Home / treehugger.com rss archive / August-28-2007


Greenbelts' Recycled Leather Cuffs, Collars
Seattle artist and child wrangler Shannon Ritscher retools used leather belts into mean-looking biker cuffs and rhinestone-encrusted studded collars for both humans and non-humans alike. Many of the embellishments Ritscher uses, including bottle caps, buttons, washers, and springs are also part of her larger plan to take back the landfill. And Girlfriend may look like a soccer mom on her profile page, but you know she could totally take you out with her pinkie finger. Punk.Prices start at an easy $17. More pictures below. ::EtsySee also:

Happy Trails: Cycling Holidays Take Off
Photo credit: RichardAMMore Brits are coming home tanned, toned, and saddle-sore, according to a report indicating a surge in cycling holidays.Biking-mad Brits ponied up some 120m on 450,000 dedicated cycling holidays in 2006, with some operators experiencing as much as a 30 percent increase in bookings, compared with 2005 figures, revealed research by market analysts Mintel....

Less is More: Grilliput Grill Weighs Less than One Pound
As Sean noted earlier today, just because summer is approaching an end doesn't make it the end of grilling season. For tailgating, camping, or grilling anywhere in small spaces, we recommend the Grilliput, a diminutive grill that stands a six inches tall and weighs less than a pound. Perfect for grilling on the go, the whole thing collapses into one of the tubes, adding up to less than 12 inches in length and one inch in diameter; small enough that you can slip it in a backpack or even your pocket when the grilling is done. Of course, we recommend

Litter Aggravates Flooding In Mexico City
Mexico City is in the midst of its rainy season, which means that when the rain comes down hard, as it does on a weekly basis, the litter that residents have haphazardly thrown on the ground takes an insidious toll. When Hurricane Dean brought a total of 3.12 inches (79.25 mm) of rain in three hours last week, a new record for heavy rainfall was set. What ensued was one of the citys more epic traffic jams and hullabaloos of horn honking as the citys six million cars sloshed through the flooded streets. In one area, the floodwaters rose 2.6 feet (80 cm), trapping drivers in ...

Topo Table: Indoor Gardening Without Getting Up from the Table
If indoor gardening is something you want to dig in to a bit deeper, but aren't in to aeroponics, hydroponics or a US-powered greenhouse, the Topo Table might be for you. In what offers one of the smallest farm-to-table radius possibilities we've ever seen, the table is full of reversible spots to grow small indoor plants: flipped one way, the tables' inserts create little landscapes just the right size to grow some indoor greenery; flip 'em around...

Build a Geodesic Greenhouse
Keep your plants in fighting shape, even after the first frost sets, with a geodesic-dome greenhouse of your very own. And raise a homegrown cantaloupe to Buckminster Fuller while you're at it.Another first-prize winner from our TreeHugger/Popular Science/Instructables Go Green contest, our builders belong to Youth Exploring Science, a program that provides opportunities for underprivileged teens to lear...

Number of the Day: 300
300 -- the percent by which real estate and construction professionals overestimate the costs of green building, according to a study by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. [pdf] Further...19 -- the percent of greenhouse gases emitted by buildings, according to survey respondents.40 -- the actual percent of greenhouse gases emitted by buildings.That's right: industry folks overestimate the costs of going green(er) and underestimate the damage being done. As Dave at Gristmill notes, all we need is some proper education to t...

How to Treat Your Computer: MareNostrum
The new TreeHugger Server Farm The Barcelona Supercomputing Centre is housed in the Torre Girona chapel. It may only be the ninth biggest supercomputer in the world, but it is certainly the most beautiful. What a great example of how buildings can adapt to anything, how good design transforms the banal into the beautiful, and what a wonderful place to pray for those who worship technology. ...

TreeHugger Picks: Heard It Through the Grape Vine
While drinking organic wines is one of TreeHugger's favorite ways to enjoy the fruits of the earth without harming the planet, wine an its derivatives are good for so much more. Here are some of our picks that go beyond simply drinking the sweet fermented grape.1) Wine-making, meet renewable energy production: a team of undergraduate engineering students from Oregon State University has developed an

The Transportation Energy Efficiency of Buildings
Alex Wilson of Building Green notes that employees for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation used to walk to work; now, to get to the world's first LEED Platinum building, the Philip Merrill Environmental Center, employees have to drive. He notes for an average office building in the United States, commuting by office workers accounts for 30% more energy than the building itself uses. For a modern green building, it is as much as 50% more.He suggests that we have to measure Transportation energy intensity -"the amount of energy associated with getting people to and from that building, whether they are commuters, shoppers, vendors, or homeowners. The transportation energy ...

Colbert on the Cold Rush
We posted earlier about the coming rush to exploit Arctic oil as the ice melts away; Stephen Colbert covers the issue effectively, noting that a) Bush says the Northwest Passage is international; b) Bush is the leader of the world; and c) therefore it belongs to America. Striking logic. via David Roberts at

Now Endangered: Hedgehog, House Sparrow
Photo credit: purple key"'Beyond the Wild Wood comes the Wide World,' said the Rat. 'And that's something that doesn't matter, either to you or me. I've never been there, and I'm never going, nor you either, if you've got any sense at all.'"Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the WillowsPity the legacies of Enid Blyton, Beatrix Potter, and Kenneth Grahame; we can almost hear them rolling over in their graves (which scares the beejeezus out of us): Once-familiar animals in Britain, including the hedgehog, water vole, and house sparrow, have been added to the U.K. Biodiversity Action plan for threat...

Solar Powered WiFi
Solis Energy has been selling solar powered street lights and other gear for a while; now it is pitching solar powered industrial strength routers for community WiFi. According to Michael Kanellos of CNet, "Several state governments are pushing for increased use of solar energy to cut power consumption and curb greenhouse gases. But green routers have another advantage. Routers, sensors, road signs and other devices that derive their power from the sun or the wind don't need to be hooked up to wires, which often don't exist in remote locations. "A router only needs 24 watts of power, so we wonder if the embodied energy in making such a d...

"Black Balloons" Ad Symbolizes Global Warming
Click To PlayWe a...

Football Season Is at Hand: Green Your Tailgating
As (American) football starts to wind down its pre-season and fans anxiously await their high school, college and professional teams' season debut, tailgating is on many a mind. Just as the coaches are tinkering with their playbooks in these last few days before the season, it may be time to work out the kinks in your tailgating plans. Thankfully, Lighter Footstep has come up with five handy tailgating eco-tips to help you get ready for the months of beer and burgers ahead. 1) Make Hank Hill proud, use propane.Sure, propane...

Etsy Clean & Green Trunk Show
Photo credit: noamgEtsy's Clean and Green Guilda ragtag band of eco-friendly soap, bath and body products, makeup, and fragrance geniuseswill be hosting a trunk show on August 31, from 6 to 8 p.m. at Etsy Labs in Brooklyn, Noo Yawk.Browse the wares that will be on sale, headbang to '80s music, slurp down blender drinks, and play around with samples. RSVP to rsvp [at] etsy [dot] com. Full invite, plus list of participants, below. ::Etsy...

Propellor Design's Pendant Lighting: No Spinning Blades Necessary
Though they don't create anything that keeps itself aloft with a spinning blade, the work of Propellor Design does seem to float, effortlessly, through space. We're especially fond of their pendants (that's "Galiano" above), but the Vancouver, BC-based collective also designs furniture and other lighting, all with a decidedly green slant. The Galiano pendant, pictured again below the fold, is made with a reclaimed Douglas fir shade, and a clever twig light pull; we love the way the warm, soft wood both reflects and refracts light, making the most of the 15 Watt compact fluorescent lightbulb they recommend installing with the fixture.

Natural Light Gives You Smartypants
Let there be light, indeed: Glendale Middle School's new $16 million building will be harnessing the power of the sun to supercharge its students' neurons. Instead of a "windowless tomb" in all its artificially lit glory, as a Salt Lake City Tribune reporter put it, the classrooms will be soaking in the sun's natural rays. One 1999 study showed that students in classrooms with a large amount of sunlight scored as much as 18 percent higher on tests, compared with students exposed to a low-light environment.At Glendale, a school with mostly low-income minority pupils, Principal Ernie Nix hopes the new positive learning environment will propel ...

The Nepalese Paper Company
OK, so the wedding season may be nearing its close for this year, but a new one is never too far away. For those folks out there who are planning your big day, you may already be thinking about what invitations to send. Weve previously brought you posts about Invite Site, Seal and Send, and weve even fielded readers queries about potential suppliers. Now wed like to add another supplier to the list of possibilities the

Now That's What We Call Recycling: Glass Beaches Coming to Florida?
From the "That's one way to handle it" files: having difficulty dealing with the constant erosion of Florida's beaches, officials in Broward County are exploring using recycled glass, crushed into tiny grains and mixed with "regular" sand, to help fill gaps. As melted sand is the main ingredient in the clear and translucent bottles, cups, windows and other glass implementations, it only makes sense that the glass be returned to frolic by the ocean as it may have done in a previous life.Typically, when beaches erode and need a sand supplement, new sand is dredged up from the ocean floor (this has been done to the tune of about 13 million tons since 19...

Europe Turning Wine into Fuel
Americans like their liquor hard and their biofuel subsidy business grain based. In Europe, they subsidize their grape growers to fill wine lakes of unwanted plonk. The European Union is buying 693,376 hectolitres (18,027,776 gallons or 93,744,435 bottles) from Italy, Greece, Spain and France to turn it into biofuel. They call it ""crisis distillation" -- an emergency market tool used as a short-term measure to correct supply imbalances. At least they are honest enough not to call it an energy policy.Robert Parker gives Shell high octane a 94. ::Reuters...

If Global Warming Never Happened
Photo credit: tomaskCollege must make you, like, smart or something. One man-about-campus, at least, has his head screwed on straight. "If global warming never happened, many of the changes we make in response to its threat would still make sense, writes Daniel Gibson-Reinember, a fishery and wildlife biology graduate student at Colorado State University, in his college paper. "Adapting our lives to reduce climate change means being more efficient, innovative, conscientious and just plain smart."This is why the vehemence of the climate-change peanut gallery surprises us, when they act as ...

Panasonic Electric Rug Might Save A Lot of Energy
Panasonic has introduced electric radiant rugs into the Japanese market. Normally we would say this is just another electricity waster, but we used to have prototypes for a heated carpet that never went into production, and until we gave them up after the rubber backing started drying out they were absolutely wonderful; even if the house was at 55 degrees one could sit on that rug and feel warm as toast. The kids and the cat were glued to it. A 2 tatami mat sized rug is rated at 500 watts, but heats up to 114 degrees, which is way more than you need for comfort. Our old one drew 200 watts and was more than enough.Why heat the whole house when toasty ...

There Is No Such Thing As Clean Coal
We were surprised to see this covered in Forbes Magazine, an information source for big investors."As the nation's coal-fired power plants work to create cleaner skies, they'll likely fill up landfills with millions more tons of potentially harmful ash. More than one-third of the ash generated at the country's hundreds of coal-fired plants is now recycled - mixed with cement to build highways or used to stabilize embankments, among other things.""But in a process being used increasingly across the nation, chemicals are injected into plants' emissions to capture airborne pollutants. That, in turn, changes the composition of the ash and cuts its usefulness. It c...

Green Century Institute Presents: Califia Sketchbook Design Competition
TreeHugger talks a lot about re-energizing urban areas and "city-fying" the world, so we can make better use of space, use less per capita resources and generally be more efficient planet-dwellers. The folks at the Green Century Institute have taken this idea even further, developing a model for a future "ecocity" called Califia, a comprehensive mixed-use micro-city model, that will combine a variety of residential configurations with a full comp...

The End of the World's Grasslands as We Know Them?
A newly released study posits a bleak future for the world's grasslands: rapidly escalating levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere may prompt the large-scale conversion of grasslands to a landscape of woody shrubs. To reach these findings, Jack Morgan a plant physiologist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the study's lead author and a team of researchers artificially doubled carbon dioxide levels over enclosed portions of the Colorado prairie to simulate estimated 2100 levels. This large increase led to a drastic rise in the numbers of Artemisia frigida, a woody shrub species known as fringed sage.The scientists set up open-topped cylinders of ...

Ontario Parties: Who is the Greenest Of Them All?
It is the silly season just before the writ is dropped for the fall election in Ontario, Canada's most populous province with over 12 million people. It is also a big place, so the leaders pump out a lot of greenhouse gas getting around. Not much debate up here about climate change, so all of the parties are competing to prove how green they are. The two Liberal buses will run on ultra-low-sulphur diesel, which they say drastically cuts smog-causing emissions. The Conservatives are running on biodiesel. The New Democrats are dumping the bus for a hybrid SUV. "This might be a little less convenient than a bus," NDP Leader Howard Hampton told the Star "but I think I can sacrifice conv...

We Are Sailing, Sailing: Aum Totes
We've covered a boatload (heh) of bags and totes made from retired sails in our day (count'em: uno, dos, tres, cuatro, cinco), but the Circles and Stripes AUM (Alternate Use Materials) totes by Vancouver-based Red Flag Design blow their competition clear out of the water.Made with reclaimed sailcloth and reinforced with recla...

Cartridge World Offers Schools Opportunity to Raise Funds While Recycling
With Labor Day around the corner and students and teachers across the country heading back to school theres often a need to raise funds for one project or another. One great way to do it may be by partnering up with a company like Cartridge World, which provides you with the box to collect empty printer cartridges, then cuts you a check when you return it to them with the empty cartridges inside. That way youre keeping the them out of the landfill while raising the cash to take that trip or buy that new school gadget at the same time.And it turns out theyre also teaming up with the Go Green Initiative this fall to provi...

Centralized Ordering for Decentralized Supply: The Bioregional Charcoal Company
Yesterday we posted on the ultra-efficient paper recycling initiative known as The Laundry which was founded by the London-based Bioregional Development Group (whose founders weve interviewed here). But The Laundry is just one example of how Bioregional take a particular industry or process, and completely remodel it to make best use of local supply chains. The Bio...

The TH Interview: Christopher Flavin, Worldwatch President
The Worldwatch Institute has played a major role in shaping the conversation about the environment around the world and especially in China. In 1995, its founder Lester Browns landmark book Who Will Feed China alerted leaders to a food crisis in the making. Today, Worldwatch is behind one of the best English-language resources on China's environmental situation at its China Watch website. Treehugger caught up with the organizations president,

Hooking the Ocean Up to the Intertubes
Oceanographers and marine biologists will tell you that one of the main challenges they face when conducting research aboard a ship is obtaining all the data and visuals they need without an Internet connection. Well, no more: a new joint U.S.-Canadian project, dubbed NEPTUNE, has just laid down submarine fiber-optic cables in the Pacific Ocean as a first step in its objective to create the world's first wired ocean observatory. Its Canadian division, NEPTUNE Canada, plans on hooking up hundreds of oceanographic instruments to the Internet with the help of a 500-mile (800 km) long fiber-optic cable that will encircle th...

Cities Coming Back on the Great Plains
The main street in downtown Newell, South Dakota.Sean wrote earlier about how people are moving back to the cores of mid-sized US cities like Cleveland; a similar trend is happening on the Great Plains. The population has been declining in rural areas; some counties in North Dakota lost two thirds for their population. Rural areas continue to grapple with young people leaving and old people dying, but some communities are thriving. "There's enormous change taking place because of the Internet and information technology," says Eric John Abrahamson, a fellow at the Institute for Applied Economics and the Stu...

A Picture is Worth... Greek Fires From Space
The news around the world are full of stories about forest fires (and sometimes the possible links between global warming and their intensity and frequency). Here's a photo that gives some perspective on the size of the fires in Greece. High-Resolution version: NASA Earth Observatory. Via Reddit....

Fashioning Sustainability: A Clothing Industry Eco-review
Whoops. The other day when we mentioned the upcoming tome Sustainable Fashion and Textiles, we cited a few other green fashion publications, but forgot to make mention of the Fashioning Sustainability 2007 Report compiled by the Forum For The Future (and supported by Marks and Spencer). That was a large oversight, because this free PDF download is 14 pages packed with succinct, yet interesting, information on the rag trade. It delves into eight s...

Conservationsts and Developers Face Off Over Pristine Mexican Reserve
More than 700 academics and researchers affiliated with the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation have called on the Mexican government to put a halt to the development of one of its richest biological treasures, the Chamela-Cuixmala biosphere reserve in Jalisco state on the Pacific Ocean. Tourism complexes and condominiums for sun-starved northerners are sprouting like mushrooms in Mexicos beloved coastal destinations like Cancun and Cabo San Lucas. Meanwhile investors and developers are scouring the nations coasts for virgin beaches to build the next wave of exclusive, luxurious digs for those who dont want to mingle with the...

The (re)Cycle Plays in Socrates Sculpture Park
Cultural community events which aim to raise awareness and educate whilst also entertaining us always get top priority in our social agendas. Saturday September 15th is one such date that New Yorkers should save this month. Described as a Community Eco-Festival, the Confluence Theatre Company will present The (re)Cycle Plays in Socrates Sculpture Park. A series of performances will focus on ecological issues like peak oil, consumption, and food politics. The title plays on the original form of Cycle plays which were medieval 'Biblical morality plays on mounted stages that were moved arou...

Backpacker Magazine: The Global Warming Issue
This one is a keeper for anyone who spends any time outdoors. There is no debate going on about whether global warming is happening, just page after page of the future of mountains and glaciers (glaciers gone in 30 years), another section on forests and rivers, (bye-bye, boundary waters as Minnesota's north woods go up in smoke) and the future of forests (fire and pine beetles). Follow that with a National Parks report card and some great green camping gear, and a hiker's guide to fighting climate change with 101 tips for cutting your carbon footprint. One would think that backpackers would all be among the most convinced about global warming, being out there in the woods and ...

Quote of the Day: Ken Midkiff on Water Scarcity
Photo credit: Trevor D. In just a few short decades, we have depleted our water supply. In the eastern states, which once had an abundance of water, bitter disputes and legal battles have become commonplace over water shortages caused by overappropriation. In the western states, where water has always been in short supply, population growth in dry areas has led to water shortages that threaten to severely restrict or perhaps even bar further growth. It could well be that burgeoning western cities such as Las Vegas, Phoenix, Albuquerque, San Diego, and even Los Angeles and San...

Farm Stand Produce Not Always So Local
When the average customer heads to a farm stand, be it on Long Island or any other place, they may well expect that theyre purchasing fresh, local produce with all of the benefits that come with that delicious, late-summer tomato But thats not always the case, as some farm stands on the east end of Long Island have begun supplementing their income by importing even locally available items along with melons and peaches from as far as 250 miles away to add to their product line, blurring the line for the average consumer who may well not know the difference.Of course those items, along with Florida lemons and sweet Mexican mangos are nestled in among the more traditional and locally grown vin...

Alice Waters of Chez Panisse
Chez Panisse is the ultimate foodie heaven; a restaurant where most of us would be lucky to get a reservation, never mind afford it. Its founder, Alice Waters, opened this organic paradise of a restaurant 35 years ago, at a time when eating organic and locally-grown food was strictly for hippies. Having always cooked for friends, she decided to try and make some money out of her skills by serving food cooked with freshly grown produce and presented in a set menu format (unheard of in America at the time). Initially she went to specialty producers for ingredients because most of the standard suppliers didn't grow what she wanted. Back then, she had a food for...

Volvo Lasts 2.5 Million Miles
Yesterday we reported that a VW had lasted 562,000 miles. We were impressed at the cars durability, and how small the production footprint of the car was in relation to the number of miles it had driven. We didn't realise though, that half a million miles is nothing for some people. We've since uncovered a Volvo driver who has done five times this much. Irv Gordon's Volvo P1800 has covered a massive 2.45 million miles in the forty years he has owned it. "It was far and away the best $4,150 I've ever spent," said Gordon....

350 Miles on $28? Just Add Aluminum Gallium Alloy and Water
Researchers at Purdue University (they always provide the best pictures) have refined a technique using aluminum gallium alloy (80% aluminum, 20% gallium), to wrestle hydrogen from water. The liberated hydrogen can be used on-site in a combustion engine, or even better, in a fuel cell. The advantage of this technology is that it removes the complications related to storing hydrogen as a gas, instead you simply add water.The research, conducted by Jerry Woodall, Charles Allen and Jeffrey Ziebarthare, will be presented on Sept. 7 during the 2nd Energy Nano-technology International Conference in Santa Clara, California."It's a simple matter to convert ordinary ...

There Is No Such Thing As Clean Coal
We were surprised to see this covered in Forbes Magazine, an information source for big investors."As the nation's coal-fired power plants work to create cleaner skies, they'll likely fill up landfills with millions more tons of potentially harmful ash. More than one-third of the ash generated at the country's hundreds of coal-fired plants is now recycled - mixed with cement to build highways or used to stabilize embankments, among other things.""But in a process being used increasingly across the nation, chemicals are injected into plants' emissions to capture airborne pollutants. That, in turn, changes the composition of the ash and cuts its usefulness. It can't be used in cement, for example, because the interaction of the chemicals may keep the concrete from hardening." Are ...

Porteos, Tell Us About Buenos Aires!
Photo credit: Graham I. via Flickr.Ever since the 2001 economic crash, Buenos Aires has been blooming as one of the most exciting cities in the continent. Often talked about as South Americas little Paris, Argentinas capital has the perfect mix of Latin and European flavors and a cultural offer that matches those of the most developed cities in the world. Did you know, for example, that it holds more than 140 private and public museums (Wikipedia)? Or that the number of theaters in the city is one of the highest in the world? With a population of over three million and thirteen million counti...

Damaris & Marc, Fun & Local Sustainable Design from Barcelona
Finally, fun & sexy eco design is available not just in New York and London but has made it to Barcelona. Damaris & Marc are the two local designers who create and produce their designs themselves, to make sure the materials they use are as sustainable as possible. To do so, the designers use a mix of technology and craft which results in beautifully made objects for the home. All products are produced locally in their workshops in Barcelona. To underline their responsibility as designers towards the planet, parts of their profits go towards humanitarian projects. Every time a significant amount has been set aside, the two designer...