For college students who love travel, surfing, the environment and helping others, there’s nothing quite like the Eco Surf Volunteer effort. This program – which is truly in the spirit of one of our favorite green celebs and do-gooders, Jack Johnson – takes groups of students to historic beach town of Canoa, Ecuador for surfing, relaxing on the beach, learning about the local culture – and most importantly, helping school kids.

Eco Surf Volunteers – Canoa, Ecuador – Footage courtesy of Nicole Andersen & Sarah Han from Sam Bailey on Vimeo.

From Surfline.com:

To these students, the idea of merely visiting an international travel destination was not an option. These student’s desired a deeper sense of adventure, one that would immerse them completely in Ecuadorian life, the Spanish language, and the exotic South American beach culture.

As a participant with Eco Surf, each student-volunteer spent half their day working with local children by teaching English in an English Through Art program, helping in local medical clinics, and building new playground equipment from recycled and natural resources. The second half of their day was spent surfing with local Ecuadorian surf guides, all peers their own age. Volunteer team members not familiar with surfing were offered two hour surf lessons each day.

Additionally, Eco Surf donated three new laptop computers to the community, effectively establishing the first academic computer lab in the village.

Interested in going along next time? Future volunteer projects are scheduled for January 2-10, March 20-28, and July 31-August 9, 2010. For more information about Eco Surf Volunteers, visit www.EcoSurfVolunteers.org or email info@ecosurfvolunteers.org.

Link [EcoSurfVolunteers.org]

Russians who were looking forward to whale penis leather seats for their $1.45 million bulletproof SUVs are crying in disappointment, and pointing their fingers at environmentalists and Pamela Anderson for this grave injustice.

While the Prombron Monaco Red Diamond Edition SUV comes with gold trim, gauges encrusted with diamonds and rubies and three bottles of premium vodka, Russian millionaires will have to do without ultra soft and luxurious penis skin.

Here’s a snippet of the absolutely brilliant press release put out by Leonard F. Yankelovich of Dartz, the Prombron manufacturer.

ARMORED CAR WITHOUT PENIS. LET’S SAVE THE WHALES.

One month ago DARTZ presented uberluxury armored car with whale penis interior – PROMBRON’ (ex.RussoBaltique), lot of people name this car as DARTZ.KOMBAT. As the world’s resonance was very huge and DARTZ got lot of angry e-mails from Greenpeace, WWF and also Pamela Anderson, DARTZ make strong decision to stop their plans regarding such interior.

We have no any ideas to kill the whale or something like that. All we want – to make just luxury car. Real luxury car which will be world number one car. We just looking for most expensive products for this car – and that’s why we choosed whale penis leathure when we checked it is most of most. After wave of protest we realised our mistake and make a decision not to use natural leathure at all.

We will focus on world most advanced nanotechnologies to achieve interior highest quality using artificial materials which also was never used for cars. We want to tell our hello to all whales: “Our Sea Brothers! We all know that earth are stand on three whales – we will keep You live! We don’t Earth fall down to Ocean!”

Yes, we all know that earth are stand on three whales. Therefore, the world thanks you, Dartz, for making such a selfless sacrifice.

Link [JamesList] via [Wired]

Photo credit: JamesList

A hack of an “environmental scholar” working for an organization that consistently seeks to undermine efforts to fight global warming got schooled on climate change policy by Senator John Kerry during a Senate Finance Committee hearing on November 10th. Kerry rebuked Green’s comments for a solid five minutes, leaving a floundering Green unable to defend his views as anything other than his own personal opinion.

Kerry: “You may know something that thousands of other scientists don’t. They won a Nobel Prize. You and I didn’t.”

Ken Green’s title as ‘resident environmental scholar’ at the American Enterprise Institute may seem to indicate that he has a clue what he’s talking about. But who, exactly, are Green and this Institute?

From a 2007 Treehugger article:

The American Enterprise Institute, according to the Guardian, was called out in February for ” offering scientists and economists $10,000 each, “to undermine the IPCC report. .” AEI visiting scholar Kenneth Green made the $10,000 offer “to scientists in Britain, the US and elsewhere,” in a letter describing the IPCC as “resistant to reasonable criticism and dissent.” They noted also that AEI “has received more than $1.6m from ExxonMobil, and more than 20 of its staff have worked as consultants to the Bush administration. Lee Raymond, a former head of ExxonMobil, is the vice-chairman of AEI’s board of trustees.”

It just goes to show who these people really are – and how easy it is for them to misrepresent themselves to climate change skeptics as “experts”. What a joke.

Link [Treehugger]

Of all the wacky things that fuel can be made from nowadays – ranging from dirty diapers to confiscated booze – somehow, this one takes the cake. Soon, we may be able to power our vehicles and heat our homes with nothing but air. A biofuel firm called Joule Biotechnologies has discovered a way to produce fuel from carbon dioxide in the air, using photosynthetic microbes.

From Gas 2.0:

Inside specially designed reactors, Joule’s engineered microbes thrive off of sunlight and CO2. In return, depending on the type of organism, they can produce straight ethanol, diesel or a number of other types of hydrocarbons.

Although the process sounds similar to algae-produced biofuels, the Joule process is incredibly (and beneficially) different for several reasons:

* Doesn’t produce biomass
* No agricultural feedstock needed
* Can be conducted on non-arable land
* Doesn’t need fresh water
* Produces fuel directly without the need for extraction or refinement

Fuel from thin air. Amazing, isn’t it? There is literally a world of possibilities out there when it comes to earth-friendly, renewable fuels.

Link [Gas 2.0]
Photo credit: Joule Biotechnologies

“Darling, you look fabulous! What’s your secret?””

“Well, I’ll tell you… I swallowed a tapeworm and I’ve never been thinner!”

Allowing a disgusting parasite that can reach up to 25 feet long to grow inside your intestines isn’t exactly a reasonable way to lose weight. Yet, the Tapeworm Diet exists, and who else but Tyra Banks featured it on her circus of a talk show on Monday, exposing this vomitous idea to millions of people across the country.

From Ecorazzi:

According to Diet Review, “[The Tapeworm] secretes proteins in our intestinal tract that make our digestion of food much less efficient. A less efficient digestive systems means that you can consume more calories through your food since your “body guest” is also noshing on them for his own growth purposes. Some scientists estimate that those infected with a single tapeworm can lose up to one or two pounds each week.”

Healthy eating? Blah. Exercise? Who needs it! Just swallow a parasite and continue hitting KFC for lunch and dinner. Tyra even had a guy on that sells the worms over the Internet; despite an FDA ban on the practice. Said one woman on Twitter, “I’m still undecided on Tyra Banks’ Tapeworm diet. I don’t know if its a great or just plain ridiculous.” Undecided? What the hell is wrong with people?

And Tyra actually found two women who said they were willing to ingest a tapeworm to lose weight, despite the risks. You might ask, “Who are these people?” But, hey, this is America.

It might sound like some kind of hoax, but it’s for real – check out the comments at Diets in Review. Some of them are clearly tongue-in-cheek (and the diet has an unlikely 52% approval rating), but there are also commenters asking for information on where to get a tapeworm they can swallow. Amazing.

Link [Ecorazzi]

It seems too ludicrous to be real: a U.S. Army unit that sought to acquire and refine Jedi-like powers, and trained by attempting to kill goats through mind power alone. But the movie ‘The Men Who Stare at Goats’, starring George Clooney, Jeff Bridges, Ewan McGregor and Kevin Spacey, is based on actual events and people.

One of those people is retired U.S. Army Lt. Col. Jim Channon, who was the brains behind the loopy 1st Earth Battalion.

From Sign On San Diego:

Channon, who is loosely portrayed by a Dudelike Bridges, embarked on a two-year government-funded fact-finding mission that included naked hot tub encounters and yoga retreats so he could write a military manual in 1978 to help Army “Jedi” soldiers reach a higher spiritual plane. He envisioned a more Zenlike approach to combat, with troops wearing ginseng-equipped uniforms, offering symbolic flowers, cradling baby lambs in hostile territory and greeting enemies with “sparkly eyes.”

“If the ideas were instituted and they worked, we would be a far better world,” Heslov says. “Do I believe it could happen? Probably not. But I’ve got to give the military credit.”

Channon now lives on an “eco-homestead” in Hawaii and describes himself as a “global elder” and “mystic landcrafter” still pursuing creative ways to bring world peace. In a video posted on his Web site, firstearthbattalion.org, he takes the movie’s humor with a grain of salt and asserts that his out-of-the-box thinking for his “mythical battalion” wasn’t absurd.

“If soldiers are telepathic during a firefight, that would be very useful,” Channon explains at one point. He ends the video with his trademark “Go Planet!”

The movie definitely takes liberties with the story – director Grant Heslov figures about 65% is lifted from Jon Ronson’s non-fiction book of the same name – but fear not, Jim Channon is here to tell you the real story. His website contains all kinds of information about the 1st Earth Battalion, and he explains some of it below:

Read more at Sign On San Diego.

Link [Sign On San Diego]

Isn’t it nice to look up at a billboard, just once, to see that no one is trying to shove a product down your throat? A joy, indeed – and a nice thing to see at the outset of the holiday season, when, nearly 2 months from Christmas, we’re already being bombarded with “BUY ME!” ads.

Via [Treehugger]

Appalachian Sustainable Development is seeking a full-time accountant in Abingdon, Virginia.

Appalachian Sustainable Development (ASD) is a not-for-profit organization working in the Appalachian region of Virginia and Tennessee.  Formed in 1995, ASD focuses on developing healthy, diverse and ecologically sound economic opportunities through education and training, and the development of cooperative networks and marketing systems.

Our work encompasses 2 broad areas: Building a strong local food system based on organic and sustainable farming and fostering forest conservation through value-added wood processing and “green building.”  ASD links consumers with farmers and producers and provides hands-on opportunities for learning, advocacy and civic engagement.

Position Overview:

Appalachian Sustainable Development seeks accountant with a minimum of 5 years experience; preferably in non profit & social enterprise. Problem solver, shows initiative, embraces mission of sustainability.

Responsibilities:

Responsible for managing the finances of the nonprofit and its 2 small businesses. Duties: budget preparation/ management, grant tracking/reimbursement, financial reporting, payroll, sales taxes, bank recs, A/P & A/R.

Qualifications:

Strong proficiency with QuickBooks, Excel and other Microsoft programs.

To Apply:

Please submit resumes by email no later than November 16, 2009

Contact Information:
kterry@asdevelop.org
http://www.asdevelop.org

Link [ASD] + [Green Dream Jobs]

Fossil fuels don’t exactly have a good reputation as it is – they’re incredibly environmentally destructive, and bear the brunt of the blame for our current situation with global warming. Now, experts are saying that “a frenzy of hydrocarbon burning” millions of years ago might have caused the most dramatic, devastating mass extinction the Earth has ever seen.

From the New Scientist:

Around 250 million years ago, the so-called “Great Dying” saw 70 per cent of species wiped out on land and 95 per cent in the oceans. A clue to what may have triggered this disaster lies in solidified magma from this time, which is widespread in an area of Siberia where coal is also abundant.

One suggestion is that the heat of the magma could have baked many billions of tonnes of CO2 out of the coal over a geologically brief period of a few thousand years (New Scientist, 8 December 2007, p 42). The ensuing climate change and ocean acidification would account for the extinctions. Now Norman Sleep and Darcy Ogden, both of Stanford University in California, think the trigger for the Great Dying may have been even swifter and more terrifying.

Rather than causing gentle heating, magma encountering oil- and tar-soaked coal underground would melt it, producing a highly combustible material, they say. Crucially, this molten mixture would be light enough to rise quickly to the surface. There it would burn explosively on contact with oxygen in the air, blasting dust and ash into the stratosphere and releasing huge quantities of CO2.

Basically, this resulted in hell on earth – vast areas of fire fountains and smoke columns over a moonscape littered with coal tar and coal fragments. If Sleep and Ogden’s theory is correct, the evidence is hiding in Siberia’s volcanic deposits – but we will probably never know for sure.

Link [New Scientist]
Photo credit: South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut

Hummingbirds are so fun to watch, with their colorful little wings that move so fast they’re a blur – but it can be hard to see them up close. One wacky new product allows you to see hummingbirds like you’ve never seen them before – an inch from your eyeballs.

From The Daily Mail:

A new helmet with a built-in bird feeder will allow wearers to get amazing face to face contact with nature.

The flighty birds hover in front of the wearer’s face for up to 30 seconds as they drink a sugar-water solution from between the eyes of the feeder mask.

The wearable hummingbird feeder is covered in images of red rhododendrons to further attract the birds and protects your eyes and face from being pecked.

Those who want to try out the gadget need to have patience. The mask is first placed over a can of paint for a few days to allow the birds to get used to it.

It’s one of those bizarre products that’s probably wholly unnecessary – but then again, doesn’t use up much more plastic than a regular hummingbird feeder and gets people in closer (MUCH closer!) contact with nature. And, that’s a good thing, right?

Link [The Daily Mail]