TreeHugger |
15 minutes ago
David Suzuki says "I think bottled water is toast." And London, Ontario City Council agrees. The government of this city of 450,000 has voted to stop selling bottled water in all municipal buildings. The vote was 15 to 3, a healthy majority. It was won despite the opposition of the bottled-water industry which came up with two alternate proposals in an attempt to stave off the decision. The ban will extend to city hall, city-owned buildings, hockey arenas and community [...]
TreeHugger |
2 hours ago
Have you ever wondered what we look like in infrared? What the warmest part of a sheep is? Where your home leaks heat? What an infection looks like according to its heat? Dutch group World of Warmth has created a collection of infrared images and videos, covering topics like housing, food, clothing, buildings, equipment, people and animals. The latter forms the largest part of the series because animals are very good-looking in infrared. World of Warmth explains that animals have [...]
Celsias |
2 hours ago
By Paul G. Blystone, Sunnyvale, California, USA Coal and natural gas power plants and oil-based transportation emissions are main contributors to man-made CO2 levels in the earth's atmosphere. In February 2007, I wrote an article published in Celsias entitled "The Coming Energy Shift" that focused on scenarios for reducing transportation emissions. The main takeaways from the article were: Battery powered electricity-to-wheels technologies will begin to lower transportation petroleum usage, shifting fuel emissions to power plant emissions as plug-in cars become numerous. [...]
Celsias |
2 hours ago
The shrunken Aral Sea in Central Asia, product of a massive twentieth-century environmental disaster, has healed to a remarkable degree according to a recent update from the Kazakhstan government that describes the recovery as miraculous. Water is returning to the North Aral Sea, setting an example for future ecological recovery and reversal projects even as the still-devastated southern portion highlights the tragedy of irreversible environmental damage. Back in the 1950's, the Soviet government diverted the Aral Sea's two tributary rivers into [...]
Celsias |
2 hours ago
Anyone who has read the exquisite Dune novels from Frank Herbert will remember the dew collectors. Pits filled with ovals of plastic, cooling in the night and condensing moisture from the air to provide basic sustenance. Coming from such a lush green place, as I did, it was hard to imagine a more alien existence. That was a fabricated world from the mind of a science fiction genius. It seems though, that the ideas of Frank Herbert have become a reality [...]
Celsias |
3 hours ago
Parts 3 and 4 from our friends at VBS.tv, profiling the most polluted city on the planet - Linfen, China. 20 years ago, this area was the fruit and flower basket of China, now it's the highly polluting coal center for China. It's a true tragedy. The producers ask about part 4, "how insane is it running your own black-market coal mine? In China?" The word that comes to mind is not insane, but desperate. See parts 1 and 2 here. [...]
Yesterday
Eco-Chick |
Aug 20, 2008 11:33PM
Last night I was reading my favorite magazine, Orion. Bill McKibben was discussing the campaign 350. From the website: 350 is the red line for human beings, the most important number on the planet. The most recent science tells us that unless we can reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to 350 parts per million, we will cause huge and irreversible damage to the earth. But solutions exist. All around the world, a movement is building to [...]
3r Blogging |
Aug 20, 2008 10:48PM
I posted another piece for Hip Slope Mama this week. This time I wrote about the tough environmental choices we face, as parents, when buying toys for our children. You can check it out here.
TreeHugger |
Aug 20, 2008 10:48PM
Image from dsearls While it remains to be seen whether California will be able to successfully meet the rigorous guidelines it laid out in its landmark AB 32 bill, the state is on the cusp of taking a huge step forward with the imminent adoption of SB 375. The bill, which would reduce sprawl by requiring California's 17 metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) and its regional transpor...
Great Green Goods |
Aug 20, 2008 08:48PM
It’s that time of year again …back to school! Bring your lunch and save the landfills from nasty styrofoam take-out containers and save yourself a ton of money. Look eco-chic with several earth friendly options from ReusableBags.com. If eco-friendly recycled cotton—made from pre-consumer cotton “table waste” clippings from cut and sew facilities that otherwise would be hauled off to the landfill is your preference—check this out: $5.95 at Reusable Bags If you want a bag that will keep contents colder longer, [...]
How to Save the World |
Aug 20, 2008 08:34PM
Last month I contrasted the wordle (a collage of words with size proportionate to frequency of use) of the contents of my personal profile and my friend Siona's, and commented on how hers seemed more reflective of me than mine did.As a second experiment, I produced the wordle above of the contents of a collection of five of my own poems, and below it the contents of my favourite poem, TS Eliot's Four Quartets. I was kind of hoping that the [...]
TreeHugger |
Aug 20, 2008 06:18PM
Image source: SF Solar Map This cool, interactive solar map put out by the San Francisco Department of the Environment lets you identify exactly where and how many solar panels are on houses in San Fran. Even better than that, the site has a search tool where you can enter your address and it will identify how much roof surface your house has, the potential size of a pv system and an estimated cost to max out your roof with [...]
EcoGeek.org |
Aug 20, 2008 05:18PM
Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Machine Tools and Forming Technology IWU in Dresden have figured out a way to quiet down the whiney whirring of wind turbines by neutralizing vibrations coming from the central tower of the turbine. They’ve come up with a device that can be mounted to an existing turbine, which senses the vibrations and produces an “anti-sound” vibration, effectively pressing against the sound vibration to cancel it out. The device could help out with getting more [...]
Celsias |
Aug 20, 2008 05:18PM
Google's investment in geothermal is the latest string of green initiatives by a company with a stated goal of becoming carbon neutral. Here is a run-down of Google's recent green investments and initiatives. Nanosolar: Google invested in this revolutionary thin-film photovoltaic technology, which is solar, but without the need for a panel. Inventors claim this solar technology can generate electricity at a cost point lower than coal generation. Nanosolar is based in San Jose, California. Geothermal: Google have invested in two [...]
WorldChanging |
Aug 20, 2008 05:03PM
Worldchanging Executive Editor Alex Steffen has become a respected voice of dissent in the global conversation about geo-engineering strategies. This fall, he re-enters the debate as part of the cast of front-line innovators featured in a new docu-style series from Discovery and Impossible Pictures. The program, called Discovery Project Earth, launches this Friday, August 22. The series will profile some pretty extraordinary experiments aimed at slowing global warming, generating alternative energy and restoring natural resources. Cutting-edge thinkers around the world, [...]
Gristmill |
Aug 20, 2008 04:48PM
By Jon RynnThis is a guest post by Ted Glick, the policy director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network/U.S. Climate Emergency Council. He can be reached at usajointheworld@igc.org. He is author of "Past Future Hope" columns. ----- On August 4, the Barack Obama presidential campaign released a comprehensive program for reform of the U.S. energy system. In the words of Obama supporter, climate blogger, and author Joe Romm, it was "easily the best energy plan ever put forward by a nominee [...]
TreeHugger |
Aug 20, 2008 04:04PM
Image source: Digital Home Thoughts Digital Home Thoughts recently posted several reviews on new devices aimed at eliminating phantom power losses. (Phantom power, you may remember, is the electricity you're paying for from all of the appliances plugged in but turned "off.") The Bye Bye Standby and the SmartHomeUSA's Smart Strip Power Strip offer a meet-in-the-middle-solution for folks interested in going green but frankly don't want a bunch of extension cords everywhere and are not ready to plug and ... [...]
Gristmill |
Aug 20, 2008 03:49PM
By Joseph RommThe following post is by Ken Levenson, guest blogger at Climate Progress. ----- As deforestation accelerates and grows ever more concentrated the climate change consequences appear even greater than previously thought. As reported in New Scientist: Pristine temperate forest stores three times more carbon than currently estimated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and 60% more than plantation forests, according to research in Australia. The study:Mackey and colleagues used remote sensing and direct sampling to study eucalyptus trees [...]
TreeHugger |
Aug 20, 2008 03:18PM
Image source: Race Monday Night What started with just an idea to get women back in to bicycle racing with monthly bicycle racing clinics for women has turned into a dozen women screaming at top speeds at the Portland International Raceway in 2009 - a 1.9 mile big and wide loop racetrack. The clinics, held the 2nd Monday of each month (May-August, 2008), were to introduce women to the sport of bicycle racing, including an introduction to the sport, a [...]
EcoGeek.org |
Aug 20, 2008 03:03PM
IBM is no slouch when it comes to going green. Now they’re helping others to do the same. The company has started up a Green Sigma consulting practice that coaches businesses on how to reduce their energy and water usage to save tons of money, improve their image to customers, and of course help out the environment. The system uses networked sensors and data analysis software that watches how much is used at a company’s facility as well as its [...]
WorldChanging |
Aug 20, 2008 02:48PM
What happens with a new president? by Eric de Place This is the eigth in a short series of posts that explain some important but often overlooked policy issues in the Western Climate Initiative -- the West's regional cap-and-trade system. (Much to readers' delight, this is the last installment I'm planning to write.) You can't talk about regional cap and trade very long before someone brings up the subject of pre-emption. What happens if the federal government creates a national [...]
Gristmill |
Aug 20, 2008 02:34PM
By Joseph RommLate last year, after his campaign tanked, no one was paying much attention to McCain. As a result, some of the amazing things that he believes didn't get a lot of attention, such as this Cheney-esque stunner: John McCain: "When you say wind solar and tide, most every expert that I know says that, if you maximize that in every possible way, the contribution that that would make given the present state of technology is very small, is very [...]
TreeHugger |
Aug 20, 2008 02:33PM
Cheap Do-it-yourself Wind Turbine Have you been putting off your dream of building a gadget that will change the world? Max Robson's father knows how you feel. Ashley Robson seeded the desire to design a cheap, sustainable energy source. Now his son has made the dream reality. Max Robson's prototype wind turbine cost him only £20 (US$37) to build, using rubbish he collected from skips (or dumpsters, as they are called in the former colonies). The do-it-yourself turbine reportedly includes [...]
Triple Pundit |
Aug 20, 2008 02:18PM
Before the rush of humanity came to California in search of gold, the San Joaquin Delta was rich in peat soil and much of what is now farmland consisted of wetland and swamps. Mother nature’s own carbon sponge. Over the past 150 years, levees built to “reclaim” the land for agriculture have allowed much of that rich peat soil to continually degrade, exposing it to wind, rain, and oxygen. Through persistent land alteration and unsustainable agriculture, the carbon has become “liberated” from the soil much of the land [...]
TreeHugger |
Aug 20, 2008 02:18PM
Jatropha curcas photo by Dinesh Valke One teething problem in the burgeoning biofuel industry is the issue of sustainability: Some biofuels actually increase greenhouse gas emissions while being claimed to prevent them; others add to food price inflation pressures; in some parts of the world, the labor conditions of biofuel crop farm workers have been called into question. In one of an increasing number of efforts to codify what it means to make a sustainable biofuel, the Sustainable Biodiesel Alliance [...]
