrest (and its sister web community, Wiser Earth), is something different altogether: an exploration of what he says is the largest movement in human history. ::TreeHugger Radio Listen to the podcast of this interview via iTunes, or just click here to listen, right-click to download. Special thanks go to CraigMichaels, the organizer of the Sustainable Operations Summit, for arranging this interview. (Full text after the jump)...

Green High School The Langston Brown Community Center and High School in Arlington, Virginia, has a LEED Silver rating and has quite a few interesting green features. The enormous water tanks used to store rainwater certainly are the most visible (though the one on the front of the building is hidden by panels that make it blend in the overall design). The two 11,000-gallon tanks store about 280,000 gallons of rainwater per year, and that water is used for "onsite irrigation, sidewalk washing, and other uses." We wish they would consider using it for toilets too, though they already have waterless urinals that contribute to the project's 23% reduction in potable water use. ...

Artists’ impression of what the completed tidal fence might look like. Given the height of the ship in the illustration, the fence wouldn’t exactly be unobtrusive. Not that the Severn Barrage would be either. A fairly recent report said that the Severn Barrage should not be built, based on high cost and the possible damage to local ecosystems. However, alternative tidal power plans for the region are now being investigated, according to the BBC. A Tidal ‘Fence’ Rather Than a Dam The main idea, being put forth by the Severn Tidal Fence group, is rather than a full tidal barrier a line of underwater turbines would be built, with spaces between the turbine groups large enough for commercial shipping to pass, as well allowing for the migration of salmon and reducing the risk of flooding upstream by reducing high tide levels upstream from the fence. Mudflat areas used by migratory birds would also be protected. ...

As of August 2007, how many jobs had the German solar industry generated? ( surveys)

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photo by Mike Locke Given that manufacturing of wind power components can not only help local economies through job creation, but can save money overall, it certainly makes sense for China to make as many of the parts required to continue building its booming wind industry domestically. Illustrating how this is being done, Renewable Energy World gives us a brief glimpse of how China is doing just that....

Forbes Magazine has produced a special report on a subject dear to our hearts, efficiency, the fifth fuel. Amory Lovins kicks it off with The Case for Efficiency: "Using smarter technologies, more brains and less money to wring more work from less delivered energy--what energy experts call "end-use efficiency"--is the largest, cheapest, safest, cleanest, fastest, most diverse, least visible, least understood and most neglected way to provide energy services." ...

A few months ago we wrote about Ben Nelson's DIY electric motorcycle. It's really a cool bike, especially if you consider that it gets equivalent of 321 miles per gallon and only cost about $2k total. Ben has made two videos about it, the first one (above) talks about how he turned the old Kawasaki into an electric motorcycle and what his experience has been. The second video (below) is kind of a candid camera moment and shows Ben's neighbor's reaction to seeing the electric motorcycle for the first time. Keep up the good work, Ben, and same to all the other ingenious DIYers out there. Via DIY Electric Motorcycle Kicks Butt, Gets 300 eMPG...

California is 35x Less Populous than China Truly an amazing statistic, via Wired. According to the California Energy Commission, the state with its 37 million people uses more gasoline and diesel than any other country on Earth except the US as a whole. That's more than India with its 1.1 billion people. More than China with its 1.3 billion (California is 2.8% of China's pop.). So while demand has been increasing in China and everybody's talking about that, they forget to look at absolute numbers: 20 billion gallon of gasoline and diesel are used each year in California, 6.7 billion gallons more than in 1988. Most of that Energy is Wasted But what's really bad about that is that when you look at efficiency numbers (see the chart here), only about 20% of the energy contained in those gallons of fossil fuels are actually doing useful work. About 80% of their energy is simply wasted as heat. That has to change. ...

For those people who’d rather watch than read Al Gore's Repowering America speech, given yesterday at D.A.R. Constitution Hall, here is the speech in its entirety. No Keynote magic or scissor risers like in his "An Inconvenient Truth" presentations, just a straight speech, but worthwhile watching nonetheless. :: We Can Solve It Al Gore “A Generational Challenge to Repower America”: Al Gore’s Energy & Climate ‘Moon Shot’ Speech Al Gore Readies Sequel to “An Inconvenient Truth” ...

Shipping container housing has gone so mainstream that USA Today covers it; on seeing the picture of Peter DeMaria's Redondo Beach house I was reminded of a question that I had when I first learned about it. One of the major problems with dealing with steel containers is insulation; the inside dimensions aren't big, and if you furr out and insulate them there is not much left inside. If you insulate outside, they don't exactly look like shipping containers anymore. DeMaria insulates the shipping containers with "ceramic insulation"- a spray or paint on system "developed by NASA" that the supplier claims addresses "all three modes of heat transfer- Radiated, convected and conducted." The problem is, everything I ever learned in Architecture School and practice tells me that this is impossible....

An eco-conscientious artist creates mosaics using discarded take-out menus, business cards, junk mail and other paper trash. Thailand's princess, Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, calls on residents of Nan to plant organic gardens. Tom's shoes make a splash! PolyFuel creates a methanol fuel cell laptop. Act2GreenSmart messenger bags are made from recycled PET fabrics. Most Huggable is a regular roundup of some of Hugg's top green news stories. Why not submit your own green news?...

Land cleared for an oil palm plantation in Indonesia. While ultimately this land will be planted again, the carbon sequestration potential of the resultant agricultural land is radically reduced in comparison to the forest that was once there. Photo by Mica Monkey. Though it’s only occasionally on the public biofuel radar in the United States, what with corn ethanol and Brazilian sugar cane hogging the headlines, in the subtropical and tropical regions where the plant thrives, Jatropha has received much more attention. Most recently Hindustan Petroleum expanded its production of the long-lived biofuel plant. Now, through Carbon Positive comes an update on the debate in Indonesia surrounding Jatropha....

Introducing the Ultimate Aero Electric Car Shelby SuperCars makes the kind of cars that have over a 1,000 hp and can reach 250 mph. Not what you'd immediately associate with "low emissions" and "powered by clean energy", but the times they are a-changin'. Shelby's next hyper-fast car will be an electric vehicle. Based on the SCC Aero (pictured above), the Ultimate Aero EV should break electric car speed records (as as we've seen in our overview of 17 electric cars, some of them are speed demons). "Powered by a 500 horsepower electric motor, the Ultimate Aero EV will have true supercar performance. Additionally, SSC is exploring the potential of a twin 500 horsepower electric power plant producing 1,000 horsepower in a 2 or 4 wheel drive configuration." We bet the version with 2 motors can turn you into jelly just with the acceleration G force....

coal-river-mountain-view-from-kayford-photo

Lorelei Scarbro lives in a place most of us would envy - on 10 acres of lush, green southern West Virginia mountain, where deer, turkeys and other wildlife make regular appearances. Now Scarbro's land is threatened by mountaintop removal coal mining. If you're not familiar with this practice - it's the most destructive kind of coal mining out there. Companies literally blow up the tops of mountains to reach the coal beneath - leaving a barren, rocky landscape. The companies fill nearby valleys and streams with the waste rock - ruining entire watersheds and frequently the water supplies of nearby communities as well. (You can learn more about this type of mining by visiting our coal website.)...

Not too long ago our very own Lloyd Alter pointed out that walking matters. And that a walkable community promotes better health, a reduction in greenhouse gases, a variety of transportation options, increased social capital and stronger local businesses. And now Walk Score, devoted to helping you find more walkable places to live based on a patented algorithm that enables them to compute a walkability score based on the distance to a wide range of shops, necessities and attractions has come out with the top ten most walkable cities in which to live. But is yours among them? ...

Electric Cars and Cell Phones Project Better Place, the initiative founded by entrepreneur Shai Agassi to bring electric cars and charging infrastructure to countries around the world, has already partnered with several countries, including Israel and Denmark. The idea is to make electric cars sell like cell phones, and the plan works as follows: "purchasers get subsidized hardware — the car — and pay a monthly fee for expected mileage, like minutes on a cellphone plan, eliminating concerns about the fluctuating price of gasoline." Renault and Nissan are working on developing the electric cars, and Agassi's firm is developing the batteries and infrastructure. ...

Modern Farming Methods Are Better Than Our Grandparents' "No-till" or "low-till" cropping systems - increasingly common in large scale traditional agriculture - are superior because they consume less energy, build soil organic matter over time, sequester carbon, and greatly reduce soil and nutrient loss. (The old style moldboard plow behind the mule was actually terrible for the land: with soils deeply turned and broken up with several passes, leading to rapid soil loss and eventually productivity loss for the farm. Such primitive farming practices were a contributing factor to the Dust Bowl.) Green Products Made With Crop Residues Can Compromise Long Range Food Productivity. What happens when you scrape up most, or all, of the non-food portions of a crop, and make cellulosic ethanol or kitchen counter tops with it? Soil erodes at a faster rate and, over time, the organic content falls, leading to lower productivity. The latter issue is well described in a report by Washington State University, USDA-Agricultural Research Service soil scientist, Ann Kennedy.

Kennedy, whose current research is examining the composition of cereal crop residues and the amount of residue needed to maintain soil quality, said that in direct-seed or one- pass tillage systems at least a ton of residue per acre per year is needed to build soil organic matter over time. In these minimum tillage systems, the intact and slowly decomposing roots also add to organic matter. In fields with multiple tillage passes, every bit of residue is needed and even then, organic matter may not increase.

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Naturalkinds on Flickr Ten years ago I was working on a condo in downtown Toronto when one of my clients had his expensive bike stolen out of the garage. As I handed over the security tapes the cop said "oh, it will turn up at Igor's in a day or two." Ten years ago, the stretch of Toronto's Queen Street where Igor had his operation was grotty and not very pleasant. Now the schmatta shop has become a bookstore and the junk store has become a high end fish and chips resto and the entire block has been upgraded to Toronto Trendy. Except for Igor. I have often been critical of Toronto's love/hate relationship with bicycles and the Police department's lack of interest in keeping bike lanes clear or finding stolen bikes, but they do have a lot of bigger fish to fry. However, they finally got around to cleaning up this last little eyesore. But is it cynical of me to suggest that closing down Igor, an open secret forever, has more to do with real estate values and getting rid of a noxious use than it does with concern about bikes? ::BikingToronto...

BG Automotive Groups Plans to beat major auto manufacturers to the affordable electric car market image

Philadelphia Steel Magnate Launching Electric Car for US Market Call it a do-it-yourself electric car. Do-it-yourself if you are steel magnate Barry D. Bernsten, who is investing his own millions in BG Automotive Group with the intention of bringing affordable electric cars to the American market. Bernsten's production plan is to bring 3-4000 units to market in 2008 and over 20,000 in 2009. Is Bernsten for real? And can he realize his goal to beat the major auto manufacturers to the market and put affordable electric cars on American highways?...

The Winners have been chosen in the Architecture for Humanity's Sportables Design Competition sponsored by Google Sketchup, where designers were challenged to "create a highly demountable, portable sports product library, product development studio, and futsal (soccer) play area. " First Place Winner was Toby R. Keaton :"This brilliant and carefully thought-out compact module is easy to transport and deploy, but also provides incentives for the participants to take ownership in this great community resource, and utilizes simple, available materials." ...

jack reichert eco-rabbi green prophet jew judaism

Green values don't have to conflict with one's spiritual and religious values. In fact, the wisdom of ancient teachings can give us insight into problems we have today. This is something that Jerusalemite Jack Reichert, a rabbi-in-training has been exploring on Green Prophet with his weekly series on Torah commentary designed with the environment in mind. Traditional Jews read the entire Bible once a year. Every week a new section of the Torah (Bible) is read and within that portion, Jews try and extrapolate meaning from it and relate it to contemporary events and personal experiences. And of course, they look for ways to be better people. Everyone can see something different in the Torah and it never dates. That's the beauty of it, according to traditional Jews. The Jewish religion is governed by 613 commandments, and some of them are directly related to environmentalism and the protection of animal rights. Eco-Rabbi (aka Jack Reichert) is a philosophy student who is looking at some of these commandments (mitzvote in Hebrew), and also the weekly readings and giving them green context. ...

It is a terrific, powerful barnburner of a speech that connected the economic, environmental and national security dots. Al Gore issues a challenge: to commit to producing 100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy and truly clean carbon-free sources within 10 years. But will anyone take him up on it? ...

Here’s a job we all want – carrying out a life cycle assessment of beer. One would have to really do some serious investigation to get realistic statistics on the “use phase”. But seriously, the cover story on the March issue of the International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment is the LCA of an Italian Lager Beer (see the full article citation at the end of this post). When comparing one litre of draught beer with one litre of bottled beer neither one comes out as the hands-down more environmentally-friendly choice. Both have comparable environmental impacts, which are not very significant. Draught beer, due to its “bulk” packaging has lower impacts with an estimated overall environmental load that was 68% lower than bottled beer. ...

photos courtesy of Marine Current Turbines We’ve reported a couple of times on the progress of SeaGen tidal power turbine project in Northern Ireland, most recently on the project’s installation. Though not yet fully operational, SeaGen has reached a mile marker in its development: being run at 150 KW capacity and feeding the power generated into the electric grid. Clean Technica reports that during the commissioning phase of the project, the turbine is being constrained to 300 KW, but once fully operational will have a capacity of 1.2 MW. The project is expected to reach this final stage of development by the end of the summer. ...

photo: Getty Images Wind power supporters in Texas have been calling for transmission expansion for some time. And though I can’t imagine they planned the juxtaposition, Texas utility regulators have approved a massive expansion of power transmission capacity on the same day that Al Gore has called for expansion of U.S. power transmission infrastructure, to facilitate renewable energy growth. ...

Cherries are so delicious in summer: fresh, plump, easy to pop in the mouth and so beautiful. Unfortunate then that over the last 50 years, Britain has lost 90% of its cherry orchards and now imports almost 95% of the cherries that are in the shops. Why? Because the traditional varieties are grown on trees that can be 30 to 40 feet high and that makes them hard to pick. Supermarkets like consistent, perfectly round little cherries and it is hard to guarantee that with varying weather conditions. In addition, orchards are disappearing due to development pressures. So into the fray comes: CherryAid, a new campaign that urges everyone to save the British cherry by saving orchards, eating local cherries, cooking with them, encouraging their planting and celebrating National Cherry Day on July 19. Famous chefs are supporting it with their recipes and lots of local producers are making special dishes with them. You can rent a local cherry tree and pick and eat all of its cherries for the season. Or you can plant your own tree. The easiest of all: eat out at one of the many restaurants featuring cherry dishes. Don't forget they stain. :: CherryAid VIA :: Hippyshopper More on Fruits and Vegetables Under Threat :: English Apple Days :: Potato Day ...

Can music change the world? Yes, if you are Feliciano dos Santos, one of the eight winners of the 2008 Goldman Environmental Prize. Santos uses a unique combination of music and appropriate technology to push for public health improvements and advocate for clean water and ecological sanitation in Mozambique. He is the director of Estamos, an NGO that installs latrines and clean water sources, and offers hygiene and HIV/AIDS education. The humanitarian organization promotes low-cost, environmentally-sustainable sanitation which composts human waste into nutrient-rich fertilizers and assists communities with sustainable agriculture and reforestation. ...

Image from post406 Though a few lucky Californians may already be leasing the Honda FCX Clarity, one of the first-generation fuel cell cars, a National Research Council report predicts that it will be another 15 years until they comprise a significant share of the domestic car market. And that assumes carmakers are able to successfully overcome several major technological and logistical challenges and that they receive significant government subsidies. ...

Via::US Energy Information Administration, Coal News and Markets, Average Weekly Coal Commodity Spot Prices, Business Week Ended July 11, 2008 ...

Women make Greener business decisions graph image

A new battlefront has opened on the struggle for equal employment opportunities for women:

Female decision makers are more environmentally-conscious than males.

This is the conclusion of the first of an annual series of surveys to benchmark green business technology purchasing trends in the U.S., conducted by Hansa-GCR under the sponsorship of several companies, including Xerox. The survey also concludes:

Green has arrived as a business issue.

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Determined to prove its not a just a smog-addled city notorious for traffic and pollution, Mexico City had jumped on the bike-sharing bandwagon and launched its own free program called Mejor En Bici (Spanish link), or Better On Bicycle in English. We love the jewel-toned wheels of the Mejor en Bici white cruisers, which are available at three sites in the Condesa and Roma neighborhoods, the city's hipster and eco-friendly stomping grounds. To use the bikes, users must register, sign a form, and leave a piece of identification and a deposit of 200 pesos (about $20), which is returned when the bike is dropped off at the same station. The bikes are available from Tuesday to Sunday 10 am to 6 pm....

David MacKay's online book "Sustainable Energy - Without the Hot Air" (free PDF download here) is probably the most comprehensive work out there on the five W's and one H of saving our collective fannies. David cleverly and painstakingly reduces everything to Kilowatt-Hours to quantify the gamut of environmental actions. There's some pretty incredible statistics here - like one flight a year uses almost as much energy as a year of driving - and near the end David gives real, real, real advice about what you can/should/must do. I especially like (5) - been saying that since wayback. You may find that the tips are not exactly popular, but will saves tons of cash e.g at Boston rates, doing all eight for a year works out to about $21 a day, $7665 a year. We're talking serious money here. :: Sans Hot Air ...

Sheet mulching provides a great way to dispose of house move waste photo

House Move Waste Perfect for the Garden Only a few weeks ago I claimed that you know when you’re a hippy when you take your compost with you when moving house. Now I’m rethinking that statement – you know when you’re a hippy when you not only move your compost, but you compost your move too. You see, as we all know, moving creates a lot of trash – and much of it is cardboard and newspaper (preferably reclaimed from your local co-op!). And seeing as we are in a new house, with plenty of weeding to do, and plenty of compost needed in the near future – we thought that the best way to get rid of all this waste was to use it in the garden. Cardboard boxes were stripped of tape, flattened and laid out over weeds – they’ll then be covered with topsoil, compost and other organic matter. This is a technique much loved by permaculturists, known as sheet mulching, and can be a great way to tame unruly weeds. When you need to plant something, you simply dig down, puncture a hole in the cardboard, and plant straight through. ...

The UN post-Kyoto Copenhagen Climate Conference summit meeting to take place next year is pushing Danes to build up a quick fleet of battery-driven hybrid fuel cell cars. Based on the electric THINK The Danish company H2 Logic has gotten a cash infusion of a total of $3.45 million dollars from the government to deliver a fleet of electric fuel cell hybrids to tool around the streets of Copenhagen by the time of the meeting. Hydrogen stations are in the planning - some using wind electrolysis to make hydrogen, others using natural gas or biogas. H2 Logic, which has shown a PEM (proton exchange membrane) THINK electric/fuel cell hybrid vehicle and believes it will take delivery of some from THINK at the turn of the year, will also undertake building up the infrastructure of hydrogen stations to refuel the vehicles. The combined range of the hybrid would be approximately 200 kilometers. But don't expect the oodles of diplomats flying in for the climate meeting to be seen driving or even being driven around in the electric fuel cell cars. The Danish government recently issued a separate plea for owners of limousines to lend their vehicles to the meeting, and lamented that climate-friendly limos are in exceedingly short supply. Via ::NyTeknik (Swedish) More on Fuel Cell Vehicles: Production Of Honda FCX Clarity Begins...

Honda's New Hybrid When hybrid cars were first introduced, most automakers seemed to think that people would want hybrids that looked like any other car. But it turned out that people are not ashamed to drive hybrids, some even see it as a way to spread the word, and the distinctive Toyota Prius became a big hit. Honda has said that it will soon release a new hybrid-only model (the Insight name might be revived for it), but until now we had no idea what it would look like. Thanks to these spy shots by KGP Photography, we can see that the Honda hybrid looks eerily similar to the Prius. At first, couldn't believe this wasn't just a Prius in disguise, but if you compare the shape of the rear doors to those of the Prius, the hood, the grille, etc, you'll see some differences, so maybe it's real. Read on for more photos....

Al Gore speaking in New York City, 2007. Photo by World Resources Institute. Today at D.A.R. Constitution Hall in Washington D.C., Al Gore delivered a speech which outlines his vision of how the United States needs another ‘moon shot’ to solve the intertwined problems of climate change and energy independence. Though he doesn’t come out and say it, he even alludes to peak oil. Here are some of choice quotes from Mr Gore’s speech: ...

2008-07-17-sam suds pvc detective movie photo

Sam Suds- the Movie We have written so much about phthalates, the gender-bender endocrine disruptor that is a plasticizer for vinyl. While there is some dispute about its danger when used in products like vinyl siding or windows, it appeared that there was a consensus that sticking vinyl toys in the mouths of babes might not be a good idea. And while I am an architect and not a doctor or chemist (and have a medical student checking my work), I don't think you have to be to come to the conclusion that sucking on a chemical that is linked to hormonal changes, genital abnormalities, early puberty and even claims of reduced penis size is unwise. But not everyone agrees, notably ExxonMobil, which is trying to block passage of a Toy Safety bill in Congress that would ban phthalates in toys. Why? because it is the one of the biggest manufacturers of the stuff. According to toy safety activist Peggy Lo: ...

Recently, a NASA-funded study, which used satellite data collected by the Department of Defense, determined that, including golf courses, lawns in the United States cover nearly fifty thousand square miles—an area roughly the size of New York State. The same study concluded that most of this New York State-size lawn was growing in places where turfgrass should never have been planted. In order to keep all the lawns in the country well irrigated, the author of the study calculated, it would take an astonishing two hundred gallons of water per person, per day. According to a separate estimate, by the Environmental Protection Agency, nearly a third of all residential water use in the United States currently goes toward landscaping.

Source: Elizabeth Kolbert, New Yorker...

Daily Mail We know a lot of kids don't get a lot of exercise, but even kids who were active at 9 years old, and getting three hours of activity per day, lose it by the time they are 15 and barely manage to get half an hour. Study author Dr. Philip Nader says the reasons are many: "There may be competing, more interesting things to do; physical education is being done away with in some places, and so is recess; there aren't as many open spaces or parks, and being outside is one of the main things that keeps people active," he said. Plus, children don't get the same routine daily activity that youngsters from a generation or two ago did. "Kids used to just run around and ride their bikes everywhere, and kids used to walk to school. Now, parents drive them," Nader noted. Another Doctor noted that there is nothing new here:...

image: WELtec BioPower The renewable energy industry is changing so rapidly that calling something the “world’s largest” is setting yourself up to be corrected only a few weeks later. In any case, as of today, a new biogas plant in Konnern, Germany can now claim that it is the largest biogas plant to feed gas directly into a national grid...when it begins operations at the beginning of 2009. Ah, qualifying statements. We’ll see if it gets one-upped before then, but here are the details, via Renewable Energy World: Biomethane Fed Into Natural Gas Supply This new plant, when operational, will feed 15 million cubic meters of biomethane into Germany’s national gas grid. Normally, biogas contains about 60% methane and 40% carbon dioxide, but through filtering technology at the Konnern facility the CO2 will be filtered out so that the methane content of the biogas is similar to that of natural gas. Thus the biomethane can be put into the same pipelines that carry natural gas. ...

Former Maryland Governor Parris Glendening visited by school kids Former Maryland Governor Parris N. Glendening (and now President of the Smart Growth Leadership Institute) says that Americans are tired of feeling like victims and are ready for innovative changes in how they live and get around. "We have to keep pace with demands for public transit, and give this country a reason to be proud of its high-speed trains, light-rail lines, and both rapid and conventional bus transit. We need to make more of our streets safe and convenient for walking and biking to work, school, shops and transit stops. We have to create incentives for developers to invest in our close-in suburbs and urban centers, to meet the huge demand for affordable homes in convenient locations. Americans are not dumb: We would much rather invest in well-located real estate than in gasoline. We are tired of feeling like victims – whether of oil companies, poor planning, or a lack of vision. We are ready for innovative change, if only our leaders will follow us." ::Planetizen ...

Another video podcast from China’s Green Beat. This one takes on a topic we recently wrote about: reducing deforestation and indoor air pollution with more efficient cookstoves. It also shows how biogas digesters are being used in Yunnan Province, China to produce biogas for cooking and fertilizer for farming. While not the most in-depth piece on the subject—to be fair you can’t really dig deep in 3 minutes and 45 seconds—I think the podcast provides a good visual connection to some issues many people only know from the written word. via :: China's Green Beat China, Environment How Fair is Reporting on China’s Environment China’s Environment Getting Worse...Before It Gets Better China’s Plastic Bag Ban Working, So Far ...

Climate Moon Shot Al Gore is scheduled to make a big speech in Washington today, but he previewed it to the Associated Press so we have an idea of what he's going to talk about: "Just as John F. Kennedy set his sights on the moon, Al Gore is challenging the nation to produce every kilowatt of electricity through wind, sun and other Earth-friendly energy sources within 10 years, an audacious goal he hopes the next president will embrace. [...] The Alliance for Climate Protection estimates the cost of transforming the nation to so-called clean electricity sources at $1.5 trillion to $3 trillion over 30 years in public and private money. But he says it would cost about as much to build ozone-killing coal plants to satisfy current demand."...

Washington State Researchers at Duke University studying poison ivy discovered that higher levels of CO2 caused the plant to grow more vigorously, but also it produced a more toxic form of urushiol, the resin that causes the rash. Ann Raver writes in the New York Times that removing it has become a growth industry. She interviews Umar Mycka, who has started a business, Poison Ivy Horticulturalist, to kill the stuff; he uses a herbicide, applied to the stem, which is supposed to break down in 46 days. Organic farmers pull the stuff up and send it to the dump in garbage bags....

The fuel powering the planes flying into the Fresno Yosemite International (FYI) airport may not yet come from renewable energy, but a good portion of the operations of the airport will soon be, thanks to a new 2 MW solar array dedicated yesterday. The array will provide electricity to power 40% of the everyday lighting, air conditioning, controls and tower communications of the airport. The array will by 9.5 acres in size and is expected to save the airport $13 million over the next 20 years. ...

In trying to cast a line to green voters, US politicians can offer a fishing photo-op (as President Hoover did in this photo); or, trip to a melting glacier, while taking great care to prove that they are not Dirty Hippies. There are more substantial and mainstream choices available, which we would like to discuss a bit. A few governors have shown their own Green cred in more interesting and creative ways, for example. Florida's Governor Crist, acknowledging that "United Kingdom is Florida's top overseas tourism market" realizes that the customer is always right.

Gov. Charlie Crist discussed relations between Florida and the United Kingdom with government leaders in London Tuesday, including Secretary of State David Miliband; Simon McDonald, Prime Minister Gordon Brown's chief foreign policy advisor; and John Ashton, special adviser on climate change. Crist also met with members of the House of Lords to discuss Florida and United Kingdom climate change initiatives, a rele

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