TreeHugger

UK Supermarkets Told to 'Green Up Their Act'

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 18:23:36 -0500

Photo credit: Tesco, Earl's Court by yisris via Flickr Organic food and the Slow Food Movement are big parts of the green food experience in the United Kingdom. Unfortunately, the supermarkets that help supply the movement are lagging behind, according to the government. The Read the full story on TreeHugger

PETA President Defends Her Gore-Bashing Glenn Beck Appearance

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 18:12:00 -0500

The blogs went a-buzzing (as they're wont to do) when PETA president Ingrid Newkirk showed up on Glenn Beck's show to join in an unlikely chorus of Gore-bashing. In response to the ...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Pure Natural Diva Hosts Carnival of the Green

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:34:16 -0500

This week is Carnival of the Green #202 and it's being hosted by Pure Natural Diva, a blog that encourages us to make a commitment to greener living, without giving up the high heels. In otherwords, we can make small changes on an ongoing basis so that we're transitioning to whole living. 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 eco-friendly home makeovers t...Read the full story on TreeHugger

New Ocean Carbon Sink Blooms as Antarctic Ice Retreats Rapidly

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 16:55:00 -0500
photo: Wikipedia. There aren't too many good un-anticipated consequences when it comes to climate change, but here's one: Scientists from the British Antarctic Survey have discovered that in areas of open water left exposed by rapid ice melting around the Antarctic Peninsula, large new blooms of phytoplankton are occurring. As the blooms die off they sink to the bottom, Read the full story on TreeHugger

SuperFreakonomics is 'Horseshit': Elizabeth Kolbert

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 16:30:00 -0500
Photo via Flickr The New Yorker's Elizabeth Kolbert is one of the best green writers out there--and in her recent joint book review of the controversy-ridden SuperFreakonomics and the maligned-by-default-by-Gore-haters Our Choice, she proves why. One book scoffs at our fears of climate change, and suggests that a miraculous silver bullet will be delivered unto us via geoengineering. The other meticulously outlines the chal...Read the full story on TreeHugger

The 5 Best High Flying Wind Power Projects

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 16:00:00 -0500
Image via IO9 The Kites, Blimps, and Copters that Could Power the World Tapping into the jet stream--the fast-flowing air currents in the atmosphere--to harness high speed wind power is one of the most compelling ideas in the renewable energy world. How compelling, you ask? Some researchers figure that by successfully tapping into just 1% of the jet stream, we could power all of civilization. At about 6 miles up, the jet stream creates some 200 trillion watts--world energy demand is estimated to be between 2 ...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Awesome Bike Parking at W Hotel in San Francisco

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:50:38 -0500
Photo: Mikael from Copenhagenize Not Sure How Well that Would Scale, Though Mikeal from Copenhagenize has taken these pictures of a very cool bike parking at the W Hotel in San Francisco. Included in the price of a room is access to one of three Biomega bikes (I think the one on the pics is the "Copenha...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Britain to Build More Nuclear Power Plants - And Despoil the Namibian Desert in the Process

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:44:00 -0500
photo: Geof Wilson via flickr. As part of new proposed low-carbon energy proposals, UK energy secretary Ed Miliband has outlined plans to build a fleet of new nuclear power plants. But as outlined in The Observer, the hidden costs of fueling those power plants include despoiling the Namibian desert, not to mention a gigantic coal plant to power uranium extraction:...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Five Hundred Oil-Industry Geologists Vote on Peak Oil

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:32:54 -0500
Photo: Zazzle Guess What the Results Were The theory of peak oil itself is fairly non-controversial. But saying that we're close to this absolutely peak in oil and gas production is still debated by very knowledgeable people on both sides. A few years ago, it seemed like the balance was tipped in the direction of the "peak oil is not a problem for the near future" side, but lately, it seems like things might be going the other way. At the Petroleum Geology Conference in London, 500 geologis...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Smog Could Cause 2.5°C+ Warming, Even With Strong Global Climate Deal

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 14:46:00 -0500
Smog in Los Angeles, photo: Al Pavangkanan via flickr. We've written about the increasingly acknowledged impact of black carbon, soot and smog in global warming, but here's a sobering thought on all that: Dr Veerabhadra Ramanathan of the Scripps Institute of Oceanography says that even with a strong climate change agreement next month at COP15 we still co...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Pesticide-Soaked 'Wallpaper' Cuts Malaria Exposure, Safer Than Spraying

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:43:43 -0500
Mosquito on the wall. Image credit:DesertUSA. To lower mosquito exposure in malaria-prone places there are two basic pesticide use strategies. The half-century old approach - a remnant of 1950's era thinking - is to spray entire towns, as well as the surrounding...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Rüegg Brings the Wood Stove Back Into the Kitchen

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:43:15 -0500
Wood fired stoves were very common houses a hundred years ago; the (Canadian) thanksgiving dinner I had a few weeks ago was cooked on one, in a house in the country where it heated both the room and the food. Now Rüegg has brought the wood stove back into the kitchen, with a design that can work for cooking like a stove top, or open for barbecuing or just looking like a fireplace. Mocoloco calls it a an oven, a grill, and a heating system all-in-one. ...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Harnessing Bacteria to Grow Custom Packaging

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:06:38 -0500

Some things have no business being packed up and shipped at all, like software serial numbers. But until we learn to teleport fragile objects, we're going to have to protect them for the journey. This ambitious concept called Bacs harnesses the bacterium acetobacter xylinum to self-assemble around an object, encasing it in a biodegradable paper-like shell. For this innovative notion, designer Mareike Frensemeier took third place in Read the full story on TreeHugger

Another Benefit of Smart Grids: Fewer Utility Trucks Spewing CO2

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:48:13 -0500
Photo: Flickr, CC The Difference Between Snail Mail and Email One of the benefits of smart grids that we too often overlook is the fact that they'll greatly reduce the need for power utilities to send trucks (and often big ones) out in the field to gather data and fix problems. The most obvious example of this is the remote reading of meters instead of having to send people to read meters, but it will also help with maintenance and repairs since...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Massive Refrigerated Trains: Is Railex the Future of Produce Freight? (Video)

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:45:40 -0500
Image credit: Railex Last week I wrote about the Stobart Refrigerated Train shipping produce from Spain to the UK via the Channel Tunnel, providing an alternative to hybrid trucks or slowing down freight as a means to saving gas. But while it was impressive, commenter Andrew pointed out that the "first-of-its-kind" headlin...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Beautiful Wood iPhone Skin Helps with Reforestation

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:43:00 -0500
Image via Vers It's no secret we like gadgets covered in wood - something about the feeling of permanence. Plus, wood makes for a solid protective cover for something like an iPhone. While not all wood cases are sustainable - like the un-TreeHugger zebra wood case we saw awhile back - Vers is a company that is working to make this wood iPhone case one of the most sustainable on the market. They've joined up with The Arbor Day Foundation to create an offer tough ...Read the full story on TreeHugger

China Wants to Take "a Leadership Role" On Climate: An Interview with WWF's Yang Fuqiang, Part 2

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:35:42 -0500
When it comes to China's efforts to curtail greenhouse gases, Dr. Yang Fuqiang, director of global climate solutions at the World Wildlife Fund, has an optimal vantage point. He began his career as a researcher at the National Development and Reform Commission, the Chinese government's main economic planner, before continuing in the realm of energy and the environment. We spoke with him recently in Beijing, a few weeks before President Obama's upcoming visit. This is the second part of our interview; also see Read the full story on TreeHugger

Bio-Plastics Could Replace Up to 90% of Plastics, But Not in Short Term

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:12:23 -0500
270 Million Tons of Plastics in 2007 Bioplastics are certainly not a panacea - they have their problems - but if we are to someday move to a world free of fossil fuels (by choice or by necessity), we'll need something to make plastics. Researchers from Utrecht University conducted a study that was commissioned by the associations European Bioplastics and the European Polysaccharide Network of Excellence (EPNOE), and their findings were pretty interesting....Read the full story on TreeHugger

Like Arriving at an Earthquake with a Dustpan & Brush - Climate Financing Utterly Lacking Says Maldives Pres.

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:11:00 -0500
The highest point in the Maldives is about 2 meters above sea level. Photo: Wikipedia. Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed is becoming one of the most vocal national critics of climate change inaction -- with good reason, his nation is going to be underwater in less than one hundred years because of it. At a two-day meeting in the Maldives of leaders from Kiribat...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Zebra Mussels (and Lots of Other Species) Invading Great Lakes and No One Can Decide What to Do About It

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:07:00 -0500
Photo via benimoto Out of the 185 invasive species in and around the Great Lakes, zebra mussels are posing a painful problem. The mussels have sharp shells and a tendency to slice up the feet of beach-goers. The mussels have hitched rides in the ballasts of ships coming into port, and while politicians have tried to get the shipping industry to help curb the problem through regulations, there haven't been any successes. Well, unless you're looking at it from the perspective of zebra mussels. But with 15,000 lakes to worry about, standing around bickering about what to ...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Inkjet Printer + Paper + Science = Cheap & Easy Pesticide Detection

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 11:46:53 -0500
Wabash River PH Test Back in the chemistry class days, we had pH strips that changed colour according to whether a liquid was an acid or base. Now scientists at Hamilton, Ontario's McMaster University have come up with a cheap and fast way of finding out if there are pesticides in your food and drinks, by using an inkjet printer to build up layers of "bio-ink". You just dip the strip and in minutes, the paper changes colour according to which pesticide is causing the contamination. Most technologies for testing food require several hours and electrically powered equipment, so this w...Read the full story on TreeHugger

How the Bushmen of Africa Can Save Us from the Global Water Crisis (Video)

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 11:30:00 -0500
Images via YouTube and Amazon I started in on a book about a month ago titled Heart of Dryness, which discusses how the bushmen of the Kalahari can teach us what we need to know about how to live in dry climates, something we're all increasingly finding ourselves in as we drill ourselves further into a global water crisis. However, due to political turmoil, the bushm...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Climate Justice Fast Begins - Hunger Strike Continues Through End of COP15 Conference

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 11:22:00 -0500
Calling it a "moral response to an immoral situation" and drawing inspiration from social justice luminaries like Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., the organizers of Climate Justice Fast, and a growing list of 150+ supporters fr...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Green Eyes On: Stone Soup - Making Something Out of Nothing

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 11:14:02 -0500
Image via Sara Snow. It's happened to me a thousand times or more so I'm sure it's happened to you as well. Dinnertime is looming, you look in the refrigerator, the pantry, the cupboards...and nothing. Not a can of beans or bundle of beets jumps out and says, "Look at me, I can be a tasty meal for dinner." So now what? ...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Take Up Less Space With A Vertical Bed

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 10:44:06 -0500
image from Office for the Development of Substitute Materials TreeHugger always promotes ideas that let you live in less space, as well as transformer furniture that goes away when you don't need it. Jamie O'Shea of the Office for the Development of Substitute Materials has developed a vertical bed that lets you sleep almost anywhere in a lot less space. ...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Green Holiday Gift Guide: The Foodie (Slideshow)

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 10:37:20 -0500
You don't have to be a die-hard chef to appreciate the aroma of a simmering pot of stew, a perfectly-crusted pie, or a flawless tomato fresh from the garden--so whether you're shopping for your just-married cousin or your brother with the finely-honed palate, our foodie guide has the kitchen gadgets, cookbooks, recipes, and pots and pans you need to help them rediscover (or just discover) a love of cooking. (And if the closest person to a foodie on your list still burns toast, then we have one last suggestion: just give wine.) Then click on for 10 more gift-packed categories in TreeHugger's...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Green Holiday Gift Guide: The Fashion Buff (Slideshow)

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 10:25:35 -0500
As any teenager who's ever feigned excitement over a pom-pom reindeer sweater on Christmas morning can tell you, buying clothes for other people can be--well, let's just say, a little hit or miss. Don't want to give a closet full of duds that go unworn? We're with you--that's a waste of money, resources, and time. Instead, pull your ideas from our collection of fashionable, durable wardrobe must-haves--jeans that your guy will end up wearing 24/7, bracelets that will make your niece the envy of her high school, and maybe a few splurges for yourself--and fold up those reindeer sweaters for good. Then click on for 10 more gift-packed ...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Sneakers for Geeks and Hackers Are Made form Recycled Computer Chips

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 10:10:00 -0500
Images via Gabriel Dishaw Are these the dream sneaks for green geeks? Maybe. They're at the very least a cool creation by Gabriel Dishaw, junk-metal artist extraordinaire, who fashioned these shoes out of pieces of computers and typewriters, with only glue and metal bending techniques to keep the pieces held together. ...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Seriously Cool and Inspirational Visual Bike-Art [Slideshow]

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 09:59:15 -0500
Image: I Love Dust. Biking is beautiful, and bikes are incredibly beautiful objects too. Those of us who love to ride know this, but many are able to translate that feeling into images and art that remind us how amazing this vehicle is. In this gallery we compile poetic, funky, funny, and interesting pieces of visual art made by bike-loving artists all around the world. Autumn in the north hemisphere, Spring in the south, it's a great time to ride: so take a look and get inspired. Read the full story on TreeHugger

A 10-Ton Japanese Fishing Trawler Sunk By Giant Jellyfish

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 09:43:00 -0500
Photo via nurpax You could say it was the jellyfish, or you could say it was the overzealous fishermen on board. While trying to haul in a catch of several dozen giant Nomura's jellyfish - one of the largest in the world - a Japanese fishing trawler tipped right over. ...Read the full story on TreeHugger

The Politics of Plastics: Food Fights Over Bisphenol A

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 09:41:16 -0500
La Tomatina Food Fight We noted earlier that Consumers Reports Confirms Bisphenol A Leaches From Tin Cans. This didn't sit well with our friends at Stats.org, who responded with Consumer Reports BPA study filled with factual errors. Consumers Reports shot back with Industry re...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Sheena Goes Lady Gaga in Raffaele Ascione at Uniform Project Fete

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 09:00:56 -0500
Raffaele Ascione cape worn by Lady Gaga. Credit: The Uniform Project Raffaele Ascione's cape--worn by pop star Lady Gaga--certainly affirms that shoulder pads are in. Sheena Matheiken--the face/body of The Uniform Project--wore the cape, and an entire design by the up and coming fashion designer at Saturday night's AccesSoireé, a six month anniversary party Read the full story on TreeHugger

Toronto Event: R4 Fashion Featuring Sustainable Design

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 08:40:51 -0500
R4 Fashion event in Toronto, featuring Thieves. Image courtesy of R4 Fashion R4 Fashion and Sustainable Technology Education Project (STEP) at the University of Waterloo, are bringing top Canadian designers together for a runway show and competition to showcase sustainable design and raise environmental awareness. Canadian designers Aime by Monica Mei, CARRIE by Carrie Hayes, Read the full story on TreeHugger

Climate Change Denial: Where It Counts, It's Not Going Up

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 08:00:02 -0500
George Monbiot is beside himself. He writes in his post Death Denial: "There is no point in denying it: we're losing. Climate change denial is spreading like a contagious disease. It exists in a sphere which cannot be reached by evidence or reasoned argument; any attempt to draw attention to scientific findings is greeted with furious invective. This sphere is expanding with astonishing speed." The editor of a reputable Architect's website asks "As global temperatures fail to warm, is the heat going out of clima...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Ask Pablo: Refrigerator Water Dispenser or Refrigerated Bottles?

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 07:13:00 -0500
Image Source: Alex Muse Dear Pablo: We drink a great deal of water all day long and wondered which uses more energy: opening the refrigerator door to get a bottle of cold water or using the water dispenser on the exterior of the unit. Also, does it take more energy to get ice from the mechanical dispenser (which also uses energy to make ice) or more by opening and closing the freezer door to get some cubes? The big picture answer is that it probably doesn't matter. Simply the fact that you are filling your own water bottles rather than Read the full story on TreeHugger