MediaMentions said:
"Internet based reporting, otherwise known as blogging, really does seem to be doing fantastic: http://www.pressdisplay.com/pressdisplay/showlink.as..." [read]
Craig said:
"I applaud the effort and idea. But the findings seems to be absolute non sense in regards to the over all calculation. I don't believe being a weal..." [read]
Colin W. said:
"For me the problem is that the physical, in the hand, news paper creates a sense of legitimacy.Blogs can be done by anyone, so the post for politic..." [read]
Guilherme said:
"I have been using grain alcohol as a substitute for deodorant and it works just fine...." [read]
Gerald Shields said:
"Finally, a good "Why hasn't anyone thought of this" idea...." [read]
Traciatim said:
""Can Al Gore do for hunger what he did for global warming with An Inconvenient Truth? "
What? You mean stretch the truth so much that it be..." [read]
Hmmm, the smoky flavor of carcinogens give PAHs for thought. Photo via Flickr by brandi666
Stand out of the line of fire of smoky fumes. Sure, that's the first defense. But what about the dangers of grilled dogs, ribs, and salmon? I've long heard tales of how a charcoal grilled burger is the equivalent of a carton of cigarettes. So when flipping through Cure magazine at my acupuncturist’s office, I discovered an article from Lena Huang about “Good Grilling” with easy steps to reduce risk. If there’s 225,000 metric tons of CO2, particulate matter, carbon monoxide, and other VOCs spewing into the atmosphere from 60 million BBQs across the country this holiday weekend, how about waving a flag this 4th of July over the carcinogens you eat?
You a runner? Or an exercise-oholic? And you want your workouts to reflect your green lifestyle? Well, the race is ON…or at least for me and a few friends to find the best performing green running equipment. Since February of this year (2009), I’ve made it my personal mission to seek out the most excellent green products in the running world as I train for my first marathon in November. Most people think running is a simple sport in which all that is needed is a good pair of shoes to be active. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
Make it a Good Trip
If, like us, you're headed to Bonnaroo this weekend -- the granddaddy of American music festivals -- it probably has something to do with the fact that Phish, Bruce, Snoop, Erykah and David Byrne are headed there too. Or maybe it's just all that green: last year, Bonnaroo won the "Outstanding Greener Festival" award, the highest eco-accolade that a huge festival can receive.
As organizers turn upthe green to 11 -- and as everyone from west coast hippies to east coast hipsters seeks to economize -- getting there in smart, green fashion is key. (And sorry, telecommuting is not an option.)
Duct tape is wonderful stuff! While there are some individuals who will tell you that you can fix just about anything with it, the best way to ensure your things last a long time is through plain old fashioned common sense and proper care. Here are a few preferred ways to take care of all your stuff...
As the last of the winter’s snow melted, it revealed our inviting back patio, where the sage and oregano was just beginning to poke through in the herb garden on the perimeter, bird feeders begging to be refilled so that the birds could flock in droves, and a table and chairs screaming for summertime dinners. The only problem was the uninviting mildew covering the chair cushions.
I knew I had two choices: I could clean them or replace them. Ever the eco’ist, I of course wanted to try my hardest to salvage what I already had instead of buying new.
The average wedding in the USA costs $20,000. Yikes! In this economy, that's not just insane; it's silly.
Why not go green and save green? Creative couples can hold a fantastic event for $500 or less, and share their love with the planet. Here are a few ideas from a June Bride (the author), who plans to rock her wedding by walkin'‚ the Treehugger talk.
If you're looking for recent global warming articles
on the web, you need to know who to trust. It's true that the internet
is a great resource for information, but it's also a tool for writers
and journalists with a political agenda to publish anything they want,
to spread lies and deceive the public on the real facts about global warming.
Dear Pablo: You have written about home energy efficiency in the past, but aside from individual technologies like CFLs, what can I do to get the "whole picture" and how do I prioritize my investments?
Cleaning up with Banksy's graffiti. Photo via Flickr: by Give Peace a Chance
Don’t need any more tips about greening your house, apartment, loft, garage, or tent?
How about easy, cheap ways to fix everything from floors to frying pans and dealing with furballs? Haley’s Hints Green Edition suggests 1,000 unlikely solutions for stuff like removing mud stains with potatoes. With summer coming there are ingenious ideas for the garden, pest control, and camping. Nontoxic and clever, this guide shows lots of ways that items in your cupboard do unexpected tricks.
...
Dear Pablo: I work for a large company. For our secure document disposal, we have a large paper shredder. On a regular basis, these shredded files are then emptied and recycled. Unfortunately, this is the only way we currently have for recycling documents, so many people put all of their paper into the shredder for recycling. I am curious, though, whether the savings we get from recycling is worth the energy it costs to shred the paper?
Photo via: Cindy Funk
The L.A. Times recently published a wonderful article on the many lessons that can be found from depression era cooking. While having not fallen far enough yet to compare ourselves to the extreme hard times of The Great Depression, there are some very interesting and important lessons that can be learned from this era...
...
Photo via: Todd R.
It's called the Strip Wash Challenge. I among a few other here on Treehugger signed up to take on this challenge which involved making it through an entire week using only natural body cleansers and the least amount of water possible. We were armed with only a pouch of Moroccan Rhassoul Clay and a alum stone deodorant rock from Natural Spa Supplies. It's the ageless battle of organic nature against the stinky journalist... who will be the last one standing!...
It is easy for cashiers to go on autopilot sometimes at the grocery store, placing one or two items in a plastic bag before you can even say “Hello”. When you explain that you already have your own bag or that you don’t need a bag for your one already well packaged item, they remove the item from the plastic bag and then THROW THE PLASTIC BAG IN THE TRASH. Many franchises have rules which don’t allow a cashier to reuse a bag that has already been ‘contaminated’ with another customer’s item. And so, it has been an ongoing experiment to find the best and most polite way to avoid the cashier putting those one or two items in a plastic bag before you can stop them. Read on for ways to flag the bag before it is too late. Feel free to add to this list:...
That mysterious woman of (green) wisdom, Umbra Fisk, brings you several Valentine's tips via Grist TV on "How to Be a Better Valentine." This little quickie offer advice on how to lessen the impact of love this season. Did you know that over a billion cards are sent on valentines or that the large volumes of fresh flowers purchased all come complete with large volumes of pesticides? Watch the rest of the episode to find out more fun facts and quick tips to make sure you don't hurt Mother Earth while you're loving the one you're with this Valentine's Day....
Dear Pablo: Why should I turn down my water heater? Isn't it just as efficient to dilute really hot water with cold water in the faucet than to use barely warm enough water straight out of the hot side?...
Image credit: Getty Images/Flying Colours Ltd
For a while, when it comes to green impacts, the prevailing wisdom has been that built in dishwashers beat hand-washing dishes, in a runaway. By the numbers, according to one study at the University of Bonn in Germany, the dishwasher uses only half the energy, one-sixth of the water, and less soap, to boot. That sounds easy enough, but there's a lot more to it than and black-and-white comparison between your faucet and sink and the appliance under your counter.
For example: How do the results vary with model of dishwasher? What hand-washing habits are people using? How do you heat the water in your home? And how often do you do the dishes? Turns out all these factors can change the impacts; keep reading to learn what goes in to calculating the greenest way to do your dishes....
Here is a way to keep busy when everyone else is having a good time and you are the designated driver: Take all of those champagne corks with their wire cages and recycle them into little models of "the chair that has seated millions"- a classic Thonet cafe chair. Learn how at Instructables.
And don't forget, champagne corks can travel up to 50 miles per hour-remove them safely:...
photo: Ideal Bite
Ideal Bite serves up free, bite-size daily tips for liven' green with a side of personality. Now the company is introducing Mama Bite to help new and seasoned moms in their plight to keep it green. Read on to find out how the Web site plans to help everyday moms go green....
Image by Treehugger
In the never ending battle to beat out absurdities such as Stewie the Grape Stomping Reporter and the real 19th century vampire kit that is (apparently) a must have, here is a little contribution that picks up on my last blockbuster; seven categories of lists, each of which is composed of 7 separate lists, where each list has seven items!!! Not only that, but get this, every list and item has to do with the environment. This technology, it's a miracle - wouldn't have been possible with Google - distilling this stuff down into one easy to find place for y'all.
Seven!!!!!...
Photo by Gbalogh
And we are not referring you to the microwave...
We are talking about an age old trick of cooking that has been used for years underneath the sands of the beach, or the dark soil of the Mid-Americas. Recently I purchased a new home and it was void of one important appliance of which I had become rather accustomed to... an oven. Until we purchased a stove, we quickly learned that there are a variety of creative ways to cook with alternative energy, using a minimum of electricity or gas, and a hot box is certainly one of our favorites, least expensive, and most tasty.
...
A new website for kids called the Scrap Kins has just launched. It’s an innovative, fun site focused on getting kids to think about recycling via a cast of engaging, friendly monsters who live in a recycling center—the Scrap Kins. The Kins’ brainchild is illustrator and designer Brian Yanish, who found inspiration for the characters from his own childhood drawings. ...
Fair Trade Cacao Pods New Internationalist
Last year we helped parents plan a green Halloween, and here's a way you can take it one step further this year. The folks at Global Exchange have started a Reverse Trick-or-Treating program as a way to highlight the plight of cocoa farmers and to showcase the benefits of Fair Trade.
Despite six years of promises from major chocolate manufacturers little has been done to tackle the documented problem of forced child labor on many farms that supply their cocoa. Moreover, low cocoa prices have left cocoa farmers in poverty year after year." In contrast, "Fair Trade certification prohibits the use of abusive child labor. Also, the guaranteed Fair Trade price paid for cocoa raises farmers' incomes and creates hope for a better future for their children."
A Community Guide To Environmental Health (Guide), published by Hesperian and now available online, is one of the most comprehensive guides empowering communities to deal with environmental health issues in the 21st century. The Guide has taken over a decade to develop as researchers scoured the globe for the best practices. The examples come from the help and input of over 300 communities in over 33 countries. ...
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
...
Backyard bin image by Pete Baugh; worms by kafka4prez at flickr
It's amazing, but in a completely unscientific survey, it was found that quite a few people have fear of compost. I empathize, being of lazy disposition and a low 'ick' threshold. But the benefits of composting are so big - solid waste reduction, shrinking your home's carbon footprint, and making your own ready-to-apply garden soil - that it behooves us all to conquer that ick. Here's an inspiring compost stat: Going from a 60-gallon trash container or equivalent to a 35-gallon container means an annual "savings" of 2,650 pounts of CO2! (That stat is from the Low Carbon Diet by David Gershon)
Composting: Where to start
At TreeHugger we've written plenty about composting, and Collin's Green Basics is a great place to start. Once you are ready to compost or even expand your compost production, the choice of which type of system to use is fairly personal. There really isn't a best, but rather a best for you. Sometimes simple, simple, simple is the best way to transition, especially for beginners, and in that case the backyard black (or green) bin purchased from a well-stocked garden store might be the way to go. The advantages are that it is very little work and the bin can be abandoned during the winter when it may get too damp to really process much vegetable waste. For apartment dwellers, NatureMill is a really good choice - but do read Part I of this post for some possible downsides.
If you are however the type of person or family that for whatever reasons feel you want richer compost (or you are into pets and pet projects) than worm composting might just be the system for you. ...
Paper or plastic bags: which is better?
It's an age old question, when it comes time to check out when grocery shopping: paper bag or plastic bag? It seems like it should be an easy choice, but there's an incredible number of details and inputs hidden in each bag. From durability and reusability to life cycle costs, there's a lot more to each bag than meet the eye. Let's take a look behind the bags.
Where do brown paper bags come from?Paper comes from trees -- lots and lots of trees. The logging industry, influenced by companies like Weyerhaeuser and Kimberly-Clark, is huge, and the process to get that paper bag to the grocery store is long, sordid and exacts a heavy toll on the planet. First, the trees are found, marked and felled in a process that all too often involves clear-cutting, resulting in massive habitat destruction and long-term ecological damage....
Green Search Engines, or search engines that help charitable causes, are one of the newest trends online. These sites are similar to – and are actually powered by - other search engines, such as Google.com or Yahoo.com, however they divert advertising dollars back into charitable causes. But with 8 billion ad dollars changing hands in 2007, this is clearly an area open to abuse. To help you use your search clicks to the best advantage, TreeHugger has rounded up many of the Green Search Engines. Our review and recommendations are broken into three categories:
Best Do-good Green Search Engine: the best of green search engines which donate a percent of revenues to green causes;
Best Network Green Search Engine: the best of green search engines which limit hits to information or products from vetted green suppliers;
Best of the Rest: Search Engines with other eco-angles
Are Producers Helping You to Stay on Budget?
USA Today recently headlined a shocking review of the big name food companies that are trying to beat rising costs by reducing package sizes. Granted, most of us could probably do with cutting our consumption of Edy's ice cream by 14% (1.75 quart containers have suddenly become 1.5 quarts), a little less Hellmann's mayo on the bread, or spreading Shedd's Country Crock a bit more thinly (32 ounce jar drops to 30, and 48 ounces shrinks to 45 ounces, respectively). But should manufacturers make this decision for us?
The food companies justify their actions with the claim that a package of their product must remain affordable. Of course, consumers are outraged at these tricks. We ask: is keeping the weekly tab down really helping the consumer?...
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.
on 07. 2.09
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Cleaning up with Banksy's graffiti. Photo via Flickr: by 
Image via 
Photo via: 
Photo via: Todd R.
It's called the Strip Wash Challenge. I among a few other here on Treehugger signed up to take on this challenge which involved making it through an entire week using only natural body cleansers and the least amount of water possible. We were armed with only a pouch of Moroccan 
It is easy for cashiers to go on autopilot sometimes at the grocery store, placing one or two items in a plastic bag before you can even say “Hello”. When you explain that you already have your own bag or that you don’t need a bag for your one already well packaged item, they remove the item from the plastic bag and then THROW THE PLASTIC BAG IN THE TRASH. Many franchises have rules which don’t allow a cashier to reuse a bag that has already been ‘contaminated’ with another customer’s item. And so, it has been an ongoing experiment to find the best and most polite way to avoid the cashier putting those one or two items in a plastic bag before you can stop them. Read on for ways to flag the bag before it is too late. Feel free to add to this list:...
Dear Pablo: Why should I turn down my water heater? Isn't it just as efficient to dilute really hot water with cold water in the faucet than to use barely warm enough water straight out of the hot side?...
Image credit: Getty Images/Flying Colours Ltd
For a while, when it comes to green impacts, the prevailing wisdom has been that 
Here is a way to keep busy when everyone else is having a good time and you are the designated driver: Take all of those champagne corks with their wire cages and recycle them into little models of "
photo: Ideal Bite
Ideal Bite serves up free, bite-size daily tips for liven' green with a side of personality. Now the company is introducing Mama Bite to help new and seasoned moms in their plight to keep it green. Read on to find out how the Web site plans to help everyday moms go green....
Image by Treehugger
In the never ending battle to beat out absurdities such as 
Photo by 
Fair Trade Cacao Pods
David MacKay's online book "Sustainable Energy - Without the Hot Air" (free PDF download 
Backyard bin image by Pete Baugh; worms by kafka4prez at flickr
It's amazing, but in a completely unscientific survey, it was found that quite a few people have fear of compost. I empathize, being of lazy disposition and a low 'ick' threshold. But the benefits of composting are so big - solid waste reduction, shrinking your home's carbon footprint, and making your own ready-to-apply garden soil - that it behooves us all to conquer that ick. Here's an inspiring compost stat: Going from a 60-gallon trash container or equivalent to a 35-gallon container means an annual "savings" of 2,650 pounts of CO2! (That stat is from the Low Carbon Diet by David Gershon)
Composting: Where to start
At TreeHugger we've written plenty about composting, and Collin's 
Paper or plastic bags: which is better?
It's an age old question, when it comes time to check out when grocery shopping: paper bag or plastic bag? It seems like it should be an easy choice, but there's an incredible number of details and inputs hidden in each bag. From durability and reusability to life cycle costs, there's a lot more to each bag than meet the eye. Let's take a look behind the bags.
Where do brown paper bags come from?
Green Search Engines, or search engines that help charitable causes, are one of the newest trends online. These sites are similar to – and are actually powered by - other search engines, such as Google.com or Yahoo.com, however they divert advertising dollars back into charitable causes. But with 8 billion ad dollars changing hands in 2007, this is clearly an area open to abuse. To help you use your search clicks to the best advantage, TreeHugger has rounded up many of the Green Search Engines. Our review and recommendations are broken into three categories:
Are Producers Helping You to Stay on Budget?
USA Today recently headlined a shocking review of the big name food companies that are trying to beat rising costs by reducing package sizes. Granted, most of us could probably do with cutting our consumption of Edy's ice cream by 14% (1.75 quart containers have suddenly become 1.5 quarts), a little less Hellmann's mayo on the bread, or spreading Shedd's Country Crock a bit more thinly (32 ounce jar drops to 30, and 48 ounces shrinks to 45 ounces, respectively). But should manufacturers make this decision for us?
The food companies justify their actions with the claim that a package of their product must remain affordable. Of course, consumers are outraged at these tricks. We ask: is keeping the weekly tab down really helping the consumer?...
