roy said:
"I really dislike hi-def in general. Who the heck wants to see every wrinkle on Hugh Laurie's face? The only person who looks better in hi-def is Ev..." [read]
Roger, Gone Green said:
"Words that suggest that green stuff is new or unusual have to go! Here are some suggested alternatives(drop them into everyday speech and watch th..." [read]
said:
"Vent systems are not as carefully tuned as auto exhaust systems, but still shutting a vent off, especially in carefully designed larger systems, co..." [read]
Ken Clive said:
""Green is the new black" is an excuse for all the emo and goth kids to go green, that's all.
"Bush" shouldn't be banned. Although I do thi..." [read]
ian said:
"ok, i found something: approximately 20 miles on a 6 hour charge of full sun (difficult but possible) based on a recent aftermarket option:
<..." [read]
Tricia said:
"Thanks for the great list! I have only just started reading blogs (and blogging) so perfect timing....." [read]
Everyone is having fun looking at predictions made a year ago, but what about a hundred years ago? "Litterateur" Jules Bois made some interesting ones, some which are dead on and some hilariously wrong. Take his ideal of feminine beauty:
Cement: From Carbon Source to Carbon Sink?
Lloyd has written before about cement as “the unheralded polluter” - in fact some estimates suggest that cement manufacture may be responsible for more global greenhouse emissions than the entire aviation industry. It’s no wonder then that we were excited when we heard about Eco-Cement, a greener cement that actually absorbs more CO2 than it produces. Now it appears that another company is also producing carbon negative cement. The Guardian reports that UK company Novacem has developed a cement with an overall negative carbon footprint of 0.6 tonnes per tonne of cement. This compares to an overall positive footprint of 0.4 tonnes per tonne of standard cement. So how do they do it? The Guardian explains a little more:
Farmers and activists in Japan are surprised and increasingly upset that Japan will host the next UN Biodiversity conference (COP 10) in Nagoya. In Aiichi prefecture, large construction projects are reducing fertile soil and rice paddies to yet another highway or urban sprawl. As they brought the kids and gathered at Noda Farm for a New Years festival a couple of days ago, people were asking, "Why Nagoya?"
Once upon a time, I had a friend who was a glossy magazine writer working on a story for a yoga magazine. Reporting from Israel, she wanted to interview the Ethiopian-Israeli community in Beersheba and ask them why they weren't practicing yoga. For me that was a very Marie Antoinette sort of question.
How could these people, among the poorest in Israel, who are struggling to put food in their babies' mouths, and learning the basics about the western world –– like how to use a toilet –- consider for a second about breaking into the Lion Pose, and meditating? This is how I feel right in Israel. It just doesn't seem right to talk about the environment, when people from both sides of the green line are suffering and trying to survive. I'm really not in the mood.
Ten Large Retail Corporations Profiled Using EthicalQuote
With regulatory teeth set to emerge in environmental and ethical regulatory regimes again (see explanatory post - The Pendulum Effect: Review And Prospects For Sustainability...), corporate sustainability efforts could soon receive notice among investors and in consumer markets. For examples of how indicators of ethical and environmental choices have been tracking lately, see the above graphic, drawn for this post using Covalence'sEthical Quote, Public Version, and explanation, plus further examples below the fold.
As a child growing up in Berkeley during the '60s, educator Patricia Donald loved reading National Geographic and Time magazines, where she says she learned about the pollution of the earth and its oceans, and the human-caused disruption of the balance of nature.
"There was a lot of scary stuff going on in those days," said Donald. "It just felt really important to try to empower people to understand the space and the habitat they lived in, to help protect it instead of fighting against it all the time. Luckily, I had a lot of people who helped me believe in my dream."
And what a successful venture her dream has become in Berkeley, California.
While so many people are working so very hard to help educate kids about environmental issues and what they can do to make a difference, there’s a pair of Canadians who’ve been on the run, literally, since May 4 of last year to raise awareness and educate kids at the same time by putting in a full marathon daily to make their way across the continent of North America as part of their Run For 1 Planet.
Today is a happy day for elephants because eBay's ban on ivory sales begins today. We saw the ban pop up on the Hugg radar a few months ago and are interested to see what happens now that the rule is in effect.
2009 has been declared the Year of the Gorilla (YoG) in order to avoid the extinction of the largest living primate, by the UNEP Convention on Migratory Species (CMS), the UNEP/UNESCO Great Ape Survival Partnership (GRASP) and the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums (WAZA). After similar schemes for dolphins and turtles, "the Year of the Gorilla 2009 will place gorillas on a higher pedestal," says John Mshelbwala, U.N. Convention of Migratory Species expert. Gorillas, whose DNA is almost 100% identical to that of humans, are one of the most endangered species on the planet....
Clean Coal Fans, Take Note
As reported here on TreeHugger and on Discovery News last week: "Monday night 2.6 million cubic yards (the equivalent of 525.2 million gallons, 48 times more than the Exxon Valdez spill by volume) of coal ash sludge broke through a dike of a 40-acre holding pond at TVA's Kingston coal-fired power plant covering 400 acres up to six feet deep, damaging 12 homes and wrecking a train." Read on for more....
Image credit:Maulleigh on Flickr
At a time when major U.S. companies are announcing job layoffs almost daily, the renewable energy industry is hiring new workers every day to build wind farms, install rooftop solar arrays, and build solar thermal and geothermal power plants. The output of industrial firms that manufacture the equipment for these energy facilities is expanding by well over 30 percent a year. As I note in my recent Earth Policy Institute Update “Creating New Jobs”, these investments both create jobs and help prevent climate change from spiraling out of control....
photo: Nature Repurposed
We've discussed greener credit cards in the past at TreeHugger. Major credit card companies offer cards that provide donations to nonprofit organizations whose logo or image is featured on the card. But that's not what we're talking about here at all. Discover is boasting a new "biodegradable" credit card made from biodegradable PVC. But can PVC really degrade and what is it anyway?...
Photo credit to Willrad
Well folks, another basic function of life has now been taken away from us, as if we were stumps on a log not able to think and function for ourselves. But perhaps Ford is right. Maybe the public has forgotten the art of parallel parking......
According to the ancient Chinese calender, that is popular all over Asia, 2009 is the year of the ox. This calm and trustworthy animal is a symbol of prosperity through fortitude and hard work. When even the Wall Street Journal follows the lead of Treehugger, and introduces frugal advice for How to Fix Your Life in 2009, it may be a good time to take a moment and heed the wisdom of the ages.
(Image: Charging Bull by Arturo Di Modica)...
Wondering who’s news and who’s so last year? TreeHugger’s 2008 Eco-Matrix is here to inform and entertain. If you’ve been pondering whether Al Gore is in or out, whether ethanol is still a worthy news item, or which green celebs have fallen on hard times, just click through for our handy cheat sheet to what happened in the world of green over the past year, and what and who are on the rise for ’09. (That’s just a sneak peak above; head below the fold for the real deal.) ...
Men Set Grassland on Fire Trying To Blow Up Gophers
Two Calgary men wreaked environmental havoc trying to kill gophers with a Rodenator, a device which pumps propane and oxygen into their holes and then blasts them out. Unfortunately the grass is really dry and flammable, and 160 acres, including several outbuildings were completely torched, with a value of C$200,000 (US$197,000 and falling) More
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So it looks like a copy of Barack Obama's inauguration speech has been leaked. Here's an excerpt...
“Energy will be the immediate test of our ability to unite this nation, and it can also be the standard around which we rally. On the battlefield of energy we can win for our nation a new confidence, and we can seize control again of our common destiny. Our excessive dependence on OPEC has already taken a tremendous toll on our economy and our people. It's a cause of the increased inflation and unemployment that we now face. This intolerable dependence on foreign oil threatens our economic independence and the very security of our nation.
The energy crisis is real. It is worldwide. It is a clear and present danger to our nation. These are facts and we simply must face them.”
Photo Via Mr. Usaji
StubHub has launched a program in conjunction with the National Forests Foundation that will help restore national forests across the US through the sales of post-season football game tickets. ...
Photo Unhindered by Talent @ flickr
The question of where to put your money in 2009 is something even the biggies like Warren Buffet are definitely grappling with. The problems of the economy - astounding debt and an uncertain dollar - are such that not even geniuses know exactly which way the money winds will blow.
Unfortunately, so-called green or socially responsible stock funds as a whole didn't do remarkably better (and sometimes they did worse) than the S&P 500 or other stock indexes. That might be in part because, as Paul Hawken presciently noted way back in 2004, many SRI funds can be indistinguishable from regular run-of-the-mill mutual funds -- they nearly all own many of the same large-cap companies. And the picture's been grim for clean energy stocks--the Nex tracking index of these clean energy stocks shows a 66% drop in 2008! So, while we emphatically don't pretend to be giving any investment advice, here are some alternatives worth your further research and consideration:...
This is what you get for your infrastructure investment dollars. Texas A&M
Making cement creates 5% of the world's greenhouse gases. Putting it into roads promotes consumption of fossil fuels. And where is the infrastructure investment going? States are lining up at the trough to invest in- highways. According to Heidi Przybyla at Bloomberg,
Missouri’s plan to spend $750 million in federal money on highways and nothing on mass transit in St. Louis doesn’t square with President-elect Barack Obama’s vision for a revolutionary re-engineering of the nation’s infrastructure. Utah would pour 87 percent of the funds it may receive in a new economic stimulus bill into new road capacity. Arizona would spend $869 million of its $1.2 billion wish list on highways.
Supporters say, with a straight face, that this will be good for the environment because it will reduce congestion. “If you can eliminate the congestion, you can dramatically reduce greenhouse-gas emissions,” said Jeff Solsby, a spokesman for the Washington-based American Road and Transportation Builders Association....
After the Tesla Model S, Here Comes BYD's F3DM...
It was only a couple weeks ago that BYD's F3DM plug-in hybrid went on sale in China. At that time, BYD still said it had plans to "bring the F3DM to the US in 2010", but that has now changed without much in the way of explanations. Read on for more....
Photo via Tom Bullock
One thing that is a constant thorn in the side of efficiency lovers is over-packaging. Using more cardboard, paper, plastic, space, and fossil fuels than necessary to get things from one place to another is an ubiquitous eco-sin. Here are seven instances--illustrated in a photo gallery--of when packaging has gone awry. Click through to see the images....
Photo from AP Can you identify the people in this photo?
Surprise, suprise: Not all companies are opposed to taxes. Mainichi reports (belatedly) from a survey by Japan's Ministry of the Environment, done in July 2008: More than 40 percent of major enterprises in Japan favor the introduction of an environment tax to curb global warming. But I wonder why so few companies bothered to reply to such an important survey. ...
Oil Shale Specimen. Image credit: Los Angeles Times, Michael Brands
One estimate has oil shale extraction needing 10 barrels of water per barrel of oil produced. And, with Colorado's proposed oil shale operations at full capacity, by mid-century, the industry could require as much as 14 times more power than currently generated by the state's largest power plant. These estimates are very imprecise, because the technology is unproven. You might wonder, "Why so much water and energy? And what do do about it?" See the illustration and answer below....
Photo credit I'mClaude
Part of creating the ultimate sustainable planet will be our ability to find sustainable energy sources in a variety of means, such as sunlight, water flow, wind, and yes, even rain. We are of course speaking of the kinetic energy which can be harnessed from rain, which up until a few months ago, was not being considered for use in a consumer product...
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photo by zorilla
In 2007, the Grocery Manufacturer’s Association launched a campaign to “change the perceptions about the benefits of biofuels” by linking ethanol production with rising food costs and global food shortages. Ethanol producers defend their product, saying that biofuels do not cause soaring food prices and meal shortages and insinuate that the GMA is the one reaping the benefits of high food prices by scapegoating biofuels. Who exactly is telling the truth?
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Bamboo is a great sustainable fiber which can be used for just about anything. We're talking about underwear, laptops, car door interiors, and car exterior body panels... okay, wait just a darn minute here. If the above video of the “BamGoo” car designed from the students at Kyoto University is anything of what we can expect to see from a bamboo reinforced vehicle exterior, then count me out!...
Image source: Albany Aerial Photos
You've heard of both national newspapers and glossy magazines hosting a green issue. Well, now Middlebury College is getting in on the act with a special issue of The Middlebury Campus. All content, cartoons, articles and ads are on environmentally-related topics.
For the issue, writers reached out to environmental thinkers to pen Op-Ed pieces, and got staff writers to discuss issues like organic food, environmental art and sustainable design. In addition, actual development and editing of the paper was all done using computers instead of paper. Distribution of the paper around campus was all done via foot-power and offsets were purchased from Native Energy to cover the trip from the printer to campus. But, the budding journalists did not stop there. They used the production of this green issue to learn more about their craft, its impact on the environment and the importance of news media going green....
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!