Home / treehugger.com rss archive / September-02-2007


A Picture is Worth... Being Nice to Cyclists in Toronto
Via ::Torontoist....

Less is More: Instant Kitchen
Perfect for dorm rooms and big-city hideouts: an $44.95 instant kitchen that comprises a time-controlled oven (complete with broiler tray), a four-cup coffee maker with a reusable filter, and a non-stick griddle on top. Measures only 9.4x16x8 (HWD) inches and it doesn't run on a light bulb. ::Tiny LivingSee also: ::Small is the New Big...

Sunday Lounging in the Aeron Chaise
As Homer Simpson would tell you, anything can be made better by lounging. Though they aren't saying it in so many words, that was sort of the inspiration behind Dutch design duo Sietze Kalkwijk and Joost van Brug's adaptation of the iconic task chair design (which got a nod in TreeHugger's list of Best Sustainable Designers). To hear them tell it, actually, "the design is targeted at the young digital generation, which has a reputation for living a rather sedentary and TV-filled existence. It takes the ergonomic office chair to the next level by making it a recliner-like lounger su...

Taking Green Baseball by Storm
Ahhh, summertime longer days, the beach, the vacations and yes, baseball season! And the Lake Elsinore Storm is taking greening baseball by storm. On July 20, 2007 the team decided to add a Going Green night to its list of promotional events, which have included such wacky things as Tom Cruise bobble head couch night, Dr Seuss Night and even a sleepover! Lake Elsinorans were all for the green event, as over 4,000 people attended the event.Aware of droughts, wildfires and polluted skies, which are problems with global warming and particularly prevalent in the Southern California area, the Storm decided to take action and do something to help the...

Global Gas Flaring Satellite Survey Reveals Oil's Hidden Costs
The first recently unveiled global satellite survey of gas flaring a process commonly used to dispose of natural gas freed during oil production has shown what many have now suspected for years: it is an extremely wasteful, costly problem that has helped contribute to global warming. Conducted over a 12-year period spanning 1995-2006, the survey, commissioned by the World Bank's Global Gas Flaring Reduction partnership (GGFR), was carried out by a team of scientists f...

Hudson River Environmental Monitoring Goes High-Tech
The Beacon Institute for Rivers and Estuaries, a non-profit scientific research organization based in Beacon, NY, has teamed up with IBM and several other research groups to develop a high-tech environmental-monitoring system for the state's Hudson River that would transform its 315 miles into an interconnected network of sensors. These would collect data on the river's biology and chemistry and transmit them to a central location for further analysis by IBM's new system which will take the information and create a virtual model of the river to s...

Bucks County Pennsylvania, USA, To Get 16.5-Acre Solar Park
Bucks County Pennsylvania brings to mind horse-people estates intermixed with vinyl & stuccoed mansions owned by those who want a Manhattan commute from Penn's woods. But, like any other community, Bucks has a diversity of land uses and land covers. So, it's with a sense of sustainability that we see this proposed move to put a solar park next to a Bucks landfill (pictured). More like this please! "A $20 million solar power project that can provide electricity to as many as 400 homes will be built next to a landfill in suburban Philadelphia, officials said Thursday. Epuron, a subsidiary of the Germany-based Conergy AG, will finance th...

Pope Attends Green Youth Fest
Pop Benedict XVI is leading a youth festival this weekend, where around 300,000 young Roman Catholics are expected to brandish recycled prayer books, hand-cranked battery rechargers, biodegradable plates, and backpacks made from reused nylon. The festival, which coincides with the church's "Save Creation Day," will take place in Loreto, home of Italy's Marian shrine, in a run-up to next year's World Youth Day in Sydney, Australia. Hydrogen cars will also be on display.To offset the carbon-dioxide emissions from the event, trees will be planted in areas of southern Italy recently devastated by forest fires. "The me...

Two Years Ago In TreeHugger: Eco-fleece Hoodies and LED Pillows
Oh, and bamboo bedframes and recycled dolls. At exactly the same time, the world is reeling from images of the American south, a flooded New Orleans, a devastated Gulf Coast, an environmental disaster of unprecedented scale. In TreeHugger? Back to work Dresswear and bio-diesel fueled coffee roasters. Knowing what was going on in America two years ago this week, TreeHugger's content of two years ago looks frivolous. We didn't know how to deal with Katrina; we had green lifestyle coverage down pat but couldn't cope with the real news.We still do the lifestyle bit, probably give far too much space to $ 100,000 Tesla roadsters, and Paris Hilton was seen in TreeHugger twice this week. ...

Quote of the Day: Paul Brown on Extinction
Photo credit: wishymom Because of population growth and increasing consumption, concentration of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane in our atmosphere are the highest in human history; as are global temperatures. This is not normal climate fluctuation, as fossil-fuel industry shills would have you believe. The rate of species extinction is comparable to mass extinctions that have occurred only five times before, and is likely to exceed those. The total decline of species since the Industrial Revolution will soon be worse than the mass extinction caused...

Axel Friedrich: VW Two-Faced on Emissions Efficiency
Axel Friedrich, head of the Transport department in the German Federal Environmental Agency has laid it on the line: Volkswagen could do better. The company which has been lauded for the Polo Blue Motion and which has not shirked in the eco-commitments race is the target of Friedrich's most recent high-profile campaign. Friedrich enlisted engineers from German universities to make improvements to an existing VW Golf. Using techniques such as reducing weight, reducing wind resistance and optimizing motor operation, Friedrich's p...

Tesla Charging Stations in 3 Hyatt Hotels
Hyatt has installed Tesla charging stations in three of their hotels, so the lucky few to get their hands on one of the $100,000 Roadsters will be able to take them on a road-trip. The three hotels are Fisherman's Wharf, Sacramento and Incline Village, which means that the San Fransisco to Lake Tahoe drive will be well covered, making it the perfect weekend getaway for Silicon Valley residents. "The kind of customer who would buy a Tesla and stay at a Hyatt is one and the same," said Jordan Meisner, senior vice president for Hyatt.The announcement was made on Wednesday, at an event where Mayor ...

Distant Village: Sustainable and Handmade Packaging Supplies
TreeHugger hates bad packaging we even ran a competition for some of the worst examples. However, we also give credit where credit is due take a look for example at our contest for the best eco-packaging ideas, or out praise for this fantastic light-bulb box that becomes a lampshade. But if you have a green product and are looking for green packaging, where do you go? One answer may be Distant Village a s...

Some Sunday Afternoon Life Cycle Viewing Pleasure
Here is a little Sunday afternoon geeky viewing for our life cycle assessment aficionados or not-so-aficionados. While looking for LCA news, we checked out YouTube to see if anybody had dared to publish a video about the cradle-to-cradle methodology. We happened upon this video project by Nick Bradford-Ewart and...