Book Review: Slow Death by Rubber Duck
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto 
on 06.29.09
I am a big fan of Rick Smith, and the work he has done at Environmental Defence. He has been a leader of the campaign to get Bisphenol A, phtalates and brominated flame retardants out of our bodies. He and Bruce Lourie have done great stuff.
So I picked up “Slow Death by Rubber Duck” eagerly. After all, these guys write well, and have been regular sources for posts on treeHugger. Surely this book will pull all this together in a convincing package.
Article continues: Book Review: Slow Death by Rubber Duck
When we gave our 
At 
One way to to get a sense of Wend magazine might be to imagine it as the love child spawn by a wild night of passion between Outside magazine and TreeHugger. It’s a joyous celebration of being out there amongst the wind, rain and sun, whilst understanding that revelling in the great outdoors has its own environmental impact.
The May issue of Wend magazine has just been released, and as expected its pages and pixels are awash with intriguing feature articles and literary flotsam and jetsam. Take for example the new column Wendex, which gathers together numbers, strange and true: Ritchey Bicycles, who scored an Honourable Mention in one of our 
Authors discuss their environmental books in Los Angeles. Photo by RCruger
“Good to see so many people in LA love books,” said a surprised indie publisher from Brooklyn at last week’s 14th annual Festival of Books on UCLA’s campus, teaming with 140,000 readers. Some waited in line for Cloris Leachman, Michael J. Fox and Tori Spelling to sign their memoirs, to hear Ray Bradbury or Arianna Huffington speak. Of the few dozen panels covering everything from politics to fiction, one filled-to-capacity auditorium focused on the "
When Jasmin wrote her post 
Photos: ATA and Optimal Energy
I never know where to start with 
Book cover courtesy of Greystone Books. Photo by Ville Miettinen/Flickr.com.
I have to admit, I was drawn in by the title. But I would challenge you to find me one person who wouldn't want a closer look at a book titled: 
Franke James is an author, artist, photographer and writer who has been on TreeHugger and Planet Green before with her illustrated essays like 
The Cyclist's Manifesto: The Case for Riding on Two Wheels Instead of Four has a title that may evoke images of some earnest treatise, a dry rant. Oh, but it is nothing of the sort. It’s the inverse opposite. A wonderfully whimsical exploration of America’s transport choices. A rollicking account of how those decisions were made (and why people elsewhere travelled in other directions) and what all that means for the future of getting from A to B. Central to Robert Hurst’s story is the hugely significant influence the humble bicycle has had on personal transport. For as he points out, with all seriousness, “We almost had camels.”...
It is the first time I have ever been excited by a Table of Contents. Most books just list the chapters and the page number; in Stephen and Rebeka Hren's The Carbon Free Home they list their thirty-six projects, but also on that one page list the time it will take, the cost, the energy saved whether it is renter-friendly and the skills you need. Whew.
The whole book is like that; a well-thought out explanation about how to make your house carbon free from people who have walked the walk and really done it. ...
Consider this: 95% of the urban growth over the next 20 years will be in the less-developed world, where migrants from rural areas are already busy building precarious homes in “informal” slum settlements, often without any legal rights to the land they occupy. Today, a full third of the world’s population lives in places defined by the UN as slums; in Africa the figure is 70%.
This is the (somewhat grim) forecast that emerges from just two of the almost two hundred cards contained in Drivers of Change. Arranged like a set of flashcards, and neatly packaged in a case made from recycled contact lens packaging, Drivers of Change is nothing less than an attempt to systematically classify the factors, large and small, that are expected to change the way we live over the next several decades. ...
The Rev. Canon Sally Bingham certainly knows a thing or two about how to connect environmental concern and spirituality. Founding the 
Image via: 
Photo: Wend
Wend Magazine is currently offering yearly subscription of the mag in digital format for a paltry $5. Five dollars! Talk about a no-brainer. So run, Don’t meander, wander, amble, stroll, saunter, traipse, mosey, or tootle over to Wend’s website to sign up. This is too good of an opportunity to pass up. If TreeHugger were to publish a magazine focussed on the great outdoors, travel, action sports and associated green issues, we’d be hard pressed to do a better job than Wend. ...
Photo: Al Gore, 
Images by Jim Wark from
If you're in Chicago on Saturday, March 21st, we have a great event for you to attend. From 5:30 to 9 pm at 
Learn More About the Most Destructive Project on Earth
In the Globe and Mail, Alanna started her review of Tar Sands, a book by Andrew Nikiforuk, with: "Canada has no cohesive energy policy. Nor does it have a cohesive environmental policy. Put the two together, and you get the tar sands of Alberta, in all their hideous glory." That sums up the situation here up North pretty well.
If you'd like to learn more about the very dirty Canadian tar sands, now's the time. Publisher D & M is pulling a publicity stunt (but we're not complaining) by giving away free e-versions of the book....
Image: Jenn Pentland
A few weeks ago, in my post about 
I've picked up a copy of Dr. Sharon T. Freeman's new book entitled "
