tom said:
"Can we start by addressing some of the Urban Legends?
Myth: CFL bulbs are full of mercury and you can't throw them away and they will kill ..." [read]
bmorningstar said:
"Just before reading this article, I had the notion that perhaps the electron transport chain of photosynthesis is less that perfect~ which I found ..." [read]
dweller said:
"32 bucks a panel? When will these be at the home depot?..." [read]
Jonathan said:
"If the Dragon station is just stealing energy from the trucks, it seems a lot more efficient to use a system optimized for the engine. A truck com..." [read]
Eric said:
"The principal does not care about the price of gas - if the cost of buses increases, they'll simply raise property taxes. It's good that these kid..." [read]
abe said:
"hey-- a simpler way to free mice from glue traps is with some water and cooking oil-- just stay away from the little guy's face, and put on some pl..." [read]
When I recently had the opportunity to interview Greensburg mother Sharon Schmidt she sounded tired but resolute. Much like you’d expect a mom who has been through a lot in the recent past, putting her own life back together while ensuring her son has the best possible experience as a high school junior despite the fact that their entire town has been rebuilding from a tornado that took it off the map.
Her words give life to what it means to be a mom from Greensburg, and I suspect you’ll enjoy reading what she has to say this Mother’s Day as much as I did listening to her speak a short time ago.
TreeHugger: What’s this school year been like while Greensburg is being rebuilt?
Sharon Schmidt: It’s started out just kind of surreal and at the very first of the school year in late summer and very early fall there were still some very bad storms and we were living in Femaville, and they didn’t have their storm shelters yet so it was just very trying.
I guess when they would hit we would have gotten notice, but they were fast moving storms so it was unsettling I guess… But they do have shelters now (at school) so as a mother I feel better about it.
Fewer and fewer Samis live the nomadic life these days. Photo courtesy wiki commons
Reindeer herding is no piece-of-cake job - the hours are long and the weather mostly crummy. But at least ten percent of the indigenous Sami people (also called Lapplanders, or Lapps) in Europe's far north have herding as their traditional occupation. Though they've over time been encroached upon by different assimilation pressures and have been shifting to stationary reindeer farming over nomadic herding, a rapidly-warming Arctic climate is the latest serious threat to their livelihood.
Traditionally Sami reindeer herders traveled over ice roads - broad hooves mean the herd can forage for food below the snow. But changing climate over the last decade means winters can bring unstable ice and more rain, and temperature changes that make snow thaw and freeze to thin ice sheets that reindeer hooves can't penetrate.
"Climate change is threatening our economy as reindeer herders," herder Olav Mathis-Eira told The Independent. "Because this is part of our traditional way of life, if the economy goes, probably the entire Sami culture would go with it."
The essence of branding is developing a clear identity for the messenger -- as opposed to marketing, which merely focuses on the message. However, in the non-profit sector, branding frequently falls by the wayside. My theory is that when your messages are as serious as saving the planet, it's hard to look beyond them. (It should also be noted that many non-profit communications are the result pro-bono work, often completed by different agencies - which can make it hard to maintain consistency across campaigns.)
I've already removed myself from junk mail lists thanks to Green Dimes and the Center for a New American Dream – so the only solicitations I now receive are from the environmental, human rights and animal welfare organizations that I contribute to. And I'm always astonished at these organizations' apparent failure to realize that they are competing with one another for my attention and for my contributions (both in terms of whether or not and how much I contribute). But here's an example of good branding in the sector:
"Revolutionary." That is the word Oswald Schmitz, Oastler Professor of Population and Community Ecology at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, uses to describe the conclusions of research into how predators influence ecosystems. Pre-revolutionary logic: the soils -- and plants' interaction with soils -- determine the types of plants that grow. This in turn determines the types of herbivores present, thereby indirectly determining the population of carnivores. So effectively the ranges of wolves or cougars depend on the soil type. Reminds me of a joke...
The upshot of the record gas prices we're seeing has been the sometimes meteoric rise in the number of drivers switching over to public transit. And, as we learn today from a prominent piece in the NYT, it's become a national trend — one that has especially picked up steam in many of the Southwest's car-happy metropolitan areas (hi Los Angeles). Indeed, as another recent piece in the LAT points out, usage statistics for the MTA have gone through the roof:
"After declining at the end of 2007, L.A. rail and bus ridership started rising in January. From January to March, average weekday boardings were up 16% on the Red Line rail system, 13% on the Blue Line and 17% on the Gold Line, which set a record for highest average weekday boardings in March with 22,231. Bus ridership grew 8% from January to March."
When you’ve got a brand new music festival you’re putting together it’s really a great opportunity to think outside the box when it comes to greening the event. And this July, organizers of the ROTHBURY Festival in Rothbury, Michigan will do just that; offsetting the carbon footprint of folks enjoying acts like the Dave Matthews Band, Gov’t Mule, Snoop Dogg, and John Mayer in a novel way.
When in Rome: Joining its fellow top polluters -- China, India and the U.S. -- Russia has signaled it would rebuff the imposition of tougher emission standards, casting doubt on the prospects for a future U.N.-mediated climate treaty, reports Reuters' Alister Doyle. Government officials said last week that the country wouldn't accept binding caps under a new deal to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, set to expire by the end of 2012.
Oh Lieberman-Warner climate bill, we hardly knew ye: Climate Progress' Joe Romm brings us the sad news that the legislation may be on its way out -- victim, as he put it, of "apathy" and some serious watering down (read: neutering). Oh yes: It also turns out that whole "getting 60 votes" thing got in the way:
Environment and Public Works Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) shrugged off suggestions she is having trouble winning over moderates and conservatives from either party in her quest to find 60 votes and squash an inevitable filibuster.
“To tell you the truth, we don’t know if we’ll wind up getting 60 votes this time,” Boxer said in an interview. “But we do believe we’re making tremendous progress and we’re going to start the debate.”
As Sting and The Police announce they will play their final show in New York City, controversy swirls around The Rainforest FoundationYesterday we told you about the Rainforest Foundation Benefit happening tonight. Commenter Nick calls our attention to recent criticism of Sting and Trudie Styler's charitable organization, the Rainforest Foundation, for the percentage of contributions it spends on programs. The philanthropy watchdog, Charity Navigator, reports the Rainforest Foundation spent less than 61 per cent of its revenue for the 2006 fiscal year. Asked Tuesday about the claims against his foundation, Sting noted that in the charity's 20-year history, it has raised $25 million and spent more than $21 million, or 84 per cent. "That's a very good record," he said adding that it is unfair to look at the organization's yearly expenditures because it operates on a two-year cycle....
Image courtesy of Mel B. via flickr
When questioned by the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works yesterday about the potential health risks posed by perchlorate, a chemical used in solid rocket fuel, Benjamin H. Grumbles, the EPA's assistant administrator for water, said: "We know that perchlorate can have an adverse effect and we're concerned about that."
Yet, when further pressed by Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), who chairs the committee, on whether the agency would take action to limit the amount of perchlorate in water -- a no-brainer, you'd think, right? -- Grumbles answered that there was a "distinct possibility" (read: almost guaranteed) that it would not, reports the LAT's Marla Cone. ...
Watch this amazing video of the collapse last week of Hamilton's historic Balfour Building, owned by the Laborers' International Union of North America. Never was there a more blatant example of demolition by neglect; LIUNA promised that the facade would be preserved but "oops," the whole thing just fell down. LIUNA owns almost the entire block, and is letting it all fall to ruin. (see the Lister Block here).
Meanwhile, Terence O'Sullivan, General President of LIUNA, is making a major speech in Washington on Friday, May 9 calling for " a new plan for rebuilding and renewing America’s basic infrastructure."
What hypocrisy. What a blatant example of "Do as I say, not as I do." ...
Families waiting for relief goods in makeshift houses in Labutta, a town in the Irrawaddy division of southwest Myanmar. AFP/AFP/Getty Images
Forty hours ago we asked TreeHugger readers to contribute to Architecture for Humanity's fund to put together a team to start planning for the reconstruction of Burma. They got it in 24 hours. We talked this morning with Cameron Sinclair in Korea:
TH: Did TreeHugger readers make a difference?
CS: I have no idea, but the average donation was $45! Nothing over $100, all individuals.
TH: Does that differ from your usual donation profile?
CS: Well it is definitely different, we usually we get 60% small donations then one or two big ones. This was hundreds on small donations that collectively will make a difference. 100% of the donations were online.
TH: What's next?
CS so we hit $10K and Mortar Net is offering a $2500 match over the next day. $15K will allow us to have an on the ground team for 9 months to a year to work on sustainable reconstruction in one of the devastated communities.
TH: You are scheduled to speak at the Metropolis conference at ICFF. Will you make it back?
CS: Yes, I am also speaking on the 21st at MocaCleveland. I'm donating all honorariums for my talks this month to the Burma campaign.
TreeHugger readers made the difference. Can we help raise another $ 2500 in 24 hours? Donate here.
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MSN MoneyBlog man Charley Blaine has a very scary thought. Extrapolating from a projection by Goldman Sachs analyst Arjun Murt, he details a few key implications of US gasoline prices exceeding 7 bucks, inside two years.
Though more welcome scenarios are also plausible, it's worth pondering the secondary impacts suggested for the 7-buck gas outcome. This goes way beyond "Should I ride the train instead."
Will there be any U.S.-based auto manufacturers left? The answer depends entirely on how fast they can transform their product lines. Chrysler is in deep trouble already. That probably means more stress for the Midwest.
Will there be any domestic airlines left? The so-called legacy airlines (American, United, Northwest, Delta and Continental) would either try to combine into one big carrier or simply disappear. They're having serious troubles surviving as it is. This means big troubles for cities where these airlines operate hubs that generate thousands of jobs like Atlanta, Cleveland, Newark, Houston, Chicago, Denver, Dallas, Memphis and Minneapolis-St. Paul.
Image: Pine Marten by Peter Cairns | www.wild-wonders.com
If you love nature, drop everything and sign up today for updates from Wild Wonders of Europe. We predict that this project will do for nature photography careers what CSI did for criminology. The haunting stillness, rich landscapes and sense of communion with nature that the photographs convey will make you long for a quiet cover in a remote glen with the weight of your lens in your hand. The stated goal of Wild Wonders of Europe is "to reveal the amazing natural heritage of Europe and to inspire a desire to save it."
TreeHugger met with Florian Moellers, Wild Wonders' Director of Communications, to learn what Wild Wonders of Europe is all about. We share this plus an exclusive photo peak into the galleries for TreeHugger readers -- just over the fold....
Before and after Cyclone; click here to enlarge
While rescue workers try to get into Burma (not made any easier by a military junta that announced on Tuesday that foreign experts wanting to come in would need to "negotiate" with the Government) Architecture for Humanity says that "While the media will focus its attention on the loss of life, there will be millions displaced in the coming weeks and like most natural disasters, no plan for long term sustainable reconstruction."
Yesterday Cameron Sinclair told us that AFH is not rushing in. "The worst thing is for non-essential teams to get in the way of the relief effort. As we’ve done previously we are already communicating organizations with shelter divisions to offer technical support. Ideally in a few weeks we would send an assessment team into the region, possibly with one of these agencies, and they would establish ties with local organizations."
They need $ 10,000 to create that team and provide design services to communities; the campaign started at TreeHugger with the first three donations. Already, 130 donors have raised $ 6,500. Let's make this a short campaign; contribute now at ::Architecture for Humanity
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In Alabama, that is actually headline-worthy news. Florence, Alabama: SUVs and minivans circled around the parking lot at Kilby School, and parents darted back and forth to collect their children and buckle them in for the ride home. With one exception. Scott Infanger walked over from his nearby office at the University of North Alabama, greeted his 7-year-old daughter and unlocked the family trail-a-bike, a tandem bike with a junior seat....In the entire state of Alabama, 1,656 residents bike to work. ::Times Daily
Bike Lanes, Intended for Safety, Become Traffic Battlegrounds New York City: James Frederick was in Manhattan cycling west in the Prince Street bike lane on a recent morning when a green Ford parked in the lane forced him to swerve into the narrow roadway where cars and vans were rushing past.“It’s kind of scary because the cars next to you just keep going," says Frederick, "The city just put this lane in a few months ago, but it’s not respected by drivers.” ::New York TimesMore on bike commuting in TreeHugger:Seattle's Bike to Work Day is Taking Place on May 16, 2008Lance Armstrong Says: Commute by Bike!It's More Dangerous NOT To Ride a Bike
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This is the third guest post by Wood Turner, Project Director, Climate Counts. Last time Wood told us about how Going Green Is Strictly Business. Just Ask Wal-Mart. This time we see how the business of green is spreading.
Consumer climate action isn’t just about switching to compact fluorescent lightbulbs or buying recycled. While people across the country are taking action to reduce their own carbon footprint, some consumers are using their power to push companies to take action themselves - and it’s paying off.
Today, Climate Counts is releasing its second annual Climate Counts Company Scorecard. We launched our first Scorecard last year with the hope that creating a simple, easy-to-understand ranking of companies would motivate both companies and consumers to step-up their efforts on climate change.
Now, with the release of their second scorecard, we can say that it appears to have worked. The new Scorecard shows a real shift towards greater climate commitment across most industry sectors — with 84% of scored companies improving their Climate Counts scores. Looking at the companies that showed the most improvement—Google, Levi Strauss and Anheuser-Busch—shows the diverse kinds of great American companies committed to paying attention to global climate change.
The average overall Climate Counts score jumped 22% to 39 (from 30). That number, 39 out of 100, also shows that there is still a lot of work to do. Please spend some time on our site exploring how companies stack up with each other on climate performance (Click here to check out our new scores.).
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We might file this one under 'missed opportunity'...
It may be sad but it's true - sex sells. We've seen this ourselves in the popularity of our guide on How to Green Your Sex Life, or Solar Powered Bikinis, so 'Oily Cassandra' might very well be on to something in her attempts to educate the masses on the threat of peak oil (imagine if Al Gore had donned lingerie!). Whether or not folks agree with the medium, the message that we need to pay attention to dwindling oil supplies, and fast, is hugely important. Nevertheless, we're dissapointed at how fast Cassandra swings from awareness raising to defeatism, at least where certain alternatives are concerned. Sure, peak oil is likely to bring us some very tough times ahead - as Jeremy Leggett recently argued, we need to be mobilising as if for war - but to simply say we blew our chance to invest in renewables is not helpful. We are hardly short of options, both technological and societal, when it comes to cutting down on oil use fast, and it would have been nice to see Cassandra inspiring action rather than despair in her video. Here's just a short list of what we might have included (maybe we'll make a video of our own to highlight them...): ...
Photo courtesy eternallycool.net
Newly re-elected Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and the European Commission believe they can do something about the appalling 15-year long trash problem in southern Italy's Campania region around the city of Naples. Berlusconi said he'd spend three days each week in Naples until the trash problems are solved, and the Commission has sued Italy to try to impose hefty fines to the ongoing waste management crisis.
In the past, citizens of Campania have taken to burning piles of trash that get too big or when warm weather made them too stinky. Graffiti artists such as Ruffo are also using their skills to make a point about the trash. Ruffo's depiction of the Mona Lisa holding her sorted trash bags is supposed to get people thinking about recycling - at around 5 percent nationwide, Italy has one of Europe's lowest recycling rates. The trash problem doesn't seem to have an easy fix, however, as local politics seem to be hindering the process of building energy-recovery incinerators and setting up a better recycling and trash infrastructure. The region has lost tourism, and recently the Commission was also forced to take action when Campania's famous buffalo-milk mozzarella was found to be tainted with dioxin thought to have come from uncontrolled trash burning. Via ::ChristianScienceMonitor
See also: Naples Buried Under A Heap Of Trash...
Farmers in Rajasthan, India are forsaking their gas-guzzling tractors and returning to using their trusty camels for haulage. Due to rising gas prices farmers are rediscovering the "ships of the desert". The price of a good camel has gone up sharply as a result: two years ago they were almost the same price as goats, now they are three times the price. A good male camel will live for 60 to 80 years and costs $973.00 while the cheapest tractor is $4,000. This is good news according to the League for Pastoral Peoples and Endogenous Livestock Development because the camel population has been falling over the past ten years and this could lead to a revival of this age-old usage.
Camels have a long and regal history in India. Traditionally they were used by maharajas and had great status as did their breeders. Now decreasing amounts of grazing land and lack of investment in the existing lands have resulted in inadequate nutrition and lowered the resilience of the herds. Camel slaughter is forbidden in India but in fact sources believe that it is rampant, with the meat exported to Bangladesh. Not only is the use of camels being promoted but also its by-products such as camel milk, camel leather handbags and camel bone jewellery. :: Financial Times...
In a side conversation a few days ago, Emerald City's Siel -- a fellow Angeleno -- took me to task for summarily dismissing the potential merits of the recently proposed congestion pricing scheme. She helpfully pointed me to a column penned by her friend, Damien Newton, who makes a convincing argument in favor of HOT (high-occupancy toll) lanes. His spirited defense rests on two central points: First, the pricing structure of the HOT lanes has not yet been hammered out -- so people like me should stop belaboring the equity issue for now -- and, secondly, this scheme should help expand and improve the MTA's services. He writes:
"Once the schedule's nailed down, it very well could be that cars with more than one passenger will be paying a very reduced rate and cars with three or more people driving free. It could also be that cars with two or more passengers will be able to access the HOT lane in non-peak hour periods for free, but have to pay a small fee during peak hours. The truth is, carpoolers probably won’t be seeing much, if any, of a change in the cost of their commute."...
yesterday in Yangon (formerly Rangoon), Getty Images.
When we spoke with Cameron Sinclair earlier today, Editor Meg wondered if there were environmental factors that might have had an impact. Cameron responded that "Mangroves were cut down, magnifying this disaster."
This is confirmed by Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan, who, according to the BBC, said that the loss of mangroves had exacerbated the tragedy.
"Encroachment into mangrove forests, which used to serve as a buffer between the rising tide, between big waves and storms and residential areas; all those lands have been destroyed," the AFP news agency reported him as saying. "Human beings are now direct victims of such natural forces." ...
Cyclone Nargis has just ripped through Myanmar, formerly Burma. While only 5% of the country was hit, it is where 25% of the population lives. Even where people survived with minor damage to their houses, they now face water shortages, food prices have quadrupled and the rice crop has been wiped out. Trees are down everywhere. In the middle of this we got a call from Cameron Sinclair, co-founder of Architecture for Humanity.TH: Where are you right now?
CS: I’m in Seoul, Korea speaking tomorrow, ironically, about affordable sustainable development and reconstruction. On Thursday I fly to Tamil Nadu in India to formally wrap up our post-tsunami reconstruction work.
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China is boiling mad. Last week, residents of Chengdu rallied against French retail giant Carrefour as part of a nationwide retaliation for perceived insults against China by France over the recent protests in Tibet. But a more subdued protest in the city, the capital of Sichuan province, last weekend took on a threat more dangerous than France: a nearby petrochemical factory and oil refinery. According to the Times,
The protesters walked peacefully through the center of the city for several hours on Sunday to criticize the building of an ethylene plant and oil refinery in Pengzhou, a few minutes' drive outside the city. Some protesters wore white face masks to highlight the dangers of pollution. About 400 to 500 protesters took part in the march, which was watched by dozens of police officers, witnesses said.
Under a government leery of dissent, it can be hard to hold a demonstration, or at least to know how many happen every day. But in an age of cell phone cameras and video sharing sites, it's getting harder to hide these local protests. And technology is making it harder to stop them too. Like the large protests against a similar plant in Xiamen last year and the demonstrations over a maglev line in Shanghai in January, this protest was organized via text messages, bulletin boards and blogs. And by calling the event a "stroll," organizers managed to circumvent government restrictions on protests. There may not have been any fires or deaths, as in Tibet. But Chengdu was a sign of a much more realistic and powerful brand of dissent in China.
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If you live in a democracy, then your vote helps to decide how politicians should act to curb carbon dioxide emissions and achieve energy independence. But how can the average voter make sense of it all? The IPCC says we must act now or we miss the window of opportunity to spare future generations from untold suffering. The climate change denialists cry that economic collapse will cause untold suffering in the short to middle term if we commit to strong action for change. What should you believe? To the rescue: Yale Professor Robert Repetto, professor in the practice of economics and sustainable development, has developed an interactive website that calculates the costs of climate change. Yale, presumably staying on the cutting edge of modern marketing, now offers this 5-minute YouTube video to draw people into Repetto's website....
Who said the revolution would not be televised? What with national newspapers talking about survivalism and community resillience, and radio soaps joining the Transition Towns initiative, it really seems like the mainstream media in the UK are embracing the idea that peak oil, fossil fuels and climate change are very real, and very immediate, threats to our way of life. Now, thanks to one of our periodic check-ins with Rob Hopkins' Transition Culture blog, we've come across this BBC Wales series, in which Patrick Holden of the Soil Association explores how to move his farm, and our food systems in general, away from their precarious reliance on dwindling oil supplies. It's dynamite stuff, looking at both the problems with the way we eat now, and the solutions that may help us move away from this crisis. Topics covered include everything from local food festivals to potential civil unrest in the face of rising fuel prices to urban community gardening to supermarket's phoney 'local' food initiatives - click below the fold for parts two, three and four. ...
With close to 1500 people casting ballots for the schools they felt solved The Great Copy Machine Epidemic of 2008; it’s amazing that not much more than a handful of votes separated the top contenders.
But it turns out the students at Grace Hill Elementary in Rogers, Arkansas came out on top; solving the crisis by diagnosing their school’s photocopy machine with a severe case of “Carbon Footprint Swollenitis”.
Apparently, symptoms include a severe swelling of the feet; leaving a larger than life impact on the planet and contributing to global warming long after the school day is done.
...
In case you’re wondering what one school can do in just the span of a few short months, take a good look at the Go Green Initiative’s school of the week, Milltown Middle School in Milltown, NJ. They’ve actually earned the first year award from the Go Green Initiative for their efforts, and they’ve been making a difference by holding recycling assemblies and working to increase their efficiency at recycling plastics, batteries, ink cartridges, paper, plastic, glass and aluminum while working to start an Elmer’s Glue recycling program as well....
We'll be working on better category archives soon. In the meantime, take a look at the weekly archive if you really want to dig around, or use the search box at the top of the page.
TreeHugger breaks it down for you in a series of in depth how-to articles that will help you green your life. No time like the present!
When I recently had the opportunity to interview Greensburg mother Sharon Schmidt she sounded tired but resolute. Much like you’d expect a mom who has been through a lot in the recent past, putting her own life back together while ensuring her son has the best possible experience as a high school junior despite the fact that their entire town has been rebuilding from a tornado that took it off the map.
![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.treehugger.com/nav-commenters.gif)
As Sting and The Police announce they will play their final show in New York City, controversy swirls around The Rainforest Foundation
Image courtesy of 
Families waiting for relief goods in makeshift houses in Labutta, a town in the Irrawaddy division of southwest Myanmar. AFP/AFP/Getty Images
MSN MoneyBlog man Charley Blaine has a very scary thought. Extrapolating from a projection by Goldman Sachs analyst Arjun Murt, he details a few key implications of US gasoline prices exceeding 7 bucks, inside two years.
Though more welcome scenarios are also plausible, it's worth pondering the secondary impacts suggested for the 7-buck gas outcome. This goes way beyond "Should I ride the train instead." 
Image: Pine Marten by Peter Cairns | 
Before and after Cyclone; 
In Alabama, that is actually headline-worthy news. Florence, Alabama: SUVs and minivans circled around the parking lot at Kilby School, and parents darted back and forth to collect their children and buckle them in for the ride home. With one exception. Scott Infanger walked over from his nearby office at the University of North Alabama, greeted his 7-year-old daughter and unlocked the family trail-a-bike, a tandem bike with a junior seat....In the entire state of Alabama, 1,656 residents bike to work.
This is the third guest post by Wood Turner, Project Director, Climate Counts. Last time Wood told us about how 
Photo courtesy eternallycool.net
Newly re-elected Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and the European Commission believe they can do something about the appalling 15-year long trash problem in southern Italy's Campania region around the city of Naples. Berlusconi said he'd spend three days each week in Naples until the trash problems are solved, and the 
Farmers in Rajasthan, India are forsaking their gas-guzzling tractors and returning to using their trusty camels for haulage. Due to rising gas prices farmers are rediscovering the "ships of the desert". The price of a good camel has gone up sharply as a result: two years ago they were almost the same price as goats, now they are three times the price. A good male camel will live for 60 to 80 years and costs $973.00 while the cheapest tractor is $4,000. This is good news according to the 
In a side conversation a few days ago, 
yesterday in Yangon (formerly Rangoon), Getty Images.
When we spoke with 
Cyclone Nargis has just ripped through Myanmar, formerly Burma. While only 5% of the country was hit, it is where 25% of the population lives. Even where people survived with minor damage to their houses, they now face water shortages, food prices have quadrupled and the rice crop has been wiped out. Trees are down everywhere. In the middle of this we got a call from Cameron Sinclair, co-founder of 
China is boiling mad. Last week, residents of Chengdu 
With close to 1500 people casting ballots for the schools they felt solved The Great Copy Machine Epidemic of 2008; it’s amazing that not much more than a handful of votes separated the top contenders.
But it turns out the students at Grace Hill Elementary in Rogers, Arkansas came out on top; solving the crisis by diagnosing their school’s photocopy machine with a severe case of “Carbon Footprint Swollenitis”.
Apparently, symptoms include a severe swelling of the feet; leaving a larger than life impact on the planet and contributing to global warming long after the school day is done.
...
In case you’re wondering what one school can do in just the span of a few short months, take a good look at the Go Green Initiative’s school of the week, Milltown Middle School in Milltown, NJ. They’ve actually earned the first year award from the Go Green Initiative for their efforts, and they’ve been making a difference by holding recycling assemblies and working to increase their efficiency at recycling plastics, batteries, ink cartridges, paper, plastic, glass and aluminum while working to start an Elmer’s Glue recycling program as well....
