Green

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  GardeningNude

• Harry the Pug Says Save Money! Here Are Five Tips for Reducing Indoor Water Usage

  Shawna Coronado

  4 Nov 2009 | 11:41 am

  Did you know the average American uses almost 100 gallons of water per day? This includes drinking, washing clothes, washing dishes, flushing toilets, food preparation, bathing, as well as watering lawns and gardens. Surprisingly, the United States is one of the highest ranking water users in the world. Other countries such as France and Germany use roughly 55 to 60 gallons daily. Below are five tips for super-easy but significant ways to reduce your water usage: Retrofit water fixtures with water saving fixtures such as a water saving showerheads, toilets, and aerators. Audit water leaks by…

• Happy Halloween From Shawna and Harry the Franken-Pug Thanks For Reading Our Green Lifestyle Blog!

  Shawna Coronado

  31 Oct 2009 | 5:55 am

  Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com, The Green Blog - www.gardeningnude.com, or The Garden Blog - http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

• Save Money My Top Ten Tips for Reducing Energy Usage In Your Home!

  Shawna Coronado

  30 Oct 2009 | 8:50 am

  According to a 2009 report from McKinsey & Company, Americans are wasting $130 billion annually on energy. This means we are spending way too much money due to inefficiency in our homes. During a difficult economic time, watching our utility usage is so critical, it can sometimes mean the difference between losing a home and saving a home. Below are the Top 10 Tips For Reducing Energy Usage – my personal recommendations for running a household that saves money and energy: Audit your household to understand how much energy you are using and where you might best save energy. Utility…

• Pumpkin Seeds - How Halloween Can Teach Your Children About Nature

  Shawna Coronado

  29 Oct 2009 | 6:20 am

  All summer long our family grew pumpkins; first we planted tiny plants in the soil – they flowered bright orange flowers as large as my hand. Green balls soon formed in the early summer and grew into larger pumpkins mid-summer. Finally, in September, we watched the pumpkins ripen orange. Picking the pumpkins involved my daughter steadying the pumpkin while I used heavy garden scissors to snip them off the thick vine; their lifeline to water and nutrients. Leaning down, she picked up a pumpkin and shouted, “WOW! This is heavy!” Our “babies” sat smiling on the front porch for weeks,…

• Today is Botany of Desire Day Learn More About Nature By Watching This Awesome Show!

  Shawna Coronado

  28 Oct 2009 | 9:15 am

  This evening an absolutely fascinating nature story will be shown on PBS at 8:00 PM. It is based on Michael Pollan’s incredible and deeply inspiring book, The Botany Of Desire; A Plant’s—Eye View Of The World. Pollan examines the truly amazing link between the natural world and humans; proposing that humans and domesticated plants have formed a reciprocal relationship. Although there are hundreds of examples Pollan could use, he chooses apples, tulips, marijuana, and potatoes to describe his theory on this remarkable connection. As a member of the press, I was fortunate enough to see an…

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  TreeHugger

• ooffoo Hosts Carnival of the Green

  4 Nov 2009 | 2:52 pm

  This week is Carnival of the Green #201 and it's being hosted by ooffoo, where you can reuse, recycle, swap, sell, giveaway, write and even blog - all in one site! Not to mention their recipes, eco-tips, and debates! So head on over to this weeks Carnival which includes a round up of green news and events from the past week and your best green tweets, submitted by other bloggers and green sites. From biofuel fireplaces and going solar to homemade Pico de Gallo - enjoy! We are now accepting host re...Read the full story on TreeHugger

• Business as Usual is Not an Option at the Opportunity Green Conference

  4 Nov 2009 | 2:22 pm

  Image credit: Opportunity Green "The world can no longer afford business as usual," stands in bold at the center of the Opportunity Green website. The Opportunity Green Business Conference, to be held at UCLA from November 7 through the 8th, is about "being green and being profitable." It's about new approaches to business that take advantage of collaborative culture and unconventional ideas. It's about ingenuity and redirecting business to include the triple bottom line while maintaining ...Read the full story on TreeHugger

• White House Debunks 7 Green Stimulus Bill Myths

  4 Nov 2009 | 1:59 pm

  Photo via Washington Post Ever since Obama's stimulus bill was first announced, false rumors an melodramatic criticism (Bobby Jindal and his made-up train to Disneyland, anyone?) have spread like wildfire--and they haven't let up yet. Opponents of the presidents' agenda seem to have made a hobby of finding a project that could potentially sound funny to the public, and dec...Read the full story on TreeHugger

• When Given the Chance, Will Consumers Pay More for Green?

  4 Nov 2009 | 12:55 pm

  Image courtesty of TerraCycle We just began an interesting experiment at TerraCycle: Opening our first retail outlet and giving people a place to bring in what they'd normally mail to us as part of our collection Brigades. But that's not the most interesting part. We've decided to see what people will do when given the chance to pay whatever price they want for products. In this economy, will people intentionally undercut the price? Will they, u...Read the full story on TreeHugger

• Bucking the Trend, Stern & Pachauri Maintain a Global Climate Deal Still Possible in Copenhagen

  4 Nov 2009 | 12:05 pm

  photo: Christa Uymatiao via flickr. With the needle of expectation tilting towards no full climate deal being reached in Copenhagen, two of the most prominent voices in the climate change policy world -- Lord Nicholas Stern and Dr Rajendra Pachauri -- maintain that a global ag...Read the full story on TreeHugger

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  the daily green

• Today's Arctic Circle Comic Strip

  4 Nov 2009 | 9:01 am

  See comics from the last 30 days!

• Fuel-Efficient Cars for the Rest of Us

  4 Nov 2009 | 6:17 am

  Find out which affordable models post the greenest numbers. Also see the highest MPG cars of 2009.

• Hacking a Saab into a Lean, Green Electric Machine

  4 Nov 2009 | 12:56 am

  The Green Living Guy and friends share their knowledge of electric car conversions.

• This Slow Death Is Choking the Oceans

  3 Nov 2009 | 8:53 am

  Find out about perilous threats to the marine food chain.

• Listen to the Sequel to An Inconvenient Truth

  3 Nov 2009 | 2:06 am

  Our Choice picks up where An Inconvenient Truth left off.

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  WorldChanging

• Buffett's Bet on Rail: What Does It Mean for Transport and Energy?

  WorldChanging Team

  4 Nov 2009 | 11:00 am

  WorldChanging Team: by Elana Schor The financial world was riveted this morning by billionaire investor Warren Buffett's move to take full ownership of the Burlington Northern...

• Gaming Cap and Trade: Should We Worry?

  Eric De Place

  4 Nov 2009 | 10:40 am

  Eric De Place: A look at the evidence - and a path forward. Worries about “gaming” or market manipulation sometimes crop up as an objection to cap and...

• Population control is not what makes climate change a feminist issue

  WorldChanging Team

  4 Nov 2009 | 10:26 am

  WorldChanging Team: Women contribute less to global warming yet will be hit harder by its effects. Reproductive justice is a separate issue Last week Mary Fitzgerald argued...

• Straight Talk for the Planetary Era: A Trio of Book Reviews

  WorldChanging Team

  4 Nov 2009 | 10:23 am

  WorldChanging Team: by Edward Wolf Bikes, boats, and bodies align to spell “350” at events in 181 countries, sounding a worldwide call for climate stability. Congress takes...

• U.S. Comes Under Pressure in Final Session Before Copenhagen Summit

  Yale Environment 360

  4 Nov 2009 | 10:14 am

  Yale Environment 360: by Keith Schneider With just a month remaining before the Copenhagen climate summit, delegates from 192 countries are meeting this week in Barcelona to attempt...

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  Switchboard, from NRDC

• Aren’t green beans supposed to be good for you? New study of BPA in canned food says maybe not…

  Sarah Janssen

  4 Nov 2009 | 5:01 pm

  Yesterday, Consumer Reports released a study of the levels of bisphenol a (BPA) in food products. They found that nearly all of the 19 canned food products they tested contained levels of BPA which have been associated with harm in laboratory animal studies. These included name-brand products like DelMonte green beans and Progresso vegetable soup, which had some of the highest levels measured. Other popular brands like Chef Boyardee, Campbell's, Green Giant, and Hormel also contained concerning levels BPA. Even more alarming, organic canned food and other brands labeled as "bpa-free" had…

• Lautenberg Raises Alarm on Ocean Acidity

  Daniel Hinerfeld

  4 Nov 2009 | 1:01 pm

  How can our country adopt a carbon pollution policy if Republicans won't even come to the negotiating table?  All seven GOP senators on the Environment and Public Works Committee are now boycotting hearings on the Kerry-Boxer climate bill, taking denial to a new level.  If there was one encouraging moment from the hearings this morning, it was Senator Frank Lautenberg talking about the urgency of cutting carbon pollution in light of what he's learned from NRDC's new film ACID TEST, with Sigourney Weaver. It's great that the film made an impression on him, and he's trying to raise…

• How It All Fits Together: New Outdoor Lighting Standard the Third Strike for Inefficient Lights

  Lane Burt

  4 Nov 2009 | 12:15 pm

  I blogged yesterday on the release of our negotiated agreement with the lighting industry on standards for street lights and parking lot lights that could save consumers over $5 billion annually. We had a press conference yesterday, attended by members of Congress from both Houses and from both parties in support of the agreement. Congress will now happily roll this into legislation and the Department of Energy will get started on a new rulemaking soon after it passes. This is the culmination of a long journey undertaken to stop burning money on inefficient lights. It started in the 2007…

• Is the US Chamber Changing its Tune, or Just its Tone?

  Pete Altman

  4 Nov 2009 | 11:16 am

  Yesterday the US Chamber sent a letter to Senators Boxer and Inhofe about the climate bill. It seemed to be singing a new tune on climate policy, leading Senator Kerry to wonder whether the letter reflects a real change in the Chamber's position.  While we welcome the US Chamber's desire to sound more constructive, reading in between the lines - and reading the lines themselves - raises big questions about how much the Chamber's objectives have really changed - setting aside their obvious need to strike a more conciliatory tone. Which prompts us to contemplate how we'll know…

• All aboard: Cincinnati voters emphatically reject anti-streetcar measure

  Kaid Benfield

  4 Nov 2009 | 9:38 am

        Cincinnati voters have rejected "Measure 9," an anti-streetcar initiative, by a 56-44 percent margin.  The measure was aimed at killing a streetcar plan approved earlier this year by the city council, and would have required further referenda on any city spending on rail transit. This is great news for Cincinnati and the recovery of urban neighborhoods like the potentially wonderful Over-the-Rhine, shown below with the proposed streetcar routes in blue:     As I wrote in a series of previous posts, Over-the-Rhine is a badly deteriorated neighborhood with…

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  the green skeptic

• Mark Zandi to MAC Conference: "The Great Recession is Over"

  4 Nov 2009 | 3:00 am

  Image by New America Foundation via Flickr"The Great Recession is over," Mark Zandi, founder and chief economist of Moody's Economy.com, told a crowd of investors, entrepreneurs, and others gathered at the 2009 Mid-Atlantic Capital Alliance Conference in its opening keynote Tuesday."In fact, it ended on August 23rd," Zandi quipped. "If you want to know the precise time, you have to buy my book."Zandi was referring to Financial Shock, his new book about the subprime crisis."It was no accident that the recession ended just as the stimulus kicked in," Zandi related. "The maximum impact was felt…

• The Green Skeptic on Fox Business: Is Burlington Northern a Coal Play for Buffett?

  3 Nov 2009 | 5:12 pm

  Image by Getty Images via DaylifeToday, I appeared on Fox Business reacting to the Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway $44B acquisition of Burlington Northern. Brian Sullivan was working under the premise that the railway acquisition may have been a coal play on the part of the Master from Omaha. My views on coal and the need for investments in R&D related to carbon capture and storage are known to readers of this blog. Here is a link to the broadcast (will try to embed later): Fox Business Related articles by ZemantaBuffett's Unusual Train of Thought (online.wsj.com)Warren Buffett…

• 2009 MAC 2009 Conference to Include Cleantech Track, Zandi, and Godin too

  27 Oct 2009 | 1:27 pm

  Image via CrunchBaseThe Mid-Atlantic Capital (MAC) Conference is the premier venture conference in the region, bringing together the private equity and entrepreneurial communities. Over the years, it has been the catalyst for billions of dollars of venture funding and entrepreneurial activity.The day-and-a-half event offers both sponsors and attendees access to emerging companies from the Mid-Atlantic region; networking opportunities with the movers and shakers from the community; and educational panels and content sessions.The 2009 MAC Conference, Hosted by Blank Rome LLP, will be held on…

• First State Innovation Clean Tech Forum

  16 Oct 2009 | 10:10 pm

  First State Innovation (FSI), a non-profit whose mission is "to increase Delaware's entrepreneurial capacity by growing, attracting, retaining and connecting high growth technology-based businesses and supporting infrastructure in the state," held its first clean tech forum this past Thursday night, October 15th, at the Chase Center in Wilmington. Ernest Dianastasis, Managing Director of CAI and Chairman of First State Innovation, shared his vision for how the region can further innovation and business growth in the emerging green economy, and announced the formation of an angel fund, which…

• BuildGreen Philly: Prosperity with Sustainability

  16 Oct 2009 | 6:32 am

  "No matter how well we develop renewable energy sources, we will not be able to meet global demand," Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell said to the crowd gathered at BuildGreen09 in Philadelphia in his opening keynote. "We also need to reduce consumption."Rendell is a governor that gets it. He understands the economic realities that will drive energy consumption in the future and about a realistic response that includes all sources (including coal and nuclear), as long as can be made clean and with reduced risk. (For coal, he encourages development of carbon capture and storage technologies, to…

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  msnbc.com: Environment

• Can Senate trio salvage a climate bill?

  4 Nov 2009 | 2:16 pm

  A trio of senators — each with differing politics —  on Wednesday announced a rescue effort for troubled climate legislation and quickly got some key backing.

• California OKs $11 billion for water overhaul

  4 Nov 2009 | 1:46 pm

  California lawmakers on Wednesday passed an $11.1 billion overhaul of the state's antiquated water system in a bid to supply a soaring population while preserving a fragile environment.

• Arctic fishing soon to be limited

  4 Nov 2009 | 11:45 am

  A plan that puts a large area of the Arctic off-limits to commercial fishing goes into effect Dec. 3, federal officials said.

• Timor Sea oil leak reportedly plugged

  4 Nov 2009 | 7:59 am

  An oil rig that had been leaking into the Timor Sea for 10 weeks was plugged Tuesday, and a massive fire blazing aboard the structure was largely extinguished, the rig operator said.

• 82 hatchlings offer hope for green sea turtles

  3 Nov 2009 | 1:14 pm

  The population of endangered green sea turtles at SeaWorld in San Diego grew by 82 in October when the eggs hatched on Shipwreck Beach without human help.

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  msnbc.com: Climate Change

• Africans get concessions at climate talks

  3 Nov 2009 | 12:14 pm

  African countries ended a boycott of meetings at U.N. climate negotiations on Tuesday, after winning promises for more in-depth talks on how much rich nations need to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

• Republican senators boycott climate bill

  3 Nov 2009 | 12:13 pm

  Senate Republicans boycotted a committee debate Tuesday on a bill to curb greenhouse gases, protesting that the bill's costs have not been fully examined.

• Merkel calls for strong deal on climate change

  3 Nov 2009 | 10:50 am

  German Chancellor Angela Merkel marked the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall by exhorting the world in a speech to Congress on Tuesday to reach a deal to combat global warming.

• Expert: 'Almost out' of old Arctic sea ice

  30 Oct 2009 | 12:00 pm

  The multiyear sea ice covering the Arctic Ocean has effectively vanished, an expert says, a startling development that will make it easier to open up polar shipping routes.

• Europe OKs climate aid, but not amount

  30 Oct 2009 | 8:14 am

  European Union leaders agreed Friday to contribute to a $74 billion annual aid fund that would help developing nations adapt to climate change — but failed to set a firm figure.

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  ecorazzi

• ‘2012′ Lastest Film To Recycle Sets, Offset Production

  Michael d'Estries

  4 Nov 2009 | 6:57 pm

  Director Roland Emmerich’s new disaster movie 2012 is about to hit theaters — and as the Mother Nature Network recently found out, there was an effort to keep the $260 million dollar film as green as possible. Emmerich, who drives a hybrid and powers his home with solar panels, said “After making The Day After Tomorrow, I said to myself, ‘From now on my movies should have a green footprint.’” For the production of 2012, carbon offsets were purchased, biofuel was used for generators, sets were recycled and what couldn’t be recycled was donated to Habitat for Humanity.

• Top 10 Finalists For Project Green Search Headed To Hollywood

  Michael Parrish DuDell

  4 Nov 2009 | 1:38 pm

  On Friday, November 6th, the top 10 finalists for Project Green Search will make their way to ECCO Ultra Lounge in Hollywood to determine who will be the next Green “It” girl. During the party, the finalists will be circulating amongst the guests sharing the looks, and sustainability stories of each item worn. The judges will evaluate the winners ability to represent the brands they are showcasing, get a measure on their speaking ability and charisma to help their decision. By the end of the evening, one girl will be crowned the winner and receive a slew of prizes including: A…

• Exclusive: James Beard Foundation Honors Horizons Restaurant And Vegan Cuisine

  Michael Parrish DuDell

  4 Nov 2009 | 1:19 pm

  Last night I had the honor of participating in a small slice of history. For the first time in twenty-three years, the James Beard Foundation honored plant-based cuisine by hosting an all-vegan dinner prepared by the immensely talented owners of Horizons restaurant. Since all of you couldn’t be there to enjoy it (and since I couldn’t find a doggy bag big enough to share with everyone), I wanted to provide a thorough recount of the entire evening. Warning: you’ll probably be hungry after reading this. Wearing my favorite suit and my fancy vegan pin (which I wear to all events) I made…

• Al Gore Agrees That Going Vegetarian Helps The Environment

  Michael d'Estries

  4 Nov 2009 | 7:58 am

  Ever since Al Gore introduced his famous slideshow to the world and stood up as a leader in the fight against climate change, advocates of the vegetarian scene have urged the former Vice President to acknowledge the link between eating less meat and helping the environment. Yesterday, Gore finally jumped on board saying that reducing meat in one’s diet is “the responsible thing to do” when it comes to the fight on climate change. Talking to ABC, Gore agreed with the UK’s Nicholas Stern that meat eaters have contributed greatly to increased global carbon…

• The Green Picture: The Biggest Loser’s Jillian Michaels Wears PETA Shirt

  Michael Parrish DuDell

  4 Nov 2009 | 6:41 am

  Ecorazzi recently reported that The Biggest Loser trainer Bob Harper had gone VEG. But could his animal-loving ways be rubbing off on his fellow trainer? On the latest episode of The Biggest Loser, Jillian Michaels was wearing one of PETA’s “Fight Breedism” shirt. The shirt reads,”Fight Breedism. Adopt. Each year 8 million dogs and cats are dumped at animal shelters — more than half never find a home. Breeding animals is killing animals. Never buy.”  To get your own Fight Breedism shirt, visit PETA.org!

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  Earth911.com

• Patagonia Tells the True Story of Your Clothing

  Amanda Wills

  3 Nov 2009 | 11:02 pm

  When you buy a new fleece jacket or a pair of leather ballerina flats, do you ever think of how that product came into fruition? After the initial idea, what was the next step, and how did it eventually end up in your shopping cart? It’s...

• Could Methane Gas Power Our Homes?

  Amanda Wills

  2 Nov 2009 | 11:02 pm

  Last week, the U.S. dairy energy and GE Energy linked up for the New York Dairy Power Summit in Syracuse, N.Y. The main talking point: generating cost-effective energy from methane produced by cow manure. Generating renewable energy from waste is a...

• Colorado Loses Funding for Tire Recycling

  Trey Granger

  2 Nov 2009 | 11:01 pm

  In an effort to balance the state’s budget, Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter has cut the $4 million funding that would have been used to clean up the largest tire stockpile in the nation, according to The Denver Post. The program is funded through a...

• Halloween’s Over, Compost Your Pumpkin!

  Trey Granger

  1 Nov 2009 | 11:03 pm

  Halloween has come and gone, and you’re probably ready to get out the Thanksgiving and Christmas decorations. But what to do with the jack-o-lantern that has lit up your balcony for the last week? One popular option is compost, as pumpkins...

• U.S. and Mexico Partner in $10.8M Environmental Effort

  Amanda Wills

  1 Nov 2009 | 11:02 pm

  The more populous areas of Mexico have taken steps to reduce waste consumption, energy and emissions. Most recently, Mexico City enforced a biodegradable plastic bag law for retailers. The government also announced it would place more than 1,100...

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  The Green Girls

• Thirty Steps to Setting up your Green Business, part 4

  4 Nov 2009 | 4:34 pm

  Today's post is on the "human side" of your company. You will make it or break it based on customer involvement and feedback. Here are some steps on interacting in person and in groups. Next week we'll cover online interactions.Read part 1, part 2, and part 3 of the series.Step 18) Learn how to presentYou'll want to practice your 7-second introduction to what you do (for networking purposes), but also consider how to communicate your message and represent your brand.The groups I recommend for interaction in a business setting include BNI, a weekly networking group with…

• Video: Organic Facial at Jurlique Wellness Day Spa

  4 Nov 2009 | 12:46 pm

  Jurlique is a great organic and natural skin care line and they also have several wellness day spas. I was invited to their spa on Madison Ave in New York to experience their signature aroma therapeutic facial. If you have a chance to visit one of their day spas; I highly recommend them and if you're in NYC, ask to book with Elizabeth - she is fantastic! Watch More Videos! The products that were used during the treatment are all available for purchase for home applications. These were my favorite products used during my facial: Balancing Cleansing Lotion A balancing cleansing lotion, rich…

• The Green Girls Holiday Spectacular Event Gets Support From IREO

  4 Nov 2009 | 9:48 am

  The Green Girls are celebrating 2009 with a spectacular event that gives back to our community. Join us for The Green Girls Holiday Spectacular Event & Food Drive to support a local Los Angeles shelter. The Intergovernmental Renewable Energy Organization (IREO) has jumped in to support our event; bringing in IREO host committee Marshall Herskovitz, a longtime environmentalist & founding member of 1sky and Nicole Hansen, Deputy Secretary-General of IREO. The Holiday Spectacular Event will be held on Saturday, December 12th at the Eco-chic, The Strawberry House in Encino Hills! Our…

• Let the NYC Green Halloween inspire you

  3 Nov 2009 | 2:23 pm

  The first official Green Halloween took place three years ago. Corey's germ of an idea about making Halloween healthier for kids and the planet was an instant hit in the Seattle area, where we live and where we launched. Last year, Green Halloween grew from a local community initiative to a national one, with cities including San Francisco, LA, Phoenix and others creating their own events and expanding our ideas into schools, churches, community centers and to thousands of individuals.   This year, our third, New York City came on board. We partnered with Dr. Oz's organization,…

• EMA Challenges California To Be Green

  3 Nov 2009 | 7:47 am

  Ten Southern California Cities to Launch the California Green Community Challenge      WHO: Amy Smart, Frances Fisher, Daryl Hannah, Hart Bochner & the participating cities: Simi Valley Mayor Paul Miller Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa Redlands Mayor Jon Harrison Monrovia, Mayor Mary Ann Luz San Gabriel Mayor Juli Constanzo Santa Monica Mayor Ken Genser Riverside Mayor Ronald Loveridge Santa Clarita Councilmember Bob Kellar Claremont Mayor Corey Calaycay Culver City Mayor Andrew Weissman WHAT: The Environmental Media Association to hold a kickoff Press Event on…

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  The Alternative Consumer

• water geeks – filter water one sip at a time

  Maureen

  4 Nov 2009 | 10:22 am

  Say goodbye to plastic water bottles and hello to pure water.  We were recently turned on to Water Geeks’ stainless steel reusable water bottles and we really like them.  The filter is activated each time you take a sip.  It’s as if you were sucking water through a straw. Just fill the bottle with tap water, [...]

• 5 Power-Saving Gadgets

  Sylvia

  4 Nov 2009 | 7:50 am

  PLX Kiwi Sure, hybrid vehicles can considerably cut gas consumption compared to conventional cars, but if you’re not ready to buy a new car, the patent-pending PLX Kiwi can help increase the fuel efficiency of your current ride by as much as 33 percent.  Compatible with any 1996 vehicle and up, the PLX Kiwi easily [...]

• a select pile of green news

  rd

  4 Nov 2009 | 6:48 am

  Alternative energy and biofuels will have to be price competitive…Engineers Strive to Make Algae Oil Production More Feasible – sciencedaily ‘Sox’ got traded…Rare Giraffe Sent From Boston to Pittsburgh – boston globe The economy is making climate change a hot issue…U.S. Urged to Set 2020 Target to Save Climate Deal – reuters The battle is really just starting…America’s [...]

• recycled stuff gets Groovy design touch

  rd

  3 Nov 2009 | 10:57 am

  Israeli design shop, Studio Groovy, transforms recycled items into functional products imbued with new-found style and funky flair, (car rim fruit bowl, above). A telephone handset gives birth to a retro-designer bottle opener for a different kind of communication. Moroccan themed end tables created from laser cut vinyl record albums. This lighting fixture (above) was created from 4 [...]

• Wellfleet inspired neck warmers & cowls

  Maureen

  3 Nov 2009 | 8:01 am

  We spent a few days in Wellfleet on Cape Cod a couple of weeks ago – visiting old friends and partying with new ones at the annual Oyster Shucking Festival. Despite the pouring rain, the 2-day contest, featuring the world’s fastest oyster shuckers, was attended by hundreds of happy fans who stood huddled, elbow [...]

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  NYT: Environment

• Groups Press U.S. and China on Carbon

  By EDWARD WONG

  3 Nov 2009 | 9:51 pm

  Two research organizations want the two countries to put more money into developing use of carbon capture technology.

• Gore’s Dual Role: Advocate and Investor

  By JOHN M. BRODER

  3 Nov 2009 | 2:01 pm

  Al Gore says he is putting his money where his mouth is by investing in green technology, but critics say he’s profiteering.

• Mt. Kilimanjaro Ice Cap Continues Rapid Retreat

  By SINDYA N. BHANOO

  3 Nov 2009 | 10:10 am

  Researchers cannot agree whether the melting is attributable mainly to humanity’s role in global warming.

• Green Inc. Column: Chinese Involvement in Proposed Texas Wind Farm Stirs Passions

  By TOM ZELLER Jr.

  3 Nov 2009 | 9:02 am

  An imbalance in jobs created and a desire for financing from U.S. stimulus funds had many readers of the Green Inc. blog in a state of agitation.

• Debate Flares on Limits of Nature and Commerce in Parks

  By LESLIE KAUFMAN

  2 Nov 2009 | 10:27 am

  A battle centered on a spot on the Point Reyes National Seashore has environmental groups squaring off against an oyster farmer.

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  Environment News Network

• Ethiopian Rift Shows How Continents Can Split, Create New Ocean

  4 Nov 2009 | 5:10 am

  A new study reported by the Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia and the University of Rochester sheds light on how the continents move, and oceans are created. In 2005, a gigantic, 35-mile-long rift broke open the desert ground in Ethiopia. At the time, some geologists believed the rift was the beginning of a new ocean as two parts of the African continent pulled apart, but the claim was controversial. Now, scientists from several countries have confirmed that the volcanic processes at work beneath the Ethiopian rift are nearly identical to those at the bottom of the world's oceans, and the…

• Margaret Thatcher, Lyndon Johnson were Right!

  4 Nov 2009 | 3:26 am

  President Lyndon Johnson and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher made stark warnings about global warming decades ago, but convincing evidence for action only amassed in recent years, experts say. A 190-nation U.N. conference in Copenhagen in December is due to agree a new U.N. pact to curb greenhouse gas emissions to slow a rise in temperatures to prevent floods, droughts, wildfires or rising sea levels.

• ENN is pleased to be a media partner with Robert Bateman’s Innovative Contest that Challenges Youth to Connect with Nature

  3 Nov 2009 | 1:53 pm

  In an unprecedented collaboration, over thirty major organizations have joined forces to invite young Americans to discover nature by entering the Robert Bateman "Get to Know" Contest. These partners include the US Forest Service, US Fish & Wildlife Service, National Wildlife Federation, the Children & Nature Network, the Wyland Foundation, and many others. The Get to Know Contest invites any American age 18 or younger to go outdoors, to "get to know" their wild neighbors, and then to share their experience by creating art, writing, or photography.

• Cast Your Vote Today for the Environment (and Other Important Issues!)

  3 Nov 2009 | 8:14 am

  Do your part to help shape the course of local and world events by casting your vote for your candidate of choice this Election Day. Your decision could have a big impact on the environment, as well as on other important issues, from the economy to healthcare, education, taxes, human rights and much more.

• Africa Boycotts U.N. Climate Talks, Demands CO2 Cuts

  3 Nov 2009 | 7:37 am

  BARCELONA, Spain - African nations boycotted U.N. climate talks on Tuesday in a protest to urge rich countries to set deeper 2020 cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. "Africa believes that the other groups are not taking talks seriously enough, not urgently enough," said Kabeya Tshikuku, of the Democratic Republic of Congo delegation.

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  Current_Green

• Meet the founder of Twestival: Amanda Rose

  Leah Lamb

  4 Nov 2009 | 4:44 pm

  Little known fact is that Amanda Rose (aka @amanda) was doing her masters thesis on Twitter when she started Twestival water. I’ve been in awe of what she managed to accomplish with the organization she founded, Twestival. We just met at [re]think Hawaii conference, a high tech conference with an eye on sustainability. In case you were asleep at your computer screen and didn’t catch Twestival, it’s volunteer organizers put together “tweet ups” that raise money for charities. They’ve raised….drum roll…three quarters of a million dollars and…

• The difference between being a visitor and tourist in Hawaii

  Leah Lamb

  4 Nov 2009 | 4:02 pm

  Yesterday was sustainability day at the [re]think hawaii conference. While the majority of the conference is tech focused, it was interesting to bring in local people working on sustainability issues to explore and discuss the issues they are addressing. I’m going to introduce you to one of the panelists,  Ramsay Taum, who spoke on the panel. One of the things I am learning to love about the culture of Hawaii is that people answer questions through stories. Ramsay speaks about sustainability and tourism by talking about the tradition of giving and receiving when visiting, and the…

• Al Gore, The choice to solve the climate crisis

  Leah Lamb

  4 Nov 2009 | 1:55 pm

  Al Gore recently released, “Our Choice, a plan to solve climate crisis.” Meanwhile: An interview with David Letterman: Anyone read it yet and want to share a review? Related posts: Who do you follow? And who is leading this movement any way? (music video with floating heads and diagrams) Finally, a video that explains Copenhagen: Can you?

• Eco Battle Strategy of the sustainability movement (with diagrams)

  Leah Lamb

  3 Nov 2009 | 2:39 pm

  I was sitting at a conference designed bring the usual and unusual suspects who innovate and fund and lobby for renewable energy together to cross-pollinate their ideas. While watching, two things struck me: the first is that the people who had conflicting viewpoints did not have a platform to converge and publicly articulate their opposing viewpoints (making it challenge for anyone trying to understand the pros and cons of the various sources of alternative energy). And then, as I watched a room full of people sitting in circles, all I could think about was battle strategies. Eco battle…

• Step right up and name this picture!

  evan-young

  3 Nov 2009 | 2:08 pm

  Today we are starting a new segment: Green Captions! Here’s how it works: every week we will throw up a weird, random, crazy, and/or interesting photo that has appeared on Current Green and it is YOUR job to think of a creative, fun and hilarious caption. This week’s photo is brought to us by abhishek25 Leave your ideas in the comments sections and we will choose a winner by the end of the week! Have fun! (and of course…submit a photo for next week). The prize? No prize! Just the thrill of the game (oh, and you know we’ll feature the caption we fall in love with on the…

• 
  The Oil Drum - Discussions about Energy and Our Future

• What "Lower Consumption" Means

  Nate Hagens

  4 Nov 2009 | 2:46 pm

  The following is a guest post by Dan Allen, a high school teacher in New Jersey. Previously on TheOilDrum, Dr. Allen wrote The Speech Obama Needs to Give. Note from the author: As a high-school teacher, I wanted to give my thoroughly-industrial, suburban-NJ students a more detailed peek at their upcoming post-industrial future. I felt the need to challenge their prevailing mindsets regarding our resource-depletion predicament: the “shorter showers & change the light-bulbs” crowd, the “engineers will surely come to our rescue” folks, and the “problem? -- what problem?” people.

• Arthur Berman leaves World Oil after raising natural gas questions

  Gail the Actuary

  4 Nov 2009 | 6:14 am

  Monday, November 2, Arthur Berman wrote in his blog: Pressure from Petrohawk helps cancel World Oil column In an act of extraordinary courage, a top Petrohawk executive threatened to cancel his free subscription to World Oil if the magazine continued to publish my column. Today, John Royall, President and CEO for Gulf Publishing, cancelled my November column. I have accordingly resigned as contributing editor. Heading Out (Dave Summers) and I have been talking about the issues Arthur Berman raises for quite a while now. Most recently, Dave wrote a post called Shale Gas Estimates Perhaps…

• Drumbeat: November 4, 2009

  Leanan

  4 Nov 2009 | 6:00 am

  World Need for Oil Expected to Ease: International Energy Agency Says Conservation Efforts Will Trump Any Global Economic Recovery The International Energy Agency next week will make a "substantial" downward revision to its long-term forecast for global oil demand, a person familiar with the matter said, marking the second year running the group has slashed its view of the world's thirst for oil. The forecast of slower growth in oil demand puts the IEA increasingly in a camp of contrarians bucking the popular view that crude demand will grow briskly in a postrecession world. That view holds…

• Fuel Economy Factors - Part 1: The Role of Aerodynamic "Drag"

  Nate Hagens

  3 Nov 2009 | 6:21 am

  This is a guest post from Will Stewart. Will is a systems engineer in the DC area and previously has written several guest posts on The Oil Drum, including a series on Passive Solar Design. As oil production falls and volatile oil prices in concert with a struggling economy induce a pattern of demand suppression/destruction, mobility choices will narrow and Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) will decline. What should governments at all levels be proactively preparing for? What should individuals and their families be preparing for in advance? The choices are broad: at a high level, land use…

• Drumbeat: November 3, 2009

  Leanan

  3 Nov 2009 | 5:51 am

  Shale gas row gets nasty Today Daniel Yergin, author of the seminal oil industry tome ‘The Prize’, wrote in the Wall Street Journal that shale gas is a game changer for US energy. Those who follow natgas will have heard it all before: more advanced and affordable technology, mainly hydraulic fracturing or fracking, has opened up an abundant supply of gas that could satisfy US needs for many, many decades to come. Yergin’s point that this has happened with ‘no great fanfare,’ however, probably stands true for the average person who isn’t an avid follower of energy news. Shale gas…

• 
  EcoSalon

• Rescue Dogs Get New Leash on Life

  The casting call went out last January, not to big Hollywood agents but to animal shelters and rescue groups across the country. Looking for four-legged crooners, black and white, who can get along with others on tour, do the old soft paw on stage, and won't leap off into the audience ...

• Meet Rosel Designer, Juliane Camposano

  Designer Juliane Camposano in a Rosel shrug Sustainably-designed knitwear isn't something new, but really fashion-forward knits are. Rosel designer Juliane Camposano is one of those trendsetting knitwear lines to watch. Camposano grew up in Northern Germany, on the North Sea, where knits were commonplace garb. She says an additional influence to create came ...

• Sharing: It’s Not Just Nice, It’s Necessary

  The other day, I pulled my bicycle up to one of those nouvelle food trucks that are all the rage in these parts and ordered myself a delicious, healthy, organic falafel. While a group of us was standing on the sidewalk devouring our lunches, impromptu conversations among strangers just naturally ...

• Sink or Whim? Either Way They Bowl Us Over

  Porcelained out? Carve your niche with an alternative sink for soaking up greener materials like certified teak, bamboo, recycled metal and glass and friendly painted ceramics. You can even experiment with poured concrete with 50% recycled fly ash, as seen in the striking orange basin by Jeremy Levine Design. Here is ...

• Erin Brockovich Goes to Washington

  Watch out Washington, Erin Brockovich is coming your way. And it’s not a social visit. She’s on a mission to shake, rattle and overhaul the nation’s toxic chemical laws, in particular the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). The TSCA, which was passed in 1976, is seriously outdated and  offers the Environmental ...

• 
  digg.com: Stories / Environment / Popular

• Incredible Iceberg Photography [SLIDESHOW]

  4 Nov 2009 | 3:30 pm

  David Burdeny's iceberg series shows that these frozen giants are far more than platforms for penguins: They are floating sculptures that are becoming increasingly endangered.

• Evolution in the Deepest River in the World

  4 Nov 2009 | 1:20 pm

  The number of species known to live in the lower Congo now exceeds 300 and the river contains one of the highest concentrations of "endemism," or species found nowhere else in the world. Scientists believe the river’s power is shaping evolution in the Congo.

• New Project to Deliver Solar Power After the Sun Goes Down

  4 Nov 2009 | 9:51 am

  The holy grail of renewable energy is a solar power plant that continues producing electricity after the sun goes down. A California company has taken a step toward that.

• African Countries Boycott UN Negotiations

  4 Nov 2009 | 9:20 am

  African nations have walked out of UN climate talks in Barcelona this week citing that wealthy industrial countries are refusing to commit to the carbon reductions necessary to prevent drought, agricultural damage, rising sea levels threatening coastal areas and the spread of tropical pests and diseases.

• Can we manipulate the weather?

  4 Nov 2009 | 6:37 am

  Chinese scientists claim to be able to control the weather. But is so-called geoengineering more than wishful thinking? And, if so, should we be worried?

• 
  Yale Environment 360

• Seismic Fissure in Ethiopia Evidence of Ocean in Making, Study Says

  Yale Environment 360

  4 Nov 2009 | 9:29 am

  A 35-mile seismic crack that formed over a few days in 2005 in the Ethiopian desert is evidence of a new ocean in the making, scientists report in a new study. The abrupt formation of the rift, which is 20 feet wide in places, is similar to the shifting that occurs on the ocean’s floor, according to the study in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. Using seismic data from the September, 2005 eruption of Dabbahu, a volcano located in Ethiopia’s remote Afar Region, scientists were able to reconstruct how, over just a few days, the fissure stretched 35 miles. The evidence, they say,…

• Interview: IPCC’s Pachauri Says Success in Copenhagen Still Possible

  Yale Environment 360

  4 Nov 2009 | 6:42 am

  Despite growing pessimism that a global climate treaty will be signed in Copenhagen next month, Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, believes a flurry of last-minute negotiations may lead to an agreement, although the U.S. may not initially be a part of it. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, Pachauri expresses disappointment that the U.S. has not yet committed itself to firm greenhouse gas reduction targets. During the Bush administration there was a “complete absence of responsibility” in tackling global warming, Pachauri Rajendra Pachauri…

• Pachauri Still Sees a Chance for Success in Copenhagen Talks

  Yale Environment 360

  4 Nov 2009 | 6:42 am

  With skepticism growing about the chances of reaching a climate agreement next month in Copenhagen, Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, says he is “cautiously optimistic” that a treaty can still be signed. But in an interview with Yale Environment 360, Pachauri says the global community may have to move ahead without any commitment from the United States.

• U.S. Comes Under Pressure in Final Session Before Copenhagen Summit

  Yale Environment 360

  3 Nov 2009 | 8:55 am

  With just a month remaining before the Copenhagen climate summit, delegates from 192 countries are meeting in Barcelona to attempt to lay the groundwork for a climate treaty, with some influential figures saying the U.S. must be prepared to make firm greenhouse gas reduction commitments if Copenhagen is to be a success. Connie Hedegaard, the Danish minister for climate and energy, who is hosting the Copenhagen meeting, said the U.S. had risen to global challenges throughout the 20th century, adding, “I believe they have to deliver on this challenge.” The Obama administration has declined…

• Glacial Ice on Kilimanjaro Melting at Increased Rate, Study Says

  Yale Environment 360

  3 Nov 2009 | 8:22 am

  Glacial ice atop Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania continues to melt at an accelerated rate, shrinking 26 percent since 2000, and about 85 percent since 1912, according to a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The study’s lead author, Ohio State University glaciologist Lonnie G. Thompson, said melting of this level has not occurred on Kilimanjaro in 11,700 years. The study was based on aerial photographs and examination of long stakes of the ice core collected nine years ago. When those samples were extracted in 2000, Thompson found high volumes of bubbles in the upper…

• 
  GreenBiz.com Green Business News

• Business Owners Beware: Quick Fixes Can Cost More Than Smart Energy Savings Strategies

  GreenerBuildings Staff

  4 Nov 2009 | 2:53 pm

  Looking to save a little money this fall and winter by turning down the thermostats in your offices? Think again before you fiddle with those temperatures settings. Doing that alone could cost you far more than you save, especially if employees take their workplace comfort into their own hands.

• Energy Dept. Shells Out Another Half-Billion Dollars in Stimulus Funds

  GreenBiz Staff

  4 Nov 2009 | 11:30 am

  A slew of new renewable energy and energy efficiency projects funded by the Department of Energy in the past week adds another $531 million to the stimulus funds already handed out this year.

• The Anthozoans Are Coming to Save Us! Corals Offer Concrete Solutions to Our Carbon Woes

  Tom McKeag

  4 Nov 2009 | 11:30 am

  The method corals use for building their homes is worlds away from the way humans have been making cement and concrete, but one company has developed an innovative method for using seawater (which corals also utilize to make calcium) to both make cement and sequester carbon dioxide.  

• Cadbury and Sprint to Save Tons of Waste with New Greener Packaging

  GreenBiz Staff

  4 Nov 2009 | 10:13 am

  Cadbury will abandon its customary round metal tins in favor of square, recyclable cardboard boxes for its Roses and Heroes chocolate lines, while Sprint's new recyclable casing for its wireless accessories will save the company about $2.1 million a year.

• Owens Corning Works to Keep Roof Shingles Out of Landfills

  GreenBiz Staff

  3 Nov 2009 | 1:33 pm

  The company's Preferred Roofing Contractors who pledge to recycle their shingle tear-offs will be able to take them to drop-off recycling and processing centers provided by Heritage Environmental Services.

• 
  Reuters: Environment

• California water plan aims change Gold Rush thinking

  4 Nov 2009 | 4:49 pm

  OAKLAND, California (Reuters) - California legislators on Wednesday struck a truce in their water wars that could set off the biggest spending spree on water in half a century and aims to satisfy environmentalists, unemployed farmers and the cities of Los Angeles and San Francisco.

• U.S. climate envoy takes aim at developing nations

  4 Nov 2009 | 3:00 pm

  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - As a top American diplomat accused developing countries of inaction on global warming, a coalition of senators on Wednesday stepped up efforts to break a political deadlock that has choked U.S. steps on climate change.

• Poor urge deep climate cuts

  4 Nov 2009 | 10:52 am

  BARCELONA, Spain (Reuters) - Developing countries said on Wednesday they risked "total destruction" unless the rich stepped up the fight against climate change to a level that even the United Nations says is out of reach.

• Study finds vital peatlands neglected

  4 Nov 2009 | 7:13 am

  BARCELONA, Spain (Reuters) - Draining and burning of the world's peat bogs accounts for about 5.5 percent of global carbon emissions but are currently excluded from governments' climate targets and U.N. talks, a study found on Wednesday.

• Nicholas Stern sees good chance for deal in Copenhagen

  4 Nov 2009 | 7:09 am

  BERLIN (Reuters) - World powers have a "very good chance" of reaching a political deal to target global curbs in carbon emissions at a U.N. conference in Copenhagen next month, British climate change expert Nicholas Stern said on Wednesday.

• 
  Great Green Goods - Shopping the Eco-friendly Way!

• Recycled Bags by Maria Buzina

  green

  1 Nov 2009 | 8:14 pm

  If you love color, these are the bags for you! Created and hand painted by Brazilian Artisist Gabi Goncalves, these gorgeous bags are made from recycled truck tarps. So they start off their life functional and utilitarian as truck tarps …then when their use is done, they are recycled in to these beautiful one-of-a-kind bags that will last forever. Lots of different sizes, styles and prices to choose from at EarthLover Shopping EarthLover Shopping is a new advertiser on GreatGreenGoods and we are grateful to their support!

• Don’t Just Buy Handmade – Buy Upcycled Handmade

  green

  27 Oct 2009 | 8:44 pm

  Those are the words of wisdom from Rhonda Brewer-Chaparro aka “oddartist”. This prolific (and eco-friendly) California artist has an Etsy shop, but these racy earrings (made from the ‘tasty parts’ of recycled romance novels) are from her Zibbet shop. The line is called Naughty Bits, and of course, you’ll never find the same bit of naughtiness twice! $12.00 for each pair of earrings at Zibbet (folks, this is a serious good deal!!) Found through the GreatGreenGoods Facebook fanpage

• Eco-friendly magnets

  green

  24 Oct 2009 | 2:26 pm

  Hey folks, you know the dreaded holidays are coming up and you’ll need little gifts to give the cube-mates and your hair dresser and the lady who is so helpful at the dry cleaners. Grab a bunch of these NOW! and have them on hand to give out when you need a little eco-friendly gift! Everyone needs magnets and these are made out of recycled fabric, recycled telephone books and recycled junk mail. $15.00 for a set of 4 at HumbleRaeLord’s Etsy Shop

• Recycled copper creations by Beryl

  green

  17 Oct 2009 | 3:48 pm

  Created from recycled roof copper, you need to check out the work of Minnesotan artist Beryl Wells Hamilton. Her functional pieces: baskets, bowls, fountains, bird baths and boxes are often treated with boric acid, heated to red hot and then quenched in water resulting in beautiful colors and patinas. She also has a line of decorative figures which are whimsical and cute. You can choose between frogs, turtles, pigs, roosters and more. I recommend her site if you are looking for an early xmas present or a winter wedding gifts. Beautiful and ecofriendly! Prices range from $60.00- $90.00 for…

• Bee habitat sculptures created from recycled materials

  green

  11 Oct 2009 | 5:14 pm

  Tucson artist and landscape designer Greg Corman and metal artist, Tidi Ozer have teamed up to create sculptures and garden art from recycled wood and steel that doubles as a habitat for stingless, solitary, native bees. In the US alone there are more than 4000 species of these native bees! Many of them lack habitat for nesting in urban landscapes. The bees that nest in these bee habitat pieces occur across the US, so they have ecological value everywhere. (The bees that are attracted to these habitats are NOT honeybees and do not sting.) If you want more info on native bees, this is a…

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  msnbc.com: Environment

• Can Senate trio salvage a climate bill?

  4 Nov 2009 | 2:16 pm

  A trio of senators — each with differing politics —  on Wednesday announced a rescue effort for troubled climate legislation and quickly got some key backing.

• California OKs $11 billion for water overhaul

  4 Nov 2009 | 1:46 pm

  California lawmakers on Wednesday passed an $11.1 billion overhaul of the state's antiquated water system in a bid to supply a soaring population while preserving a fragile environment.

• Arctic fishing soon to be limited

  4 Nov 2009 | 11:45 am

  A plan that puts a large area of the Arctic off-limits to commercial fishing goes into effect Dec. 3, federal officials said.

• Timor Sea oil leak reportedly plugged

  4 Nov 2009 | 7:59 am

  An oil rig that had been leaking into the Timor Sea for 10 weeks was plugged Tuesday, and a massive fire blazing aboard the structure was largely extinguished, the rig operator said.

• 82 hatchlings offer hope for green sea turtles

  3 Nov 2009 | 1:14 pm

  The population of endangered green sea turtles at SeaWorld in San Diego grew by 82 in October when the eggs hatched on Shipwreck Beach without human help.

• 
  bizjournals Green - View Environmental Green Business News

• Wake Tech Cuts Ribbon on "Greenest" New Building

  20 Oct 2009 | 12:02 pm

  CONTACT Laurie Clowers               919-866-5929 (office) 919-337-2240 (cell) lcclowers@waketech.edu   FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE   Wake Tech Cuts Ribbon on “Greenest” New Building   Facility on Northern Wake Campus to Meet LEED Silver Certification       RALEIGH, N.C.  (October 20, 2009) — Educators, business leaders, elected officials and Wake Tech Trustees joined Dr. Stephen Scott, President of Wake Technical Community College, in cutting the ribbon for the newest building at the…

• Horizon Builders Honored as one of America's Top Firms at the 2009 Builder's Choice Design & Planning Awards

  20 Oct 2009 | 9:38 am

   Firm strengthens awards portfolio with Wm. S. Marvin Hall of Fame induction   Crofton, Md. -- October 13, 2009 -- Horizon Builders, a firm specializing in the construction of architect-designed, custom homes in the mid-Atlantic region, and Custom Home magazine’s 2009 Builder of the Year, announced today that it was inducted into BUILDER magazine’s Wm. S. Marvin Hall of Fame for Design Excellence. BUILDER is the magazine of the National Association of Home Builders and as such, this honor further strengthens the firm’s already significant awards portfolio. Horizon Builders was…

• West Village- Triangle Business Journal GREEN Award Winner

  9 Oct 2009 | 9:20 am

  The Triangle Business Journal released it's list of 2009 Green Awards winners, recognizing those in the Triangle who have successfully incorporated environmentally sustainable practices into their businesses and in their communities. West Village Urban Loft Apartments is the winner under the Green Building Management Project category. West Village was developed and is owned by Blue Devil Partners, and is professionally managed by Drucker & Falk, LLC. West Village has 453 urban loft apartments and 250,000 square feet of commercial and retail space in the heart of Downtown Durham. With…

• How To Sustain Your Sustainability Efforts: Ongoing Assessments, New Targets and Integrated Systems

  25 Sep 2009 | 6:06 am

  (by Roxane Peyser)   You've started to implement your sustainability initiatives, but you know there's still a journey ahead. In fact, sustainability is a lot like life in the sense that it's precisely about the journey, and not the destination. So where do you go from here? When companies complete their initial sustainability projects, they often hit that fork in the road that can leave them feeling confused about which direction they should head in - and this fork has more than two options. And that's the good news: your company has multiple, almost limitless options available to it as…

• To lead or not to lead

  25 Sep 2009 | 5:36 am

  maurgood's Michael Sater spoke during several sessions at the September 2009 GreenBusiness Works Expo in Atlanta, GA about the numerous opportunities incorporating green - or sustainability - into business practice provides your brand with. These benefits include the ability to increase competitive advantage, develop a great reputation and lead to an enhanced ROI.  "Brand stories always trump facts and data," said Sater, the managing principal at maurgood. "The back-story of a product is just as important; the who, what, when, where, why and how of the supply chain." The answers to these…

• 
  greenUPGRADER

• 4 Ways To Cut Over-Idling From Your Car’s Winter Routine

  Beth Buczynski

  4 Nov 2009 | 12:28 pm

  For most of us, winter is just around the corner, or as is the case in my Colorado town, you may have already experienced some of the ice and snow that make this season exciting and difficult all at the same time. Many people try to use alternative transportation in the Spring and Summer when [...] Related posts:Save Some Energy this Winter with a Draft Dodger The weather is starting to cool off. I don’t...Swimming au Naturale: Ways to Green Your Pool Sticky summer weather makes us long to be submerged in...Spring Gardens Start With Winter Reading It would be great if we could simply…

• Naturally Sustainable Packaging: Apple Cider in Apple Cups

  Becky Striepe

  3 Nov 2009 | 10:20 am

  We’re all about simple, green alternatives to disposables around here. Not only do these apple cider cups fit that bill, they’re seasonal, too! These look incredibly easy to make and perfect for any Fall-themed shindig. The super-savvy Red Dirt Mother just cut the tops off of apples that she and her kiddos had picked and used [...] Related posts:Naturally Sustainable Packaging: Sasa-dango Talk about sustainable packaging… These Sasa-dangos (mochi pounded rice...Scourge of the Forest: Disposable Coffee Cups Disposable coffee cups are responsible for the deaths of over...How…

• ThredUP Online Clothing Swap

  Becky Striepe

  29 Oct 2009 | 1:55 pm

  Let’s be honest here for a minute. We’ve all got some things in our closets that we haven’t worn in years. Maybe it’s that pair of jeans that we’re hoping to one day fit back into. Maybe it’s a top that’s great in theory but just doesn’t seem to go with anything. [...] Related posts:Purge and Swap! Clothing Swap The Purge and Swap event at the Hi-Dive Bar...Bags Reincarnated by Juja and Stone Juja & Stone breath new life into old clothes and...Beijing Memory Porcelain Constructed Clothing Li Xiaofeng is a Chinese artist that creates…

• Handmade Halloween: Easy Fabric Scrap Garland

  Becky Striepe

  27 Oct 2009 | 12:45 pm

  Halloween is almost here, and I’ve been in spooky decoration-mode for a few weeks. The plan is to have all handmade decorations for our Halloween party this year. My fingers are crampy from cutting out bats and I’ll be honest - things were going a bit more slowly than I would have liked. That is, until [...] Related posts:How to Have a Handmade Halloween Halloween is almost here! If you’re like me, you’re...DIY: Fresh Fabric Scrap Bouquet Spring is here! I want to bring my mother-in-law a...DIY: Make Your Swiffer Guilt Free Oh, Swiffer! You are so convenient; why must…

• Wine in a box : the Eco-oenophile’s Dilemma

  Samantha Tackeff

  26 Oct 2009 | 3:31 pm

  Last week, I took advantage of my part time status as a food blogger (here and here), to attend a FoodBuzz Community Table dinner at Spruce in San Francsico’s Presidio neighborhood, sponsored by Black Box Wines. I’ve been dying to patronize Spruce since trying Chef Mark Sullivan’s most blissful carrot soup at the Taste of [...] Related posts:DIY Upcycled Wine Bottle Gas Lamp Upcycle an old wine bottle into an eclectic porch gas...Gardening and Wine Drinking: A Match Made in DIY Heaven? We love to entertain and hate to toss out...Sleep it Off Inside a Wine Cask Ever found…

• 
  Huffington Post: Latest Green News

• Lindsey Graham Rebukes Fellow Republicans: "The Green Economy Is Coming"

  The Huffington Post News Team

  4 Nov 2009 | 2:12 pm

  Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) chastised his fellow Republicans Wednesday for refusing to deal with climate change and said they needed to see green legislation as something that could help business. "I am no scientist, but I've ... seen the effects of a warming planet," he said in a press conference. "The green economy is coming. We can either follow or lead. And those countries who follow will pay a price. Those nations who lead in creating the new green economy for the world will make money." "If you can't participate in solving a hard problem, why are you up here?" he asked. Watch, via…

• Petroleum Lobby Joins Newsweek To Host Climate Change Conference

  The Huffington Post News Team

  4 Nov 2009 | 11:53 am

  Unlikely duo Newsweek magazine and the American Petroleum Institute will host an exclusive event for lawmakers focused on climate change and energy issues, reports Talking Points Memo. "Climate and Energy Policy: Moving?" will feature AIP's CEO, Jack Gerard, and Newsweek columnist Howard Fineman will moderate the discussion. It isn't clear if the discussion is on or off the record. API spent $2.1 million lobbying the federal government and the Environmental Protection Agency in the third quarter of this year, according to lobbying disclosure reports -- positioning itself as a staunch opponent…

• Eating Animals: Jonathan Safran Foer Talks To Ellen About His New Book (VIDEO)

  The Huffington Post News Team

  4 Nov 2009 | 11:17 am

  Jonathan Safran Foer spoke with Ellen Degeneres today about his new book, Eating Animals, which uncovers the horrible world of factory farming. (Check out HuffPost's series of conversations about the book here!) He explained his mission writing the book, and how becoming a new father drove him to action. He also challenged environmentalists to step up to the plate -- factory farming, he said, contributes to global warming more than any other factor. What little steps can we take to changing the way we eat? Foer says the most important thing is to inform yourself, and learn as much as you can…

• Rodell Vereen's Sex With Horse Nets Him 3 Years Prison

  The Huffington Post News Team

  4 Nov 2009 | 11:09 am

  CONWAY, S.C. — A South Carolina man caught on video having sex with a horse was sentenced Wednesday to three years in prison after pleading guilty for the second time in two years to abusing the creature. Rodell Vereen was also ordered never to go near the stable where the horse's owner caught him and held him for authorities at shotgun point over the summer. He apologized to the woman and to himself after admitting to buggery at the Horry County courthouse. "I'm sorry about what I've done. I didn't mean to do it. It's my fault. I'm sorry for what I've done to myself," Vereen said…

• Cow Prosthetics: CSU Scientists Give Calf A Pair Of Artificial Legs

  The Huffington Post News Team

  4 Nov 2009 | 10:29 am

  ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Meadow the yearling Black Angus calf spends her days frolicking in northeastern New Mexico's cattle country, all with her prosthetic hind legs. The bucolic scene seemed impossible just a few months ago, when rancher Nancy Dickenson and her stepdaughter, Martha, found Meadow on a neighbor's property. The 11-month-old calf had lost her back hooves and half of her ears to severe frostbite. The Dickensons have rescued dozens of animals and wanted to give Meadow a chance to walk normally again. They located the calf's owner and bought Meadow, and convinced veterinarians…

• 
  Huffington Post: The Green Blog

• Brendan DeMelle: Why Developing Countries Cannot Afford Failure In Copenhagen

  Brendan DeMelle

  4 Nov 2009 | 4:45 pm

  The African delegation insisted today in Barcelona that its decision to walk out on negotiations Tuesday was necessary in order to jolt the intransigent European Union and other developed nations to move forward with serious discussions, rather than obstruct progress by bringing only lofty rhetoric and no numbers to the negotiating table. The plan seems to have worked, albeit temporarily, as negotiations resumed today about how to extend the Kyoto Protocol and forge binding agreements with the West to slash emissions and provide cash to developing nations to deal with climate shocks and…

• Dana Joy Altman: Real Food Rehab: How to Get Out Of A Salad Rut

  Dana Joy Altman

  4 Nov 2009 | 1:20 pm

  Salad culture in this country has changed so much since I was a young. Back then iceberg wedges and Julienne Salads reigned the day. I rarely see them anymore except at a steakhouse, diner or deli which I enjoy but rarely frequent. Now, it seems to me almost every casual American restaurant dishes out slightly altered versions of the same two or three salads -- and they've just been done to death. You know the ones I'm talking about. And more often than not they're mediocre and mediocre isn't satisfying. Perhaps we're in a salad rut and maybe it's time to re-think what salad could be. This is…

• Bill Chameides: Can We Put a Brake on Homely Emissions?

  Bill Chameides

  4 Nov 2009 | 1:02 pm

  Originally published at thegreengrok.comLooking for the key to getting a jump on cutting U.S. greenhouse gas emissions? It may be in our homes. As efforts drag on to get national and international carbon policies in place, researchers and policy makers have turned their attention to less ambitious measures. Expanding the Montreal Protocol to address the heat-trapping properties of replacements for ozone-depleters or cutting emissions of heat-trapping soot or black carbon are two ideas being floated. A new paper by Tom Dietz of Michigan State University and co-authors in the Proceedings of the…

• Pete Altman: Is the US Chamber Changing its Tune, or Just its Tone?

  Pete Altman

  4 Nov 2009 | 12:58 pm

  Yesterday the US Chamber sent a letter to Senators Boxer and Inhofe about the climate bill. It seemed to be singing a new tune on climate policy, leading Senator Kerry to wonder whether the letter reflects a real change in the Chamber's position.  While we welcome the US Chamber's desire to sound more constructive, reading in between the lines - and reading the lines themselves - raises big questions about how much the Chamber's objectives have really changed - setting aside their obvious need to strike a more conciliatory tone. Which prompts us to contemplate how we'll know…

• David Bronner: Bring In the Organic Police

  David Bronner

  4 Nov 2009 | 11:55 am

  I am President of Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps, a 60-year-old family company founded by my German-Jewish grandfather, Dr. Emmanuel Bronner in 1948. We produce the best-selling natural brand of liquid and bar soap in the United States from formulas that have been in my family for over 150 years. Organic personal care for us and our customers is about traditional time-honored recipes handed down through generations, based on ingredients produced from organic agriculture with a bare minimum of synthetics and processing. Beginning in the 1940s, the world was flooded with cheaply-made synthetics,…

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  Yahoo! News: Environment News

• 3 senators join forces to rescue climate bill (AP)

  4 Nov 2009 | 2:42 pm

  AP - A trio of senators with differing political views is working behind-the-scenes to rescue troubled climate legislation.

• Great Whites hang out in Pacific's 'shark cafe' (AFP)

  4 Nov 2009 | 1:56 pm

  AFP - Great Whites may be loners, but the ocean's most feared predators also hang out together between Mexico and Hawaii at a deep sea watering hole known as the "White Shark Cafe," a study released Wednesday reveals.

• Amazon deforestation slows: Brazil (AFP)

  4 Nov 2009 | 11:54 am

  AFP - Brazil lost 400 square kilometers (154 square miles) of Amazon jungle in September, but deforestation slowed by a third compared with the same month last year, according to official data released Wednesday.

• UN climate pact work moves on, deadline in doubt (AP)

  4 Nov 2009 | 11:18 am

  AP - Negotiators at a U.N. climate conference in Spain further defined plans for reducing greenhouse emissions and continued work on a draft climate change treaty, with next month's deadline for a legal document increasingly in doubt.

• Poor urge deep climate cuts (Reuters)

  4 Nov 2009 | 10:52 am

  Reuters - Developing countries said on Wednesday they risked "total destruction" unless the rich stepped up the fight against climate change to a level that even the United Nations says is out of reach.

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  GreenerBuildings

• Business Owners Beware: Quick Fixes Can Cost More Than Smart Energy Savings Strategies

  GreenerBuildings Staff

  4 Nov 2009 | 2:53 pm

  Looking to save a little money this fall and winter by turning down the thermostats in your offices? Think again before you fiddle with those temperatures settings. Doing that alone could cost you far more than you save, especially if employees take their workplace comfort into their own hands.

• SeriousWindows Selected by Largest Weatherization Agency in U.S.

  GreenerBuildings Staff

  3 Nov 2009 | 11:56 pm

  Serious Materials, the California company that specializes in energy efficient, eco-friendly building products, is supplying its super-insulating SeriousWindows to the Community and Economic Development Association of Cook County, the largest weatherization agency in the United States.

• Owens Corning Works to Keep Roof Shingles Out of Landfills

  GreenBiz Staff

  3 Nov 2009 | 1:33 pm

  The company's Preferred Roofing Contractors who pledge to recycle their shingle tear-offs will be able to take them to drop-off recycling and processing centers provided by Heritage Environmental Services.

• Hotel Guests Need Help Staying Green on the Road, Study Finds

  Sookhan So

  3 Nov 2009 | 3:19 am

  A study by researchers at Virginia Tech's Pamplkn College of Business finds that even individuals who are resource-efficient at home are much more wasteful when on the road, and stronger education programs are needed to bridge this gap.

• Shining a Light on Climate Change Risk Faced by Companies

  Shari Shapiro

  2 Nov 2009 | 1:12 pm

  The SEC has changed its metrics for determining when shareholder resolutions regarding climate change risk must be included in SEC documents. The move is expected to make it easier for shareholders to demand disclosure of such risks to their investments.

• 
  Science Daily: Earth & Climate News

• Timber Harvest Impacts Amphibians Differently During Life Stages

  4 Nov 2009 | 8:00 pm

  Researchers found that removing all of the trees from a section of the forest had a negative effect on amphibians during their later life cycles, but had some positive effects during amphibians' aquatic larva stages at the beginning of their lives. To lessen the negative effects during the later life stage, scientists recommend partial or selection cuts to forests rather than completely removing trees from an area.

• Calm Before The Spawn: Climate Change And Coral Spawning

  4 Nov 2009 | 8:00 pm

  Biologists have explained why corals spawn for just a few nights in some places but elsewhere string out their love life over many months. A new study shows that corals spawn when regional wind fields are light. When it is calm, the eggs and sperm have the chance to unite before they are dispersed.

• Green Is Cool, But US Land Changes Generally Are Not

  4 Nov 2009 | 5:00 pm

  Most land use changes occurring in the continental US result in raised regional surface temperatures, according to new research. The study found that almost any change that makes land cover less "green" contributes to warming. A perhaps less intuitive finding is that conversion of any land to agricultural use results in cooling, even land that was previously forested.

• North Atlantic Fish Populations Shifting As Ocean Temperatures Warm

  4 Nov 2009 | 2:00 pm

  About half of 36 fish stocks in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean, many of them commercially valuable species, have been shifting northward over the last four decades, with some stocks nearly disappearing from US waters as they move farther offshore, according to a new study.

• Newly Drilled Ice Cores May Be The Longest Taken From The Andes

  4 Nov 2009 | 2:00 pm

  Researchers spent two months this summer high in the Peruvian Andes and brought back two cores, the longest ever drilled from ice fields in the tropics. This latest expedition focused on a yet-to-be-named ice field 5,364 meters above sea level in the Cordillera Blanca mountain range.

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  Greener Computing

• ICT's Carbon Impacts Must Figure into Copenhagen Talks, Analysts Say

  GreenerComputing Staff

  4 Nov 2009 | 4:45 am

  At the U.N. Climate Change talks in Barcelona this week, industry experts are calling on policymakers to find ways to spur investments in information technologies that can help cut companies' and countries' greenhouse gas emissions.

• U.S. Continues to Lag on E-Waste Policies

  Matthew Wheeland

  3 Nov 2009 | 2:07 pm

  A study out in the latest issue of Science maps out the patchwork of policies that pass for regulations on the disposal of electronic waste, showing how progress on responsible recycling is coming either from states and regions or private enterprises.

• Cisco to Put TelePresence to Work in Reducing Copenhagen's Emissions

  ClimateBiz Staff

  2 Nov 2009 | 4:17 pm

  The company announced a partnership with the United Nations to tie 100 virtual-meeting rooms to the climate change summit, allowing more people to participate in the event while cutting emissions from avoided travel to the conference.

• Greenpeace Takes IT Giants to Task on Climate Action

  GreenerComputing Staff

  2 Nov 2009 | 1:45 pm

  Google, Microsoft and IBM are singled out for not doing enough to put IT's power to work on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, in the latest release of Greenpeace's Cool IT Challenge.

• Answers to Green Marketers' Questions on Ecolabels

  admin

  2 Nov 2009 | 9:35 am

  GreenBiz.com’s October 15, 2009 webinar on "The Green Marketing Landscape: Ratings, Labels, and Certifications" yielded far more questions than we had time to answer during the allotted 60 minutes. We've selected questions from among the hundreds asked and submitted them to our three speakers, who graciously provided answers.

• 
  Ecolect Blog

• Lavazza Cookie Cup by Enrique Luis Sardi

  Alberto Villarreal

  13 Oct 2009 | 10:01 pm

  Photo: Fabrizio Esposito Venezuelan designer Enrique Luis Sardi has teamed up with Italian coffee company Lavazza to create a master piece of green design: Cookie cup. First you drink the coffee, then you eat the cup! Brilliant. And perhaps many of us have thought of something like this at some point, but they did it! “The cup is [...]

• A Better World by Design Conference

  ecolect

  4 Oct 2009 | 6:52 am

  Today marks the last day of the Better World by Design Conference between Rhode Island School of Design and Brown University. This year, the conference has grown to 500 attendees from all over the globe. The event has brought together a global community of innovators to Providence, Rhode Island, to reach across disciplines and unite [...]

• Weatherizing Buildings 101

  corine

  20 Sep 2009 | 7:55 pm

  Image via www.thebarrierinsulation.com Did you know that in 2004 residential buildings in the United States used 21 percent of the nations energy consumption? The *2030 challenge demands that existing buildings reduce fossil-fuel dependence by 50 percent. Weatherization can help fight global warming by reducing the heating and cooling requirements of buildings. It involves building remodeling with [...]

• The Buckminster Fuller Challenge 2010

  Alberto Villarreal

  19 Sep 2009 | 11:27 am

  The Buckminster Fuller Institute is currently accepting entries for the 2010 Challenge. The deadline is midnight, Eastern Time on October 30, 2009. Based on Buckminster Fuller’s intention: “to make the world work for 100% of humanity, in the shortest possible time, through spontaneous cooperation without ecological offense or disadvantage of anyone”, each year the institute organizes [...]

• Sustainable Minds, process-oriented LCA software

  Alberto Villarreal

  18 Jul 2009 | 11:08 am

  Sustainable Minds has developed a process-oriented software for Life Cycle Assessment.  Compared to other similar tools, this one is very suitable for designers and product developers to assess early concepts during the design process. Related Posts: Life Cycle Assessment Calculator Private: Eco-Labels 101

• 
  Good Guide

• Denmark Exposes the Risks of Two-Year Olds

  Alastair

  29 Oct 2009 | 9:02 pm

  With two young nephews, I’m very concerned about their exposures to chemicals in consumer products and food, since we don’t know how all the chemicals may add up or how they may interact. Based on what science we do have, it’s possible that multiple chemical exposures may lead to much higher risks. With strong government support, scientists working in Europe continue to shed more light on these risks. Last week, Denmark’s Environmental Protection Agency released a stunning report by three researchers on the total exposure of two-year olds to selected endocrine disrupting chemicals in…

• Are Froot Loops a "Smart Choice"?

  Dara

  23 Oct 2009 | 11:58 pm

  Smart Choices, an industry-supported initiative to certify foods for nutritional benefits, is under fire in the press and the halls of government. At issue is the fact that products such as Froot Loops, Lucky Charms, Cocoa Crispies, Ritz Bitz Peanut Butter Chocolately Blast crackers, Mayonnaise, and Fudgesicles receive the Smart Choices “green check” of approval. Critics lament that while products such as Froot Loops do contain fiber, vitamins, and minerals, they also contain 12 grams of sugar per serving - which is 41% of the product by weight. The media has had no problem finding…

• Healthy and Sustainable Seafood

  Dara

  20 Oct 2009 | 9:04 am

  Finding safe, healthy, and sustainable seafood may have just gotten a lot easier. The Monterey Bay Aquarium released a new report today on the State of Seafood, along with what they call “The Super Green List” of seafood that is both healthy and sustainably harvested. This list responds to a concern of many consumers over the last few years. While it was possible to find out which species of fish were most over-fished from one set of websites and lists, it required looking to other websites and lists to find out which fish were likely to contain the most mercury, PCBs, and other…

• Endocrine Disruptors and Food

  Alastair

  14 Oct 2009 | 6:26 pm

  Endocrine disrupting chemicals, which can interfere with the hormone system, potentially harming people’s ability to have kids, and children’s healthy development, have been in the news a lot lately. These chemicals have been identified in a wide range of personal care products. What’s not as well known, is that foods may also be an important pathway of exposure to endocrine disruptors. Not surprisingly, Europe is ahead of the United States in testing foods for endocrine disruptors. Since 2004, a network of European scientists, called CASCADE, has published over one hundred papers that…

• EPA Moving Towards New Rules for Chemical Regulation

  Alastair

  8 Oct 2009 | 8:46 pm

  GoodGuide users are concerned about the environmental and health impacts of chemicals used in consumer products. Unfortunately, many chemicals on the market have not been tested thoroughly for their safety. This is largely due to the antiquated Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), which makes it nearly impossible for regulators to step in, even when chemicals are shown to be risky. Last week, Lisa Jackson, the new Administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency, gave a surprising speech. Previously, experts had thought that the Obama Administration wasn’t prioritizing chemicals…

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  EcoTech Daily

• The Daily Five: Wednesday, 04 November, 2009

  David Quilty

  4 Nov 2009 | 1:00 am

  Giants’ Danny Clark drives a Smart; Japan buries greenhouse gases; Probe to track climate change; San Diego gets $154 million for solar; Methanol fuel cells for gadgets Giants’ Danny Clark Chose to Go Green With a Smart Car D, N.J. — Danny Clark of the Giants says he gets a lot of long looks from curious motorists when he drives his Smart car between Manhattan and the team’s practice complex in New Jersey. But the glances turn to stares and smiles when he parks his 1,600-pound vehicle and his 6-foot-2, 245-pound body emerges from behind the wheel. Japan aims to bury greenhouse gas…

• Build These Solar Heaters To Heat Your Home For Free During The Day.

  David Quilty

  3 Nov 2009 | 10:25 am

  I originally wrote this article for my site, The Good Human, but because it is “EcoTech” oriented I figured it should probably be here as well. My landlord just installed 2 of these solar heaters - 10 days before I move out, which stinks. But for the next 10 days, I plan on running these heaters all day long to heat up the house for absolutely no cost to me. In an effort to try to explain what my landlord did, I took a few pictures of the heaters and will do my best to explain how they work. Each heater is basically a sealed wooden box sitting on a small cement foundation and…

• The Daily Five: Tuesday, 03 November, 2009

  David Quilty

  3 Nov 2009 | 1:00 am

  Solar-Powered EV Charging Station; Habitat for Humanity and PG&E; China-U.S. Group Plans to Build Texas Wind Farm; Mitsubishi iMiEV; Zero Emissions Electric Bus Toyota Developing Solar-Powered EV Charging Station Toyota Industries Corp. announced that it is developing an electric car charging station composed of solar cells and storage batteries at Tokyo Motor Show 2009. Habitat for Humanity and PG&E Support Green Neighborhood CA Recently we took the trip to Oakland, CA to visit a Habitat for Humanity East Bay Project of particular interest for its pairing of energy-efficient homes…

• The Daily Five: Monday, 02 November, 2009

  David Quilty

  2 Nov 2009 | 1:00 am

  Air Force Base going Solar; USPS Electric Vehicle; Volkswagen Natural Gas Eco-Racing Class; Neuber Energy Sun Bag; U.S. biofuel sector finds lenders wary Air Force Base Community to Rely 75% on Solar The Soaring Heights Community at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base will become the largest solar-powered community in the continental U.S., upon completion. USPS Electric Vehicle This makes perfect sense. Smith and AM General are developing a prototype battery-powered version of the Long Life Vehicle used by the US Postal Service. Volkswagen Launches Natural Gas Eco-Racing Class VW is known for its…

• The Daily Five: Friday, 30 October, 2009

  David Quilty

  30 Oct 2009 | 2:00 am

  Golf BlueMotion; EPA’s Green Power Schools Ranking; Tesla breaks record; Xcel Energy to add more solar; Solar Race Cars Volkswagen launches Golf BlueMotion Volkswagen has just launched the new BlueMotion Golf in the European market and it is the most efficient Golf ever. The new model is rated at 61.9 mpg (U.S.) on the EU combined driving cycle with carbon dioxide emissions of just 99 g/km. TX, NY and MD Schools Top EPA’s Green Power Schools Ranking Schools in New York, Texas and Maryland top the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s inaugural ranking of the top 20 primary and…

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  Forbes: Energy News

• The Carbon Question

  3 Nov 2009 | 2:00 pm

  Expect this December's Copenhagen conference to disappoint backers. Maybe they're looking for answers in the wrong places?

• Interactive: The World's Dirtiest Power Plants

  3 Nov 2009 | 12:58 pm

  Sixty percent of the world's electricity comes from plants burning fossil fuels and releasing carbon. Many of the highest-emission plants are concentrated in the United States and East Asia. Here, a look at the world's 200 biggest carbon offenders among power plants. Roll over any plant for more information.

• Eat My Carbon

  3 Nov 2009 | 9:00 am

  What to do with the world's fossil fuel pollution? Why not feed it to plants?

• Bury Our Carbon At Sea

  3 Nov 2009 | 9:00 am

  Here's an innovative business model that may be one way to afford the clean coal chimera.

• The Carbon Counters

  3 Nov 2009 | 9:00 am

  If you want to cut your output, first you've got to know what it is. A whole new industry is ready to help.

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  ecopop RSS feed

• OPPOSITE DAY!

  It was a small gallery and book store dedicated to the art of children's books. The art was good and inspiring and in Abilene of all places. Why? Because the mayor at the time was curious to know why a children's book had so many mentions of Abilene.

• Art From Fire.

  ART from the ashes has announced its first exhibition, artist reception and silent auction at Cisco Home in Pasadena, California. The exhibition will run from November 1-15 and the silent auction will take place on November 1st. Proceeds from the auction will go to benefit Meta (Making Education the Answer).

• Molotov Cocktails and Ice Cream Smiles.

  The Anarchist Ice Cream Truck, a NY ice cream company that serves treats for the streets with a side of anarchy. Meet Aaron Gach, a 34-year old entrepreneur who is taking his hi-tech Ice Cream Tactical Unit to the streets.

• Helping The Homeless Help Themselves.

  In a recent article from the Oregon State Wire, we learned that, in Corvallis, the homeless were being hired to count the homeless. It seems like a no-brainer but it got us thinking.

• Billboards Provide Disaster Relief.

  We've often wondered about these space-holder ads and if they couldn't work a little harder or be put to better use. One idea we had a few years back was to have local artists create billboard art using a series of sentences like "This Space For Rent" and "Your Ad Here." Our driver liked that idea and said he'd "Get 'r done".

• 
  The Good Human

• Greenwash Of The Week: Nestle Pure Life Water.

  david

  4 Nov 2009 | 6:30 am

  I don’t really have much to say other than…yea, right. Nestle’s ad campaign for their Pure Life water touts the fact that their bottles use 15% less plastic because of their “Eco-Shape”. Um… There is absolutely nothing green or eco about water packaged in plastic bottles. Nothing. And as I always do when posts like this go live, if you need more reasons to avoid bottled water you can check out my post 12 Reasons To Stop Drinking Bottled Water. Nice try, Nestle, nice try. Post from: The Good HumanGreenwash Of The Week: Nestle Pure Life Water. You may also…

• Saving Money On Gas Is Not A Good Reason To Pay Extra For Hybrids

  david

  3 Nov 2009 | 6:30 am

  Why? Because it is not all about money. It seems that every day I read somewhere or see on television the complaint of “Well, I won’t buy a hybrid because it would take me years and years to make back the extra expense over a regular gas engine“. Though saving money on gasoline should be a major consideration when deciding on buying any car, it is NOT the only thing you should be thinking of. But unfortunately too many people see it this way. What else should they be thinking of when making this decision? For starters, hybrid cars pollute a lot less than conventional…

• Video: Katie Couric Interviews Al Gore.

  david

  2 Nov 2009 | 5:09 pm

  Watch CBS News Videos Online Post from: The Good HumanVideo: Katie Couric Interviews Al Gore. You may also enjoy:Which Is More Eco-Friendly: Netflix Or A Video Store?Video: Repower America Campaign Update.

• We Need A Stringent Auto Emissions Policy Nationwide ASAP.

  david

  2 Nov 2009 | 5:30 am

  Why is it that all 50 states in our country has different auto emissions laws? Each state government is free to decide whether to require vehicle safety inspection and only metropolitan areas whose air quality does not meet federal standards are required to implement vehicle emission inspections. Thus, only 18 states and D.C. have a periodic (annual or biannual) safety inspection program. Sure, the Federal Government tells automakers what kinds of emissions they don’t want coming out of their cars, but every state has their own version of what is “OK”. For instance, I lived…

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  EcoMetro Portland

• Meet Super Bike Commuter, Chris Bell

  EcoMetro Portland Team

  30 Oct 2009 | 9:55 am

  -Sally Bell, Advertising Manager The Bicycle Transportation Alliance’s September Bike Commuter Challenge was an all-out success. Thousands of Oregonians made first-time commutes and some committed themselves to more consistent ridership, for the sake of healthy competition, the wonders of bike commuting and good old-fashioned fun. This year’s Brian Reynold’s distance award winner happens to also be my husband, Chris Bell.  Chris is the most modest super commuter you’ll ever meet and he logged well over 1800 miles in the month of September, making the trek from our home in SE…

• Incognito: SCRAP Fundraiser on October 29

  EcoMetro Portland Team

  23 Oct 2009 | 5:13 pm

  Incognito is a SCRAP fundraiser and dinner award party that celebrates creativity, sustainability and mystery. Evening includes drinks and dinner, auctions, awards, trashion show and musical entertainment. Costumes welcome, and masks are a must; if you arrive without one, you may purchase a mask creation from SCRAP volunteers. Order your tickets today! Oct 29, 5:30pm Cocktails and Silent Auction 7pm Awards, Dinner and Live Auction 8:30pm Transcendental Brass Band, Junk to Funk Trashion Show The Nines, 525 SW Morrison

• Portland EcoMetro Events through October 25

  EcoMetro Portland Team

  22 Oct 2009 | 2:34 pm

  Sisters of the Road Hoedown and 30th Anniversary Pull out your fancy boots and parade chaps and come hear the fabulous Old Time tunes of Uncle Earl and Casey Neil and the Norway Rats. Evening includes sit-down dinner and dessert, free wine and beer, dancing, children's activities, silent auction and more. Tickets are $85, call 503-222-5694 ext. 19 to purchase. Fri, Oct 23, 6-10pm Portland Art Museum's Kridel Grand Ballroom, 1219 SW Park Ave 350 - International Day of Climate Action October 24th is the International Day of Climate Action and that number of 350 is the parts per million…

• Celilo Group Media is Recycle at Work Certified

  EcoMetro Portland Team

  20 Oct 2009 | 10:19 am

  There’s a fun new way to stay motivated about recycling, and spotlight your business’s recycling practices. Recycle at Work is a great site sponsored by Portland’s Bureau of Planning and Sustainability. The City of Portland’s goal is to progress toward a 75% recycling goal, and businesses are being asked to complete a Progress Report to let the city know about recycling practices at work. The Recycle at Work program offers some great advice on how to reach your company’s recycling goals, with everything from how to cut back on waste to green catering. By implementing all of the…

• Portland Fashion Week Goes Green

  EcoMetro Portland Team

  19 Oct 2009 | 2:38 pm

  Portland Fashion Week draws national attention for going green! PFW used a sustainably harvested bamboo stage, eco-friendly soy-based paint, low-voltage LED lights, and corn-based biodegradable drink ware.  Even the use of electric tape was prohibited because it can’t be recycled into to raw materials. “This is the first and only sustainable production of a fashion week in the world -- not just the United States,” said Tito Chowdhury, the show’s executive producer.  Pretty impressive! To top it off, PFW rounded out the week’s events with Sustainable Sunday, a Green &…

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  green.tv

• Victories for Animals

  3 Nov 2009 | 4:00 pm

  WARNING - CONTAINS GRAPHIC FOOTAGE. We made history for animals in 2008. Watch some of the major victories The Humane Society of the United States achieved over the year.

• Living with Levees

  2 Nov 2009 | 4:00 pm

  Levees are intended to keep straitjackets on rivers, but engineers now find that controlled breaches can avoid more widespread damage to occupied areas in flood-plains. With a changing climate these fortifications may become ineffective and put people and communities at risk. Working with the natural cycle and not trying to control the forces of nature is a new way to look at flood control.

• green.tv Weekly News - October 26th 2009

  1 Nov 2009 | 4:00 pm

  All the best green highlights from the last week - from wind to waves, green voices and mobile phones...

• 'Play to Stop. Europe for Climate' Samso

  29 Oct 2009 | 5:00 pm

  The campaign 'Play to Stop. Europe for Climate' is run by the European Commission to raise awareness and to involve young people in the fight against climate change. This clip features a MTV VJ as he visits the island Samso in the North Sea . The islands' entire energy consumption is guaranteed by renewable sources.

• Easter Island's toromiro tree

  29 Oct 2009 | 5:00 pm

  Sadly now extinct in the wild, Kew Gardens has a programme to return the Easter Islanders' national tree to its native habitat and visitors to the Palm House can see this beautiful tree for themselves.

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  INHABITAT

• VOTE for Your Favorite Green Halloween Costume!

  Yuka Yoneda

  4 Nov 2009 | 2:30 pm

  VOTE NOW FOR YOUR FAVORITE GREEN HALLOWEEN COSTUME! We hope you all had a happy Halloween! Even though the festivities are officially over, you can still enjoy the spirit of the most creative holiday of the year by voting for your favorite eco costume in our Green Halloween Costume contest! We were seriously impressed with the super unique and, in many cases, insanely detailed and labor-intensive costumes that were entered. While it wasn’t easy, we pored through the pile and were finally able to narrow it down to the top 15 submissions that really blew us away. So without further ado,…

• Elwood Green: 6 Star Sustainably Built Apartment Complex

  Evelyn Lee

  4 Nov 2009 | 1:00 pm

  High Density green living is on the rise in Elwood, Australia with Crosby Architect’s new Elwood Green project. Living up to its name, the high-density apartment building will house 25 units that are expected to receive an average 6-star rating – the highest honor currently available from the Green Building Council of Australia. What comes as a bit of surprise is the lack of active systems assisting in the green rating, which just goes to show that old ingenuity and smart design can create buildings every bit as sustainable as the most high-tech structures. Read the rest of Elwood…

• Garden Sheds Are an Explosion of Architectural Experimentation

  Lloyd Alter

  4 Nov 2009 | 12:00 pm

  Mark Twain had a garden shed; he called it “the loveliest study you ever saw…octagonal with a peaked roof, each face filled with a spacious window…perched in complete isolation on the top of an elevation that commands leagues of valley and city and retreating ranges of distant blue hills. It is a cozy nest and just room in it for a sofa, table, and three or four chairs, and when the storms sweep down the remote valley and the lighting flashes behind the hills beyond and the rain beats upon the roof over my head—imagine the luxury of it.”But in recent times, the humble garden…

• Low-Energy Laser Etching Could Replace Annoying Fruit Labels

  Ariel Schwartz

  4 Nov 2009 | 9:30 am

  How many times have you bit into a piece of fruit only to find that you’re also chomping on a sticker label? The small yet wasteful labels have long been the bane of waste-conscious fruit and vegetable eaters, but that might all change thanks to new technology that uses a low-energy carbon dioxide laser beam to etch information directly onto produce. No more peeling those annoying labels! Read the rest of Low-Energy Laser Etching Could Replace Annoying Fruit Labels Permalink | Add to del.icio.us | digg Post tags: fda, grapefruit, laser etching, sticker labels, usda

• COBE Wins First Prize for Bike-Friendly Norreport Station in Copenhagen

  Bridgette Meinhold

  4 Nov 2009 | 8:00 am

  COBE Architects blasted away its competitors with a sexy and bike-friendly new design in the recent competition to redesign Copenhagen’s Norreport train station. Almost retro in its lines, the architects’ vision of the new station is composed of a series of rounded, floating roofs set upon striking glass pavilions. Since bicycles are a preferred means of transportation in Copenhagen, ample bike parking was a main feature of the new structure, and other green features will include energy-efficient lighting and natural ventilation. Read the rest of COBE Wins First Prize for…

• 
  DeSmogBlog - Clearing the PR Pollution that Clouds Climate Science

• A politically binding climate change agreement is great... if you're a politician

  Kevin Grandia

  4 Nov 2009 | 9:41 am

  iStock_000008908938XSmall.jpg The biggest news coming out of the Barcelona climate talks being held this week is the re-framing of a successful climate change treaty as being one that is "politically binding" as opposed to "legally binding." With all the long hours I've been putting into to covering these climate talks, I'm sure my wife is wishing our marriage was a politically binding agreement, as opposed to a legal one. This double-speak-aganza started earlier this week with Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen telling Reuters that, "it is a challenge for every single industrialised…

• Groups Impersonated by Big Coal Testify Before Congress

  Mitchell Anderson

  3 Nov 2009 | 3:11 pm

  bonner-logo.jpg DeSmogBlog spoke this week to one of several groups impersonated by Big Coal to block the Waxman Markey Bill, and they are not happy. Lisa Maatz, director of public policy and government relations for the American Association of University Women (AAUW) had just finished testifying before a Congressional hearing in the fraudulent letter scam: “It was very clear to me that this was specifically targeting certain members using the names of reputable groups because those groups could be influential with those members, and it wasn’t just a fluke, it wasn’t just an…

• SuperFreaks: Smart, arrogant, ill-informed

  Richard Littlemore

  2 Nov 2009 | 3:52 pm

  super_freakonomics.JPG At the risk of piling on, we'd like to add our voice to those who are disappointed by the clumsy unprofessionalism of Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner's new book, SuperFreakonomics - at least in regard to its handling of climate change. Assuming that Levitt and Dubner's foray into disinformation was accidental rather than intentional, I would speculate that there are two reasons why the authors bungled this section. First, they made a popular assumption that because someone is smart about one thing, they are smart about everything. Second, they were happy to get their…

• Barcelona Climate Talks: US Congress, Science and International Treaties

  Kevin Grandia

  2 Nov 2009 | 8:23 am

  unfccc barcelona.jpg I'm in Barcelona, Spain for the last round of climate negotiations prior to the big show set for mid-December in Copenhagen. I just touched down, so pardon any poor grammar, I'm a little bleary eyed at the moment. The goal of the Barcelona meeting is to whittle down the final document that will be presented to leaders at the Copenhagen international climate summit. This document will ultimately become an international treaty that will be the road map for worldwide greenhouse gas emission cuts over the coming decade. The Barcelona meeting is also a time for political…

• Halloween Murder Mystery: Who is killing Copenhagen?

  Jim Hoggan

  30 Oct 2009 | 4:40 pm

  friday the 13th.jpg With premature obituary notices popping up all over, it's probably time to ask: who is killing Copenhagen? Who is responsible for the slasher attacks on the United Nations Climate Conference in Copenhagen this December? The wound have been oozing for a couple of weeks now, with the most recent and most worrying being revealed by the United Nations itself. Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, said last week that it is “unrealistic” to expect a binding treaty from Copenhagen. Janos Pasztor, director of UN…

• 
  EcoTech Daily

• The Daily Five: Wednesday, 04 November, 2009

  David Quilty

  4 Nov 2009 | 1:00 am

  Giants’ Danny Clark drives a Smart; Japan buries greenhouse gases; Probe to track climate change; San Diego gets $154 million for solar; Methanol fuel cells for gadgets Giants’ Danny Clark Chose to Go Green With a Smart Car D, N.J. — Danny Clark of the Giants says he gets a lot of long looks from curious motorists when he drives his Smart car between Manhattan and the team’s practice complex in New Jersey. But the glances turn to stares and smiles when he parks his 1,600-pound vehicle and his 6-foot-2, 245-pound body emerges from behind the wheel. Japan aims to bury greenhouse gas…

• Build These Solar Heaters To Heat Your Home For Free During The Day.

  David Quilty

  3 Nov 2009 | 10:25 am

  I originally wrote this article for my site, The Good Human, but because it is “EcoTech” oriented I figured it should probably be here as well. My landlord just installed 2 of these solar heaters - 10 days before I move out, which stinks. But for the next 10 days, I plan on running these heaters all day long to heat up the house for absolutely no cost to me. In an effort to try to explain what my landlord did, I took a few pictures of the heaters and will do my best to explain how they work. Each heater is basically a sealed wooden box sitting on a small cement foundation and…

• The Daily Five: Tuesday, 03 November, 2009

  David Quilty

  3 Nov 2009 | 1:00 am

  Solar-Powered EV Charging Station; Habitat for Humanity and PG&E; China-U.S. Group Plans to Build Texas Wind Farm; Mitsubishi iMiEV; Zero Emissions Electric Bus Toyota Developing Solar-Powered EV Charging Station Toyota Industries Corp. announced that it is developing an electric car charging station composed of solar cells and storage batteries at Tokyo Motor Show 2009. Habitat for Humanity and PG&E Support Green Neighborhood CA Recently we took the trip to Oakland, CA to visit a Habitat for Humanity East Bay Project of particular interest for its pairing of energy-efficient homes…

• The Daily Five: Monday, 02 November, 2009

  David Quilty

  2 Nov 2009 | 1:00 am

  Air Force Base going Solar; USPS Electric Vehicle; Volkswagen Natural Gas Eco-Racing Class; Neuber Energy Sun Bag; U.S. biofuel sector finds lenders wary Air Force Base Community to Rely 75% on Solar The Soaring Heights Community at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base will become the largest solar-powered community in the continental U.S., upon completion. USPS Electric Vehicle This makes perfect sense. Smith and AM General are developing a prototype battery-powered version of the Long Life Vehicle used by the US Postal Service. Volkswagen Launches Natural Gas Eco-Racing Class VW is known for its…

• The Daily Five: Friday, 30 October, 2009

  David Quilty

  30 Oct 2009 | 2:00 am

  Golf BlueMotion; EPA’s Green Power Schools Ranking; Tesla breaks record; Xcel Energy to add more solar; Solar Race Cars Volkswagen launches Golf BlueMotion Volkswagen has just launched the new BlueMotion Golf in the European market and it is the most efficient Golf ever. The new model is rated at 61.9 mpg (U.S.) on the EU combined driving cycle with carbon dioxide emissions of just 99 g/km. TX, NY and MD Schools Top EPA’s Green Power Schools Ranking Schools in New York, Texas and Maryland top the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s inaugural ranking of the top 20 primary and…

• 
  How can I recycle this?

• How can I reuse or recycle old chipboard/particleboard?

  louisa

  4 Nov 2009 | 2:00 am

  We’ve had an email from Ben, asking what he can do with some old chipboard/particleboard furniture: The shelves have sagged in the middle so I doubt anyone else would want it. Most people probably wouldn’t want a saggy bookshelf as a feature in their living room but don’t write it off just yet — it might be fine for shelving in a store room or a garage, particularly if a baton or two can be fitted underneath the warped shelves for extra strength. Offer it on Freecycle/Freegle, describing the condition and see if there are any takers. Aside from that or if some of the…

• How can I make wrist warmers reusing or recycling old things?

  louisa

  3 Nov 2009 | 2:00 am

  A few weeks ago, I made passing reference to arm/wrist warmers but I thought I’d mention them again because it’s amazing what a difference they make. There are hundreds of different knitting and crochet patterns for fingerless gloves – from the very simple (a square folded over with a thumb hole left in the seam) to ones with cabling-a-go-go and separate half fingers to provide more coverage – and they don’t take long to knit/crochet up — but what are the options for non-knitters/crocheters? Last week, Leethal posted a how-to make them out of old socks and…

• Interesting Reducing, Reusing and Recycling links

  louisa

  3 Nov 2009 | 1:00 am

  This week’s quick link round-up: Amber of Berlin’s Whimsy has a tutorial for making washable covers for Swiffer-style floor sweepers out of old towels If our soggy garden is anything to go by, it’s possibly a little late for this now but if you’ve still got pretty dry leaves, you can make them into a bouquet of “roses” Crafting a Green World has some useful documentation on calculating the fabric yardage from old bedding Make candles from old cooking oil/fat – two methods: one using salt, the other using a wire coil to support the wick Finally…

• How can I reuse or recycle old plastic patio furniture?

  louisa

  2 Nov 2009 | 2:00 am

  We’ve had an email from Charlotte: We’ve been tidying the garden for winter and want to get rid of the nasty white plastic garden furniture which has been in the garden for years. How can we recycle it? If they’re still structurally sound, it would be better to let someone else continue using them – offer them on your local Freecycle/Freegle group. Even if they’ve been out in the elements for a while, they’ll probably clean up with a scrubbing brush and a bit of elbow grease. In terms of actually recycling them, garden furniture is often made from PVC…

• Reusing and recycling at Halloween

  louisa

  30 Oct 2009 | 2:00 am

  It’s Halloween this weekend and the crafting world has been a’flutter with costumes and decorating ideas for the last few weeks – some reusing or recycling stuff from around the home. Make a trick-or-treat swag bag out of an old tshirt/vest top Make a ghost lantern from an old plastic bottle and a sheet Make an owl costume out of old clothes/fabric straps Other recycling/reusing Halloween ideas Don’t forget that while “carving pumpkins” aren’t that tasty for us to eat, chickens (and compost heaps!) still love them — just make sure you remove any…

• 
  UrbanWorkbench

• The Smart Growth Manual

  Mike Thomas

  4 Nov 2009 | 5:00 am

  Smart Growth is slowly being recognized as having benefits outside of the usual talk of walkable neighbourhoods and streetscapes. This book, The Smart Growth Manual runs through the principles from the Regional context, the Neighbourhood, the Street, down to the Building design. If you are interested in New Urbanism, this is a book worth checking out – also, you can check out some related books in the links below the main image. If you are in Canada, click here for amazon.ca Thesis Testimonials - See what our customers are saying about their Thesis experience! This post was written by…

• OverWintering Vegetables

  Mike Thomas

  2 Nov 2009 | 5:00 am

  With the first frost comes the need to harvest most vegetables. Our cold room is stacked with fruit and vegetables chilling out till it’s time to be eaten. Some vegetables can be overwintered in the garden , but there are a few steps to managing the crops that are left out in the cold. This year we are overwintering carrots, beets and rutabaga in the garden. Prepare the Beds These root vegetables are pretty hardy if you protect them from heavy frost or deep freeze, but the first step is to prepare the beds for overwintering – and honestly, this is the hardest step – weeding.

• Prepared

  Mike Thomas

  29 Oct 2009 | 1:58 pm

  Image by urbanworkbench via Flickr As the snow falls outside and most of the leaves have fallen, I’m reminded of all the things that were not accomplished on the to-do list. Despite this, we have a cold room full of apples, pumpkins and squash, preserved fruit and vegetables in canning jars, dried goods in the kitchen and a handful of other goods including seed-saving efforts in different nooks and crannies around the house. In the coming weeks we’ll receive our grain and lentil shares from the second year of harvest in the Kootenay Grain CSA, grown in Creston, about a hundred and…

• Seasons Come and Go

  Mike Thomas

  25 Oct 2009 | 6:38 pm

  This weekend I took my sister for a walk along the lovely Waldie Island Trail on the Brilliant side of the Columbia River in Castlegar. This time of year, the colours are stunning along the trail if you can get a sunny day. Although a beautiful trail, it also represents an historical site for the settlement of Castlegar. As can be seen in the photo to the right, and read about in the Trails in Time page on Waldie Island Mill, this was a hub of industry on the river for many years, and was only replaced in the late 1950s with the current pulp and saw mil operations upstream by the Hugh…

• Municipal Engineering Consultancy Agreements

  Mike Thomas

  20 Oct 2009 | 12:32 pm

  Many municipalities have small engineering or public works departments that are not staffed by engineers or other professionals who might be able to write up a construction consultancy contract. Even those municipalities that do have professional staff will find this agreement and the associated guide published by the Association of Consulting Engineers of Canada a useful tool. This is a “fill in the blanks” type of agreement with flexibility to cover most small to medium engineering consulting projects, whether private or municipal. Municipal Engineering Consultancy Agreements…

• 
  First Global Xpress

• Fuel Surcharge

  Justin

  1 Nov 2009 | 8:08 am

  Currently: FGX 6.00% Valid through 11/30/09

• How to ship

  Justin

  12 Aug 2009 | 6:40 am

  Type www.ship.fgx.com Enter your User ID and Password Click logon To book a shipment click the Courier Bookings tab (located in the upper right hand of your screen) For an outbound shipment, click Create Consignment (located in the upper right hand of your screen) Enter pertinent address details. Try to fill in every field if possible. If you have shipped to this location before, saved address details can be found in the “get from my address book” link If you received a quote number prior to shipping, you may enter that near the bottom left. You may also choose to send a pre-alert to the…

• The Search for Sustainable Shipping Supplies

  Chevon Drew

  11 Jun 2009 | 2:47 pm

  FGX is on its way to being the greenest international air courier. We’ve cut carbon emissions per shipment and now we’d like to partner with suppliers who offer greener packing materials. I’ve started referring to this sourcing project as “The Hunt for Green October” because that’s about when I expect we’ll find a manufacturer willing to offer a selection of greener shipping supplies. That may be hyperbolic but the hyperbole is warranted. Greener packing materials do not seem to be at the top of the list of many manufacturers that we reached out to.

• The Fashion-Friendly FGX

  Chevon Drew

  11 May 2009 | 2:32 pm

  High fashion and high stress can go hand-in-hand.  Learn how FGX keeps it calm, collected- and “delivers in a pinch” for V Magazine. Late one Friday evening Teddy fielded an urgent phone call from Visionaire Publishing.  Catherine Newell-Hanson, market editor for V Magazine and VMAN, was desperately trying to get a shipment out that night- and have it delivered in time for a 9:00AM photo shoot in Los Angeles. There were no commercial flights to be had at such a late hour and the earliest flight the next morning would not land in time to get the package to the photo shoot. …

• Enter the ShipGreener Earth Week Contest!

  Chevon Drew

  21 Apr 2009 | 4:01 pm

  FGX is buzzing about Earth Week, which kicked off this Monday, April 20th, 2009.   Tell us the latest way you’ve chosen to reduce, reuse or recycle; and you could WIN a sweet giveaway!  Read on for the details. The best part of Earth Week is the high level of environmental  awareness brought on by a week’s worth of events.  Have you been quietly making changes to the way you use resources like water, paper, or electricity?  It’s time to shout it out!  It all counts and it can help you win our drawing. How to Enter The ShipGreener Earth Week Contest *Scroll down to the…

• 
  Green Daily

• Eco-Beat, 11/4

  Josh Loposer

  4 Nov 2009 | 12:00 pm

  Wanna ride to work like the pros? Need some help justifying your next big-ticket Gucci purchase? Are you a secret raw milk junkie who'll do anything for a sip of illegal, unpasteurized moo juice? Today's Eco-Beat has the scoop on all the latest green news and tips. Bike Commuting Tips from the Pros Ever wished you could ride your bike to work, but can't stomach the spandex? Do those bike shorts really help get you to work on time? You can get answers to these questions and more at the Sierra Club's Climate Crossroads Bicycle Group. Ready to Party FOR the Turkeys? If you're looking for some…

• Do You Like Frogs and Have an SOS for the Rainforest?

  Cat Lincoln

  4 Nov 2009 | 9:01 am

  Filed under: Celebrities, Activism, Climate Change Have you always dreamed of costarring in a film or video with an animated partner, like Paula Abdul and that dancing cat in "Opposites Attract"? And do you have a message for the world about saving the rainforest? If so, The Prince's Rainforest can help you achieve both of these dreams. HRH Charles, the Prince of Wales, created The Prince's Rainforest Project to simply raise awareness of the connection between deforestation and climate change. The campaign has a frog mascot who appeared in a video with Prince Charles, as well as Princes…

• Eco-Beat, 11/3

  Josh Loposer

  3 Nov 2009 | 12:00 pm

  Why did Alicia Silverstone so unkindly cancel her "Kind Diet" book tour? Wanna see what a fat, unshaven Captain Planet looks like? Has Dancing Butterflies produced the worst eco-song of the modern era? Today's Eco-Beat has the scoop on all the latest green news and tips. Alicia Silverstone Cancels Stops on Tour The final three stops on Alicia's book tour have been abruptly scrapped, and thus far no explanation has been given. Fans hoping to meet the "Kind Diet" author in St. Louis, Detroit and Atlanta are out of luck. Hope you caught her on Craig Ferguson during the blackout. Captain Planet…

• The Solar Decathlon

  Cat Lincoln

  3 Nov 2009 | 9:00 am

  Filed under: Home, Alternative Energy University of Kentucky Uses Innovative Recycled Plastic Decking at the Solar Decathlon from Plastics Make it Possible on Vimeo. Last month students from around the world gathered on the National Mall in Washington D.C. to compete in the Solar Decathlon, hosted by the U.S. Department of Energy. Twenty teams designed, built and operated solar-powered homes, which were then opened to the public, both to get votes, and to educate people about the latest uses of energy-efficient building practices and materials. The first, and hardest, part of the competition…

• Eco-Beat, 11/2

  Josh Loposer

  2 Nov 2009 | 12:00 pm

  Do you consider Mother Earth in your family planning? Should gift baskets become an un-environmentally-conscious thing of the past? Is the new "Avatar" trailer making you concerned about the environmental plight of planets we haven't even discovered yet? Today's Eco-Beat has the scoop on all the latest green news and tips. Evangeline Lilly Talks Babies and Overpopulation As an environmentally-conscious individual, do you feel compelled to adopt, rather than have a child of your own? Evangeline Lilly thinks she can allow herself one biological child, then she says her eco-conscience would…

• 
  Carbon Positive News

• Climate change is Kilimanjaro culprit afterall

  4 Nov 2009 | 5:14 am

  The snowcap on Africa’s Mt Kilimanjaro may disappear within 20 years, with global warming driving its decline, according to a new study...

• Carbon trade here to stay regardless of Copenhagen

  3 Nov 2009 | 1:55 am

  Carbon markets are here to stay regardless of what happens in Copenhagen, but their growth outlook depends on a new climate agreement...

• EU falls short on climate funding

  2 Nov 2009 | 6:18 am

  The chances of reaching a global climate agreement in Copenhagen are not helped by the failure of EU leaders to agree finance for developing countries...

• Climate change job vacancies #80

  2 Nov 2009 | 6:12 am

  The latest job vacancies in climate change and sustainability...

• CER prices reach 2009 highpoint

  30 Oct 2009 | 5:26 am

  Prices for issued CERs have are at their highest level in 2009 but prices in the primary market remain static...

• 
  Environmental Health News

• GM's money trees.

  jpmyers@ehsic.org

  4 Nov 2009 | 6:00 am

  In Brazil, people with some of the world's smallest carbon footprints are being displaced — so their forests can become offsets for SUVs.

• Carbon capture tech makes progress, but enough?

  jpmyers@ehsic.org

  4 Nov 2009 | 6:00 am

  It could be decades before carbon capture and storage technologies are ready for use on a wide scale. And by then, models show us that carbon in our atmosphere will likely already have warmed the planet by several degrees.

• Climate debate has rocky start for US Senate panel.

  jpmyers@ehsic.org

  4 Nov 2009 | 6:00 am

  European leaders pressed Congress and the White House on Tuesday to unite on a plan to combat global warming, even as a Republican boycott forced a delay of votes in a key Senate committee, demonstrating the deep partisan rift.

• Climate action - decades late.

  jpmyers@ehsic.org

  4 Nov 2009 | 6:00 am

  U.S. President Lyndon Johnson and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher made stark warnings about global warming decades ago, but convincing evidence for action only amassed in recent years, experts say.

• Can we manipulate the weather?

  jpmyers@ehsic.org

  4 Nov 2009 | 6:00 am

  By the end of last month, farmland in the already dry north of China was suffering badly due to drought. So on Saturday night China's meteorologists fired 186 explosive rockets loaded with chemicals to "seed" clouds and encourage snow to fall.

• 
  Clean Edge

• Applied Materials Opens Advanced Solar Research Facility in China

  Clean Edge News

  3 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm

  11/04/2009 - Applied Materials, a large supplier of equipment to the solar photovoltaic industry, recently opened an advanced solar research and demonstration facility in Xi'an, China...

• Weatherization: Saving Money by Saving Energy -- Steven Chu Op-Ed

  The Huffington Post

  3 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm

• Starting the Solar Revolution: Solar Power International Highlights

  RenewableEnergyWorld.com

  2 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm

• DOE to Provide $5.5 Million in Funding to Automotive X Prize

  Clean Edge News

  2 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm

  11/03/2009 - Energy Secretary Steven Chu recently announced that the Department of Energy is providing up to $5...

• Belgian Firms to Convert Coal-Fired Power Station Into Biomass Plant

  New Energy Finance

  1 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm

  11/02/2009 - GDF Suez subsidiary Electrabel and Belgian holding company Ackermans & van Haaren are to cooperate in converting a coal-fired power station into a 100% biomass-fired unit...

• 
  Green Car Congress

• Chrysler Portfolio Segment Mix Shifting to Smaller, More Fuel Efficient Vehicles; 25% Improvement in Portfolio Fuel Economy by 2014

  Mike Millikin

  4 Nov 2009 | 3:51 pm

  Projected shift in volume and segment mix. Click to enlarge.Chrysler’s worldwide product plan for 2010-2014 envisions a shift in its portfolio segment mix. Micro through mid-size vehicles will increase from 45% to 58% of volume, while large and full-size segments will decline from 55% to 42% of volume, said Joe Veltri, Vice President - Product Planning, Chrysler Group. Chrysler estimates that diesel engines will represent 14% of its portfolio in 2014, compared to 9% in 2010. Four-cylinder gasoline engines will increase their share to 38% from 19%, Veltri said. Shift in the engine mix. Click…

• Cyclone Power Technologies Signs Letter of Intent To Expand Engine Development in China

  Mike Millikin

  4 Nov 2009 | 3:33 pm

  Cyclone Power Technologies Inc. has signed a Letter of Intent with Great Wall Alternative Power Systems Ltd. to advance the development and production of Cyclone’s heat-regenerative external combustion engine in China. (Earlier post.) Under the terms of the Letter of Intent, Great Wall Alternative Power Systems (GWAPS) will invest capital, assets and know-how necessary for a development program aimed at making certain of the Cyclone engine systems ready for production, sales and marketing in China within the next 12 to 24 months. These investments will include: legal and financial…

• ExxonMobil Chemical Affiliate and Toray Industries to Form Global Battery Separator Film Joint Venture

  Mike Millikin

  4 Nov 2009 | 3:06 pm

  ExxonMobil Chemical’s affiliate TonenGeneral and Toray Industries have agreed to establish a global joint venture for the battery separator film business. It will develop, manufacture and sell lithium ion battery (LIB) separator film and introduce next-generation films to the market. The joint venture will combine Toray’s plastic film processing and polymer science capabilities with Tonen’s existing lithium ion battery separator film business and technology. It will build on ExxonMobil’s more than 20 years of experience and success in providing separator films, including for use in…

• EPRI Initiative Aimed at Improving Transmission System Efficiency

  Mike Millikin

  4 Nov 2009 | 12:23 pm

  The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) disclosed plans for an industry-wide transmission efficiency demonstration collaborative that will identify technologies leading to greater efficiency in the bulk power system, an increase in system utilization and a reduction in line and equipment losses. The initiative’s goal is to improve efficiency and stem losses of electricity that would otherwise flow to the end user. T&D losses account for about 300 billion kWh in the United States, and reducing such losses will allow utilities to generate less power and thereby lower the industry’s…

• Chrysler Powertrain Strategy to Rely Heavily on Integrating Fiat Engine Technology; Chrysler to Be Global Center of Competence for Hybrids and EVs for Fiat and Chrysler

  Mike Millikin

  4 Nov 2009 | 10:51 am

  Chrysler’s new powertrain strategy relies heavily on the rapid integration of Fiat technologies. Click to enlarge.Chrysler’s new powertrain strategy is relying on the rapid transfer of Fiat Group technology for Multiair; Gasoline Direct Injection; turbocharging and alternative fuels to support rapid downsizing and improvement of fuel economy, along with the simplification of the company’s engine line-up, according to Paolo E. Ferrero, Senior Vice President, Chrysler Powertrain. Ferrero was speaking during a briefing at Chrysler headquarters today outlining the…

• 
  The Green Leap Forward 绿跃进

• Energy Service Companies in China

  Julian

  27 Oct 2009 | 10:11 pm

  Guest blogger Tristan Edmondson (right), partner at Mint Research, a clean tech consultancy, describes China’s growing Energy Service Company (ESCO) industry. China has one of the worst ratios of energy use to GDP in the world, two and a half times the world average. This undoubtedly creates investment opportunities for a country that is awash in capital. But despite the huge potential of China’s ESCO industry, it has yet to approach the size of the ESCO industry in the US where it is an industry worth six billion dollars a year. What is an ESCO? Under an energy performance…

• Carbon trading, taxes and putting the cart before the horse

  Julian

  12 Oct 2009 | 10:11 pm

  There have been mixed messages lately about whether China will soon adopt a carbon emissions trading scheme.  On the eve of President Hu Jintao’s speech at the UN Climate Summit in New York last month, Times Online ran a sensationally misleading story suggesting that China would adopt a carbon emissions trading scheme that would “for the first time, place limits on the amount of greenhouse gases Chinese industries are allowed to emit.”  The article went on to say: A delegation from the China Beijing Environmental Exchange (CBEEX), a government-backed platform for trading…

• A Birthday Wishlist: China’s Climate Challenge and the Next 60 Years

  Julian

  30 Sep 2009 | 8:19 pm

  Originally published by the Center for American Progress and China Dialogue. The clean-energy float at the 60th Anniversary celebrations on October 1st in Beijing.  (Photo credit: Xinhua/Li Gang) This week [October 1st] marks the 60th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China. The first 30-year phase was one of revolution, marked by one bloody internal purge after another, but the next 30-year phase was one of pragmatism, which underpinned economic and social reform leading to unrivaled rates of economic growth. China now finds itself at a crossroads. As the country struggles to come…

• China’s Carbon Intensity Plans and its Impact on Climate Progress

  Julian

  25 Sep 2009 | 4:56 pm

  Updated Sep 30:  Reactions from U.S. legislators and Chinese translation of main blog piece. President Hu Jintao (pictured right) of China announced that China will build on existing domestic climate change policies as embodied in its National Climate Change Programme and current Five Year Plan to step up its efforts on energy efficiency, development of low-carbon energy such as renewables and nuclear, and increase of forestry cover. [For a transcript of President Hu's speech, click here] Most noteworthy was president Hu’s introduction of a new goal to reduce carbon dioxide emissions per…

• TV Interview on “Foreign Exchange” with Daljit Dhaliwal

  Julian

  22 Aug 2009 | 10:38 am

  Here’s a 7 minute television interview I did with the US television foreign policy program “Foreign Affairs”, discussing China’s clean energy policies.   If you based in the U.S., it may not be too late to catch this on the TV (check schedule). (p.s. not sure what the first visual on “a new direction for Hong Kong” means!) Watch 606 - Julian Wong in News |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com I suspect there may be some questions regarding my remarks about what percentage of China’s economic stimulus is being allocated to green projects.   I…

• 
  TerraPass Footprint

• New project: Crow Wing County landfill

  4 Nov 2009 | 2:13 pm

  Another project up for public comment by Adam Stein Crow Wing County landfill is in Brainerd, Minnesota, about two hours north of Minneapolis. Despite its small size, the landfill is an innovator that has achieved extraordinarily high recycling rates. One of their most recent initiatives is a landfill gas collection and flaring operation, which TerraPass has the pleasure of presenting to you now. You know the drill. Check out the project and please send any questions or comments to…

• Cities: still greener than small villages

  3 Nov 2009 | 7:55 am

  Access to supermarkets is more important than access to farms by Adam Stein The review of Green Metropolis kicked off a discussion that illustrates some of the confusion that crops up in discussions of density. Hoisting a representative snippet up from comments: I think people can be extremely green in either rural or urban settings, it’s a matter of intent. Hard to measure the difference in impact - an urban setting allows for a much more communal way of using and reusing resources, but on the other hand, if the concentration of people is greater than the city can naturally sustain,…

• Parking done right

  2 Nov 2009 | 5:40 am

  San Francisco skips the green garages, focuses on pricing by Adam Stein Let’s talk parking. Recently I suggested that building new parking garages isn’t an environmentally friendly thing to do, even if such garages are nicely landscaped and have energy-efficient lighting systems. The environmental impact of the structures themselves is minuscule in comparison to the impact of the transportation system they are part of, and the green flourishes do nothing to change this basic equation. For making this fairly bland observation, I was accused of, variously: being an enemy of personal…

• Hunters, fishers press for climate change bill

  1 Nov 2009 | 4:55 pm

  And the religious right gets in on the act by Adam Stein This isn’t exactly a new trend — I remember writing about it several years ago — but it seems to be picking up some steam: More than 13,000 hunters and anglers from across the country joined a “virtual town hall” teleconference on Tuesday to hear a discussion of the impact of climate change on fish and wildlife populations, and to voice their support for federal action to limit carbon emissions. Recently I whined about how environmentalists are a perennial whipping boy. Part of the issue, I think, is that most…

• Bashing environmentalists always pays

  29 Oct 2009 | 1:38 pm

  It's just simple Freakonomics! by Adam Stein I generally don’t indulge in blog rants, mostly because I’m just not very good at them. David Roberts, on the other hand, is good at them, and he puts to words some of the deep disgust I’ve been feeling over the foofaraw kicked up by the new book Superfreakonomics, the sequel to the fairly awful and inexplicably bestselling Freakonomics. I’m not going to rehash the Superfreakonomics episode in detail. For the gory details, go here or here and follow the thread. Better yet, check out the rigorous and entertainingly smug…

• 
  World Resources Institute: Earthtrends

• Piracy and Governance in the Gulf of Aden

  EarthTrends

  19 Oct 2009 | 9:01 am

  The number of piracy attacks reported this year have already far exceeded those of last year. According to the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), as of September 23, 2009, 294 piratical incidents have been reported, with 97 occurring in the Gulf of Aden and 47 off of the remaining coasts of Somalia. Figure 1 shows the placements of pirate attacks within the Gulf of Aden from July to September, 2009.read more

• Blog Action Day 2009: Climate Factoids

  Samah Elsayed

  15 Oct 2009 | 4:49 pm

  Today is Blog Action Day, an annual event where bloggers worldwide combine their energies to highlight a specific issue. Over 10,000 sites from more than 150 countries, are participating in this years discussion on climate change. As part of EarthTrends contribution we will be highlighting a few key climate change trends and statistics. read more

• The 6th Extinction and Protected Areas

  Richard Kahle

  2 Oct 2009 | 9:34 am

  The 6th Extinction A mass extinction is under way. Human activity, not natural phenomenon, is the difference between this extinction and the five previous big extinctions that have occurred in Earth's history. The current extinction is driven by habitat loss, overexploitation of species, invasive species and pollution. All of these, the result of humans. The current extinction rate is between 1,000 and 10,000 times higher than the natural rate. (International Union for Conservation of Nature, IUCN) Current estimates put the extinction rate at roughly 30,000 species per year which is about…

• The Recession and Short Term Trends In Energy Demand

  Candy Schibli

  23 Sep 2009 | 6:47 am

  The global economy and energy system are interdependent strands where changes in one will often cause fluctuations in the other. This relationship was highlighted by the recent economic crisis which saw cumulative effects in other spheres including world energy demand. read more

• Information for the Virtual Water Discussion and Water Security

  Candy Schibli

  14 Aug 2009 | 9:27 am

  The World Water Council notes that the right to water "entitles everyone to sufficient, safe and acceptable, physically accessible and affordable water for personal and domestic" functions. Yet, the consumption and production of water for personal and domestic purposes depend mainly on the water and water transformation processes available for industry and agriculture. Indeed, water use in industry and agriculture has become so critical within and between countries that the term virtual water has been coined to distinguish it as a unique topic of discussion. read more

• 
  American Public Media Marketplace

• China, U.S. can slash C02 by storing it

  4 Nov 2009 | 3:36 am

  The Center for American Progress is releasing a study on how China and the U.S. can cooperate on slashing carbon-dioxide emissions. Ashley Milne-Tyte reports.

• How do we live with a warmer planet?

  29 Oct 2009 | 10:00 pm

  Even if we develop all the renewable energy we need, Earth will still warm more than it has in the history of mankind. Sam Eaton and Sarah Gardner look at how governments and businesses are planning to adapt to radical changes in our environment.

• Is there energy to slow climate change?

  28 Oct 2009 | 10:00 pm

  If global warming's worst effects are to be averted, new energy sources must be developed on a massive scale. But there will be winners and losers in that process. Sarah Gardner and Sam Eaton take us to two locales with stakes in America's energy future.

• Plan B for climate-change agreement

  28 Oct 2009 | 3:44 am

  Negotiations leading up to December's climate-change summit are not going smoothly. So what can the summit still achieve? John Dimsdale reports.

• The planet will survive, but will we?

  27 Oct 2009 | 10:00 pm

  Earth's climate has come through many severe changes over thousands of years. But humans have never influenced them as much as today, nor had as much to lose. Sam Eaton and Sarah Gardner tell us about climate past, present and future.

• 
  Ecofriend

• Eco Architecture: New Connecticut Science Center reuses old cars, generates solar energy

  Jolly

  4 Nov 2009 | 2:22 am

  Eco Factor: Science Center designed to be powered by solar energy and fuel cells. Designed by Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects, the Connecticut Science Center has opened the doors of a new LEED-certified facility. 95% of the steel used in the construction is manufactured from recycled cars. In addition to its ecofriendly bones, the building also makes use of a fuel cell that provides approximately two-thirds of the needed power. The science center is a composition of three major elements – a tower in the shape of a parallelogram, a terraced volume that steps back on one side and cantilevers…

• Eco Tech: Solar-powered GreenTow trailers offer green power on the move

  Jolly

  4 Nov 2009 | 1:43 am

  Eco Factor: Mobile solar-powered unit. Created with state-of-the-art materials and technology, GreenTow trailers are a clean and an efficient way to provide mobile power. The mixed-use trailers carry solar panels that can easily be adjusted to maximize sun exposure. The high-efficiency solar array can be adjusted by the flip of a switch to get the maximum out of the sun. The energy generated by the panels is stored in onboard batteries that can also power your needs when the sun isn’t shining. The system is also equipped with a current conversion inverter that converts the stored DC current…

• Eco Architecture: White Arkitekter unveils ‘Mareld’ visitor center for Sweden

  Jolly

  4 Nov 2009 | 1:16 am

  Eco Factor: Sustainable visitor center designed to be powered by renewable energy. White Arkitekter has been chosen as the winner of the Kosterhavet’s National Park competition for their “Mareld” (sea-fire) visitor center proposal. The park will be Sweden’s first marine national park and the Mareld visitor center will add sustainability to the complex. The self-sufficient visitor center is designed to run on natural sources by harnessing solar energy for electricity and heat from water. The open structure will allow natural light and air to seep through, reducing the building’s…

• Eco Tech: SolarReserve’s new solar farm will generate energy even after sunset

  Jolly

  3 Nov 2009 | 10:55 pm

  Eco Factor: Renewable energy power plant stores sun’s energy in the form of molten salt. California-based SolarReserve is planning a new type of renewable energy power plant that will continue to generate electricity even after the sun goes down. The company is filing an application with California regulators to build a 150MW solar farm that can store seven hours of the sun’s energy in the form of molten salt. Dubbed Rice Solar Energy Project, the plant will be based on the use of 17,500 large mirrors called heliostats that will be arrayed in a circle around a 538-foot concrete tower.

• Eco Gadgets: Recyclable paper laptop for sustainable computing

  Jolly

  3 Nov 2009 | 10:43 pm

  Eco Factor: Concept laptop made from recycled materials. With computers getting more advanced every day, we normally see tech-savvy people dropping their old machines into the landfills for a better one. Not only does it escalate the problem of e-waste, but it also increases the amount of chips that need to be produced to make up for the rise in demand. Industrial designer Je Sung Park has tried to solve the issues with a concept laptop that is made from recycled paper. The Recyclable Paper Laptop is to be made from recycled paper or pulp materials packed in layers. Repairing the system would…

• 
  Consumer Reports: Home & Garden

• Stanley Works and Black & Decker plan to merge in multibillion-dollar deal

  Consumer Reports Home & Garden Blog

  4 Nov 2009 | 2:28 pm

  The tool world saw some big news on Monday with the announced merger of Stanley Works and Black & Decker, venerable companies with 265 years of business between them. While the new company's brand recognition should remain high, the name of the $8.4 billion combined companies—Stanley Black & Decker—sounds more like a white-shoe law firm than a powerhouse tool maker.The New Britain, Connecticut-based Stanley Works, which specializes in tools and hand tools, doors, and storage equipment, will own 50.5 percent of the company. Towson, Maryland-based Black & Decker, known for…

• By the Numbers: Where electricity prices are highest, Energy Star shines

  Consumer Reports Home & Garden Blog

  4 Nov 2009 | 10:26 am

  38 percentMarket share of Energy Star-qualified appliances in Connecticut, Hawaii, and New Hampshire, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. As we reported yesterday, consumers in those states pay some of the highest electricity rates in the country.“Market share for Energy Star qualified appliances is generally higher than average in states and regions with longstanding or very active energy efficiency programs (e.g., California and Vermont) and those with particularly high electricity prices (e.g., Hawaii, Connecticut, and New Hampshire),” reads the U.S. Department of Energy’s…

• Getting Their Goats: Another town turns to four-legged creatures for outdoor cleanup

  Consumer Reports Home & Garden Blog

  4 Nov 2009 | 9:08 am

  The Men Who Stare At Goats, the new comedy starring Jeff Bridges, Ewan McGregor, and George Clooney (shown below holding a cast member), is about a secret U.S. Army unit. But based on some news reports we’ve seen since spring, it could be a tale about landscapers who use goats instead of gas-powered equipment ton the job.The latest town to go goat is Andover, Massachusetts, which has accepted one resident’s offer to use her goats to control weeds and undergrowth at a local nature preserve, according to this Boston Globe report. The six goats could handle a half-acre of grass, brush, and…

• Paradise Cost: Hawaii's not a better place to live than West Virginia or North Dakota . . . at least when it comes to electricity prices

  Consumer Reports Home & Garden Blog

  3 Nov 2009 | 6:24 am

  Cutting down on how much electricity you use at home is a good move for your finances and the environment. Some steps to using less energy are simple, like choosing energy-efficient appliances and using and maintaining them properly—read about the U.S. Department of Energy's $300 million State Energy Efficient Appliance Rebate Program, otherwise known as cash for clunkers for appliances—and replacing incandescent lightbulbs with compact fluorescent lightbulbs, like those covered in our new ratings-based report on CFLs.One area where you have limited options in terms of saving money is…

• Inside Consumer Reports Test Labs: Review of the Sharp SuperSteam Oven AX-1200[K]

  Consumer Reports Home & Garden Blog

  2 Nov 2009 | 12:27 pm

  Sharp says that its SuperSteam Oven AX-1200[K], $900, can cook food in four different modes—microwave, steam, convection, and SuperSteam convection—and deliver healthful meals without compromising taste.Using the steam mode on this countertop microwave, which can also work in a built-in application, we found that the Sharp did a good job cooking mussels, while steaming in a conventional microwave oven turned the mussels chewy. This oven draws the water for steam from an integral refillable reservoir.The SuperSteam convection mode delivered a dish of pork loin with vegetables that was…

• 
  metaefficient

• The Best Shower Filters Of 2009

  Justin

  26 Oct 2009 | 3:04 pm

  I just replaced my shower filters, so I thought I’d update my best shower filter review from earlier this year. Each update to the review generates a lot of useful comments. So I’m incorporating what I’ve learned from those comments into this latest review. (more…) Related posts:How To Filter Your Shower Water Very EfficientlyThe Best Shower FilterNatural Bath Dechlorination © Justin Thomas for MetaEfficient Reviews, 2009. | Permalink | One comment

• Kite Gen – The Future Of Wind Power?

  benjamin

  21 Oct 2009 | 10:22 am

  Kite Gen Wind Power Generator (photo: Kite Gen Research S.r.l.) Wind power holds great promise as a clean energy source, but current windmill generators aren’t appropriate for all locations.  Italian firm Kite Gen hopes to change that with its innovative new generator designs, which use “kites” to capture strong high-altitude winds. (more…) Related posts:WindSpire: An Attractive Wind Turbine For The HomeFalcon Wind Turbine: Versatile & Efficient Power GenerationIs This The World’s Most Efficient Windmill? © Justin Thomas for MetaEfficient Reviews, 2009. | Permalink | 6…

• The Best iPhone Battery Pack

  Justin

  28 Sep 2009 | 9:54 pm

  The Best iPhone Battery Pack The iPhone can be power-thirsty. For many people a battery extender is an essential iPhone or iTouch accessory. Here are four of the best backup iPhone battery packs. Note: iPhone battery performance times vary widely based on individual usage habits and applications. Wherever possible we have tried to give details of a backup battery’s capacity relative to an iPhone’s full charge. (more…) Related posts:Best Portable iPod & MP3 SpeakersVolvo Unveils A Plug-In HybridThe Best Headphones Noise Canceling © Justin Thomas for MetaEfficient Reviews, 2009.

• Liquid-Filled LED Bulbs: 360 Degree Light

  Justin

  13 Sep 2009 | 1:53 pm

  Liquid-Filled LED Light Bulbs: HydraLux I’ve been testing a new LED bulb called the HydraLux. These unique bulbs are filled with a clear liquid coolant (a non-toxic paraffin oil). Other LED bulbs use large metal fins or fans for cooling purposes. The advantage of using a liquid coolant is that the LED bulb can produce 360° light like a regular incandescent bulb. (more…) Related posts:New LED Light Bulbs Can Replace 100W IncandescentsEcoLEDs: Mercury-Free LED BulbsIcelight: LED Desk Lamp © Justin Thomas for MetaEfficient Reviews, 2009. | Permalink | 16 comments

• How To Build A Deep Bass System For $750

  Justin

  23 Jul 2009 | 11:41 am

  In this article I will describe how to build a high-fidelity, bass-intensive sound system for under $1000. The secret ingredient of the system is the use of tactile transducers. These transducers effectively eliminate the need for expensive woofers or subwoofers. It’s an efficient method of producing deep, high-fidelity bass for a fraction of the usual cost. Many of the ideas presented here were gleaned from the recommendations of audio enthusiasts, and the book High-Performance Audio Systems by Robert Harley. (more…) Related posts:MetaOptimal Bass: Tactile TransducersShure E3C…

• 
  Forecast Earth: Current Articles

• Environmentalists hail Earth Hour as a big success

  31 Dec 1969 | 4:00 pm

  BONN, Germany (AP) -- For environmental activists, the message was clear: Earth Hour was a huge success. Now they say it's time for nations to tackle climate change. "The world said yes to climate action, now governments must follow," the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) said a day after hundreds of millions of people worldwide followed its call to turn off lights for a full hour. From an Antarctic research base and the Great...

• Obama team debuts at UN climate talks

  31 Dec 1969 | 4:00 pm

  BONN, Germany (AP) -- President Barak Obama's climate change team made their international debut Sunday at a major U.N. conference -- and delegates were eager to find out whether Obama could translate his aggressive domestic agenda into a worldwide deal to fight global warming. The two-week meeting by 175 countries is the latest attempt to craft a global agreement to govern the emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases that...

• It's time to green this old (White) House -- again

  31 Dec 1969 | 4:00 pm

  WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama will find out two things as he studies how to make the White House more environmentally friendly:  No. 1: It's already been done.  No. 2: It needs to be done again. It was Earth Day 1993 when President Bill Clinton launched his ambitious "greening the White House" project. That effort saved more than $1.4 million in its first six years, largely from improvements in lighting,...

• Smart organic choices for limited budgets

  31 Dec 1969 | 4:00 pm

  (From DivineCaroline.com) - There are many reasons why consumers choose organic over conventionally-grown food, but there's usually one reason why they don't--cost. Organics can run 10 to 100 percent higher than conventionally grown, throwing all health, taste, and environmental concerns out of the grocery basket. Although savvy farmers' markets and comparison shopping can yield organics that are close in price to non-...

• AP source: EPA closer to global warming warning

  31 Dec 1969 | 4:00 pm

  WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Environmental Protection Agency has taken the first step on the long road to regulating greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. Politicians and the public, business and industry will have to weigh in along the way, but for now a proposed finding by the EPA that global warming is a threat to public health and welfare is under White House review. The threat declaration would be the first step to...

• 
  Matter Network - Clean Technology, Green News and Sustainable Business News

• Book Review: Sustainable Energy -- Without the Hot Air

  3 Nov 2009 | 6:05 am

  By Edouard Stenger I recently finished reading a book I strongly recommend to anyone interested in sustainable development and energy. It is packed with figures and findings that I believe will easily start discussions among CleanTechies. The author, David JC MacKay, is Professor in the Department of Physics at Cambridge University and was recently appointed Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change responsible for the Low Carbon Transition Plan. One of the main findings of this book is that electrifying our cars and installing heat pumps in our buildings…

• Turning Algae Into Bioplastic Could Slash Petroleum Use by 50%

  2 Nov 2009 | 7:26 am

  By Andrew Williams California-based company Cereplast has revealed that it is developing breakthrough technology to transform algae into bioplastics, and predicts that it could replace 50% or more of the petroleum content used in traditional plastic resins. Cereplast already makes plastic from renewable material such as corn starch, tapioca, wheat and potatoes, but is keen to trumpet the advantages of the new approach. According to Frederic Scheer, Founder, Chairman and CEO of Cereplast, "Algae-based resins represent an outstanding opportunity for companies across the plastic supply chain to…

• U.S. Wind Power To Blow Past 8 GW in 2009

  2 Nov 2009 | 6:48 am

  According to a recent brief from Emerging Energy Research, the US wind energy market could reach 8 GW installed in 2009, (including project spill-over from 2008 and new wind build), despite initial fears of a major drop in megawatts resulting from the financial crisis. The firm said that 6.3 GW of wind have already been added in 2009, while more than 2 GW are under construction and scheduled for activation by year's end. "At face value it appears that the US market could witness its second-best growth year to date; however, if you remove spill-over build originally meant for completion in…

• British Cops Unable to Use Flashing Lights on Mitsubishi Electric Car

  2 Nov 2009 | 5:04 am

  By Andrew Williams Cops based near Oxford in the UK have revealed that they are unable to to use flashing blue lights on their new electric car - in case it drains too much power from the battery. The Thames Valley police force is testing out the £20,000 ($33,000) Mitsubishi i Miev in an effort to improve its environmental credentials. Apart from this quite obvious setback, they have been pleased with the silent, emission-free car, capable of travelling 100 miles on a single charge (with the lights off). According to local Councillor Gerry Webb, of Oxford, "It also saves public money." The…

• Palm Oil: The Contentious Climate and CSR Issue in Asia

  30 Oct 2009 | 5:45 pm

  By Chris Tobias This weeks CSR-Asia conference in Kuala Lumpur touched on several critical issues for the region. One contentious topic is palm oil. While organizations, like the WWF lauded Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), might have tried to add legitimacy to the notion that palm oil can be cultivated in a sustainable manner, reality reveals problems on both social and environmental grounds. For instance, one of Malaysia's largest palm oil companies and member of the RSPO, Sime Darby, recently gained concessions in Indonesia and Liberia to develop plantations on hundreds of…

• 
  Environmental Defense Fund: Climate 411

• Environmental Defense Fund Welcomes Stabenow Climate Offset Legislation

  Tony Kreindler

  4 Nov 2009 | 1:09 pm

  Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow unveiled her new agriculture and forestry title for the Senate climate bill today. The legislation would establish a domestic “offset” program for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. We gave the measure qualified praise today, saying it gives the Senate an opportunity to craft a consensus approach that delivers low-cost emissions reductions with environmental credibility — but also cautioning that the bill needs more work to guarantee that offsets are environmentally effective. Here’s the statement from our senior policy manager, John Mimikakis:…

• Fred Krupp’s Remarks on the Finish Line for a Climate Deal

  Sharyn Stein

  2 Nov 2009 | 2:14 pm

  This morning, Fred Krupp, EDF’s president, gave the following remarks at the Point Carbon conference in New York City: Think for a moment about the speech you’d expect to hear from an environmental leader on the eve of Copenhagen. Now forget it.   This is not going to be that speech. You might expect someone in my position to call for – to demand – a final international agreement to solve the climate crisis before Copenhagen delegates go home for Christmas.   I will not. You might expect me to assert that the greatest threat to our planet will come about if New Year’s Day…

• ‘Marketplace’ Report Misses the Real Story on Coal

  Mark Brownstein

  30 Oct 2009 | 11:28 am

  Yesterday’s Marketplace report does an excellent job of highlighting the social and political fissures occurring in West Virginia and nationally as the United States starts in earnest the transition to a clean-energy, low-carbon economy. What the story fails to adequately convey is just how many old-line energy producers have crossed the divide and embraced the reality and opportunity of capping and reducing greenhouse gas pollution. Don Blankenship, who was quoted in the story,  is very much a minority voice in the coal industry. His company, Massey Energy,  is in fact not even among…

• EDF at Senate Hearings: Energy Bill Comes At Bargain Price

  Keith Gaby

  30 Oct 2009 | 9:09 am

  For the last three days, the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works listened to some strong arguments in favor of climate legislation. One of our favorite arguments came from our own Fred Krupp, president of EDF, who focused on the recent study from the EPA that confirms the low cost of the bill. After conducting some serious qualitative analysis, the EPA found that the Senate bill is just as affordable as the House bill passed earlier this year. For the bargain price of $3 to $4 a month, the average American can look forward to a robust economy powered by new green jobs,…

• New Poll Shows 6 in 10 Americans Support Cap and Trade

  Sharyn Stein

  28 Oct 2009 | 6:00 am

  As the battle over clean energy legislation heats up in the Senate, CNN has released a new poll showing that 60 percent of Americans support cap and trade. CNN says the issue shows a huge generational divide. More than two-thirds of Americans under age 50 support cap and trade, but those 50 and older are split. The poll shows three-quarters of Democrats back the idea, as do nearly sixty percent of Independents and about 4 in 10 Republicans. Says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland: Independents may not be red or blue, but they appear to be green. CNN Poll: 6 in 10 back ‘cap and…

• 
  The Greener Grass

• TGG celebrates Oktoberfest

  Michael

  30 Oct 2009 | 6:29 am

  Have you ever wondered why Oktoberfest starts in September? We're not complaining, but we wanted to stretch it out. To celebrate Kaleidoscope's 20th anniversary, we recently threw an Oktoberfest open haus. The party wouldn't be complete without some concepts, so here are just a few of our favorites. Let us know what you think! Boom Boom combines a simple, elegant form and a delightful detail: a small mushroom cloud blown into the base of the glass. Beer Drop Crying and drinking go hand in hand, in spite of society’s reluctance to accept it. This glass celebrates those who have the courage…

• Plug into the Smart Grid

  Brian

  9 Mar 2009 | 12:56 pm

  Last month, Google hosted a panel discussion at their DC Office regarding the future of smart grid technology. Panelists from Google, their partner GE, utilities, and the government discussed how best to utilize the $11 billion (part of the $83 billion of the stimulus allocated to clean technologies) set aside for modernizing our electric grid. The panel also answered questions from the public submitted online. You can watch the entire discussion here.“What does a world with smart power look like? As Washington develops the road map for a bigger, smarter electricity grid, how can we ensure…

• Rethinking the Public Drinking Fountain

  Chris Heckman

  17 Feb 2009 | 12:07 pm

  A 2007 article from Fast Company points out that North Americans spent $15 billion on bottled water. That's not only a lot of petrol to make the plastic, but also requires mountains of energy to transport the more than one billion bottles around the country every week. And on top of that, over 95% of bottles made in 2005 were single serving sized, which has one of the lowest recycling rates of other forms of plastic packaging.There's a major, and costly, irony with the perception and reality of bottled water. Most people drink it because they think it's healthier than "free" tap water, when…

• New Products Visualize Home Energy Use

  Michael

  21 Jan 2009 | 6:10 am

  About a year ago, we created our Current State concept to visualize home energy use. Since then we've seen a growing interest in the subject and there are two interesting articles about products that make this concept more of a reality.Make created Tweet-a-watt, an open source piece of hardware that posts your data to Twitter. Tweet-a-watt captures and documents energy use but takes the idea a step further, by letting your friends and followers also track your energy use. In theory, this could create competition among neighbors or family members to be the most responsible energy users.

• Edward Norton's $9 billion green housing project

  Finn McKenty

  19 Jan 2009 | 1:22 pm

  I'll admit that I'm a pretty big fan of celebrity gossip, so I was pretty surprised to come across this piece about Edward Norton on Fast Company:Edward Norton, the two-time Oscar nominee, stood at the podium at the Hilton Washington this past May and tried to be humble. The actor was in the capital to present a major civil rights award to someone he knew well -- his grandmother. It was gearing up to be a nice moment. "I work in a profession," he told the crowd of social workers, lawyers, and community organizers, "that gets a totally disproportionate amount of attention relative to its true…

• 
  GreenMonk: the blog

• SAP’s new Sustainability Performance Management tool could be a real game-changer!

  tom@redmonk.com (Tom Raftery)

  3 Nov 2009 | 10:28 am

  Sustainability reporting is a bit all over the place. Standards, such as they are, are many, not widely agreed on, and are loosely observed. One of the better sustainability reports to emerge this year was SAP’s. Unlike the staid PDF documents most companies put out, SAP’s is a website which allows reasonably deep linking ( here’s the section on SAP’s 2008 Carbon Footprint, for example – notice how you can change it to see footprint by region, KTon or Kg/employee, and get extra info by rolling the mouse over the charts). SAP also rolled out a discussion area…

• Never run a conference at a venue that can’t provide water dispensing machines, instead of bottled water

  tom@redmonk.com (Tom Raftery)

  3 Nov 2009 | 5:32 am

  I attend a lot of conferences. The two most recent ones I was at were both run by SAP. The first was the International SAP for Utilities conference in Munich, the second was the SAP TechEd conference in Vienna. Both events were very interesting for a variety of reasons but both conferences left a nasty (dry) taste in my mouth because the only water available to drink was bottled water! What is the big deal about using bottled water, you ask? Well, according to Food and Water Watch: Bottled water wastes fossil fuels and water in production and transport, and when the water is drunk the bottles…

• GreenMonk news roundup 11/03/2009

  tom@redmonk.com (Tom Raftery)

  3 Nov 2009 | 12:30 am

  Al Jazeera English – Business – BP hit with record safety fine “British Petroleum, one of the world’s largest energy companies, has been hit with a record fine of $87m for safety violations at a Texas refinery. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) handed down the fine on Friday, saying the company had failed to correct safety shortfalls at its Texas City refinery after a blast there in 2005 killed 15 workers and injured 170 others.” tags: bp, british petroleum, osha, texas refinery, greenmonktv India swamped by 420,000 tonnes of e-waste: lobby…

• Monday Nov 2nd Energy and Sustainability show

  tom@redmonk.com (Tom Raftery)

  2 Nov 2009 | 10:31 am

  Mon, 2 Nov, 16:30 Tom Raftery : Kicking off now Mon, 2 Nov, 16:30 MikeTheBee : Sound and Vid ok Mon, 2 Nov, 16:30 Daithi : Grand Mon, 2 Nov, 16:32 MikeTheBee : Ah I missed the tab, looked for link in the side menu Mon, 2 Nov, 16:32 Tom Raftery : http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/01/climate-change-world-leaders-accused?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter Mon, 2 Nov, 16:34 MikeTheBee : Yep, we have been “passing ships” I caught the recordings later. Mon, 2 Nov, 16:36 Tom Raftery : http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33579529/ns/world_news-world_environment Mon, 2…

• US Smart Grid future looking bright?

  tom@redmonk.com (Tom Raftery)

  30 Oct 2009 | 8:00 am

  Photo credit Barack Obama President Barack Obama was in Florida on Tuesday this week for the official opening of Florida Power and Light’s new solar energy power plant. The 90,000+ solar panel plant, which has been installed across 180 acres of the 5,000 acre FPL property, is expected to generate 25MW of clean electricity (enough to power 3,000 homes) making it the largest operating solar power plant in the US. President Obama took the opportunity to announce (slightly sooner than was expected) the awarding of $3.4 billion in investment grants to help spur the transition to smart grids…

• 
  The Green Mom Review™

• Woopsies!

  Katherine

  3 Nov 2009 | 10:18 am

  What: Bucky’s Woopsies Kids Soothing Packs Features: Can be warmed up in the microwave or chilled in the freezer Green Factor: Made with machine washable bamboo terrycloth and premium whole buckwheat seed filling Bonus: These creatures, with their bright colors and funny faces, are sure to distract kids from their owies! Find It Here: Kids and Baby Design Ideas The Green Mom Review™..

• Bite on This: More Grocery Store Secrets

  Janet

  1 Nov 2009 | 8:01 pm

  We all know chlorine is a poison. It’s toxic and has been linked to infertility and disease. Sadly it’s everywhere—in our drinking water, bleaching our paper towels and toilet paper, in pools, in PVC plastics, in pesticides, so we do our best to avoid it by getting unbleached products and filtering our water (even the showers!) and just when we thought we were safe, we find out that chlorine is routinely used to keep our healthy produce “fresh” by, and I quote the MMS Newsletter: “In the grocery store, glistening carrots, lettuce, tomatoes, bell peppers, etc.

• Weekly Green Round-Up

  Janet

  1 Nov 2009 | 8:01 pm

  Walmart Knows What’s Best for Us Green Moms. Right? by OrganicMania — Lynn shares her thoughts on the Walmart Sustainability Index, which they are putting together with NO consumer input. (This makes me feel all kinds of stabby, particularly as one of our ad networks, despite past objections, has been running Walmart ads this week on our site.) Bottled Water is Best by Crunchy Chicken — Bottled water isn’t nearly as bad as you might think and Deanna will tell you exactly why… It’s awesome satire with a sly side of sarcasm. Cast Iron Cookware by Big Green Purse —…

• Organics Have Gone to the Dogs

  Katherine

  31 Oct 2009 | 9:01 pm

  Dog owners, you want your pet to have the very best, right? Consider this: because of his smaller size, your beloved Fido is more prone to the chemicals, hormones and additives found in conventional pet foods and supplies. Fortunately, the pet supply market does have safer, healthier organic and all-natural options for your canine furbabies. Check out these awesome goods from Karma: organic, all-natural dog food and shampoo. Each seven-pound bag of kibble is made with 95% organic ingredients that are USDA Certified Organic, including fresh meats and whole grains, all-natural fruits and…

• Listen & Comment to Win $100 Gift Card

  Janet

  18 Oct 2009 | 10:34 pm

  As part of its “Be Good to Your Whole Body” campaign, for the month of October, Whole Foods Market has created podcasts focusing on maintaining a healthy mood.  As the seasons change, these simple, free tips, consider how conscious breathing, herbs, and eating well, can help maintain a healthy mood. Just listen to one or all of the podcasts and leave a comment telling Whole Foods what you think of their work. On October 30th, one commenter will be randomly chosen to receive a $100 Whole Foods gift card! You can find the podcasts here. Listen and then then comment on one or more…

• 
  GreenPacks.org

• Tracking tropical storm Ida

  Bill Belew

  4 Nov 2009 | 3:48 pm

  Hurricane season lasts until November 3oth. Tropical Ida is trying to get in on top of the radar, as opposed to under the radar before the season winds down. It’s near Nicaragua now. Ida is the 9th storm of the season, down a bit and sending the global warming/climate change alarmists into a frizzy. The most current info here. Come back for updates.

• EV Owners May Earn From Charging Their Vehicles

  Joshua Willis

  4 Nov 2009 | 10:20 am

  The effect of millions of electric vehicles connecting to the grid during peak hours has been feared and discussed since long. While charging vehicles during off-peak hours may be good for utilities, in an interesting turn it may even earn some money for the owners. More specifically, EV/PHEV owners in West Texas and Illinois are being paid to charge their vehicles during off-peak hours, and that’s clean wind energy we’re speaking of. With the growth of wind energy in these states, there is an oversupply of energy during off-peak hours, and this has in turn pushed prices into the…

• Kilimanjaro’s Melting Snow Shows a Drastic Picture of Global Warming

  Joshua Willis

  3 Nov 2009 | 11:29 am

  Mount Kilimanjaro is Africa’s highest peak, and used to be covered in snow throughout the year despite its proximity to the equator. The ill-effects of global warming however, have put up a drastic picture of the mountain, whose slopes went ice-free this year; probably for the first time in 12,000 years. According to a study that is based on terrestrial and satellite photographs, and has been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences the mountain is rapidly losing its glaciers. In 95 years of data tracking since 1912, nearly 85% of the glaciers have…

• Japanese Solar Vehicle Wins World Solar Challenge

  Joshua Willis

  3 Nov 2009 | 11:11 am

  The World Solar Challenge started off in 1987, and features teams of some of the top engineering colleges from around the world vying to get hold of a top spot, while traveling thousands of miles in solar powered racecars. The challenge puts up a grueling task for the vehicles which are powered by only solar energy. This year, the cars covered a distance of nearly 1,864 miles through a route that stretched from Darwin in Northern Australia to Adelaide in South Australia. Winner of the race was Tokai University’s Tokai Challenger, which covered the journey in 29 hours and 49 minutes,…

• Solar Monorail Proposed for Bologna

  Joshua Willis

  2 Nov 2009 | 1:27 pm

  Designers and architects Iosa Ghini Associati have proposed a solar powered monorail system for the city of Bologna, Italy. Called Energy Belt, the 5084 meter long system will connect the airport to the city center. The monorail will operate at heights varying from 7 meters to 25 meters, will have an intermediate stop at Lazzaretto, and will be entirely powered by solar energy collected by photovoltaic panels placed at the track’s southwest side to maximize energy gain. Stations along the route have been designed to serve as vertical gardens, thus providing natural insulation,…

• 
  GreenSmith Consulting

• U2, Oxfam America, New York MTA: Green Hypocrites?

  Paul Smith

  4 Nov 2009 | 4:00 am

  If you're looking for an example of someone who walks their talk, Mike Lieberman would be your man. Best known as CanarsieBK on the web, this Brooklyn man is a living, breathing demonstration of how one can live sustainably, anywhere. He proves anything is possible, growing a thriving vegetable garden on his fire escape, and demonstrating actionable steps, daily, on how to be personally sustainable. And he's definitely not afraid to speak his mind.Today Lieberman takes aim at those who don't seem to be walking the talk, balanced with options they could choose to align their actions better…

• Coming soon...

  Paul Smith

  28 Oct 2009 | 11:50 am

  I've got something bubbling up inside me, and it's all Chris Brogan's fault. The man who I'm sure has a stunt double or two for all that he does, issued a challenge in a recent video, Overnight Success Part 2 - A Call to Arms. In it, he said that it's time for us to stop just playing small, playing remedial when it comes to using social media to its full potential. Time to level up, together, as it were. It knocked something loose in me.I began to write all sorts of thoughts, not necessarily focused on social media, but instead on sustainability, and how I see people and businesses practicing…

• Do You Know Your Community? Does the Community Know You?

  Paul Smith

  21 Oct 2009 | 5:00 am

  I believe that we learn best by hearing from many different voices. And in this case, I'm learning along with you in our latest guest post. Like many of you, I use my deep, broad online resources almost exclusively for getting new business, and with the exception of one client, all are from other parts of the country, or even out of the country. Here we have Victoria Klein reminding us to pay attention to and make best use of what's going on right in our local communities, in terms of business, and gives several excellent resources to best explore it. Please share any we've missed, of which…

• Modwalls Green Tiles Video Review - Taking Junk and Creating Beauty

  Paul Smith

  1 Oct 2009 | 11:56 am

  Being on Twitter, I come across a lot of interesting finds. Like Modwalls, that makes some gorgeous, thoroughly sustainable tiles, made from things like recycled car windshields, reclaimed building glass, tumbled soda bottle pieces, and wine corks! They spin gold from these modest sounding origins, as you'll see in the video review I did, below. I was impressed with the depth of their sustainability, as even their packing materials are these innovative triangle shaped pieces of paper. I suspect they're much more likely by people to be recycled then, say, soy or corn starch based "popcorn" are…

• The Best Feature of Snow Leopard: What it's Missing

  Paul Smith

  15 Sep 2009 | 4:00 am

  In recent weeks there have been several articles on the best and least known features of Apple's new operating system, Snow Leopard. From Quicktime's ability to record and edit audio, video, and screencasts, to its Exchange support, to the small but pleasing ability to minimize documents to their respective app icons in the dock (rather then to the side of the dock in a messy jumble) there has been a lot covered. But perhaps the best and least heralded feature of Snow Leopard is what it's missing: 10% of its energy use, compared to its predecessor, Leopard.Among the factors contributing to…

• 
  Green Business

• Ray Anderson: Pioneer of a Movement

  robertludvig

  4 Nov 2009 | 7:43 am

  It is difficult to start any type of business, so if you want to start a green business you better find out what your motives are. If you decide to begin the search, start by looking at the pioneer of green business, Mr. Ray Anderson. He will tell you his answers and motivations for starting an environmentally friendly carpet business many years ago, before running a green business was the thing to do.The reasons why the pioneer of green business started his company are truly inspiring. Two of Mr.Anderson’s philosophies?  Take nothing, do no harm and only take from the earth what can…

• Environmentally Friendly Data Centers

  robertludvig

  28 Oct 2009 | 10:51 pm

  Data centers are not the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about green business, but that is changing with the increasing presence of data centers located in Stockholm, Sweden. Stockholm offers an almost perfect data center location because it has near zero environmental impact. The use of outside air-cooling year round is a key factor in Stockholm being perfectly suited for a data center of any size. With cooling systems being a key component to maintaining data centers, no air conditioning is needed to keep the massive computers from over-heating. Stockholm represents a cost…

• Environmentally Friendly Events

  robertludvig

  27 Oct 2009 | 12:52 pm

  It never seizes to amaze me the amazing ideas people come up with in terms of creating unique green businesses. I recently came across a green business that is an original. The green business I am referring to sells eco-friendly products to throw  sustainable parties for large and small groups. How smart is that? The name of the company is Sustainable Party and they help you create environmentally friendly and socially responsible events of all sizes. Sustainable party sells compostable cups and other environmentally friendly products that anyone would need to throw a ‘green’…

• Environmental Protection Agency’s Energy Star

  robertludvig

  25 Oct 2009 | 8:54 am

  The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) created a program called Energy Star to help reduce energy use. The Energy Star website is a vast online resource that offers a wealth of information  to help everyone create a more environmentally friendly workplace. The site also offers tips and tricks to help your business become more energy efficient. Their spokesperson, Danny Seo, takes you on a video tour of an Energy Star program building. He shows you how to make small changes in your business or workplace to make it more green and leave a smaller negative impact on the…

• Green Business Certification in Santa Monica

  robertludvig

  21 Oct 2009 | 5:03 pm

  The City of Santa Monica is doing everything it can to help its citizens go green with the Santa Monica Office of Sustainability and the Environment’s website. Some of the areas the website covers are: buying green, education, energy, green building and hazardous materials. A superb idea and amazing resource from a city offering indispensable and helpful information. There are no more excuses for the average home and business owner not to make a transition to become cleaner and greener. An extension of this amazing website is the part that is dedicated to green business programs offered…

• 
  Autoblog Green

• Perennial wishes: Auto industry execs calling for higher gas tax yet again

  Sebastian Blanco

  4 Nov 2009 | 4:59 pm

  Filed under: MPG, Legislation and Policy, Green Daily, USA How often do the Wall Street Journal, Bill Ford, Jr. and Thomas Friedman agree on something? When it's the gas tax, it's 100 percent of the time, and now a number of auto executives have added their voices in favor of a gas tax in order to reach the end goal of getting more fuel efficient vehicles into use. Speaking at the Reuters Autos Summit in Detroit, people like Jerry York, a former GM board member, and Mike Jackson, chief executive of AutoNation Inc., said that setting the price of gas at at least $4 a gallon would be a better…

• Next BMW M5 to cut CO2 emissions by 20%, no hybrid

  Sam Abuelsamid

  4 Nov 2009 | 3:59 pm

  Filed under: MPG, BMW, LightweightThe next generation of BMW's 5-series sedan is expected to debut early in 2010, perhaps at the Geneva Motor Show. The new M5, however, likely won't be launched until the 2011 Frankfurt show. According to Albert Biermann, development boss of the M division, when it does arrive, it will cut CO2 emissions by 20 percent compared to the current model. To do that, BMW will follow an increasingly common path with direct injection, turbocharging and revised gearing. The M5 will apparently use a version of the 555 hp turbocharged 4.4-liter V8 from the X5M/X6M. The…

• SAM begins rebirth as Re-Volt in Poland

  Domenick Yoney

  4 Nov 2009 | 3:08 pm

  Filed under: EV/Plug-in, Europe/EU SAM Re-Volt - Click above for high-res image gallery If you harbor a fondness for bizarre-looking three-wheeled electric vehicles and are looking for a good excuse to visit Poland, this may be your lucky day. The re-engineered SAM is now for sale in that Central European Republic and has been dubbed the Re-Volt. Those familiar with the project might remember it was expected to be available through the SAM website a couple months back but, for whatever reason, that site is not yet live. The price to start turning heads (and possibly create panic) on the…

• Chrysler to outfit Fiat 500-approved dealers with specific showroom "salons"

  Jeremy Korzeniewski

  4 Nov 2009 | 1:55 pm

  Filed under: MPG, Chrysler, Fiat Fiat 500 - Click above for high-res image gallery Listening to Chrysler's long and rambling 2010-2014 Business Plan, it was clear that the company and its dealerships are very much looking forward to finally getting the fuel efficient Fiat 500 in North America. Much like what happened when BMW launched the Mini brand eight-odd years ago, it's hoped that the cute little 500 will attract a whole new customer to the Chrysler fold. In order to properly court those new wallets buyers, Chrysler plans to open "specific interior showroom branded salons" in select…

• 2010 Volkswagen Jetta TDI Cup 'Street" edition arrives in January

  Sam Abuelsamid

  4 Nov 2009 | 12:52 pm

  Filed under: Diesel, Volkswagen 2010 VW Jetta TDI Cup Street Edition - Click above to enlarge When we were in Germany last month for the launch of the 2010 Golf, VW product planner Andres Valbuena told us that a special street replica of the Jetta TDI Cup race car would be launching in January 2010. We just got the first photo of the new limited edition model along with further details. The TDI Cup "Street" edition gets the same deeper front fascia, rocker panel and rear bumper extensions used on the race cars. Unfortunately, the replica keeps the standard 140-horsepower engine rather the…

• 
  Awake at the Wheel

• Cellulosic Plant takes a big step towards converting Corn Cobs into Fuel

  propel

  4 Nov 2009 | 11:34 am

  South Dakota based POET is pioneering commercial-scale next generation ethanol production with their Project Liberty plant in Emmetsburg, Iowa. The 25 million-gallon-per-year plant reached a significant benchmark yesterday receiving a 20 million dollar commitment from Lt Governor Patty Judge. Former four-star General Wesley Clark spoke to attendees about the important role they would play in [...]

• E85-driving Vikings fans get free parking

  propel

  23 Oct 2009 | 9:29 am

  The Minnesota Vikings team up with the American Lung Association to offer FREE parking to the first 25 flex fuel vehicles at every home game. The flex fuel drivers get prime parking in the Gold Lot, which normally goes for $40, plus discount coupons for the closest flex fuel E85 station. The new environmental initiative, “Viking [...]

• Study finds E85 increases efficiency offsetting MPG loss

  propel

  13 Oct 2009 | 11:03 am

  A study released by the University of Nebraska found that E85 delivers more efficiency over higher petroleum fuel blends, offsetting much of the loss in Miles Per Gallon (MPG) typically attributed to E85. The study illustrates that when calculating fuel MPG performance, both the energy density of the fuel (BTUs), and the energy efficiency must [...]

• VW Stays Focused on Clean Diesel

  propel

  12 Oct 2009 | 9:30 am

  While many auto manufacturers are looking to hybrids and electrics, Volkswagen stays focused on fuel efficient clean diesel passenger vehicles. Currently making up less than 3% market share in the US, J.D. Power forecasts the diesel passenger segment to grow to 8% by 2015. Not even close to the 50% market share seen in Europe, [...]

• Green jobs for conservation corps youth

  propel

  7 Oct 2009 | 2:47 pm

  Propel has teamed up with Sacramento Regional Conservation Corps to provide life and skills training for at-risk young men and women at Propel’s retail fueling locations. “Our partnership with SRCC allows us to not only help young people develop important skills that will assist them the rest of their lives, but creates a skilled workforce for the [...]

• 
  BioDieselNow

• Daily News—11/04

  Robert Gleeman

  4 Nov 2009 | 4:11 am

    University of Louisville’s Speed School of Engineering makes biodiesel from campus cooking oil Chemical engineering students at the University of Louisville’s Speed School of Engineering are producing biofuel from used cooking oil at the campus’s eateries. Chemical engineering professor Eric Berson says they’re using it to power the university’s shuttle bus. He says students are still perfecting the technique, and will increase the blend of biofuel as they progress. Very short story about something that should be part of campus life, and that is biodiesel production from used…

• Daily News—11/03

  Robert Gleeman

  3 Nov 2009 | 1:08 am

    B2 biodiesel mandate starts in Manitoba, Canada WAYNE.GLOWACKI@FREEPRESS.MB.CA Enlarge Image After Premier Greg Selinger (right) announced that Manitoba will become the first jurisdiction in Canada to implement a biodiesel mandate at a news conference Monday morning, he got a tour led by Royce Rostecki president of Speedway International Manitoba's only licensed biodiesel producer. WINNIPEG - A provincial mandate that requires that an average of two per cent of all diesel fuel sold in Manitoba be biodiesel is now in effect. Premier Greg Selinger said today the Nov. 1 requirement…

• Daily News—11/02

  Robert Gleeman

  2 Nov 2009 | 2:52 am

    Ghana opens sunflower seed-oil feedstock biodiesel plant A factory to process sunflower into bio-diesel was inaugurated at Tema with the call on the government and financial institutions to help expand the facility. The US$217,000 facility could process four metric tonnes of sunflower grains daily while the bio-diesel processor could process 250 liter bio-diesel. The Global Environmental Facility Small Grants Programme of the United Nations Development Programme contributed 25,000 US dollars while the Tropical Agricultural Marketing and Consultancy Services ((TRAGRIMACS) Sunflower…

• Daily News—10/30

  Robert Gleeman

  30 Oct 2009 | 3:21 am

    Algae biodiesel industry leader asks Congress for consideration Mary Rosenthal with the Algal Biomass Association told the representatives that despite some good progress for the algae biodiesel industry in recent years (not to mention the potential it holds), many of today’s federal biofuel policies simply ignore the role algae could play, limiting opportunities for funding and regulatory acceptance. She says she just wants a fair shake from the government Rosenthal urged Congress not to miss the opportunity of developing a truly renewable, sustainable fuel that will create jobs,…

• Daily News—10/29

  Robert Gleeman

  29 Oct 2009 | 3:13 am

    Permibus fills up on B100 biodiesel at Innovation Fuels You can’t eat free… unless you’re also getting renewable, clean-burning biodiesel. Well, the world’s first environmentally sustainable tour bus was able to get a free fillup of B100, pure biodiesel, at Innovation Fuels’ New York Harbor bioefinery: “The Permibus” – the world’s first environmentally sustainable tour bus complete with an interior garden perpetuated by worms, live chicken farm, multidimensional composting system, solar panels and wood burning stove – visited renewable fuels company Innovation…

• 
  IHT: Business of Green

• Economists Concur on Threat of Warming

  By Todd Woody

  4 Nov 2009 | 10:00 am

  More than 140 top economists agreed that global warming threatens the United States economy and that a cap-and-trade system is needed.

• Groups Push U.S. and China on Carbon Capture and Storage Technology

  By Edward Wong

  4 Nov 2009 | 7:43 am

  Three prominent American research organizations that are pushing for greater cooperation between the U.S. and China on developing carbon capture technology and the creation of a market for carbon.

• The Vagaries of Estimating Cap-and-Trade's Impact on Consumers

  By John Collins Rudolf

  4 Nov 2009 | 5:31 am

  Predictions for the impact of cap-and-trade on individual consumers, or even states, should be viewed with some skepticism, a policy specialist says.

• On Our Radar...

  By R.M. Schneiderman

  3 Nov 2009 | 2:01 pm

  Fanciful gardens in Baghdad, Buffett bets big on coal, and other energy and environment news from around the Web.

• Disney Invests In Saving Forests

  By Sindya N. Bhanoo

  3 Nov 2009 | 12:17 pm

  The Walt Disney Company announced Tuesday that it has made a $4 million investment in forest conservation projects to decrease carbon dioxide emissions.

• 
  California Energy Blog

• Toyota To Roll Out Innovative New EV Charging Stations

  CalEnergyGuy

  4 Nov 2009 | 8:42 am

  In advance of the launch of the plug-in version of the Prius, Toyota is getting into the electric vehicle charging station business.The company has announced plans to roll out individual charging 100-200 volt charging stations that will be anchored to telephone polls.Two interesting features about these stations: 1) The stations will be the first to be solar powered, and 2) the stations communicate with a central computer that will authorize user access, thus giving Toyota a way to monetize the service by making it subscription based or perhaps even "pay as you go."Nissan has also announced…

• The Other Side Weighs In On The TV Saga

  CalEnergyGuy

  3 Nov 2009 | 12:31 pm

  Last week we noted the absurdity of CARB's proposed regulation that would require metallic window glazing on cars (glazing that would impair GPS, cell phone, and other devices). Today we revisit the CEC's absurd proposed regualtion to ban some flat panel TV's in California.Gary Shapiro is the CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association, which means he is a paid flack for the people who make and sell the TV's CEC wants to ban. We mention that for transparency. It's no secret where Shapiro's allegiance lies. That said, his oped in the San Francisco Chronicle makes a lot of very good points…

• Solar Schools

  CalEnergyGuy

  2 Nov 2009 | 8:58 am

  The key to building grassroots support for any issue is public education. PG&E is taking that seriously when it comes to solar energy and is going back to school-- literally.Through the "Solar Schools" program, the company has spent more than $8 million on a 125 schools in California, outfitting them with 1.3 KW solar arrays sufficient to power school operations, handing out "Bright Idea" grants, and working with the National Energy Education Development Project on school currculum about solar energy.The Bright Ideas grants are $10,000 prizes awared to teachers and amisnistrators in fiver…

• $30 Million in Tax Breaks Lures Tesla to SoCal

  CalEnergyGuy

  30 Oct 2009 | 8:56 am

  Where is uber-chic electric car maker Tesla going to site its new assembly plant? Southern California, for sure, but it remains to be seen if a dormant Boeing facility in Long Beach or the Downey Studios in Downey will be the winner of the Tesla sweepstakes which carries a prize of 1,400 new jobs created.The California Alternative Energy and Advanced Transportation Authority is granting $30 million in tax breaks.Here's how it works:Tesla will buy $320 million in equiment it needs to outfit the plant. It will then convey title of that equipment (i.e., "give") to the CAEATA, which under its…

• Damned if you do, Damned if you don't...

  CalEnergyGuy

  29 Oct 2009 | 9:18 am

  State Rep Ira Ruskin teams up with Environment California's Charlotte Glennie in an oped in today's Palo Alto Daily News in which they call out Arnold for his lack of leadership on green energy.They claim that with "more substantial and tenacious leadership at the state level," we can create 200,000 new jobs in the clean energy sector.What they are really miffed at the governor about is his veto of SB 14 and AB 64, which would have written the 33% RPS standard into law. Recall that Arnold did mandate 33% by Executive Order but that does nothing to placate Ruskin and Glennie.Read the oped…

• 
  Ecogeek

• Solar Projects Battling for Water

  28 Oct 2009 | 5:34 pm

  Construction of renewable energy projects has revealed some serious environmental issues that will have to be dealt with as we speed toward a clean energy future.  We recently wrote about the conflict between land conservation efforts and renewable energy projects in deserts out west.  Land that is ideal for solar energy production is also pristine land in need of protection. In California, a similar conflict is arising between solar projects and water conservation.  Solar farms demand a lot of water, a resource that is stretched very thin in the arid areas where they're being developed. …

• Bright Doling Out Advice to Army, Automakers

  28 Oct 2009 | 4:44 pm

  Bright Automotive, best known for its 100-mpg IDEA plug-in utility van, announced a new $1.4 million contract with the U.S. Army to build a plug-in hybrid for non-combat use.  The PHEV will be designed to cut Army fuel consumption as well as to demonstrate how an EV could potentially feed power back to the grid.  The project is part of an Army initiative to explore how bases could eventually run off-grid. The Army contract isn't the only way that Bright is lending its expertise these days.  The company has also launched eSolutions, a consulting program where they will provide automotive…

• Dell Plants Solar Trees in the Parking Lot

  27 Oct 2009 | 3:27 pm

  Dell is doing it again, this time on-site, with a series of solar trees that will not only help power it's headquarters in Round Rock, Texas, but also serve to charge electric vehicles parked there. Of course, there aren't currently any electric vehicles parking in the Dell lot, but hopefully that will change in the next few years. The solar trees were put in place by Envision Solar, who's work we've seen at Google Headquarters previously.The Dell installation will provide 130,000 kW/h per year and shades the parking spots of the 56 employees who get to the lot first. Everyone else gets…

• Let's Make This Clear: Vertical Farms Don't Make Sense

  26 Oct 2009 | 2:07 pm

  The inside of a skyscraper is, literally, the most expensive "land" in the world. So it probably isn't the best place to grow our food. The idea of vertical farming (growing food in high-rise buildings in the middle of cities instead of out on farms) has been gaining a lot of interest lately. Most recetly, it showed up on BoingBoing, one of our favorite blogs. We've seen a few of these proposals, and we've been following the concept for some time. It seems EcoGeeky enough, but a quick glance at the actual economics of farming shows that this isn't ever going to work. At first, it seems to…

• Need to Measure Wind Speed? There's an App for That

  23 Oct 2009 | 3:40 pm

  The potential of small-scale wind power is starting to be discussed more.  Soon, like small-scale solar installations, wind turbines will be springing up in backyards and on rooftops.  If you're thinking that you'd like to be one of the people with a turbine out back, you'll need to assess the wind speeds around your house.  Luckily, as the commercials say, there's an app for that. A new iPhone app by Mariah Power lets you measure wind speeds around you by simply holding your phone in the air.  The program uses the microphone to pick up the noise of the wind and then calculates the speed…

• 
  Inhabitat

• VOTE for Your Favorite Green Halloween Costume!

  Yuka Yoneda

  4 Nov 2009 | 2:30 pm

  VOTE NOW FOR YOUR FAVORITE GREEN HALLOWEEN COSTUME! We hope you all had a happy Halloween! Even though the festivities are officially over, you can still enjoy the spirit of the most creative holiday of the year by voting for your favorite eco costume in our Green Halloween Costume contest! We were seriously impressed with the super unique and, in many cases, insanely detailed and labor-intensive costumes that were entered. While it wasn’t easy, we pored through the pile and were finally able to narrow it down to the top 15 submissions that really blew us away. So without further ado,…

• Elwood Green: 6 Star Sustainably Built Apartment Complex

  Evelyn Lee

  4 Nov 2009 | 1:00 pm

  High Density green living is on the rise in Elwood, Australia with Crosby Architect’s new Elwood Green project. Living up to its name, the high-density apartment building will house 25 units that are expected to receive an average 6-star rating – the highest honor currently available from the Green Building Council of Australia. What comes as a bit of surprise is the lack of active systems assisting in the green rating, which just goes to show that old ingenuity and smart design can create buildings every bit as sustainable as the most high-tech structures. Read the rest of Elwood…

• Garden Sheds Are an Explosion of Architectural Experimentation

  Lloyd Alter

  4 Nov 2009 | 12:00 pm

  Mark Twain had a garden shed; he called it “the loveliest study you ever saw…octagonal with a peaked roof, each face filled with a spacious window…perched in complete isolation on the top of an elevation that commands leagues of valley and city and retreating ranges of distant blue hills. It is a cozy nest and just room in it for a sofa, table, and three or four chairs, and when the storms sweep down the remote valley and the lighting flashes behind the hills beyond and the rain beats upon the roof over my head—imagine the luxury of it.”But in recent times, the humble garden…

• Low-Energy Laser Etching Could Replace Annoying Fruit Labels

  Ariel Schwartz

  4 Nov 2009 | 9:30 am

  How many times have you bit into a piece of fruit only to find that you’re also chomping on a sticker label? The small yet wasteful labels have long been the bane of waste-conscious fruit and vegetable eaters, but that might all change thanks to new technology that uses a low-energy carbon dioxide laser beam to etch information directly onto produce. No more peeling those annoying labels! Read the rest of Low-Energy Laser Etching Could Replace Annoying Fruit Labels Permalink | Add to del.icio.us | digg Post tags: fda, grapefruit, laser etching, sticker labels, usda

• COBE Wins First Prize for Bike-Friendly Norreport Station in Copenhagen

  Bridgette Meinhold

  4 Nov 2009 | 8:00 am

  COBE Architects blasted away its competitors with a sexy and bike-friendly new design in the recent competition to redesign Copenhagen’s Norreport train station. Almost retro in its lines, the architects’ vision of the new station is composed of a series of rounded, floating roofs set upon striking glass pavilions. Since bicycles are a preferred means of transportation in Copenhagen, ample bike parking was a main feature of the new structure, and other green features will include energy-efficient lighting and natural ventilation. Read the rest of COBE Wins First Prize for…

• 
  CNET news: green tech blog

• Save some energy (and cash) this winter

  Don Reisinger

  4 Nov 2009 | 12:13 pm

  Winter energy costs can soar in no time. But with the help of some online resources, you can quickly find ways to be more efficient. Originally posted at Webware

• LA changing its glow for more efficiency

  Candace Lombardi

  4 Nov 2009 | 11:46 am

  LEDs to be used at bus stops and for street lamps as old lights come up for replacement. Bus stop LEDs are solar powered and off-grid for light during blackouts.

• Waste Management squeezes fuel from landfills

  Candace Lombardi

  4 Nov 2009 | 10:40 am

  California project is producing liquefied natural gas from organic decomposition in landfills.

• Backyard wind turbine? There's an app for that

  Martin LaMonica

  4 Nov 2009 | 7:02 am

  Small wind turbine company Mariah Power teams with developer to make an application that uses the iPhone microphone to measure wind speed.

• Microsoft's Mundie: IT needed to solve global woes

  Martin LaMonica

  3 Nov 2009 | 5:25 pm

  At Harvard, Microsoft Chief Research Officer Craig Mundie argues that computer science is on the brink of breakthroughs that can crack daunting energy and environmental problems.

• 
  Clean Break

• Time-of-use pricing: Will it undermine solar domestic hot water programs?

  admin

  31 Oct 2009 | 8:20 am

  Smart meters and time-of-use pricing are always well-read stories because there’s true division within the general public on whether smart meters are consumer-friendly gadgets that encourage conservation or utility-friendly devices that make it easier to gouge consumers. See my story in the Toronto Star from Friday. My take is that electricity prices are going up whether we get smart meters or not, and that smart meters — and the applications they enable — offer households a way to shift and even lower their electricity use to buffer the impact of rising prices. The mistake…

• Is not being green a “social faux pas”? If so, will green imposters follow?

  admin

  27 Oct 2009 | 10:17 am

  I don’t typically give much weight to surveys, particularly ones that have been paid for by private interests, but a new national (Canadian) survey — a joint effort by Bosch Home Appliances and Leger Marketing — caught my attention. It addresses the question of whether people who waste energy and senselessly pollute are at risk of becoming social outcasts in our increasingly green-conscious society. Or, as the survey press release calls them, “environmental delinquents.” According to the survey of 1,510 adult Canadians, “a full 7 in 10 Canadians say…

• German solar industry, EU not happy with Ontario local content rules

  admin

  26 Oct 2009 | 7:12 am

  Ontario’s decision to require local labour and gear for 40 to 5o per cent of a solar project’s content has ruffled some feathers in Europe.  The province’s government created the Made-in-Ontario rules in parallel with the design of its feed-in tariff program for renewables, which for solar PV pays up to 80.2 cents per kilowatt-hour. That’s a hefty premium, so to justify it to Ontario ratepayers (who will ultimately be picking up the tab) the government created the local content rules as a way to tout the economic benefits that would come from increased investment…

• Applications to develop offshore wind on Great Lakes overwhelms ministry

  admin

  23 Oct 2009 | 6:56 am

  Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources says it has received more than 100 applications representing more than 500 wind-energy projects on the Ontario side of the Great Lakes. Overwhelmed, the ministry has temporarily stopped taking applications until it can review what it has and make sure proper processes are in place for granting approvals. Minister Donna Cansfield gave the update at an offshore wind energy conference in Toronto, where developers and investors across Europe, the U.S. and Canada gathered to talk about the North American opportunity. For more detail on what was discussed at…

• StormFisher to electrify veggie and fruit scraps from 47 Loblaw stores

  admin

  19 Oct 2009 | 7:22 am

  Hopefully this will set the standard for grocery stores across Ontario and the rest of Canada. StormFisher Biogas has signed a deal with grocery chain Loblaws, which will send organic trimmings from 47 of its stores across southwestern Ontario to a StormFisher facility. StormFisher will then use its anaerobic digestion systems to convert the waste into biogas, and then burn the biogas to generate electricity that will be sold onto the provincial grid under the feed-in tariff program. That program pays between 10.4 and 16 cents per kilowatt-hour, depending on the size of the facility.

• 
  Fake Plastic Fish

• Baking Soda: So Many Uses; So Little Money… and Plastic

  Beth Terry

  4 Nov 2009 | 11:30 am

  I hear people bemoaning the high cost of “going green.”  And while organic food does cost more than its chemical-laden counterpart, I’m here to tell you that it’s easier to spend more for healthy food when you save money in other ways.  We can skip many of the green cleaners, deodorizers, and personal care products, most of which are fairly expensive.  To that end, baking soda is our friend. (Ha! I rhymed.) What’s so great about baking soda? 1) It’s cheap. On Safeway.com, a 1 lb box is $1.40. But I save money and packaging by buying it from the bulk bin…

• Dianna Cohen: Getting the Message from Her Own Art

  Beth Terry

  3 Nov 2009 | 12:13 pm

  Dianna Cohen is a painter, but she doesn’t use a paint brush. Trained at UCLA, she gave up the brush for materials most people consider trash: bags, boxes, little pieces of plastic. This year, she helped to found the Plastic Pollution Coalition. After twenty years, she finally started to get the messages from her own art. During my weekend in L.A., Dianna put me up in her art studio. I got to live with her artwork for three days and pick up a few messages myself. Over lunch, Dianna explained to me about her art process and her passion for protecting the environment. While in college,…

• New Fake Plastic Fish Discussion Board Is Up!

  Beth Terry

  2 Nov 2009 | 10:11 am

  As you may have noticed, I added a new menu bar last week with links to nowhere. Those links represent my hopes and dreams for this web site and are a motivation for me to create the missing pages sooner than later! Well, the “Discuss” link went live last night. It’s a brand new discussion board for us, who are trying to reduce the amount of plastic in the world, to ask questions, post interesting articles and links, offer suggestions, drum up support for actions and campaigns, or just vent the frustration we sometimes feel when confronted with unnecessary plastic crap. The…

• 350 Day on the Beach. Where in the World is Beth?

  Beth Terry

  29 Oct 2009 | 12:45 pm

  350.org has released this fantastic video showing actions all over the world that took place on October 24. So where was I? The best laid plans sometimes go awry when unknown locations and strange parking fee machines are involved. By the time I got to the beach in Santa Monica for the 350 Day Blogger Beach Cleanup, the event had already begun. Not to miss out, filmmaker Jan Vozenilek and I ran across the sand as fast as we could toward what we thought was our group. (Click images to see larger size on 350.org web site.) We arrived huffing and panting to a beautiful sand sculpture on Santa…

• Fantastic Letter from PolarSolar to Fake Plastic Fish

  Beth Terry

  28 Oct 2009 | 12:13 pm

  While I was away this weekend, I received this email from a San Francisco company that installs solar water heaters: from Joseph Wright to Beth Terry date Sun, Oct 25, 2009 at 5:05 PM subject Thanks and Question Hi Beth, I wanted to write to let you know what a hero you are of mine and I want to thank you for the positive influence that you have on the lives of others and the environment…I also have a question…I am a fellow Bay Area native and I operate a sustainable water heating business -– after reading your recent blog post I have decided to eliminate PVC from our materials…

• 
  Clean Energy Stocks

• Investorideas.com Green Funding Directory Updated; Now Lists over 540 Global Green Funding Sources

  www.Investorideas.com

  2 Nov 2009 | 11:06 am

  Investorideas.com Green Funding Directory Updated; Now Lists over 540 Global Green Funding Sources POINT ROBERTS, Wash., Delta B.C., November 2 2009 - www.InvestorIdeas.com, a leading online global investor resource, with a primary focus on green investing, has updated the recently available Global Green Fund and Venture Capital Directory for green businesses and entrepreneurs seeking potential funding sources. The directory now lists over 540 global funding sources in the cleantech sector.The global directory is currently available for purchase in a PDF format for $99 and is updated…

• Investorideas.com add New Budget Conscious Cleantech Showcase IR Services for Publicly Traded Green Stocks

  www.Investorideas.com

  28 Oct 2009 | 9:59 am

  Investorideas.com add New Budget Conscious Cleantech Showcase IR Services for Publicly Traded Green StocksPOINT ROBERTS, WA and DELTA, BC –October 28,, 2009 – Investorideas.com, a leader in cleantech investor research and investor tools offers new budget conscious IR tools and services for publicly traded cleantech companies. Services include news release publication, company profile publishing and showcase services starting at $1000 month. Showcase Services for Cleantech Companies:$1000 month program - Have your company logo, stock symbol, link to your website on Investor Ideas home page…

• DB CLIMATE CHANGE ADVISORS PUBLISHES ANALYSIS OF 270 CLIMATE AND ENERGY POLICIES

  www.Investorideas.com

  26 Oct 2009 | 11:34 am

  DB CLIMATE CHANGE ADVISORS PUBLISHES ANALYSIS OF 270 CLIMATE AND ENERGY POLICIESThe “Climate Tracker” provides a Reference for Policies to be discussed at Upcoming Climate Change Talks in Copenhagen and Calls for Increased Government ActionNEW YORK, October 26, 2009 –Deutsche Bank’s Asset Management division (DeAM) today published research which provides investors with an analysis of climate change policies and assigns a risk rating to 109 countries, states and regions based on key government mandates and supporting policy frameworks.The report, titled “Global Climate Change Policy…

• Solar Stocks News - Applied Materials (Nasdaq:AMAT) Opens Advanced Solar Research and Customer Demonstration Facility in Xi’an, China

  www.Investorideas.com

  26 Oct 2009 | 7:03 am

  Solar Stocks News - Applied Materials (Nasdaq:AMAT) Opens Advanced Solar Research and Customer Demonstration Facility in Xi’an, ChinaXI’AN, China-- October 26 2009 - Applied Materials, Inc. (Nasdaq:AMAT) the world’s largest supplier of equipment to the solar photovoltaic industry, today opened an advanced solar research and demonstration facility in Xi’an, China. Applied Materials’ Solar Technology Center, the largest non-government solar energy research facility in the world, is comprised of laboratory and office buildings covering more than 400,000 square feet and contains an…

• 2009 Solar Decathlon Winners Announced

  www.Investorideas.com

  23 Oct 2009 | 12:15 pm

  2009 Solar Decathlon Winners AnnouncedWASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Department of Energy Deputy Secretary Daniel Poneman today announced the winners of the 2009 Department of Energy Solar Competition on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Team Germany, the student team from Darmstadt, Germany, won top honors by designing, building, and operating the most attractive and efficient solar-powered home. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign took second place followed by Team California in third place.The active competition lasted for a week, with the prototype home designs open to the public…

• 
  Cleantech Blog

• Low Cost Desalination - Saltworks Breakthrough

  Paul O' Callaghan

  3 Nov 2009 | 8:15 am

  Canadian firm, Saltworks Technologies, just came out of stealth in relation to their desalination technology, which they claim reduce the electrical energy required for desalination by over 70%. They report they can produce 1m3 of water with 1kW hour of electrical energy, compared to the 3.7kWhr per m3, which is what is currently achievable using reverse osmosis with the use of energy recovery devices.So how to they do it? Well its novel. It appears to be a new approach. And novel and new are two things scarce as hens teeth in relation to desalination technologies. They use solar heat (or…

• Plugging Electric Vehicles

  Richard T. Stuebi

  2 Nov 2009 | 4:33 am

  by Richard T. StuebiMuch has been written about the planned release by General Motors (NYSE: GM) of the Chevy Volt, a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle. When GM launches the vehicle, now slated for late 2010, it plans to sell tens of thousands of them.As profiled in an article in the August 24 issue of Forbes, the bigger mover in the electric drive vehicles game looks to be Nissan (NASD: NSANY), which is investing several billion dollars to ramp up for producing 300,000-400,000 electric vehicles within a few years. Its entry model is the Leaf, a five-passenger hatchback that it aims to sell in…

• Ford Electric Car for 2011

  John Addison

  27 Oct 2009 | 7:29 am

  By John Addison (originally published in Clean Fleet Report 10/26/09). My test drive of the new Ford electric car for 2011 demonstrated that Ford (NYSE:F) is building an electric car that millions will want. The Ford Focus EV prototype provided a quiet and smooth drive for a prototype. One Ford engineer indicated that he was going beyond a 60-mile daily range in Michigan without nearing battery depletion. The Focus EV looks and drives like the popular gasoline powered Ford Focus four-door sedan. It comfortably seated four adults, but good luck if you want three people in the back – it will…

• H2O to H2 w/o C

  Richard T. Stuebi

  26 Oct 2009 | 5:08 am

  by Richard T. StuebiAlthough much of the ink these days about innovative vehicles relates to plug-in hybrids, work continues to explore the potential for hydrogen-based fuel cells to play a key role in the transportation sector -- particularly in light of the recent decision by Congress to reauthorize funding for hydrogen autos.Admittedly, as hydrogen critics and skeptics are quick to point out, the vision for personal automobiles running on hydrogen is very long-term and thus quite murky due to a number of factors, perhaps most notably the lack of a ubiquitous hydrogen refueling…

• Cleantech Blog Readers - Unite! Let's Color the Volt

  Neal Dikeman

  22 Oct 2009 | 8:08 am

  Ok, I couldn't resist.GM is running a contest to name the silver green color for the Volt. Winner gets to go to the LA auto show and drive a pre-production Volt.So if any of you have a few minutes to amuse yourself, add your color name idea in the comments to this post, or email it to me, and we'll take the best ones (we'll run a poll if time allows) and submit them as the Cleantech Blog submissions. (Or just submit straight to GM if you want to try yourself).For the record, if we win, we'll auction off the right to represent Cleantech Blog at the LA autoshow and give the proceeds to a green…

• 
  Green Tech Media: Cleantech Investing

• Conventional wisdom and cleantech venture capital

  info@greentechmedia.com

  4 Nov 2009 | 2:02 pm

  I had the pleasure of speaking as part of a panel this morning at the Mid-Atlantic Capital Alliance's conference in Philadelphia.  Here's a taste of what I told them: 1.  Cleantech only happens in Silicon Valley and MIT.  If you look at the dollars flowing into cleantech from venture capitalists, and read the sunday NYT, that's the natural conclusion you would draw.  So my apologies to everyone in Philly (or the rest of the country outside of northern California and Boston), there's clearly very little good entrepreneurial activity in cleantech in your region. 2. …

• Friday folderol

  info@greentechmedia.com

  30 Oct 2009 | 12:37 pm

  Some random items, including some administrative housekeeping:   1.  If you haven't seen it, it's worth reading DOE Secretary Chu's op-ed on weatherization and all of the governmental support being thrown toward that part of energy efficiency.  Heady times for residential and commercial energy efficiency efforts.  Side note:  The Secretary of Energy is publishing his op-eds in the Huffington Post now?  Wow, this Internet thingy might actually be catching on.   2.  How the government "picks winners and losers" is a topic of much conversation these days,…

• Great returns from cleantech

  info@greentechmedia.com

  28 Oct 2009 | 12:11 pm

  Did you see the Q2 venture returns report from Cambridge Associates and the NVCA (note: pdf)?  If so, you were probably as intrigued by the chart on page 7 as I was. On that page is a chart of "US Venture Capital Dollar-Weighted Internal Rate of Return on Vintage Year Companies" broken out by sector.  They don't break out cleantech as a category, but they do break out Energy.  And the numbers are pretty noteworthy. Energy category IRRs vs. All Companies IRRs 2002  Energy = 43.0%, All = 8.75% 2003  Energy = 46.0%, All = 12.3% 2004  Energy = 10.4%, All = 12.8%…

• “ARPA-E! ARPA-E!”

  info@greentechmedia.com

  26 Oct 2009 | 6:44 am

  Okay, so maybe I jokingly tried to start an "ARPA-E" chant at Obama's MIT speech on Friday, simply because I thought it might be the only crowd ever wonky enough to get it. But acronymical joking aside, it's a potentially valuable DOE program that could end up helping one of the major capital gaps that's emerging in cleantech venture capital:  Seed stage and early stage development of ideas that are promising but will take too long to commercialize than most VCs can handle. So it's great to see the news release today with $151M of grants to 37 efforts.  Including: Sadoway's…

• Thank you, Eric!

  info@greentechmedia.com

  24 Oct 2009 | 7:58 pm

  ...for my nomination for Funniest Post and Link of the Year. "When Thanksgiving day arrives, and I fill my plate... I want to be able to thank the Lord for his gift of barium titanate..." Enjoy, all!

• 
  Cleantech Investing in Israel

• Jerusalem event highlights U.S.-Israel energy cooperation

  Jonathan Shapira

  2 Nov 2009 | 7:50 pm

  On Sunday, November 8th, hundreds of young professionals will gather in San Francisco for the Jewish Response to the Energy Challenge conference featuring cleantech entrepreneurs, investors and policymakers.The conference will be broadcast to several cities around the world, including Jerusalem, where organizers have arranged for their own simulcast event on the U.S.-Israel Partnership for Clean and Secure Energy Solutions. Dr. Isaac Berzin, Director of the Institute for Renewable Energy Policy at IDC Herzliya (and Founder of Greenfuel Technologies) will give the keynote address. Dr. Berzin…

• Ormat teams with Sunday Energy on $195M joint venture for 36 MW of solar

  Jonathan Shapira

  19 Oct 2009 | 6:27 am

  Ormat Technologies, Inc., announced today that its Israeli subsidiary, Ormat Systems Ltd., has signed a Joint Venture Agreement (“JVA”) with Sunday Energy Ltd. (“Sunday”), an Israeli solar integration company, to construct and operate solar-photovoltaic (“PV”) energy systems in Israel with a total capacity of 36 megawatts (MW).Under the JVA, Sunday will contribute the rights to all of its property and roofs required to develop solar energy systems above 1 MW to special purpose entities (“SPEs”). Ormat will own 70% of each SPE and will also have control of it. Under the terms…

• Siemens to buy Solel Solar for $418 million

  Jonathan Shapira

  15 Oct 2009 | 11:06 am

  German industrial conglomerate Siemens AG has announced that it will buy solar thermal power company Solel Solar Systems Ltd. for $418 million.Siemens will buy the Beit Shemesh, Israel-based company from Ecofin Ltd., a London-based investment company which had purchased a stake in Solel in January 2008 at a company value of $150 million.Solel has a workforce of over 500 and is one of the world´s two leading suppliers of solar receivers, which are key components in parabolic trough solar power plants. Solel posted revenue totaling almost $90 million in the first six months of this year, and…

• GE invests in SolarEdge, joining $23m Series B funding round

  Jonathan Shapira

  14 Oct 2009 | 12:30 pm

  SolarEdge, a Herzliya, Israel-based start-up developing technology that increases solar power systems’ output by up to 25 percent, announced today that GE unit GE Energy Financial Services has joined a $23 million funding round to support growth in residential and large-scale photovoltaic sites.SolarEdge’s other investors are US venture capital funds Opus Capital and Walden International, Israeli venture capital funds Genesis Partners and Vertex Venture Capital, and the Singaporean fund JP Capital Asia. Details of each investor’s contribution to the equity financing were not…

• BrightView achieves milestones at Signet Solar thin film photovoltaic plant

  Jonathan Shapira

  14 Oct 2009 | 8:17 am

  BrightView Systems, a Petah Tikva, Israel-based cleantech start-up, announced today the successful integration and validation of its WAM (Wide Area Metrology) process metrology and mapping solution for thin-film PV manufacturers at Signet Solar's production line in Mochau, Germany. The WAM tool, developed by BrightView in Israel, has, according to the company, "successfully demonstrated its contribution to both panel efficiency and line productivity via its in-line, true-cell-metrology and measurement capabilities and associated suite of control applications for excursion detection, chamber…

• 
  ALT Energy Stocks: Cleantech News

• High-Energy Batteries Coming to Market

  (Source: Technology Review - References: WSJ.com: Environmental Capital,Environment Blog,GoodCleanTech) Rechargeable zinc-air batteries can store three times the energy of a lithium-ion battery.

• Weatherization: Saving Money by Saving Energy -- Steven Chu Op-Ed

  (Source: Clean Edge - References: Cleantech Investing)

• An Affordable Free Span Solar System

  (Source: Jetson Green) P4P Energy, LLC -- short for Power for the Planet -- recently completed the installation of its first, cable-suspended free span solar system in the parking lot of the headquarters building for REM Eyewear in Sun Valley, California. 

• KLM to fly first passengers using bio-diesel

  (Source: The Earth Times - References: The Oil Drum) Amsterdam - Dutch KLM will be the first airline to fly a passenger flight using bio-diesel, the airline claimed on Wednesday. The Boeing 747 flight, carrying a limited number of passengers, will take off on November 23 using a mixture of bio-fuel

• Trainspotting: Warren Buffett’s Big (And Safe) Bet on Rail

  (Source: WSJ.com: Environmental Capital - References: Earth2Tech) Is Warren Buffett?s $26 billion purchase of Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad a bet on 19th-century industry or the 21st-century economy? Neither, it seems?it?s the perfect hedge. Associated Press Start your engines The huge deal by Mr.

• 
  Gil Friend

• Get This: Overcoming the Key Barriers to Building a Sustainable Economy

  Gil Friend

  26 Oct 2009 | 6:32 pm

  Sustainable business strategies often hit a surprising roadblock -- the limiting (and false) assumption "green" will cost money, require sacrifice, and delay profits. The problem isn't that companies can't afford to operate sustainably. The problem is that too many businesses just can't count -- operating with accounting systems that miss real value and consistently leave money on the table. To address this assumption, businesses -- and the economic systems within which we operate -- need to overcome three key barriers: Business must get the prices right, break the addiction to "stuff," and…

• Upcoming sustainable business events - with me! (and discounts too)

  Gil Friend

  23 Sep 2009 | 10:04 pm

  My speaking schedule has gotten increasingly crowded as interest continues to rise in sustainability as a serious business strategy. Here's what's up in the next few weeks: Digging Deeper San Francisco, September 27 2009 Discount Code: DiggingSF09 A Sustainability Compass- Navigating the Business Frontier Workshop, reception and book-signing NBIS, Seattle, September 29 2009 West Coast Green San Francisco CA October 1-3 2009 Special discount for "friends of Gil" Designers Accord Global Summit Oct 23 2009 San Francisco Closing Plenary: SRI in The Rockies (with Hunter Lovins) Tucson AZ October…

• Quote of the day

  Gil Friend

  18 Sep 2009 | 12:19 am

  The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country. - Abraham Lincoln (Thank you Dan Geiger of the USGBC-Northern California Chapter.

• Impossible? I'm not so sure

  Gil Friend

  8 Sep 2009 | 1:06 am

  From Tim Ferriss's blog: "€œDon'™t tell me it'€™s impossible,"€ he says, "€œtell me you can't do it."€ "€œTell me it's never been done. Because the only real laws in this world-“the only things we really know-€“are the two postulates of relativity, the three laws of Newton, the four laws of thermodynamics, and Maxwell's equation-€“no, scratch that, the only things we really know are  Maxwell'€™s equations, the three laws of Newton, the two postulates of relativity, and the periodic table. That's all we know that's true. All the rest are man'€™s laws...." -From Esquire…

• Impossible? I'm not so sure

  Gil Friend

  8 Sep 2009 | 12:55 am

  From Tim Ferriss's blog: "€œDon'™t tell me it'€™s impossible,"€ he says, "€œtell me you can't do it."€ "€œTell me it's never been done. Because the only real laws in this world-“the only things we really know-€“are the two postulates of relativity, the three laws of Newton, the four laws of thermodynamics, and Maxwell's equation-€“no, scratch that, the only things we really know are  Maxwell'€™s equations, the three laws of Newton, the two postulates of relativity, and the periodic table. That's all we know that's true. All the rest are man'€™s laws...." -From Esquire…

• 
  The BiOH Experience

• Now It’s Your Turn to “Experience Soy Style”

  Jessica, BiOH Polyols Marketing Manager

  21 Oct 2009 | 3:09 pm

  I’m finally catching my breath from the whirlwind that surrounded the Experience Soy Style: Be in the KnOH! event on October 10… and wanted to share some highlights with those of you who could not attend! First of all, a BIG thanks to Room & Board for hosting the event in their Edina, MN store and for their flexibility in adjusting their retail space to showcase the MCAD student exhibits. The winning MCAD student exhibitors - Nick Kriegler, Stephanie Polus, and Ruth Sauvageau - did a fabulous job designing exhibits that fit with the Room & Board brand experience and told…

• BiOH Polyols and MCAD Students on TV!

  Jessica, BiOH Polyols Marketing Manager

  9 Oct 2009 | 7:43 am

  This morning our local CBS news affiliate, WCCO, ran a story about soy foam made with BiOH polyols and the MCAD students that have been designing exhibits for the Experience Soy Style event at Room & Board this Saturday. The milk jug scupture shown in the video is just one of many exhibits that will be on display this weekend. You can check out the full news story here

• The Chance to Experience Soy Style is Almost Here!

  Jessica, BiOH Polyols Marketing Manager

  8 Oct 2009 | 9:23 am

  The Minneapolis College of Art and Design students are putting final touches on the exhibits, the Room & Board team is preparing their store in Edina, MN, and many of us on the BiOH team are busy finalizing last minute details to make  the Experience Soy Style: Be in the KnOH! event on Saturday from 1-3pm  run smoothly. We are all so excited! The students have designed several exhibits to take you on a “journey from soybean to sofa.” Through videos, banners, soybean plants, foam blocks, and scupltures, you can learn more about soy foam options and why they may be a better…

• A Special Q&A for Interior Designers on Soy Foam

  Jessica, BiOH Polyols Marketing Manager

  11 Sep 2009 | 3:24 pm

  If you’re an interior designer, this post is written specifically to answer your questions and hopefully, inspire you to become a catalyst for positive change in the home furnishings industry. And if you’re not an interior designer, you’re still welcome to follow along! Let’s start with some background on why interior designers may consider specifiying products made using soy foam with BiOH polyols… 1.Clients are often seeking more environmentally friendly and healthier options for their homes, and designers are expected to bring solutions. (The Green Design…

• Does the Perfect Seat for Your Seat have Soy?

  Jessica, BiOH Polyols Marketing Manager

  1 Sep 2009 | 1:56 pm

  It might if you’re shopping at LaDifférence in Richmond, VA during the month of September as they hold their Perfect Seat for Your Seat Sale! La Diff is a contemporary retailer that delivers great style along with a lot of enthusiasm and character.  You get a taste of the La Diff shopping experience just by walking past their store windows for the latest buzz. Who wouldn’t want to walk inside to check out their offering? La Diff Windows July 2009 La Diff Windows May 2009 La Diff Windows April 2009 La Diff Windows April 2009 La Diff is a single store location in the heart of…

• 
  Environmental Leader

• ResponsibleTravel.com Scuttles Carbon Offsetting Option

  Environmental Leader

  4 Nov 2009 | 7:48 am

  One of the first travel agencies to give fliers the option to offset the carbon emissions of their flights has ceased offering the program, calling it a “medieval pardon.” Responsibletravel.com, a UK travel agency, had been offering the offsetting option since 2002. Now it believes the best way to address global emissions is to focus on [...]

• U.S. Cap-and-Trade Creates Winners and Losers among Largest Emitters

  Environmental Leader

  4 Nov 2009 | 7:34 am

  Under the Kerry-Boxer cap-and-trade bill, ExxonMobil would face an annual charge of $5.9 billion to purchase carbon allowances, while electricity giants like Exelon and Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) would emerge as financial winners, because they rely heavily on diversified, low-emission fleets, according to a new study from PointCarbon, reports the New York Times’ Green [...]

• DOE Awards $155M to Make Industrial Sector More Energy Efficient

  Environmental Leader

  4 Nov 2009 | 7:27 am

  The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is awarding more than $155 million in funding under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act for 41 industrial energy-efficiency projects across the country. These awards include funding for industrial combined heat and power systems, district energy systems for industrial facilities, and grants to support technical and financial assistance to [...]

• System Upgrades Power Up Energy Savings for Hotels

  Environmental Leader

  4 Nov 2009 | 7:23 am

  For hotels, going green translates into energy-saving projects with some very tangible results. These include the Hilton New York’s energy fuel cell installation that is nearly three times as efficient as the electric grid, system upgrades at Denver’s historic Oxford Hotel that nearly cut the hotel’s monthly utility bills in half, and the solar panel [...]

• Xerox Cuts GHG Emissions by 20% from 2002

  Environmental Leader

  4 Nov 2009 | 7:16 am

  Xerox Corp. reports greenhouse gas emissions fell 20 percent from 2002 to 2008, and says it will deliver a 25 percent reduction in total GHG emissions by 2012 from a 2002 baseline, according to the company’s 2009 Report on Global Citizenship (PDF). Xerox’s environmental sustainability goals (PDF) center on climate protection, preserving biodiversity and the world’s [...]

• 
  Joel Makower: Two Steps Forward

• Introducing … the Green Confidence Index

  joelmakower

  27 Oct 2009 | 7:55 am

  Today marks the launch of a new monthly index, the Green Confidence Index, aimed at tracking Americans' attitudes about and confidence in their leaders and institutions, nationally and locally, on the subject of environmental responsibility, as well as in their own understanding of issues and their willingness to make green purchasing choices. It is the first comprehensive monthly tracking of consumers' green attitudes and purchasing. The Index was produced by my colleagues at GreenBiz.com in partnership with a leading market research firm, Earthsense, and a leading polling firm,…

• How to Talk About [Whatever It's Called]

  joelmakower

  25 Oct 2009 | 9:14 pm

  Do people care about the climate?It's an open question these days, and opinion polls offer little help. Some show that climate ranks fairly low among public concerns, while others indicate a high level of concern among the populace. And in the run-up to the Copenhagen climate summit, now a mere six weeks away, those opinions count for something, particularly in the United States, where lawmakers are looking to be swayed one way or another. Here's a sampling of the hodgepodge of public opinion. The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press last week reported that "There…

• A Look Inside Good Housekeeping's Green Seal

  joelmakower

  18 Oct 2009 | 8:34 pm

  It's long stated as near fact by observers of the confusing and confounding green marketplace that what's needed, once and for all, is something akin to a Good Housekeeping Seal for the environment. Good Housekeeping, it seems, represents a pinnacle of credibility and consumer confidence. So, now that Good Housekeeping has introduced its own green seal, what should we make of it? First, some background. The original Good Housekeeping Seal was introduced in 1909, when there was little regulatory oversight of consumer products. It represented an audacious marketing promise from its…

• Sky Vegetables: Taking Green Roofs to New Heights

  joelmakower

  7 Oct 2009 | 9:06 am

  "Hi, I'm Keith. We take underutilized space in urban areas and grow food there, creating green jobs, providing access to fresh produce, localizing the economy, and creating a better life by building communities through growing vegetables." I have to admit, it was one of the cooler, more compelling elevator pitches I've heard, and I've heard a lot. This one came at a cocktail reception several weeks ago, at the Food Marketing Institute's Sustainability Summit, a gathering of major retailers and consumer packaged goods brands, where I was a keynote speaker. As such…

• Who's Invested in Newsweek's Least-Green Companies? (Maybe You)

  joelmakower

  21 Sep 2009 | 5:01 am

  One aspect of Newsweek's just-released rankings of 500 leading companies' environmental policies and performance is to view the list from an investor perspective. Specifically: Who are investors in the worst-ranked companies? You might be surprised to find that it's you. An analysis of the publicly available data shows that the 50 largest investors in the companies receiving the lowest scores — those ranked 490 through 500 on Newsweek's list — include three leading public employee pension funds as well as major mutual funds that hold millions of Americans'…

• 
  Sustainablog

• Simran’s Eco-Friendly Home Makeover Comes to Oprah.com

  Jeff McIntire-Strasburg

  4 Nov 2009 | 11:26 am

  Buying your first home is both nerve-wracking and exhilarating. Imagine the heightening of both of those emotions if you choose to 1) buy an older house full of character, and 2) jump right into green updates and renovations upon purchase. You’ll then have a good sense of what journalist, professor, and good friend of sustainablog Simran Sethi is going through right now… she recently purchased an 84-year-old home in her adopted home town of Lawrence, KS. Unlike the rest of us, though, Simran’s inviting the world in to watch the process of greening her new house: on Monday,…

• Rehabilitating The Concept of Bio-Fuels: Part One

  Steve Savage

  4 Nov 2009 | 10:49 am

  In 2006 I attended a BIO meeting in Toronto focused on the new bio-based economy.  Oil had just risen to $70/barrel and it was a time when environmental NGOs, biotech companies and even oil companies seemed to be on the “same page” in terms of their enthusiasm for moving to plant-based feedstocks as the perfect alternative to oil dependency.  With the very obvious international security costs of the oil economy, and what were then thought to be unimaginable energy costs, it was a remarkable sort of celebration event for all the alternative energy and materials folks who has…

• Climate Change Conference Calls on US for Reduction Targets

  SolveClimate

  3 Nov 2009 | 9:35 am

  This post was written by Stacy Feldman (reporting from Barcelona, Spain), and originally published at SolveClimate. The United States must deliver concrete mid-term greenhouse gas reduction targets by next month or it will destroy efforts to achieve a framework for a global climate change deal in Copenhagen, United Nations climate chief Yvo de Boer said Monday as a week of international talks on global warming began in Barcelona. “I do not think the international community will accept an agreement that lacks clarity from the U.S. on targets,” de Boer said. The Barcelona talks are…

• Plan B 4.0 by the Numbers — Data Highlights on Poverty and Population

  Earth Policy Institute

  3 Nov 2009 | 8:37 am

  www.earthpolicy.org/index.php?/press_room/C68/pb4_ch7_datarelease In Chapter 7 of the recently released Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, Lester Brown lays out the Plan B goals for eradicating poverty and stabilizing population. Behind the scenes are a number of datasets and graphs that delve deeper into the trends discussed in the chapter. Here are some highlights from the Chapter 7 data: World population has grown steadily over the past half century, increasing from 2.5 billion in 1950 to a projected 6.8 billion in 2009. The United Nations medium fertility level scenario projects…

• Gaining Green Ground

  Paige Donner

  2 Nov 2009 | 8:39 am

  Here’s a thing not often seen in the U.S. - a “First Nation’s” Chief sanctifying an urban conference about the Resiliency of Cities. First of all, we don’t refer to our Native Americans as “First Nations people” and rarely are they offered the honor of sanctifying civic events. But up in Canada, they do things a bit differently. And so, for the 6th Gaining Ground Summit, this one focused on Resilient Cities, Chief Bill Williams of the Squamish First Nation, on whose tribal land the Vancouver Convention Center was built, led opening ceremonies with a…

• 
  wattwatt.com latest pulses

• A Breakthrough Technology to Recycle CO2 into Fuel

  Jose

  Posted on October 29, 2009 by Jose Vaz Pinto Will mitigate the CO2 problem using the actual fuel infrastructure. Recycling CO2 emissions into renewable liquid fuels can directly and immediately reduce the demand for liquid petroleum fuels - this is based on Carbon Science recently announced R first results. Based on a projected industrial scale CO2 to fuel conversion efficiency range of 40% to 80%, Carbon Sciences believes its breakthrough CO2-to-Fuel technology can provide a significant portion of the world's liquid fuel supply. Fuels produced with CO2-to-Fuel technology are essentially…

• Energy studies with power logger

  Jerry

  Posted on October 29, 2009 by Jerry Rodgers In order to reduce energy consumption you need to understand how much energy you are using and when. To do that, hook up a power logger such as the Fluke 1735 to the feeders or service. For a 3-phase wye systerm there will be connections: three phase voltages, neutral voltage, three phase currents and neutral current. Set the network topology to wye or delta to match the system you are monitoring. Set the recording time -- 15 minute intervals over a 30 day period is typical. After 30 days, download the data and review the measurements. Find average…

• Juan Rosales

  Juan

  Posted on October 23, 2009 by Juan Rosales Lookig for any update related to energy effiency household appliances there is/are 1 comment(s) for this post

• "One size fits all" phone chargers soon to be reality

  Yvonne

  Posted on October 23, 2009 by Yvonne Flavin Who hasn't ever had their phone battery die on them and no-one around has the same make of charger to lend? Or have you had to buy new chargers every time you get a new phone? Well, these problems are set to become things of the past, as yesterday, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the United Nations' agency for telecom, said it has given its stamp of approval "to an energy-efficient one-charger-fits-all new mobile phone solution". At last!The new Universal Charging Solution (UCS), will enable the same charger to be used for…

• First pedal-powered electricity generator on Swiss football pitch

  Philippa

  Posted on October 22, 2009 by Philippa Martin-King A group of teenagers from a local youth club in the City of Lausanne have just installed a pedal-driven lighting system on their football pitch that allows them to play into the darker hours of the winter evenings.Working with a team of engineers from the sustainable renewable energies group, Association pour le développement des énergies renouvelables (ADER) under the direction of Eric Ecoffey, Sebasol, the youth team leader, Daniel Kohlbrenner, helped them put their human energy idea…

• 
  The Ecologist - The Ecologist Blog

• The Ecologist - The Open Ground (20/06/2009)

  Conservation event organised by Conservation Today - a news & opinions website run by postgraduate students

• The Ecologist - The Open Ground (20/06/2009)

  The Open Ground is a conservation event organised by Conservation Today, a news and opinions website run by postgraduate students.

• The Ecologist - New Ecologist website launches at 12 noon on 19th June (18/06/2009)

  A fantastic and vastly improved website replaces the magazine from 19 June at 12 noon.

• The Ecologist - New Ecologist website launches at 12 noon (BST) on Friday 19 June (18/06/2009)

  We are in the process of transferring to the new website. Please note that it can take 24 - 48 hours for your local ISP to update so please try again later if you can still see the old website.

• The Ecologist - Two Degrees Festival: art, activisim and the global climate emergency (16/06/2009)

• 
  EcoEarth.Info: Earth Blog

• ALERT! No to Copenhagen 'Carbon Logging': GOOD REDD Fully Protects and Restores Old Forests as a Global Climatic Imperative

  4 Nov 2009 | 10:56 am

  By Ecological Internet's Climate Ark Climate Change Portal TAKE ACTION HERE NOW! Copenhagen climate talks [search] must not provide Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) carbon market funds for old, natural forest logging, or for conversion of natural or semi-natural forests and other ecosystems to plantations. Ending deforestation and degradation of old and relatively ecologically intact primary and old growth forest ecosystems, and the ecological restoration of late-successional old growth forests, are keystone responses to maintaining the global climatic system. TAKE…

• ALERT! Madagascar's Protected Rainforest Hardwoods Continue to be Selectively Logged

  27 Oct 2009 | 11:54 am

  TAKE ACTION! Loggers and wildlife traders continue to violate Madagascar's biodiversity [search] rich rainforests including protected areas. In March of this year controversy surrounding leasing of agricultural land resulted in a military coup. In the chaos that ensued, armed gangs funded by Chinese traders entered Madagascar’s Marojejy and Masoala National Parks, two world-renowned World Heritage Sites, and logged rosewood, ebonies, and other valuable hardwoods. NGOs operating in Madagascar report continued armed, open and organized plundering of precious wood from several natural forests,…

• EI RELEASE: Papua New Guineans Protest World Bank's Ill-Conceived Expansion of Pacific Tuna Fish Harvest

  20 Oct 2009 | 1:08 am

  Peaceful protesters make clear PMIZ ecologically unsustainable, corruption is epidemic and democracy threatened in Papua New Guinea October 20, 2009 From Asples PNG and Earth's Newsdesk, projects of Ecological Internet (EI) Continue Taking Action Online at: http://bit.ly/png_tuna (MADANG, PAPUA NEW GUINEA) -- Over 500 people gathered at the Madang Provincial Government Headquarters on Thursday, October 15th, to protest Papua New Guinea governments' support for the Pacific Marine Industrial Zone (PMIZ). The PMIZ, at Vidar along the North Coast Road, is expected to be one of the biggest tuna…

• Action Alert: Stop Massive World Bank (IFC) Supported Expansion of Pacific Industrial Tuna Fish Harvest

  15 Oct 2009 | 1:51 am

  By Asples PNG (People of Papua New Guinea), a project of Ecological Internet TAKE ACTION! Over-fishing [search] comes to Madang, Papua New Guinea, as local peoples prepare to resist 10 tuna canneries. Support indigenous South Pacific coastal peoples as they are peacefully protesting right now! In the peaceful South Pacific town of Madang, Papua New Guinea (PNG), the local indigenous people are being inundated with foreign industrial "development" projects -- mines, logging and fisheries -- for which they have not been properly consulted, have not given their informed consent, and from which…

• RELEASE: deRANged II The Sequel -- Rainforest Action Network Endangers World's Rainforests

  26 Sep 2009 | 11:16 pm

  By Earth's Newsdesk, a project of Ecological Internet http://www.ecoearth.info/newsdesk/ CONTACT: Dr. Glen Barry, glenbarry@ecologicalinternet.org (EARTH) -- Rainforest Action Network (RAN) has unexpectedly pulled out of nearly completed secret negotiations with Ecological Internet to work jointly to reform the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) to stop certifying as environmentally acceptable the first time logging of old forests [1]. After fifteen years of FSC membership, RAN still cannot say how much first time industrial primary and old growth forest logging FSC has certified as…

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  1GreenProduct

• Smart fortwo Passion Cabriolet

    Parking a smart fortwo should be at the top of the list of Easiest Things in the World.   Even if the parking space is lilliputian, even if you have approached it from an odd angle, even if the cars on either side of you are gargantuan trucks, you should be able to squeeze into the space [...]

• Tidbits – SNO:LA organic frozen yogurt, ZT Rooibos Tea, Sentina LED lights, Earthworm cleaning products, Intercontinental Chicago O’Hare

  Here are some recent eco-friendly product tidbits: - Travelers (or residents) in Beverly Hills, California or Santa Monica can enjoy organic frozen yogurt made from all-natural ingredients (including probiotics) at SNO:LA. There’s also an outpost in Kyoto, Japan. The shops use eco-friendly decor and consider themselves ‘no-plastic-zones’ by choosing to use biodegradable/compostable materials such as sugar [...]

• My Favorite Products – Susan Gottlieb likes Dr. Bronner’s, Begley’s Best, Seventh Generation and If You Care

  1GreenProduct.com is pleased to present the product recommendations of Susan Gottlieb, co-owner with her husband Daniel of the G2 Gallery. The G2 Gallery strives to support both art and the environment by presenting work from celebrated nature and wildlife photographers. The gallery also says that it donates all profits from art sales to a bevy of worthwhile [...]

• My Favorite Product – Neil Wertheimer likes cork flooring, Pristine Eco Spec Paint and Solar Path Lights

  1GreenProduct.com is pleased to feature the recommendation of guest expert Neil Wertheimer, Editor in Chief of the Home & Garden and Health & Wellness Group, a $200 million-plus publishing business of the Reader’s Digest Association that includes the new Fresh Home magazine. Neil recommends - Cork flooring - Pristine Eco Spec Paint by Benjamin Moore - Solar Path Lights [...]

• E+ Electric Bikes – Elite Mountain Bike

  Like a little raw speed with your electric bike? I clocked my tester E+ Elite Mountain Bike from Electric Motion Systems at around 25 miles per hour on a flat straightaway with no pedaling. The Elite version of the E+ bikes (designed for ‘off road use only’) comes with a 1000 watt in-wheel motor, but you can [...]

• 
  Mom Goes Green

• November 15 is America Recycles Day, America!

  Doreen

  4 Nov 2009 | 7:27 am

  This year I’m posting early!  November 15 is America Recycles Day and what a great opportunity to make some dramatic, but not difficult, changes in our daily lives.  This is a day that “encourages more people to join the movement toward creating a better natural environment by recycling and buying recycled products” and “promotes the social, environmental and economic benefits of recycling.” Last year I used this opportunity to hold a project at our daughter’s school that centered around America Recycles Day and this year will be no different.  I’m encouraging all students to…

• Making a difference begins with one.

  Doreen

  2 Nov 2009 | 7:54 am

  Having been extremely exhausted, overwhelmed, overcommitted (and at times, stressed out!) I felt like I should simply start the week with some inspiration… maybe even more for myself than anyone else. Life, in general, can be overwhelming without “adding to our already overloaded plates”,  but we all sometimes need reminders about the importance of decisions we make and the difference we can make, even if we sometimes feel like an “army of one”. I have felt this way lately for so many reasons.  Sure, there is strength in numbers but there is also strength in one committed effort…

• The FULL story of pesticides and produce.

  Doreen

  30 Oct 2009 | 6:54 am

  The other day I wrote a post about pesticides and using sea salt and water to wash fruits and vegetables before we consume them to remove those dangerous pesticides. Well, a close, personal friend, Will, was bold enough to call a foul.  He is very passionate about the topic and went so far as to call the post “lame”… (ouch!). I’ll first say that the post was written in response to a few readers’ prior comments that they didn’t feel the added expense of organics was in their budget and had limited access to affordable and available organics because of where they lived…

• Remove pesticides from produce… the cheap, easy way!

  Doreen

  28 Oct 2009 | 6:25 am

  I’ve talked a lot about the pesticides and chemicals sprayed on conventionally-grown, non-organic produce.   It always seemed crazy to me that our most healthy foods often come with a load of non-healthy “additives”.   And it’s especially alarming where our children are concerned. You can stick with the “Clean 15” list and buy non-organic, but if you’re on a budget and run across that “Dirty Dozen”, what do you do?  Well, some solutions can be especially expensive to make.  And Fit can also get quite costly. At a Health and Nutrition session I recently attended (where…

• Black, orange and GREEN your Halloween!

  Doreen

  26 Oct 2009 | 6:42 am

  This post is long overdue since the ghosts and goblins of Halloween are beginning to gather for a spook-tacular night!  This is often a season where we can simultaneously go fabulously green AND bust the radar on breaking the rules! If you still have plans in the works here are a few things to remember when you want to lean toward the greener end of the dial! Decorations – nature provides the greatest resources!  Pumpkins, gourds, cornstalks, leaves, Indian corn… all gifts of nature can be used for fabulous decorations and composted afterward.  Because we have a ravine behind our…

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  EcoEarth.iNFO

• Can geoengineering schemes fix climate change?

  4 Nov 2009 | 11:00 am

  Hindu: Whatever remedial measure that we undertake now will not affect the climate for the next 20-30 years but will influence the climate only after 2040. The most promising solutions that Prof J Srinivasan, Chairperson of the Divecha Centre for Climate Change, Centre for Atmospheric Sciences, IISc, Bangalore, and Prof Dr. Govindswamy Bala, Associate Professor, Divecha Centre for Climate Change, IISc, Bangalore, suggest to fix our troubled climate are the renewable energy and geoengineering ...

• EU parliamentary nod for free emissions permits

  4 Nov 2009 | 11:00 am

  Agence France-Presse: The European Parliament's environment committee on Wednesday approved a list of 164 industrial sectors that will win free carbon emissions permits for the next five years if no global deal on climate change is negotiated next month. Members of the powerful committee voted 39 for and 19 against, with one abstention, the parliament said. A European Union action plan adopted in December 2008 to fight global warming places serious constraints on industry, which must reduce harmful ...

• Reptiles underrepresented on the IUCN Red List

  4 Nov 2009 | 11:00 am

  Mongabay: Currently there are an estimated nearly 9,000 reptiles in the world, while the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List has assessed all of the world's described mammals, birds, and amphibians, reptiles have yet to be fully assessed, leaving herpetologists with an unclear picture of how reptiles are faring in the world. As of this year 1,677 reptiles have been assessed (less than 20 percent of the total number of reptile species known) with 293 added this year. ...

• Bangladesh: Combating climate change impacts

  4 Nov 2009 | 11:00 am

  Daily Star: THE European Union (EU) parliamentary delegation's commitment that the EU will be on Bangladesh's side in spite of the outcome of the upcoming climate change conference in Copenhagen is a hope giving one. Especially, we are reassured at the concern and empathy it expressed for us in the event of any catastrophe befalling the country, for example, in the form of triggering an exodus of climate refugees. As a frontline state in the fight for survival against the impact of global ...

• Al Gore follow-up to 'An Inconvenient Truth' published

  4 Nov 2009 | 11:00 am

  Independent (UK):

• 
  EcoWorld

• Heat’s Chalmers Shoots Against the Wizards in Washington

  syndicated_photos

  4 Nov 2009 | 6:29 pm

  Miami Heat Mario Chalmers scores against the Washington Wizards during the first quarter at the Verizon Center in Washington on November 4, 2009. UPI/Alexis C. Glenn Date Taken: November 4, 2009

• Heat’s Wade is Blocked by Wizards Miller in Washington

  syndicated_photos

  4 Nov 2009 | 6:28 pm

  Miami Heat Dwyane Wade is blocked by Washington Wizards Mike Miller during the second quarter at the Verizon Center in Washington on November 4, 2009. UPI/Alexis C. Glenn Date Taken: November 4, 2009

• Heat’s Richardson Shoots Against the Wizards in Washington

  syndicated_photos

  4 Nov 2009 | 6:28 pm

  Miami Heat Quentin Richardson scores over Washington Wizards Gilbert Arenas during the first quarter at the Verizon Center in Washington on November 4, 2009. UPI/Alexis C. Glenn Date Taken: November 4, 2009

• Haywood Scores Against the Beasley in Washington

  syndicated_photos

  4 Nov 2009 | 6:28 pm

  Washington Wizards center Brendan Haywood (33) dunks the ball in the 1st half against Miami Heat forward Michael Beasley (30) at Verizon Center in Washington, D.C. on November 4, 2009. UPI / Mark Goldman Date Taken: November 4, 2009

• Haywood Scores Against the Heat in Washington

  syndicated_photos

  4 Nov 2009 | 6:28 pm

  Washington Wizards center Brendan Haywood (33) dunks the ball in the 1st half against the Miami Heat at Verizon Center in Washington, D.C. on November 4, 2009. UPI / Mark Goldman Date Taken: November 4, 2009

• 
  EleBlog

• Construction Spending Report

  jsalimando

  3 Nov 2009 | 1:44 am

  The USG's "construction put-in-place" report (a/k/a the data on "construction spending") came out yesterday. As usual, in looking at this release, the EleBlog skips right over the headline number and the first few pages, and goes to the UNadjusted data (Table 2 in the report). Here's what's in Table 2:Total construction spending DOWN 12.1% vs. the first 9 months of 2008.Private residential down 31.2%Private non-residential down 7.6%. [worst component = commercial = -31.6%. Best component = manufacturing = + 37.6%. Unfortunately, there is - and has been! - a lot more…

• Pulse-Takings -- Construction

  jsalimando

  3 Nov 2009 | 1:25 am

  AIA's "work on the boards" report for September was awful. There was a tick up (from the miserable August report), but at a 43.1 reading, it remained (for the umpteenth time in a row) significantly below the "50" reading -- which differentiates between expansion and a pullback. The pullback has lasted, I think, 18 months. Either the AIA survey doesn't mean anything, or things aren't going to be better in construction for some time (as the "work on the boards" takes some time to get off the drawing boards and into contracts, ground-breakings, retrofits, etc.).

• Smarter Buildings

  jsalimando

  3 Nov 2009 | 1:23 am

  Here are some selected sentences from a National Real Estate Investor report (10/19): [two companies] have joined in a partnership to convert the real estate company’s South Florida office buildings into “smart buildings” with advanced, fiber-based technology.The company estimates that the new technology could reduce the overall cost of telecommunications by up to 20% for office tenants. ANDThe upgrades will provide office tenants with better access to high bandwidth, video conferencing, and remote electronic storage of critical records. Low-cost telephone service, switchless phone…

• Below The Surface - Data

  jsalimando

  3 Nov 2009 | 1:18 am

  I find the "below the surface" stuff -- not generally reported, I don't think -- to be more interesting than the opinions of "leading economists," Ben Bernanke, or any of the media or D.C.-based schmucks.After all, not a one of them saw this economic cataclysm coming, did they? Yet you can't argue with the data. Of course, you can misinterpret the data -- but that's on you (and me) . . . right?Here's a case in point, NPD Group, which is a consumer-focused market research company, reported this: Summer is historically a peak season for the foodservice industry, but this…

• Microgrids

  jsalimando

  3 Nov 2009 | 1:15 am

  There's an awful lot of "Stuff" happening in the electrical generation area. Pike Research has a research survey out claiming that Microgrids are going to go bananas in the next 5+ years. You have to pay to see it; what little it will share for free can be found here. Microgrids are being driven in part by the broader push to create a Smart Grid that will add intelligence and automation to the electricity infrastructure while facilitating the integration of renewable energy resources, electric vehicles, and greater customer control over energy consumption.  In part, however, the…

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  MoJo Blog Posts: blue marble

• US Uses Less Water Now Than 35 Years Ago

  By Julia Whitty

  4 Nov 2009 | 3:02 pm

  This news is particularly relevant heading into Copenhagen... for those who think conservation of any kind is impossible or unattainable or out of keeping with American goals. The US Geological Survey released a study today showing that Americans used less water in 2005 than 35 years ago—despite a 30 percent population increase. Most of the decline is attributable to alternative cooling methods at power plants and to more efficient irrigation systems. (The AAAS reminds us that some commercial farmers in the US have doubled the crops they grow with a given amount of irrigation water by…

• Will Brazil's Greening Efforts Displace Indigenous Populations?

  By Ben Buchwalter

  4 Nov 2009 | 8:43 am

  Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva earlier this month announced that Brazil will cut its deforestation rate by 80 percent by 2020, a move he said would reduce the country's carbon dioxide emissions by 4.8 billion tonnes. That's significant, especially given that Brazil is one of the biggest contributors to the 20 percent (pdf) of the world's carbon emissions that come from deforestation, according to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. But what effect will reducing deforestation have on Brazil's indigenous population? As Mark Schapiro reports in our Climate…

• Watch: How GM is displacing indigenous Brazilians to create offsets for its SUVs

  By Monika Bauerlein

  4 Nov 2009 | 8:42 am

  Mark Schapiro's story from our November/December issue, "GM's Money Trees," on a controversial carbon-offset in Brazil, has just gone live online. Traveling with Mark in the Amazon was a team from Frontline/World, the PBS investigative series, which has a multimedia companion piece to this story up on its new site, CarbonWatch. Here's a sample of what they found.  

• Cute Endangered Animal: Mono Titi

  By Jen Phillips

  3 Nov 2009 | 3:52 pm

  These tiny, playful primates are nicknamed squirrel monkeys. You can see them chattering and roughhousing with each other in the video below, which co-stars some befuddled, middle-aged Americans vacationing in Costa Rica.  The mono titi is one of the smallest monkeys, weighing in at only one to two pounds, and are described as "peaceful primates." Like their relatives the bonobos, they have an egalitarian society in which males share in parenting duties can stay with their natal group past puberty. Only about 1,000 mono titis remain (down from about 200,000 in the 1980s) due to…

• Eco-News Roundup: Tuesday November 3

  By Jen Phillips

  3 Nov 2009 | 4:00 am

  News from our other blogs on health, the environment, and climate. Two-Faced: Did the White House ever really want a bipartisan healthcare bill? Bluffing or Boasting?: Republicans threaten to boycott the climate bill's markup. Trick Knee: Medical device manufacturers face a big tax, but they're not going down easy. Welcome Visitor: ExxonMobil CEO has been a frequent visitor to the White House... why? Facebook Foes: Chamber of Commerce gets slammed for climate stance on Facebook. Dems Call Bluff: Sen. Boxer says climate bill will move, with or without GOP. WWLBJD?: On…

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  All MNN Content

• Teacher suspended for article on gay animals

  Karl Burkart

  4 Nov 2009 | 6:42 pm

  Science illiteracy, it seems, has worked its way up to the administrative level at one public high school in Illinois.    Dan Delong, a teacher at Southwestern High School, offered an optional reading assignment last week for his students -- an article written by well-known Science Blogger Jonah Lehrer entitled the "The Gay Animal Kingdom" publish

• Craft beer lovers likely to buy organics

  Robin Shreeves

  4 Nov 2009 | 5:31 pm

  This is kind of interesting. Advertising Age is reporting that a study was done on beer drinkers’ choice of beer and their personalities.   The study came up with some results that probably seem like a “so what” to most people, but to advertisers, it’s valuable information.

• Coral reefs are the new tough neighborhoods

  Stephanie Rogers

  4 Nov 2009 | 3:38 pm

    Healthy coral reefs are a paradise for an incredible variety of sea life, supporting extraordinary biodiversity in a dazzling rainbow of colors.

• RIP, Nico the whale

  E.B. Solomont

  4 Nov 2009 | 3:31 pm

  One of the Georgia Aquarium’s three beluga whales died suddenly Tuesday, a month after it was moved temporarily to Texas as a precaution while construction takes place at the Atlanta facility.   Nico, a 25-year-old whale, was one of three belugas moved last month to SeaWorld San Antonio to shield the whales from a noisy expansion of dolphin facilities near their 800,000-gallon tank in Atlanta.

• Climate quilt unites children around the world

  Katherine Butler

  4 Nov 2009 | 3:30 pm

   

• 
  Topix: Environment

• Senate Approves New Water Bond

  3 Nov 2009 | 7:35 pm

  The State Senate has approved a new water bond measure.

• SPRD, GKK, HTGC, STXS, FTEK, EXLP Expected To Be Lower After Earnings Releases on Thursday

  3 Nov 2009 | 4:16 am

  BUYINS.NET / www.squeezetrigger.com is monitoring the performance of all stocks with earnings being released Thursday, November 5th and determining how the stocks have performed after their last 12 quarterly, 6 quarterly and November earnings reports.

• Beach Patrol Concerned About Rip Currents

  2 Nov 2009 | 7:26 pm

  The threat of strong rip currents is keeping the Beach Patrol busy.

• Massai warriors turn lion protectors

  1 Nov 2009 | 7:15 pm

  Nov. 1 - A group of Maasai warriors in southern Kenya have turned from hunting lions to protecting them as part of a wildlife project.

• Untreated Sewage Spills Into Weatherby Lake

  31 Oct 2009 | 8:03 pm

  KMBC's Martin Augustine reports on a sewage spill at Weatherby Lake.

• 
  Enviromental Science & Technology

• Abandoned Soviet farmlands could help offset global warming

  28 Oct 2009 | 9:00 am

   

• Gardea-Torresdey receives Distinguished Scientist Award from SACNAS

  28 Oct 2009 | 9:00 am

   

• Contaminants reveal tuna's origins

  21 Oct 2009 | 9:00 am

  Researchers use PCBs and pesticides to pin down the provenance of bluefin tuna in the Atlantic Ocean.

• Early BPA exposure linked to behavioral effects in children

  21 Oct 2009 | 9:00 am

  Researchers say that BPA exposure in the womb might trigger aggressive behavior and other problems for girls.

• Particulate matter in the air and its origins in coal-burning regions

  14 Oct 2009 | 9:00 am

  A new study shows how residential coal-fired appliances can "outperform" industry and traffic in diminishing air quality in Poland.

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  Greentech Media

• Oracle Does Microgrids, Too

  info@greentechmedia.com

  4 Nov 2009 | 6:11 pm

  Oracle, which already is making a big push into providing its software to support utility-wide smart grid projects, is also helping them manage smaller pieces of the smart grid puzzle. Those are microgrids - neighborhood, campus or business-park sized pockets of renewable power, energy storage, demand response and grid-balancing systems that have been proposed as a way to integrate all the complicated pieces of a smart grid in manageable sizes. Oracle has taken its enterprise software expertise to that scale, working with a southern California utility on such a microgrid project, Linda…

• Intel’s Home Energy Management Plan, Part II

  info@greentechmedia.com

  4 Nov 2009 | 4:37 pm

  Intel is eager to be a big player in the emerging home energy management market, and says consumers will turn to TV for displaying their energy consumption data.

• Conventional wisdom and cleantech venture capital

  info@greentechmedia.com

  4 Nov 2009 | 2:02 pm

  I had the pleasure of speaking as part of a panel this morning at the Mid-Atlantic Capital Alliance's conference in Philadelphia.  Here's a taste of what I told them: 1.  Cleantech only happens in Silicon Valley and MIT.  If you look at the dollars flowing into cleantech from venture capitalists, and read the sunday NYT, that's the natural conclusion you would draw.  So my apologies to everyone in Philly (or the rest of the country outside of northern California and Boston), there's clearly very little good entrepreneurial activity in cleantech in your region. 2. …

• PG&E’s Smart Grid Challenges and Solutions by the Region

  info@greentechmedia.com

  4 Nov 2009 | 1:30 pm

  The big California utility has to think regionally when planning smart grid projects like plug-in vehicle charging systems, says PG&E’s Andrew Tang.

• First Solar Buys Land Option From Ausra for Topaz Project

  info@greentechmedia.com

  4 Nov 2009 | 1:01 pm

  The land, next to the parcel originally set aside for Topaz, will help First Solar avoid political tussles over building on farmland protected by Williamson Act.

• 
  Practical Environmentalist

• The Brammo Enertia Electric Motorcycle

  Steve Watkins

  4 Nov 2009 | 1:03 pm

  “The Menace is loose again, the Hell’s Angels, the hundred-carat headline, running fast and loud on the early morning freeway, low in the saddle, nobody smiles, jamming crazy through traffic and ninety miles an hour down the center stripe, missing by inches. . . like Genghis Khan on an iron horse, no quarter asked and none given; show the squares some class, give em a whiff of those kicks they’ll never know. . . Ah, these righteous dudes, they love to screw it on. . . tense for the action, long hair in the wind, beards and ban­danas flapping, earrings, and stripped-down Harleys…

• Was Cash for Clunkers a success?

  george

  30 Oct 2009 | 4:00 am

  Photo courtesy of natashalcd at Flickr.com The jury is still out on the Cash for Clunkers program. The last paperwork was filed on Monday, August 24, 2009, but crushed cars still waiting to be recycled. The final numbers are in – so how did the program score? All told, C4C took 690,114 clunkers off of the road: 84 percent of consumers traded in trucks and 59 percent purchased passenger cars. The average fuel economy of the vehicles traded in was 15.8 miles per gallon and the average fuel economy of vehicles purchased is 24.9 mpg. – a 58 percent improvement. That sounds wonderful, but…

• 10 Cool iPhone Apps for Environmentalists

  Steve Watkins

  22 Oct 2009 | 9:27 am

  Just about everyone I know has one of these iPhone things.  I played around my nephews the other day and was amazed at all the colorful, useless apps that he had on the thing.  I think there were a dozen “flashlight” apps alone. But the iPhone really does have some legitimate apps out there for those of us that are a bit green conscious.  These represent to me the most practical of the bunch.  Ones that you wont just play with a few times and put aside, but apps that you might find yourself using day after day in your quest to live a more green life. 1) The Green Meter An…

• World Habitat Day – 10/5/2009

  george

  2 Oct 2009 | 5:55 am

  Photo courtesy of oxfam international at Flickr.com Poverty has drastic effects on the natural world. People living without access to treated water, sustainable fuel supplies, or adequate food can have a huge impact on their surroundings. Slums and destructive farming techniques can do as much damage as SUVs and chemical spills. To highlight this issue, the UN has an annual event that focuses attention on living conditions. World Habitat Day falls on the first Monday in October. The theme of this year’s celebration is Planning our Urban Future. Photo courtesy of andreasnilsson1976 at…

• 2010 diesel cars in the USA: here’s the lineup

  Steve Watkins

  17 Sep 2009 | 4:59 am

  There really hasn’t been any significant increase in the number of diesel cars available on the US market since our 2009 diesel car post from last year.  While common in Europe, stricter emissions requirements in some states and the recent temporary bout of high priced diesel fuel here has most car manufacturers hesitant to invest the money for what has only shown to be a small segment of the market so far in the United States. Here is this year’s list of which 2010 diesel cars that automobile manufacturers will be offering: ACURA: Acura does not offer a diesel model. AUDI: AUDI…

• 
  LILL's LIST

• Flu Fighting Food: Mushrooms

  Lill

  25 Oct 2009 | 6:54 am

  Image by randomduck via Flickr Do you like mushrooms? This is a good thing from what I’ve been reading lately. Mushrooms are just full of beta-glucans. What’s that when it’s at home? Well, it’s a soluble polysaccharide, if you must know, and they’re some of the best immune-system boosters you can find. They support your immune system [...] No related posts.

• Detox Tips for Xenoestrogen Overload

  Lill

  17 Oct 2009 | 5:18 am

  Xenoestrogens are so pervasive in our world, that no one can avoid them. So, how can you detoxify your body and eliminate them as much as possible? Luckily, there are many natural xenoextstrogen detoxifiers to add to our diet or supplements. Related posts:Xeno(estrogen) Phobia

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  No Impact Man

• How to go No Impact

  Colin Beavan aka No Impact Man

  29 Oct 2009 | 7:31 pm

  You may have heard that over 4,700 people went No Impact via the NoImpactProject.org's No Impact Week, hosted last week on the Huffington Post. Missed it? No worries. The NRDC's website Simple Steps is getting ready to host our week one more time, starting November 15, as period of non-consumptive mindfulness in the run up to the holidays. You can register here. Meanwhile, if you're looking for a little motivation, read what a few folks said about the No Impact Week at Huff. Or you can watch the video by one No Impact Week participant below:

• The world acts as one

  Colin Beavan aka No Impact Man

  29 Oct 2009 | 12:00 am

  Last Saturday, citizens from 181 countries gathered in 5245 separate actions to demonstrate for a global agreement that called for no more than 350 ppm of atmospheric carbon dioxide.When have so many people from so many countries ever agreed on anything?

• The Cove--So Sad

  Colin Beavan aka No Impact Man

  28 Oct 2009 | 12:00 am

• Eco-conflict in an eco-marraige

  Colin Beavan aka No Impact Man

  28 Oct 2009 | 12:00 am

  From my favorite press piece on No Impact Man, an article by AP report Samantha Gross:Toward the end of the experiment, Conlin would talk about how much she wanted a dishwasher again. But when they flipped the power switch, the machine stayed dead. There was no way to fix it, and an attempt to buy a used model flopped. So Conlin did her research and found a new one that seemed the most responsible purchase.But when they got to Home Depot and saw it, she couldn’t stop thinking: All those shiny new parts. The huge box it would come in. All that packaging.“I just couldn’t pull the…

• My world favorite 350 messenger

  Colin Beavan aka No Impact Man

  26 Oct 2009 | 6:23 pm

  When we went to the 350.org action in Times Square on Saturday, my four-year-old Bella insisted that "the lady" paint 350 on her face. 350 is the number of parts per million carbon dioxide we can afford to have in the atmosphere without the global warming tipping point occurringI was honored with the chance to say a few words to the crowd. "What's the most important number in the world?" I shouted into the mike."350!" the crowd shouted back.Later, when we got home, Bella's mom called on the phone."Mom," Bella said. "Do you know about…

• 
  Orion Magazine Articles

• Mind in the Forest

  by Scott Russell Sanders

  22 Oct 2009 | 5:32 am

  THE SETTING OF THIS ESSAY by Scott Russell Sanders is the H. J. Andrews Experimental Forest, a 15,800-acre research area in the Cascade Mountains of Oregon. Research conducted at the Andrews Forest has taught us much of what we know about old-growth in the Pacific Northwest; more than one hundred experiments are currently under way there, focusing on the role of forests in protecting water quality, controlling stream flow and sedimentation, cycling and storing carbon, and providing habitat for wildlife. In 2003 the Spring Creek Project at Oregon State University, in collaboration 2366758422…

• One Block

  Photographs and text by Dave Anderson

  22 Oct 2009 | 5:26 am

                 We hope you enjoy this audio slide show. HURRICANE KATRINA caused a seismic shift in every aspect of New Orleans and the Gulf region. I wondered whether rebuilding could ever fix what had been broken. Would the neighborhoods recover? Would the city ever get its mojo back? Would that thing, whatever it was, that was so uniquely New Orleans return, dissipate, or transform into something completely different? And what about the thousands of small communities that existed within the city—would they…

• The Clearing

  by Alexi Zentner

  22 Oct 2009 | 5:25 am

  THE TREES PRESSED DOWN so tightly against the banks of the Sawgamet River that Jeannot had little choice but to turn from the river and climb the hill, following a creek into the woods. His dog brushed past him and ran up through the dappled gloom, stopping once to sniff the air before continuing. Jeannot had been traveling for long enough that the dark and the woods should not have been foreign and frightening, but even though the wind was still, he could hear the trees moving in rustling whispers that sounded like voices. He thought that if he turned his head quickly enough he might see who…

• Take the Plunge

  by Bill McKibben

  22 Oct 2009 | 5:09 am

  I’M WRITING THIS COLUMN in late July, midway through the busiest year of my life by far. I’ve already visited countries from New Zealand to Sweden to Turkey; later today I fly to India, then on to the Mideast and to Africa and São Paulo and Anchorage and wherever comes next. I’m spewing an ironic and embarrassing cloud of carbon behind me as I work with my colleagues at 350.org to organize people for the planet’s biggest day of climate action ever, set for October 24—right around the time this magazine comes out. Today I’m in Male, the capital city of…

• Sawdust Mountain

  Photographs and text by Eirik Johnson

  8 Oct 2009 | 5:59 am

  WHEN I WAS YOUNG, my family would hunt mushrooms in the forests of the Northwest: chanterelles and corals in the fall, morels in the spring. We would drive down old dirt roads, pull off at a promising spot, and disappear into the woods. It smelled of sap and pine needles, and the ground was covered with a spongy layer of cedar bark. Some autumn afternoons we spent along the shallows of a river, watching salmon fight their way to spawning grounds upstream. Their scarred and crimson skins glowed in the river’s current. These were the icons of the region: forest and salmon, pillars of…

• 
  MindBodygreen

• Alicia Silverstone Cancels Remaining 'Kind Diet' Tour Stops

  reggoldman

  4 Nov 2009 | 5:25 am

  For those fans of Alicia Silverstone in St. Louis, Detroit, or Atlanta that were hoping to get a signed copy of her new book, 'The Kind Diet', prepare to be disappointed. The actress and vegan activist has reportedly canceled her remaining tour stops. No reason for the tour being cut short was given

• New Design for Miami Art Museum Unveiled

  kg6

  4 Nov 2009 | 5:24 am

  Herzog & de Meuron unveiled their design for the new Miami Art Museum (MAM). It's stunning and will be aiming for LEED Silver certification. Check out all the great photos at Inhabitat.

• 19 Frightfully Fun Homemade Halloween Costumes Made from Recycled Materials

  0footprint

  31 Oct 2009 | 6:11 am

  These creative Halloween costumes were all made from reused materials..

• Top 10 Frighteningly Green Halloween Movies

  ecodancer

  29 Oct 2009 | 7:47 am

  Step away from the crypt...a fun list of ghoulishly green, scary movies.

• 
  Pumps

• Chrysler Is Baaackk

  Pump Girl

  4 Nov 2009 | 3:01 pm

  Chrysler is back. With partner Fiat, it will be launching 21 vehicles between 2010 and 2014. It’s got three new vehicles coming out in 2012 - a compact, sub-compact hatchback, and a sedan. And maybe a mid-size truck in 2011. Ralph Gilles, head of the Dodge brand, said risk taking will be in evidence in its new crop of cars and trucks. “Every car that we have will have a soul,” he said. With regard to quality concerns, the company is taking customer concerns to heart and doing a complete overhaul. The company aims to double sales by 2014 Oh, and take a look at the new logo.

• Obama vs. Big Oil

  Pump Girl

  3 Nov 2009 | 3:10 pm

  Will Obama engage in the oil price battle? Adam Lass says yes! if the price gets high enough. $80 bad but not tragic. $120 may cause concern. He has a theory about stock prices and the price of oil. Look at his graph. He thinks Obama will try to intervene if things get “out of control”. Not so sure here

• Oil Up Over $81 Yikes!!

  Pump Girl

  21 Oct 2009 | 1:30 pm

  Oil rose over $81/barrel - highest for the year. US supplies declined more than forecast. Dollar dropped. analyst forecasts, in the week ended Oct. 16, according to the report. “As long as there’s pressure on the U.S. dollar, there will be upward movement in oil,” said Rachel Ziemba, an analyst at RGE Monitor, an economic research company in New York. “We could see even greater climbs higher, which will put us even further out of whack from the fundamentals.” Stocks, ExxonMobil and Chevron, are up big time. Is oil the new hedging tool?

• The Hydrogen Car Gets Its Groove Back

  Pump Girl

  16 Oct 2009 | 2:26 pm

  Energy Sec. Steven Chu was/is not a big fan of using gov. money for “clean vehicles” (he actually almost mocked their potential), and zeroed their funding. In slashing the budget, Chu, an advocate of alternative energy, reopened longstanding questions over whether hydrogen cars are a distant pipe dream, or as former President Bush once said, a technology that could be in showrooms by 2019. Never fear, the Senate is here. On Thurs. the Senate agreed to restore all the money for hydrogen car research that was previously cut. The hydrogen people are happy, carmakers are happy.

• Early Winter Sends Oil Up

  Pump Girl

  13 Oct 2009 | 12:51 pm

  Energy prices rose Monday - Oil settling over $73/barrel. Heating Oil and Natural Gas took a jump, too. Supplies of all three are more than plentiful, so what can be blamed but the weak dollar. UGH!

• 
  Ways To Protect Our Environment

• Garlic Powder Organic

  ProtectingOurEnvironment.com

  4 Nov 2009 | 7:07 pm

  Product DescriptionPacked in glass jar Garlic Powder Organic

• Desert Essence Organics Hair Care Shampoo, for Oily Hair, Lemon Tea Tree , 8-Ounces

  ProtectingOurEnvironment.com

  4 Nov 2009 | 4:11 pm

  Product DescriptionDesert Essence Organics Lemon Tea Tree Shampoo is a gentle but effective cleansing system based on coconut oil and sugar cleansers. Organic oils help to remove excess oil and build-up so that hair is clean and manageable. Leptospermum Petersonii Oil: A sp Desert Essence Organics Hair Care Shampoo, for Oily Hair, Lemon Tea Tree , 8-Ounces

• Earth Friendly Products Carpet Shampoo, Concentrated with Bergamot & Sage, 40 Ounces

  ProtectingOurEnvironment.com

  4 Nov 2009 | 11:11 am

  Product Description Value Size – 40:1 Dilution Ratio, Powerful Concentrate All Natural & Highly Concentrated For use in hot or cold steam machines Non-Polluting Earthy Friendly Products Rug Shampoo is a highly concentrated, all natural cleaner for use in hot and cold steam machines. Because natural ingredients are used, color and body may vary. Biodegradable Phosphate Free Chlorine Free Removes Tough Stains Does Not Contain SLS No Tested On Animals No Animal Ingredients Earth Friendly Products are Biodegradable & Recyclable Thank you for using out natural, non-toxic product.

• Morton & Bassett Organic Italian Seasoning

  ProtectingOurEnvironment.com

  4 Nov 2009 | 11:06 am

  Product DescriptionAt Morton & Bassett, they only select the choicest quality spices from around the world. All-natural, salt free, non-irradiated and no MSG. You can clearly see and taste that Morton & Bassett spices and seasonings are simply the BEST! Morton & Bassett Organic Italian Seasoning

• Aura Cacia Organics Pure Aromatherapy, Rosemary, Activating, .33-Ounces

  ProtectingOurEnvironment.com

  4 Nov 2009 | 6:11 am

  Product DescriptionCertified Organic Essential Oil. Latin: Rosemarinus officinalis. Origin: Spain, Morocco. Aroma: Fresh, Herbaceous. Certified organic by QAI. Aura Cacia Organics Pure Aromatherapy, Rosemary, Activating, .33-Ounces

• 
  The New Republic - The Vine Feed

• Kerry, Graham, and Lieberman To The Rescue?

  Bradford Plumer

  4 Nov 2009 | 4:22 pm

  So what's going on with the Senate climate bill? Kate Sheppard has the rundown of all the latest dips and dives. The two main developments are a) the Kerry-Boxer cap-and-trade bill is still, very slowly, tunneling its way through the various committees, but it's been bogged down by the fact that Republicans have boycotted the mark-up process in the EPW committee and are demanding further economic analyses of the bill; and b) John Kerry, Joe Lieberman, and Republican Lindsey Graham are now hashing out their own, parallel, proposal for a bipartisan climate bill. Here's Kate's read: I don't…

• The Power Of Carbon Disclosure

  Bradford Plumer

  4 Nov 2009 | 12:59 pm

  In an interview with The New Yorker's Elizabeth Kolbert, Al Gore made an interesting point I hadn't seen elsewhere (it's that last paragraph there): Once the world makes it clear that we are going to follow a roadmap to a low-carbon economy, the best-managed businesses will seek to race out in front of that emerging trend. Indeed, you’re already seeing a lot of them do exactly that. And along with legislation and the treaty, there is also the prospective regulation of CO2 by the E.P.A.; the Second Circuit Court of Appeals decision giving a green light to private lawsuits against large…

• Electric Cars And The Green Economy

  John B. Judis

  4 Nov 2009 | 11:00 am

  Bernard Avishai, the author of two excellent, but sometimes misunderstood, books on Israel and on Zionism,  is a professor of business at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and on top of the transformation of the older industrial into a new cyber-industrial economy. Avishai has written a very important article on the electric car for Inc.   Most discussions of energy conservation and climate change pivot on the question of how much of a sacrifice in GDP and consumption Americans will have to make to prevent worldwide calamity in 50 years, but in his account of the electric car,…

• Memo to Kashmiri Militants: Don't Hide in Bear Caves

  Lydia DePillis

  4 Nov 2009 | 10:24 am

  A bear mauled two Muslim separatists after finding them in its den, the BBC reports. Turns out civil strife is actually good for wildlife:  Wildlife experts say the conflict in Kashmir has actually resulted in an increase in the population of bears and leopards. Following the outbreak of the insurgency people had to hand in their weapons to police - which put a halt to poaching. As a result, there has been a greater incidence of man-animal conflict, say experts. There have been many reports of bears and leopards killing or mauling humans in different parts of the Kashmir valley in recent…

• Buffett Bets Big On Coal

  Bradford Plumer

  3 Nov 2009 | 11:15 am

  One of the big business stories today was that Warren Buffett is planning to buy Burlington Northern Santa Fe, which boasts one of the largest freight-rail networks in the country. Buffett told reporters that the move was "an all-in wager on the economic future of the United States." That's certainly encouraging. But there's also a less-noticed energy angle here. Specifically, the BNSF railway serves a lot of coal fields in the West, including Wyoming's vast Powder River Basin, and hauls enough coal on its routes to supply about 10 percent of the electricity in the United States. So…

• 
  EarthFirst.com

• Fat, Angry Captain Planet Goes to Copenhagen

  Stephanie Rogers

  4 Nov 2009 | 3:00 am

  What has Captain Planet been doing in all these long years since he was the earth’s premier protector? Apparently, he’s been breathing in a whole lot of nasty toxic air and feeding on the same plastic that’s killing all those albatross chicks. He’s pissed, and headed to Copenhagen to demand action. “I can barely breathe this air and my stomach is full of plastic! It’s time for you guys to pull together and stop polluting the earth!” This totally awesome cartoon was created by an Australian animator named Chris who calls himself ‘Lord Zorgatron’. He’s known as…

• Run, Kids, the Carbon Monster is Coming!

  Stephanie Rogers

  3 Nov 2009 | 3:00 am

  How do you get adults to care about the environment? How about scaring their kids shitless with the specter of a ‘carbon monster’ in the sky that’s going to get them if their parents don’t act against global warming? That’s the tact the British government has chosen to take with an ad that seeks to change skeptics’ minds about climate change, but has only angered viewers who saw it during prime-time television broadcasts. The intentions behind the ad are understandable. It’s a response to a recent survey in Britain showing that 52% of people don’t think they’ll be personally…

• Unless Miley Cyrus Returns to Twitter, Fuzzy Will Die

  Stephanie Rogers

  2 Nov 2009 | 3:00 am

  Every celebrity has lunatic fans, but pole-dancing tween queen Miley Cyrus seems to have inspired a particularly fervent devotion among the completely unchained. First there was her extremely creepy stalker, and now she’s got someone threatening to kill their beloved cat if she doesn’t come back to Twitter. Why did Miley leave Twitter? Who the hell cares? Oh, wait. This dude (or chick?) clearly does. And if Miley doesn’t come back by November 16th, Fuzzy is going to get it. The other day I asked myself: ‘What can I do to bring Miley back to Twitter?’ Fan video? Petitions?

• Great Green Job of the Week: Executive Director, EarthSpark International

  Stephanie Rogers

  1 Nov 2009 | 3:00 am

  EarthSpark International is hiring an Executive Director who shares their vision and convictions. The Executive Director will be an entrepreneurial leader with a capacity for perseverance and innovation, both as an individual and as a team member. This individual will have an enthusiasm for EarthSpark’s mission and will possess the ability to persuade, inspire and motivate others… Who We Are Energy poverty is hardship caused by insufficient energy sources and/or their inefficient or deleterious use. EarthSpark International is a nonprofit organization that seeks to reduce the causes and…

• Slay Your Energy Vampires!

  Stephanie Rogers

  31 Oct 2009 | 4:00 am

  It’s Halloween, the day all the monsters come out of the woodwork – but don’t forget, your house is already full of vampires. Energy-sucking vampire electronics, to be precise. Not only do they pack unnecessary dollars onto your electric bill every month, they also waste tons of energy, forcing those polluting factories to work overtime. It’s time to hunt them down and kill them – with this guide by Delta Carbon Offsets. Here’s what you can do. Make it a family exercise. Have the kids look in every nook and cranny – in each room, in the basement, in the garage, and make a list…

• 
  natural organic eco baby product reviews

• Original Sprout hair and skin care – not just for baby!

  baboo baby

  15 Oct 2009 | 10:35 pm

  The kids and I are lovin’ the natural skin and hair care products by Original Sprout.  The kids might not know that they are lovin’ it but when I’m not hearing any complaints, then I can only assume that they are lovin’ it!  Being able to get a brush through my children’s hair without a constant high pitched whine is certainly a MIRACLE!  That is why the Miracle Detangler is now my new best friend. And of course, anything that takes one less step out of my day like the 2 in 1 Hair & Body Pure Bodywash is going to be my pal too!  Free of any nasty…

• IsaBooties – Cutie Patootie Booties for Baby

  baboo baby

  25 Sep 2009 | 10:40 am

  We loved the luxurious feel of the IsaBooties baby shoes.  The animal-free material used for these shoes has the look of suede but with a much softer feel.  The non-slip soft soles will keep your newly upright little one from any slipping and sliding.  Stain resistant and washable, these low maintenance booties will provide baby with long lasting style and comfort. DISCOUNT Receive 15% off at Grow Green Baby. Use the coupon code: baboo WIN A $25 Gift Certificate! Enter to win a $25 gift certificate to go towards a pair of IsaBooties or any other product shown at Grow Green Baby. Just send…

• Recycled Cashmere Baby Woolens

  baboo baby

  18 Sep 2009 | 11:53 am

  Just love when we can find a new use for a discarded item. This is just what Liza does at recycledcashmere.com . Cashmere sweaters are thoroughly washed with Ivory soap and then recreated into adorable, silky soft cashmere baby hats, booties and mittens. Perfect for the upcoming season ahead. These lovely cashmere creations can purchased through Nimli.com .