SOS 4.8: a New Green Music & Art Festival in Spain
by Petz Scholtus, Barcelona on 05. 8.08
After numerous music bands, such as Radiohead, took on the fight against climate change and decided to go green(er), more and more festival organisers are also keen on the idea to contribute towards sustainability with their events. A great example is the SOS 4.8 festival held in Murcia, Spain, last weekend for the first time. None other than the Chemical Brothers, Rufus Wainwright, Jeff Mills, James, Digitalism and Fangoria (!) performed at the 24-hour event.
Making a city bicycle-friendly (Portland is a good success story, being the 
TreeHugger: You actually were not yet mayor when the tornado struck, so what were the first things that went through your mind as an ordinary citizen after the disaster?
If you're a great, green middle school teacher with an idea to help inspire students to live a greener life there just may be a grant with your name on it coming from GM and Discovery Education.
In fact, they'll be handing out 40 of the $1K grants along with a healthy dose of online professional development and a free digital camera to to the teachers who come up with the best ideas so they can implement and document their projects and share the magic with the rest of us.
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When I called Principal Randy Fulton and asked for an interview he was as busy as any Principal might be on any given school day; particularly if they were in the process of planning the new high school to be built to LEED platinum standards and the President was scheduled to visit in just a few short days to give the commencement address at graduation not so long after the entire town had been swept away by a huge tornado.
But he closed the door and sat down for a few moments to give me his insights into the process of rebuilding Greensburg High School, the effect it’s had on his students, and the simple truth about how he copes with the enormous task of rebuilding not only his own life but that of the school as well.
TreeHugger: Where did the desire to rebuild Greensburg High School in a green fashion come from?
Randy Fulton: Well, once the disaster happened one of the things the governor of Kansas has really stressed is building back in an environmentally sustainable manner, and I think that’s where that came from. And the leaders and commissioners and administrators, all of us got together and said “Let’s do this right. Let’s build back a town that is green and takes care of the environment.”
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“Go easy on me,” Tommy Lee said in a whisper. “You know I’m a green virgin.”
“Sorry Tommy,” I said with a smile. “I like to go deep.”
Earth Day celebration in San Francisco is probably the perfect place to give Tommy Lee and Ludacris the Green 101. The artists, (both who are participants in Planet Green’s 
Photo courtesy tanakawho via flickr
Ironic that the Japanese originally started making those flimsy, break-apart disposable wooden chopsticks as a good way to deal with wood scraps. Now the nation goes through 24 billion pairs per year - 63 million pairs discarded per day. If you're really thrifty you can glue them together into a 
Laura in Venice, Italy 2004
In his post 
If you haven’t had the chance to vote yet for the school that you think solved The Great Copy Machine Epidemic of 2008 there’s simply no time left to wait. With just a few days left to cast your ballot and help determine which disease it is that’s been causing school photocopy machines everywhere to chew up trees and contributing to global warming in the process.
For while we all know that the paper industry uses tremendous amounts of energy and causes deforestation as well, few realized until recently that there just may be a strange, contagious disease to blame for the tremendous amount of paper used by school copy machines.
You know those giant, devilish, tree-eating machines that lurk in the bowels of virtually every main office or back room in schools across America?
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Tim Ferriss, author of 
He’s a high school student from the town of Greensburg Kansas, and his enthusiasm for the green movement and the amazing things it’s doing for his town after the devastation caused by the tornado that leveled it are an inspiring look at the future of green in America.
After spending close to an hour speaking with him by phone I realized precisely why the rebuilding of Greensburg can become an uplifting model for us all. I trust you’ll enjoy his insight and enthusiasm as much as I did.
TreeHugger: What do you believe made the people of Greensburg decide to rebuild the town in a green fashion?
Taylor Schmitt: Well after at least 96% of the town was destroyed there has obviously been a massive need for rebuilding, and the town has come together as a big family, really, and it’s been one joint effort to rebuild the town better than it was and more sustainable and green than it was. So we’ve really been learning a lot about what we need to do to keep our town from dying again. And we’ve been learning about building and going green and implementing a lot of green into our rebuilding efforts.
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The New Environmentalism Is About Issues in Addition to Eco-Tips
We're heartened to see a shift in environmental focus taking root around the past Earth Day. This Enviro New Wave is committed to supplementing eco-tips and individual action by tackling the issues facing life on Earth through a whole-systems approach. This includes nurturing local action as well as doggedly advocating for large-scale political shifts in policy....
When the students and staff in the Go Green Club at Putnam Valley Middle School held a community meeting back at the beginning of the school year to help educate other students and staff about the importance of composting and recycling there’s a very good chance they didn’t know how far their efforts to green the school would take them…...
We tour the booths at the Green Living Show. Image credits: Emma Alter
The Hästens $ 60,000 sleep
It is, of course, all natural horsehair and cotton and flax and pine and down. "Horsehair comes with its own, extremely effective, built-in ventilation system. Moisture passes through the hollow strands so quickly that if you wet horsehair with water and give it a shake, it dries straight away." This particular mattress also costs $ 60,000. Did it feel it? VP Sandy McDermid had to pry me off it. Unfortunately my credit card limit kicked in and I had to take a pass.
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....
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....
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....
