Home / treehugger.com rss archive / October-07-2007


We Have Life, Says Venter
After causing a minor furore amongst scientific circles over his attempts to claim a patent on "life," Craig Venter, the maverick researcher who helped map the human genome, and his colleagues reached another major milestone earlier this week by becoming the first team to build a "synthetic chromosome" - thus setting the stage for the creation of the first ever artificial organism. To do so, Venter and a team of 20 scientists headed by Nobel laureate Hamilton Smith used lab-made chemicals to constitute a chromosome 381 genes long - containing over 580,000 base pairs - based on Mycoplasma genitaliu...

UK Utility to Install 250 Electric Vehicle Charging Points
Only yesterday we brought news of a new report claiming that green car sales will reach 1.2 billion in London alone next year. Fortunately the infrastructure is also being rapidly put in place to facilitate such a boom. EDF Energy, one of the UKs leading energy companies, announced recently that it will be helping local councils across the UK install 250 electric vehicle charging points free of charge by March 2008, in partnership with charging point manufacturer Elektromotive. So far coucils that have already committed to installing the c...

Food vs Fuel: The Debate Rumbles On
We have covered the complex and controversial food for fuel debate many times before, most notably here, here and here. It is a topic that certainly doesnt look likely to be resolved any time soon, but the more in-depth media focus there is on the real consequences of biofuels [as opposed to gushing coverage of the latest flex-fuel muscle car], the more likely we are to come up with potential solutions. We were pleased then to hear that BBC Radi...

How To Build a Compost Spinner
Vloggers The Urban Homesteaders, from Rochester, NY, have put together this handy how-to guide for building your own compost spinner, to help you accelerate the composting process. They built it entirely from recycled and salvaged materials, making it a pretty green process, and costing them exactly $0 and an afternoon of labor. Watch the video, about...

Tin Whiskers Out With The Claws, Bricking Satellites and Pacemakers
There's something sprouting in every electronic device that you own, and it's not in the oh-happy-garden-let's-pick-the-fruit kind of way. In fact, this little something could very well end up bricking your device. They are called tin whiskers, and they pop up without warning from tin solder and finishes deep inside electronics. While scientists debate their cause, they agree on one thing: small amounts of lead mixed with the tin prevent the whiskers from forming. Lead, however, is a serious health concern, and last year European...

No Trash Week: October 7 - October 13
No Trash Week starts today! Celebrate this week-long event by not creating any waste. Sound like a tall order? Eh, kinda, but with tips for dealing with the packaging, plastic and paper you encounter every day, projects to help you prepare -- like composting, buying in bulk and stopping junk mail -- and a forum to help hash out your questions, issues and difficulties with cutting the trash out ...

Go Green Initiative Sets Sights on Trees for Uganda
Well folks, when the Go Green Iniative (GGI) announces theyre after something they really mean it. Not too long ago they pointed out via their newsletter that theyd taken on the challenge of raising $100,000 to help the Child2Youth Foundation in Uganda educate children there about their health and its connection to the environment. Now theyve lined up a sponsor willing to match every $50 raised by schools from now until October 25th to help get schools in Uganda involved planting trees in that country as part of a program to educate their students about the unsustainable use of trees going on ...

Quote of the Day: Michael Jessen on Zero Waste
Humans are the only species on the planet that don't live by zero waste principles. Zero waste is a 'call to action' that aims to bring an end to the current 'take, make and waste' mentality of human society.Zero waste is the pinnacle of the hierarchy of waste management. When there is no waste, we will have moved well beyond the 'end-of-the-pipe' (compliance) and even 'front-of-the-pipe' (eco-efficiency) in our approaches to environmental management. Instead, we will have what William McDonough calls a 'no-pipe approach.' Zero waste means swimming upstream to the sources of waste generation, rath...

Something Fishy About A Coalition Without Consensus
When I had the opportunity to serve as the Dean of Discipline for the 8th grade in my school a couple of years back I once faced the task of investigating a curious letter sent by the local Yu-Gi-Oh! playing card society to my Principal threatening a hunger strike if their confiscated cards were not returned immediately, and they were allowed to play again during lunch.As absurd as it was to be faced with students pondering a hunger strike over such a seemingly small matter I suspected this would be an entertaining in...

Quote of the Day: Akkiko Busch on Consumption
So as substance abusers in the most literal sense, we seem to do what most other addicts do when faced with the obvious: We go into denial. We spin. Often, that spin involves redefining excess as less. And for all the dangers implicit in the cycle of consumption and waste, I would venture to say that the cycle of indulgence and denial is even more dangerous, because it involves a level of self-deception, along with convoluted arguments of justification that allow us to do whatever we want."And the money quote: "Make less, buy less, use less, throw away less."

IDeAs New Zero Energy, Zero Carbon Headquarters
It's nice to see firms practice what they preach; Electrical and lighting engineering firm IDeAs believes "that we change the world through our sustainable designs, one building at a time" and today are opening their conversion of a dead sixties era bank branch into a net zero energy, zero carbon emission headquarters for the firm. It has a "fully integrated, grid-tied, net-metering, photovoltaic system sized to provide 100% of the net energy requirements, allowing it to make zero contribution to global warming." They call it Z-squared.They have put together an interactive website for the project where one can look at each of the technologies and interventions in detail- there is a l...

Strange Waters: From Under the Sea and Out of the Amazonian Rainforest
It has been a while since we looked at some of the strange bottled waters that people are peddling; one would think that with all of the controversy over bottled water that businesspeople would look askance at investing in such ventures. Clearly, however, suckers are still being born every minute because here are two new candidates: Equa: Bottled Water from the Amazonian RainforestFlorida businessman Jeff Moats tells Business Week that the rainforest is "probably the last place on Earth that holds boundless mystery and mystique." While...

Make Your Own Keyboard
File this one under the Keatsian department of "a thing of beauty is a joy forever." Much like these wondrous Russian computer cases, Hacoa is now soon-to-be-offering a do-it-yourself keyboard kit to the masses. The kit allows the purchaser to cut the keys from a plank of wood and assemble the pieces themselves; it's $300.Till now, Hacoa has typically crafted each keyboard by hand, churning out the sum total of one keyboard per day. But in an effort to lighten the companys labor load...

Get a Green Job: GreenCareers by MonsterTRAK
According to a recent study by MonsterTRAK, the division of job-hunting megasite Monster for college students and recent graduates, 80 percent of young professionals are interested in securing a job that impacts the environment in a positive way, and 92 percent give preference to working for a company that is environmentally friendly. If you find yourself at the green jobs crossroads, and you've exhausted your search over at TreeHugger's Job Board, then MonsterTRAK has something for you: yesterday, MonsterTRAK, in alliance with ecoAmerica (full disclosure: Bob Perkowitz, President of ecoAmerica, is a member of TreeHugger's Board...

Recipe of the Week: Roasted Vegetable Salad with Garlic Dressing
It's Thanksgiving in Canada this weekend, and for us that means heading to the cottage for the final weekend of the year. A number of years ago our cottage neighbours generously invited us to their family Thanksgiving at the last minute after hearing that we were going to sit down to a bowl of pasta. It has turned into a bit of a tradition now, one that I look forward to for months. Last year the weather was so warm a table for 20 was laid on the dock. We ate by candlelight as the autumn leaves gently fell onto the glass-like surface of the lake. It was one of those magical dinners that you always remember. So it's perhaps a bit disingenuous to offer up a Thanks...

Offscreen Expedition Helps Youth Educate, Inspire Via Art
With miscommunication between inhabitants of the Western and Arab worlds one of the biggest problems we face on the planet, it stands to reason that 9 British students heading off on an expedition to help translate across the cultural divide might make a difference. In fact, they got a chance to relate a bit about the environment in the Middle East as well. Visiting Dubai and Oman to demonstrate how humans there have adapted in various ways to the harsh desert conditions.Its all part of the Offscreen Education Programme, using the creative power of art to educate and inspire youth via the web. Just one of the places they...

Green Festival in Washington DC
It's the Green Festival travelling road show-"party with a purpose" and "a celebration of whats working in our communities for people, for businesses and for the environment." It starts in Washington DC at the Convention Center on Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 6&7. TreeHugger is there- in the Planet Green booth, and on the podium, with our own founderpreneur Graham Hill on the very first panel- (can he get up that early?) discussing the "Medias Impact on the Green Lifestyle Movement." Other heavyweights who have appeared in TreeHugger include Bill McKibben, Francis Moore Lappe and Bill McDonough.The lecture titles are fascinating: What's the Economy for, Anyway?, The Walma...

Kerala's Fisherwomen Challenge Coastal Tourism's Onslaught
September 27th marked World Tourism Day and a group of fisherwomen in the South Indian state of Kerala made their concerns known in front of the state secretariat by gagging themselves and wearing sloganed headbands. Kerala is a well-known tourist destination for foreigners and Indians alike and is famous for its lush green treescapes, villages and fishing boats on beautiful backwaters and beaches. Politically left-standing and culturally rich, tourism is one of the biggest sectors in Kerala, but in recent years has become more and more commercialized, much to the chagrin of locals who claim that it is harming their livelihoods and the environment."Tourism in the state...

Bookcase Into a Bed: A New Take on the Murphy Bed
Here's an interesting take on the folding Murphy bed idea: instead of folding into the wall, this concept jigsaw-puzzles together to become part of the wall. The bookcase/bed combination works together to help maximize space and give your walls a little extra pop of color; when it's bedtime, just take down your bookcase and you've got a bed.We like that the bookcases remain on the wall, so you don't have to take stuff off the shelves when it's time to go to bed, but we see a few tricky spots in the day to day operation as ...

The Pantry is Back
Kitchen cabinets are expensive, particularly if you buy them formaldehyde free with a green counter. Yet storage is at a premium if you plan on canning fruits and vegetables or laying in supplies of root vegetables for the winter. According to Paula Robinson of the Telegraph, "The pantry is definitely making a comeback as interest in healthy, organic eating grows. It is essential to making the most of your crop if you have a vegetable garden or an allotment." She continues "The location of your walk-in pantry is important. Tradition and practicality call for a dry, cool and dark place so, unfortunately, it can't do double duty as the utility room. Site it well away from the oven, fridge freezer, o...

Scientist Wins IgNobel Extracting Vanillin From Cow Dung
The Ig Nobel Chemistry Prize was awarded on October 4 to Mayu Yamamoto, a former researcher at the International Medical Center of Japan, for her pioneering work in extracting a useful product, vanillin, from cow dung. According to Pink Tentacle, Yamamoto says that widespread adoption of her method could help the environment because companies would make greater use of cow dung, which arguably contributes to global warming.As a bonus prize, Toscaninis Ice Cream in Cambridge, Massachusetts has invented a new flavor Yum-A-Moto Vanilla Twist to honor Yamamoto, and is offering a free public tasting to its customers on October 5. Other winners below the fold

How To Reuse Your Old Electronics
Avi at Dark Roasted Blend somehow finds extraordinary pictures to make endless posts on ludicrous subjects, like this one. He says "Given the Moore's law that the power of computers doubles every 24 months, we end up with a lot of useless devices and obsolete hardware, that you sure can recycle in a normal way, but it's much more fun to recycle it in a wild and unusual ways! Let's see how to give a new life to the computing zombies of yesteryear." See much, much more at ::Dark Roasted Blend...

Harnessing Car Engines' Lost Energy for Electricity Production
The concept of waste-to-energy technology is certainly nothing new: we've covered it many times on TreeHugger over the past few years (see here and here for some examples) and continually see it be touted as one of the "next big things" in alternative energy production. And while the jury is still out (and will likely remain so) on that latter point, there is no denying that, when done right, there is a p...

Survey: How Do You Phone?
Cell Phones are expensive and create a huge amount of e-waste; according to photographer Chris Jordan, Last year Americans retired 130 million cellphones, many of which will wind up in landfills, where their toxic lead, mercury and cadmium components will leach into the ground. Yet some people don't even have good old dependable land lines any more and rely on their cell for all their oral communication. View MicroPoll|

People Tree, Ecover + Ecotricity Get It Together
At TreeHugger we're firm believers that several heads are better than one, just look at how many of us are bringing you green news everyday! So when we heard that three great pioneers of sustainability are starting to work together in the UK we just knew that progress was being made. The collaboration between People Tree - eco-friendly and ethical fashion, Ecover - eco-cleaning products, and Ecotricity - green electricity, shows some pretty smart ...

Bend it Like Piegato: Flat Pack Shelving
Made from just a single sheet of laser-cut steel, and requiring just two screws to mount it on the wall, Piegato shelves are a great way to add storage using minimal space and materials. You get to decide how its configured -- the shelves can be packed flat as a piece of paper and shipped in a big envelope -- and thanks to some pretty thoughtful design (the bottom braces that keep the individual shelves from folding like a taco), the shelves can hold a surprising amount of weight; we're surprised to see lots of books on the shelves, but the designer swears it's true.Because the shelf system is a single piece ...

TreeHugger Radio: Its Green Design Contest Season
This week we recap the events of the Clinton Global Initiative, plus take a look at the plethora of green design competitions that are budding this fall. The city of New York is granting prizes for designers who can envision a hurricane escape plan. Metropolis Magazines Next Generation design competition is ramping up for its fifth year, focusing on water. Electroluxs Design Lab contest is helpin...

World's Largest Windfarm Gets Approval
A new wind farm, 90 square miles large, has been approved for construction off the coast of the UK. If built, it will become the largest offshore wind farm in the world, which should make all UK Tree Huggers proud....

Product Update: Juice Bags
Remember, dear longtime readers, when we first brought you Juice Bags from Rewear a few years ago? We mentioned that they were similar to the Voltaic bags, in that you can charge your portable electronic devices via the built in solar panel. Well we just learned that Rewear is now making daypacks and messenger bags from recycled soda bottles as well and each bag keeps about eight soda bottles out of the landfill. The material is as rugged as nylon but apparently...

Get FIT: Flat Packing "Friction in Tension" Table
A great companion to your new flat pack shelving, the FIT table fits together without screws, nails, hardware or tools. It's another great candidate for downloadable design, breaking down into six flat or nearly-flat pieces that can be easily customized with fun designs and patterns on the table top. The FIT table (that's Friction in Tension) starts as one solid piece of composite, so it uses a very minimal volume of materials, and is also easy to customize.Prototypes can be had here, and there's more to learn ...

Ask TreeHugger: How Do I Test My Toys for Lead?
Question: I have three young children and they have many painted toys. I am worried that these toys have lead in them, especially because I dont know where they were made. Is it dangerous to have my kids play with them? How do I test my kids toys for lead? Do the home testing kits work? Answer: The recent recalls of lead-containing toys have raised many concerns about the safety of our products. Although lead is a naturally occurring metal that can be found practically everywhere in the earths crust, batteries, water pipes, pencils (okay, not pencils -- I meant crayons), and even food -- its levels are generally declining in our products and in ...

TH Forums Highlights: Green Skepticism, Solar Laptops + More
Cruise into the weekend with TreeHugger Forums...1) Forums user jamesrocket isn't quite convinced that going green is a good thing to do. "How do you know that we need to do anything about the environment? Could it not just be the cycle of the earth? The science does support it but some people do present p...

Ecological Debt Day, 6 October 2007
Experts at the Global Footprint Network calculate that 19 December 1987 was the first time that humanity used up a year's allotment of the earth's resources before a year finished. Each year, this date is moving earlier. Today we pass the threshold of the planet's capacity, equalling a need for 1.3 planets to sustainably support our current consumption....

Variety Comes Back to the Supermarket
In Michael Pollan's Botany of Desire, we learned how apples are propagated, and how the formerly Delicious apple came to have its absolutely uniform beauty and be absolutely devoid of flavour. Yet in most stores, that is all you can find, or perhaps a mackintosh. When I visited Toronto's Fiesta Farms I was amazed to see all kinds of varieties of apples grown right here in Ontario, so yesterday we had a lunch of apples. I am no Robert Parker or Alice Waters, but three of us tasted eight different varieties, including empire (mild, unexciting) Mackintosh (um, tasted like an apple, it is the standard) Gala, (sweet, nice...

Duke Power's Save-A-Watt Expansion Proposal
Duke Energy Corporation's CEO Jim Rogers wants to expand the firm's save-a-watt program -- an approach to energy efficiency that would allow the utility to make money by persuading customers to use less electricity."Under the save-a-watt model, utilities would pay for programs designed to help customers buy energy efficient appliances, weatherize their homes and install special circuit breakers to cycle appliances on and off depending on the time of day. The cost would be passed on to customers through higher rates. Duke would charge customers 90 percent of what it would have cost to provide the electricity that was saved. Duke says that's a 10 percent savings....

Ontario Election Update: Green Party Policies
Our coverage of this election has been a trifle one-sided; I keep writing about the Green Party. On the other hand, the mainstream media are, if not ignoring it, certainly not giving it the coverage it deserves. The NDP is working hard to staunch the loss of votes to the greens; a canvasser had me on the phone for half an hour explaining how the NDP could win this riding, how the Greens are not so green with economic policies that are almost libertarian, with, heaven forbid, a bias towards consumption taxes instead of income taxes! (Yes, I know they are disproportionately hard on the poor, but what do we talk about all day if not "live with less" and why not have a tax syste...

One Year Ago in TH: Water on the Brain
One year ago in TreeHugger, we had water on the brain. New York had some plans to go from renewable energy to renewable-er energy, with hydropower to hydrogen in a $21 project near Niagara Falls. Check out what San Francisco would look like underwater, should global warming melt ice caps as many climate models have suggested (hint: it's not pretty). A bit of good news in the world of water: a new (at the time) commercial project,

Reconstituting Mona Lisa with... Recycled Train Tickets
How cool is this: employees at a department store in Osaka, Japan, built a 2.3 x 1.6 meters rendition of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa painting with nothing more than old train tickets - several hundred thousand of them. Close to 300 workers spent about 3 months to recreate these masterpieces - which also included Pierre-Auguste Renoir's "Bal au Moulin de la Galette, Montmartre" and the "Birth of Venus" - by meticulously overlapping the eponymous black and white tickets. Via

Core77's Next One Hour Design Competition: Ban the Plastic Bag
The good folks over at Core77 have launched another of their One Hour Design Competitions (where you spend an hour conceiving, sketching and rendering a world-saving design concept -- we've mentioned them before) and this one's all about a subject close to TreeHugger's heart: ban the plastic bag.The deadline is looming -- this Monday, October 8 -- but it only takes an hour, and you win a shiny new iPod...

Saving Extra Wind Energy Underground for Later
Seemingly taking a page out of carbon sequestration's playbook, a coalition of local facilities in Iowa are working out a scheme to store surplus wind energy by placing it underground. The idea being to keep it safely locked up when demand is low so it can then be uncorked at a later date when demand - and, consequently, prices - are higher. The utilities plan on building a system that will rely on a gigantic air compressor (as seen in the diagram) to pump air into porous layers of sandstone. In essence, the layers of sandstone will act as a giant balloon, allowing for wind energy to be ...

Biofuel Coop Creates CSA
Anyone who has been reading TreeHugger for a while will know that we love Piedmont Biofuels, the Pittsboro NC based biodiesel cooperative, and not just because they create locally brewed, sustainably sourced biodiesel. As we saw in our interview with co-founder Lyle Estill here, here and here, the organization is also painf...

Juicing Up Your Cell Phone with Microbial Fuel Cells
Given the sheer amount of toys and gizmos we use on a daily basis, it becomes very easy to take something like a cell phone or MP3 player charger for granted. In poor, developing countries like Uganda, however, even using a charger can be a struggle due to the difficulty inherent in accessing an electrical grid - by some estimates, more than 99% of rural households in the African nation are cut off from a reliable source of electricity. In an effort to help resolve this long-standing problem, a group of MIT students has devised a microbial fuel cell (MFC) that ru...

London Greener Car Sales to Reach 1.2 Billion Next Year
Weve certainly had plenty of coverage of the London congestion charge here on TreeHugger. Weve covered protests by angry residents opposed to its geographical expansion, weve seen signs that other cities like New York and Manchester may follow Londons lead, and weve already seen how the levy is boosting the sales of hybrids, which are exempt...

Quote of the Day: Phillipe Starck on the Role of Design
Designers should define their role broadly as agents of good in the world, and limit their work to 'legitimate' products: those that are needed, and those that can be made without damage to nature or -- through the unethical actions of manufacturers and investors -- damage to people.-- Industrial designer Phillipe Starck, on the purpose of design...

US Presidential Candidate From New Mexico Thirsty For Wisconsin Water
Maybe winning the Wisconsin presidential primary isn't so important for Bill Richardson? Nor might be Minnesota's, Michigan's, or Indiana's? At least that's the impression one might get from an on-record statement from US Presidential Candidate Bill Richardson."If elected, Richardson said, he would bring states together to talk about a way for water-rich northern-tier states to help with shortages in the Southwest. He also said he would elevate the Bureau of Reclamation to a Cabinet-level post. The bureau within the U.S. Interior Department manages water resources in the West.""I believe that Western states and Eastern states have not been talking to each other when it comes to prope...

Two Years Ago In TreeHugger: Things To Come
It was so easy writing for TreeHugger two years ago. Sweaters, clothing, a serious number of handbags, all this stuff was shiny and new and we could fill it with fashion and accessories. LEDs were new as well, and I was able to infuriate our readers with LED cuff links and slippers. However there were indicators of issues th...