Science & Technology

Photo via PhillipC

The Pacific Institute has released a new report titled "California's Next Million Acre-Feet: Saving Water, Energy and Money that outlines the steps the state can take to come up with its next one million acre feet of water. All of it would be relatively easy and a whole lot cheaper than trying to drum up even more fresh water out of a dried out state -- even cheaper than surface storage projects. The steps all involve existing technology and a little bit of planning. And if California could manage it and set an example, then might the rest of the US follow suit?

Business & Politics

You'd put solar panels on your roof if they were free, but will President Obama. "It's complicated," the White House responded when Bill McKibben and 350.org asked if they'd install the panels Sungevity agreed to donate. To hopefully tip the balance, and make a good symbolic point, McKibben and crew are currently on the way to Washington from Maine, bringing with them one of the solar panels that President Carter installed, but was then removed by President Reagan.

Design & Architecture

TreeHugger founder Graham Hill is trying to radically reduce his footprint and live happily on less money with less space, less stuff and less waste -- but with more design. He calls it "LifeEdited."

Graham wants to find the best ideas and suggestions from readers. Using "social co-creation" or crowdsourcing on the Jovoto competition platform, he's launching a design competition of ideas -- with prizes for the best ones, which will then be implemented in the renovation. TreeHugger is proud to be a media sponsor of the project -- and now, the Jovoto crowdsourced LifeEdited competition is looking for prize sponsors and partners. Graham explains the project in this slideshow:

Cars & Transportation

Image credit: The Knutsford Great Race

From the fancy electric YikeBike (also described as a barstool on wheels), to bamboo bikes, Treehugger is used to covering the stranger end of cycle transportation. (Let's not even talk about the 24-carat gold-plated folding bike!) Yet we tend to focus on the future of the bike, not the past. Nevertheless, it's important to honor the heritage of our favorite low-impact mode of transport. And that's where The Great Knutsford Race—a gathering of "penny farthings, hobby horses and bone shakers"—comes in.

Travel & Nature

Photo via Eggs&Beer

Mountain pine beetles have been a problem for many years, especially the last decade. Warming temperatures have helped the destructive insect move into new territories. Their booming numbers and rapid spread have meant death for large patches of forests. Now NASA satellites have been able to detest these masses of forests killed off by the beetles and researchers have looked at how the damage done by the beetles is linked to forest fires -- or as NASA states, "As the dog days of summer hit full force, some say the pine beetles have transformed healthy forest into a dry tinderbox primed for wildfire." However, the research shows that such a conclusion might not actually be the case.

Science & Technology

The Arctic Ocean one year ago to this date. Photo: US Geological Survey via flickr

Perhaps you don't need more convincing that whether a given year sets a new record or not Arctic sea ice is on the decline, but maybe you do: Climate Progress highlights a study in Quaternary Science Review which confirms that human activity is driving changes in ice cover, and furthermore that there's now less ice in the Arctic that at any point in recent geologic history.

Travel & Nature

Photo via wikipedia

The Gulf oil disaster has done still unknowable damage to marine wildlife, with everything from fish to seabirds under threat. But at least one species is threatened with extinction -- the dwarf seahorse, a tiny animal less than two inches long which is unique to the Gulf Coast. It lives among the seagrass beds in shallow water most of the year, but huge chunks of these beds have been killed by the toxins from the spill. Project Seahorse warns of the danger for this creature as well as several other species of seahorse.

Design & Architecture

The poor Koch family just can't get a break these days. First Brian wrote Billlionaire David Koch: 25 Years of Disinformation Campaigns and Polluter Front Groups?, then Matt followed with 'Financial Kingpin' of Climate Change Denial Exposed: Koch Industries Outspends Exxon 3-to-1. The New Yorker piled on with Jane Meyer's article about the Billionaire brothers who are waging a war against Obama and now we learn from Kevin Grandia of DeSmogBlog that they are behind the "Industry-led effort to downplay the links between formaldehyde and cancer."