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Ride like the Sun: Electrobike - Solar Electric Bicycle
Yeh, we know, youve heard it all before. Like when we bought you news of the mythical E-V Sunny with solar panel wheels. But The Electrobike Pi looks different. For starters we get to see a real live journalist from the LA Times ride about on it. And solar panels are not integrated into the bike itself, but come as an $1,800 optional extra (see pics after the fold). Although touted as cutting the Pi's carbon load by half the panels look awkward to deploy and require eight h...

Happy, Shiny Treehugging People
While this beyond-pooped writer is in serious recovery from this long and eventful weekand catching up with what's going on with the Bushies (always a barrel of fun)here's a painting by Matthew Heller, called "Happy Tree Huggers" to tide you over until we wrap up the Clinton Global Initiative and pick up a few dangling threads from the United Nations high-level event on climate change.Says it all, doesn't it?Thanks to Kristina Ramsay for sending this along....

The 100 Mile Caf: More for the Locavore
Its a little over two years since we first reported on Alisa Smith and James Mackinnons 100 Mile Diet. Yet in that time their experiment has cooked up a website and a book, as well as inspiring many locally focused eateries like the Local Burger in Kansas, and a British restaurant that sources 85% of its food from ...

Ask TreeHugger: Microwave Popcorn and The Kernel of Truth
Question: For the past several years, I have been eating a bag of microwave popcorn almost every day. I just read that this can damage my lungs. Is this true? Should I be worried? Answer: Microwave popcorn has been around for more than 50 years, since the invention of microwave ovens. Microwave popcorn is relatively easy to make at home using popcorn, a brown bag, some staples and other ingredients, such as salt and butter. More commonly, people make popcorn in their microwave using ready-made microwave popcorn packages, many of which contain additional chemical ingredients. The chemicals that are used to give microwave popcorn its buttery ...

Economic Crisis Kept Cubans Healthier and Biking
Ask any Cuban who lived through the "special period" in the 1990s, and they will tell you that it was a terribly difficult time where everyone scrambled just to find enough to eat. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the country went into a severe economic crisis as Soviet subsidies dried up, generating severe food and fuel shortages. But there was a silver lining to the lack of supplies: people were forced to slash their calorie intake and to travel on foot or bicycle.According to a study published last week in the American Journal of Epidemiology, between 1997 and 2002, deaths in Cuba cau...

Good For Green Business: Legit Survey Says Green is Not a Fad
The 2007 ImagePower Green Brands 2.5 Survey debuted this morning at Sustainable Life Media's Sustainable Brands '07 Conference in New Orleans. According to the report, consumers say they expect to double their spending on green products and services in the next year, totaling a staggering $500 billion annually, or $43 billion per month....

Biorock: Stimulating Coral Growth With Electricity
Can electricity give declining coral reefs a new lease on life? It may seem counter-intuitive, but it apparently has been effective for the last decade, thanks to marine biologist Thomas Goreau and engineer/architect Wolf Hilbertz, who have been experimenting with regenerating coral reefs using electricity in a technology called Biorock....

Reminder: 2007 Abbott Kinney Festival This Weekend
TreeHuggers in Los Angeles, listen up: the 2007 Abbott Kinney Festival is happening on Sunday, September 30 in Venice (we mentioned it before). This year, the arts, design and living conference is going green with solar-powered music stages, biodegradable plastic bags and cutlery and a "Green Design Block Party" hosted by epOxybOx. If that weren't enough, there'll be some fun festival activities, including a raffle for a Raleigh Beach Cruiser bike, a membership to Flexcar with some free hours and more, and a great lineup of speakers (full schedule after the jump) including "Greening Schools," "Water Con...

Two Pictures Say a Thousand Words ... Myanmar Under Siege
The American Association for the Advancement of Science is documenting before-and-after satellite images documenting the human-rights abuses occurring in Myanmar. The above "before" image shows a settlement adjacent to rice paddies in 2000. The below "after" image was taken in December 2006, showing the same area of land with all the structures removed. A similarly sized settlement also appeared 0.6 miles north. ::MSNBC...

TH Forums Highlights: Are We Screwed?, Greening Teens + More
The weekend is always nigh at TreeHugger Forums...1) Forums user Tripholiada has sort of a grim outlook on the future of our planet: "my generation I believe is screwed." This according to new info from National Geographic that implies that we have to "stopping all deforestation, or doubling fuel eff...

Do It All Knives: Multi-Tasking Your Way to an Uncluttered Kitchen
How's this for a brilliant multi-tasker: a set of knives that doubles up to perform duties as a vegetable peeler, citrus zester, garlic mincer and more. It's tough to get by in a kitchen without knives, but, at least with these guys, you can now do without several cluttering peripherals. Check out another pic after the jump. ::Caroline Noordijk (under construction) via ::Yanko Design...

Angelina Jolie's Plea for Refugees
Hey, even our charred and blackened hearts were moved....

Bruce Sterling on Downloading Designs
Bruce Sterling has written an entire book about the future of making things, called Shaping Things. He calls them "spimes." According to Putting People First", The future will see a new kind of object we have the primitive forms of them now in our pockets and briefcases: user-alterable, baroquely multi-featured, and programmable that will be sustainable, enhanceable, and uniquely identifiable. Sterling coins the term spime for them, these future manufactured objects with informational support so extensive and rich that they are regarded as material instantiations of an immaterial system. Spimes are designed on screen...

This is How Giant Sixixis's Giant Chair is!
Just in case any of you were wondering, this is just how huge the Sixixis Giant Chair is. Yes admittedly I am on the petite side, but I am not that tiny - this is still one mighty big seat! Even if you weren't wondering whether the title Giant Chair was meant literally or not, I was! When we posted our Sneak Peek on Sixixis before the London Design Festival started I was really looking forward to seeing their stand. Last year they wowed the crowds with their beautiful Rolling House, this year the showpiece was simpler in form, but more interact...

Bike Charity Awarded a $100,000 Grant
Outdoor equipment retailer, Recreational Equipment, has pledged a $100,000 grant to the Bikes Belong Foundation. The money will go towards supporting a series of grant awards to projects that aim to make US cities more friendly for cyclists....

The Exxon FIles: The Denial Continues
Earlier this year, Exxon announced that it would cease funding the Competitive Enterprise Institute (of CO2: We Call it Life, and Send Your Underwear to the Undersecretary fame), as well as five or six other groups that have been vocal deniers of climate change...

The Best Kind of Chastity Belt: Education
The only way we'll be able to put the brakes on our runaway population growth is to give every girl on the planet an education, said former president Bill Clinton at the opening plenary session of the Clinton Global Initiative meeting today. "If we go in just 43 years from 6 billion to 9 billion, there is nothing that will stop [overpopulation] except putting all the girls in schools and giving girls jobs. Get them into the job marketthey will delay marriage and have fewer children," he added. Sure, blame the women. Boys will be boys....

Some Cities Try To Be Bike-Friendly
Some cities are trying hard to be bike-friendly; New York City just got its first physically-separated bike path inside the urban core. According to the New York Times, The city is planning to remake seven blocks of Ninth Avenue in Chelsea into what officials are billing enthusiastically, perhaps a bit hyperbolically, as the street of the future. I think its a sneak peek at the future streets of New York, said Janette Sadik-Khan, the citys transportation commissioner. It represents the kinds of innovative ideas that we can explore to make the streets more livable. ::N...

A Weekend of Local Dining Events in Atlanta, Georgia
If youre in the Atlanta area this weekend and love food (and who doesn't?) you should check out Food & Wine Magazines culinary events happening throughout the city. The magazine has teamed with restaurateurs in Atlanta, Athens & Palmetto to raise money for their Grow for Good campaign, which is a national initiative dedicated to raising awareness of sustainable agriculture and educating about the importance of supporting local farms. The weekend kicks off this evening as numerous restaurants around the city open their chefs table to offer a select tasting menu featuring Georgia-grown ingredi...

Rupert Murdoch at the Clinton Global Initiative
It was like watching a kung-fu scene unfold, albeit a very, very lame kung-fu scene. At a plenary on building a global multiethnic communityheld on the third (and final) day of the Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting and moderated by the former president of Ireland, Mary RobinsonNewscorp chief, billionaire media magnate, and far-left curmudgeon Rupert Murdoch clumsily dodged Robinson's questions about whether political partisanship in media (especially, hint hint, giant media empires with extensive global reaches) played a role in promoting public divisiveness, especially through the use of politically charge...

Recipe of the Week - Carrot and Lentil Soup
The temperature in Toronto reached over 30 C again this week, so once more I have delayed the roasting of pumpkin and squash that I have been hankering after. From the sounds of it we will soon have weather more in keeping with the autumn and I will be able to start cooking heartier fare. The recipe that I tried this week is a bit of a compromise between the substantial orange foods of fall and a lighter texture to have on a hot day. As regular readers of this column will know, I am the queen of substitutions and I made a few here. The recipe calls for butter but in the interests of my arteries I no longer use it in this kind of cookin...

Texans In Conservation Standoff
In Texas, the San Antonio Business Journal is reporting that:- "Environmentalists are arguing Texas could meet its growing electric power needs without building new power plants by relying more heavily on energy efficiency and renewable energy.""Two reports commissioned by Environmental Defense also claim this could be done while creating an estimated 38,300 new jobs in the state over the next 15 years. Texas consumers could also save $37 billion on their electric bills over that same period. The reports were produced by the Washington-based American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy on behalf of Environmental Defense.""The group argues that most of these...

The Cutting Edge: Bicycle Lawnmowing
There we were, ruminating on just what gizmos creative minds will dream up to win fame and glory (plus cash and bike) in the Specialized Innovate or Die competition, and in a totally unrelated web search, happened upon the 'B.O.B. Mower,' which looks like a customised Sunlawn mower, attached to B.O.B. bike trailer linkage. All the fossil-fuel-free goodness of a push (reel) lawnmower with the superior strength of legs over arms i...

Fresno California Testing Feasibility of Using Municipal Effluent To Cool Nulcear Generators
The Fresno California City Council has, by a 4-2 vote, approved the testing of Fresno wastewater effluent for the purpose of cooling nuclear power plant process water. "Supporters said the vote wasn't an endorsement for building a nuclear power plant in Fresno. The testing will simply determine whether a plant can be cooled with effluent from the city's waste-water treatment plant in southwest Fresno, they said. The council voted 4-2 to allow the testing, which will give the nuclear plant's backers access to the waste-water treatment plant to conduct tests. The tests are expected to take four years and will cost up to $4 million, said John Hutson, who heads F...

And Ye Shall Live In Booths
For the Jewish nation, there is probably no better time to reflect on ones place in nature and the health of the environment than during Sukkoth, the Festival of Booths or the Jewish harvest festival. Looking outside our window in Jerusalem, we see small make-shift huts (sukkahs) erected everywhere each one has at least three walls made from wooden clapboard or cloth with a simple roof made from plant cuttings (skakh)....

Energyspace Sustainable Garden Buildings
So many small prefabs and sheds on TreeHugger and other sites, but how many are zero energy and carbon neutral? Energyspace builds "a state of the art workspace that makes a minimal or zero contribution to global climate change in every aspect of its design, construction, energy-use, and life cycle."They are super-insulated (hemp-cotton batts are an option), sited for passive solar gain but assisted by wood fired stoves and photovoltaics. ...

One Million Green Fingers
Thats right folks, Saturday Kitchens celebrity chef James Martin is swapping his spatula for a spade, recently launching a new initiative with Yorkshire Water in Britain which aims to set the standard for outdoor learning in Primary Schools.The One Million Green Fingers initiative aims to utilize the companys thousands of volunteers to create over 350 sustainable school gardens and one million green fingers by 2010, and in the process encourage chefs to help children learn about cooking....

Reflections on consumption and minimalism. . . in Business Week?
I had to crib that headline from Core77, it is such an odd article to see in Business Week. Akiko Busch instructs:Make less, buy less, use less, throw away less. Russell Davies, a branding expert, writes: "Once upon a time, packaging wasn't disposable, it was useful. We didn't think about recycling biscuit tins, because we kept them, they were useful. And now they're even more valuable than they were. So I'm wondering if there's a way of thinking about packaging sustainability that makes it more valuable, not more recyclable. Does that make sense?" Busch notes that minimalist design costs a lot: In a wasteful...

New Mexico's Green Filmmaking Program
New Mexico, the state already known for its green chile is now getting kudos for its green filmmaking. The new Green Filmmaking Program was developed this year to encourage film crews to help reduce the environmental footprint of the resource-intensive filmmaking enterprise. The voluntary program provides education, resources and incentives to encourage crews to seek eco-certification. Paul Haggis, the writer/producer/director known for movies such as Letters from Iwo Jima, Million Dollar Baby, and Crash, participated in the pro...

"Sunshine Sandwiches: From MIT in 1940
Popular Science, Feb 1940: "HEATING homes in January with the warmth of last summers sunshine that is the exciting goal of research now under way at Cambridge, Mass. Not far from the Charles River, scientists of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology recently completed a white frame building, its sloping roof edged with a glistening battery of solar-heat traps.These cells are formed of sandwiches of glass sheets, air spaces, and metal plates. The rays of the sun penetrate through the sheets of glass and strike a black metal plate at the bottom of each cell. It absorbs heat rapidly and the dead-air spaces between the glass panes act as insulators and keep...

Fast Company: The Design Issue
The October issue of Fast Company is all about design, with a seriously green tint. Yves Bhar, designer of the Leaf Lamp and the $100 laptop, explains his philosophy: "Design is in the bright lights today," he says, "but that also comes with a responsibility. Where we can make a difference, as a profession, we should simply go." (more below the fold) ::All About YvesAnya Kamenetz raises questions about "serious cracks in the world's biggest green-building brand name--Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED--as well as a very human tendency to reach for easy solutions to difficult problem...

Please Welcome Business Roundtable To TreeHugger
TreeHugger presents Business Roundtable, an association of chief executive officers of leading U.S. companies with $4.5 trillion in annual revenues and more than 10 million employees, committed to developing innovative technologies and promoting practices that protect the environment. This is Business Roundtable's introductory guest post. Their coming posts will focus on climate change, green buildings, energy efficiency and their S.E.E. Change and Climate RESOLVE initiatives, which are explained below.The Roundtable is dedicated to advocating public policies that ensure vigorous economic growth, a dynam...

Nanowires Twist and Turn to Generate Electricity
Piezoelectric technologies are all the rage these days: just over the past year, we've reported on people-powered staircases, acoustic heat-engine devices and electricity-generating ticket gates. Now combine that with nanotechnology, another hot field du jour, and you've got yourself the brainchild of Min-Feng Yu: a nanowire capable of generating...

Producing Hydrogen Fuel One Eggshell at a Time
Never underestimate the power of eggs: a team of engineers from Ohio State University has developed an innovative process for sopping up carbon dioxide in a reaction that generates hydrogen fuel - using discarded eggshells. As an added bonus, the reaction results in the removal of collagen from the inside of the shells - a valuable protein with commercial applications (in food, drugs and medical treatments)."The key to making pure hydrogen is separating out the carbon dioxide. In order to do it very economically, we needed a new way of thinking, a new process scheme," said L.S. Fan, a professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at the university who helped devise the new ...

Survey: Do You Power Down?
So many peripherals. This writer has two power bars with nine scanners, chargers, printers and sound systems plugged in. Most draw phantom loads but the strips are hidden under the desk, out of reach. We showed the USB ecostrip that turns everything off when the computer is turned off, but that may not be the answer for everyone.View MicroPoll| Survey Software|

Ted Turner at the Clinton Global Initiative
Media mogul Ted Turner, in a working session on energy and climate change, said that global warming is the biggest thing to happen to us, short of getting bombed by the Russians. God bless 'im.One of solar power's more visible cheerleaders of late, Turner invested several million dollars last year in the New Jersey-based DT Solar. He also created a holding company, Turner Renewable Energy, and has said that he plans to start lobbying lawmakers in Washington to promote solar power and address climate change.Better keep an eye on those durn Ruskies, though, Ted. Update: When asked for his final thoughts, Turner waved and said, "Hi Mom."...

Cuba Does Its Part in Billion Tree Campaign
With a push from the United Nations "Plant for the Planet: Billion Tree Campaign", designed to encourage tree planting around the world, Cuba has committed to plant some 135 million trees this year. "Forests are natural and economically important sinks, sequestrating carbon from the atmosphere and locking it away in trunks and branches. Globally, forest cover is at least one-third less than what it once was. It is time to reverse the trends, it is time to act," says Achim Steiner, UNEP Executive Director....

National Initiative to Create 250,000 Green-Collar Jobs for Urban America
Green for All, a new national campaign dedicated to bringing green-collar jobs to urban neighborhoods, launched today at the Clinton Global Initiative. Created by Van Jones, the co-founder of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, the group wants to harness the power of the growing green economic wave to bolster predominantly black, low-income communities in areas such as Detroit, Baltimore, and New Orleans. Its time the African American community had a part in the discussion on climate change, said Jones. Were not going to solve global warming just with expensive consume...

Angelina Jolie Announces Commitments to Educate One Million Children Affected by Conflict
Actress Angelina Jolie, the other half of the unfairly good-looking Jolie-Pitt juggernaut, announced at today's Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) that members of the Education Partnership for Children of Conflict, which Jolie co-founded as part of a 2006 CGI commitment, has pledged to educate more than one million children whose lives have been irrevocably shaken by conflict around the worldincluding young people affected by Darfur genocide, girls and youth in rural Afghanistan, and other groups across Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East....

U.S. Policy Plays Favorites With Public Transportation
It's a case that pits electricity versus petrol, density versus sprawl and tracks versus road. Portland, Oregon recently found out that their much-acclaimed streetcar system wasn't good enough for the feds. Even though their system of modern-day streetcars has spurred economic development, drawn the creative class and changed perceptions about public transportation, the city's planned expansion of the service could be facing roadblocks from the Federal Transit Administration. The FTA would rather see the money from a program called Small Starts go to buses instead, specifically bus rapid trans...

VIDEO S&WFF: Seeds, Hope, and Concrete
We've talked about the benefits of urban agriculture and how it reduces fossil fuels expended in the shipping of food and is a boon to creating community. TreeHuggerTV brought you Edible Estates and an Urban Homestead. The film Seeds, Hope, and Concrete (US, 20...

SIT UP, Sustainable Seats and Their Making Offs By [re]design
The exhibition SIT UP at this years 100%design in London clearly stood out from the rest of the stuff. [re]design, who impressed us last year with Good & Gorgeous?, chose to expose 16 eco sustainable seats and their manufacturing process. Each chair was chosen for combining the the fundamentals of seating design user comfort, quality and style with a passion for sustainability. What was really interesting to see, apart from the finished designs, were the...

College Students Help Tailgaters Remember to Recycle
When their team hit the field a couple of days ago, Sustain Mizzous Green Team hit the parking lots to help tailgaters green the party. In fact, the environmentally aware student group at the University of Missouri-Columbia was already busy handing out recycling bags to tailgaters four hours before the MU game even took place. Impressively, theyve been doing the same at every home football game for three years now. And just last game alone they collected 2.74 tons of trash and kept it from heading to the local landfill. Last year they collected 19 tons of recyclables during the seven home games played at their school, with the year prior seeing 11 t...

Norwegian Wood
There is something so northern, and well, Canadian, about these Norwegian lights. They are made of thin birch strip veneer mounted on white paper, and held together with natural leather lacing. The motif is a forest, with pine trees and eagles and wolves laser cut into the wood. When the light shines through, it almost looks like snow. The lights are produced and hand assembled by a group of local artisans in Oslo so they maintain a personal quirky character. They look wonderful in groups of two and three or could stand alone. The other model has a base that is made of steel, and wound with natural leather.and could sit on a table. Are they craft or are they design? They are at...

Quote of the Day: Al Gore on Climate Change Leadership, Montreal Protocol
All of the market initiatives are incredibly important. The market allocates more money in one hour than all of the governments allocate over a year's time. But governments set the rules of the road and determine how markets allocate capital and make decisions. And there should be no mistake that this crisis, the climate crisis, is not going to be solved only by personal action and business action. We need changes in laws; we need changes in policies; we need new leadership and we need a new treaty. We need a mandate at Bali during the first 14 days of De...

Now That's Poopy: Ebay Bans Reusable Diapers
[Correction: See comments section for Trish's update - it looks like used diapers are currently on sale via ebay after all. We are not sure if this is a change in policy, or whether the original information was incorrect. We'll look into it and keep you informed.]Cloth diapers are a pretty core part of many peoples efforts at green parenting. However, as with any product, even these have a certain amount of embodied energy and resources that have been used in making them. It makes sense, therefore, to reuse resuables as many times as possible or so youd think. Now we learn from the Oct...

Concepts We Want Made: InSight, InMind Personal Water Meter
As other gadgets we've featured have helped to show, it's a lot easier to conserve when you know how much you're already using; this is the idea behind the InSight, InMind personal water meter. Like a Home Joule or PowerCost home energy monitor for water, this killer concept by Adam Kereliuk tracks your daily water usage throughout your house; at the end o...

TH Blog Love - Our Favourite Greens Of The Week
Blue Egg: Fun with Greenhouse Gases by John HockenberryA fun, funny and moreover educational video blog by resident Egg-Head and veteran journalist John Hockenberry at Blue Egg. Watch as he tries to stump the smarties at MIT by asking them if they can name all the greenhouse gases.DH Love Life: Love Life Farm by Daryl HannahYeah! Daryl's back from her summer break, although we've seen her in between, we're glad she's putting up new episodes of...

It's a Series of (Ocean) Tubes
Rest assured we're not talking about Alaskan Senator Ted Stevens' latest musings on the "interwebs" here (though this does share some of that nuttiness). No, this latest proposal from James Lovelock, the originator of the Gaia hypothesis, and Chris Rapley, the director of London's Science Museum, deals with something entirely different: erecting a network of giant pipes in the oceans that would pump up deep, nutrient-rich water to...

Warning: 99.999% Uptime is a Myth, and a Planet Killer
Uptime is a measure of the time a particular computer system has been "up" and running. Not surprisingly, it's the opposite of downtime, when a system is not operational. In geek cant, uptime is sometimes measured in nines; "Three nines" gives you 99.9% reliability, about 8 hours and 46 minutes of downtime a year. The gold standard is "Five nines" - 99.999% reliability, which translates to a total downtime of no longer than five minutes per year.At first glance, it would seem that you want to keep your site up as much as possible, lots of nines. Problem is that it turns out ...

Suck on this, CO2
Much of the attention of late has been focused on finding new ways to scrub carbon dioxide from power plant stacks or to capture it and sequester it below ground. This, say some scientists, misses a crucial point: how to effectively - and, more importantly, cheaply - remove the carbon dioxide that is issued from millions of tailpipes and homes from the air. Frank Zeman, an engineer at Columbia University, and his colleagues claim they may have just discovered such a solution. They report in a new study that employing the technology used by pulp and paper mills - industrial-scale "scrubbers" - cou...

Clif Bar 2 Mile Challenge: Get On Your Bikes and Ride
Even the most casual TreeHugger reader knows that we're huge fans of transportation by bicycle; the world's most energy efficient vehicle is good for all sorts of things, including things you might not ordinarily consider, like moving and even getting married. So we're happy to see the launch of Clif Bar's 2 Mile Challenge, a new traveling event and program designed to get p...

Clinton Global Initiative Day 2 Begins: Global Framework, Carbon Market Needed
We're now into Day 2 of the three-day Clinton Global Initiative's three-day annual meeting; today's opening plenary, moderated by NBC News' Tom Brokaw, featured Tony Blair, former Prime Minister of the U.K.; Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, former Prime Minister of Norway and U.N. Special Envoy on Climate Change; Hank M. Paulson, Secretary of the U.S. Treasury; and Meles Zenawi, Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Ethiopia.The overwhelming consensus from the speakers: This planet needs a binding global frameworktailored to each country's unique economic, population, and energy profilethat focuses on both adaptation...

Uncommonly Discussed Eco-Myths: Vehicle Design In The Climate Century
Who cares about fuel cell vehicles (FCVs)? How many more hybrid/fuel configurations will there be before we get models we want? Good questions; but, the survival of US car companies seems now to hang more on controlling health care costs than product design. It gets worse. With the notable exception of the Toyota Prius, ICE-based hybrids are commercial oddities. In other words, the ICE/Battery Hybrid is a 'one-hit wonder.' With several prototypes of Plug-In Hybrids ("plug ins") tempting customers to dream of that next-best thing, a new race to the show room may be on (though research and development dollars are limited). These design and fuel choices will shape the future ...

First Pictures of Suissa's Latest Computer: Enlighten
We love Suissa computers; they are built like very fine furniture, endlessly upgradable to last as long as you do. Their newest is called Enlighten, and "offers a visually dynamic form which explores the modularity of technology, reflects the movement through time that our memories occupy and provides a tangible home for them." It was launched today at IIDEX along with Revolution, the tower on the right. ...

Taking Back the City Dept: Psychogeographic Walks
Cities support so many activities and ideas, and have so many places to explore. An example of a group using the city to its fullest is The Toronto Psychogeography Society, "a loose collection of relentless flneurs, explorers and walkers. The word psychogeography was coined by the Situationist Guy Debord. It describes the specific effects of the geographical environment on the emotions and behaviour of individuals." This Sunday, September 30, they and Spacing Magazine offer The Great Queen Street Psychogeographic Walk, 15 kilometers from one end of Toronto's trendy Queen Street to the other. "Instead of a marathon, think of this as a mobil...

What Do Sewers and Our Rivers Have in Common? Too much.
Talking to Congress about sewage - you know, sometimes the joke is just too, too easy. But that's exactly why 85 river activists from all across the country are in town this week as a part of our fourth annual River Action Day. The facts on sewage in this country are pretty astounding - very, very few Americans have any idea just how much raw and partially-treated sewage is spilled or legally dumped into our streams and rivers every year.860 Billion Gallons. Enough to cover the entire state of Penn...

The ecoHOME
Hate the name (it is so tired) but love the concept- the Forest Stewardship Council of Canada has launched the ecoHOME: "to inspire residential design and lifestyle choices that promote healthy and sustainable living by: * Raising the profile of sustainable and intelligent residential design; * Engaging people in an interactive educational experience; * Linking the built environment and the natural environment; * Showcasing responsible and renewable building materials; and * Demonstrating the integrated design process in action."...

RMI's RetroFUTUREspective: 25 Years of Being Years Ahead
It would be somewhat of an understatement to say that TreeHugger is a big fan of the Rocky Mountain Institute and its Chief Scientist Amory Lovins. When they announced their 25th anniversary celebrations earlier this year, Collin took the time to roundup the incredible range of RMI stories that have made it onto our pages over the years. Now the good folks up in the mountains have sent us this awesome 'retroFUTUREspective' video created for the event that covers the history of the organi...

President Clinton Announces Record Number of Commitments in First 24 Hours, Launches CGI Asia
More big news from the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI): Former president Bill Clinton announced that more than 100 CGI commitments have been made in the first 24 hours of this year's meetinga record for the organization, which held its first annual meeting in 2005. In 2008, CGI will be spinning off into Asia; the first meeting of CGI Asia, to be held in Hong Kong, will gather Asian heads of states and newsmakers to face challenges specific to the region head on."Asia is the largest and most populous continent," Clinton said. "And while its wealth has grown faster than most other parts of the...

Flatpack Chair from Dietiker Switzerland
Here is a clever idea from Swiss chair and table company Dietiker Switzerland, which had a big display at IIDEX-NEOCON: a flatpack in clever packaging for raving nationalists. ::Dietiker Switzerland at ::IIDEX Neocon...

Wilson House by Breathe Architects
I fell in love with this model of Martin Liefhebber's Wilson House at the Cambridge Galleries booth at IIDEX/Neocon. Owner John Wilson writes about sustainable living and conducts tours of the house; more information ::here ...

Ecostrip Power Bar Coming to North America
Here is a great idea for lazy and forgetful slugs like me: a power bar with a USB connection to your computer, so it detects when the computer is turned off, and then shuts down all of the peripherals. "We set out to design a product that reduces energy waste," said Bjarne Waedeled, President of Centritech Limited in a press release, "And, because it functions like any other power strip, there is no education of the consumer required." One still has to have the presence of mind to turn off the computer, but it is still a terrific idea. Via

Yahoo!'s Green Icon Challenge Winners Announced
Last month, Yahoo! went searching for the next great green icon (see our coverage here) to signify green and to help flag greener things you can do all over their network of sites -- "everything from making green purchases to finding the most fuel-efficient cars," they said. Almost 500 entries later, the voting has ended and the new icon is..."Earth Point!" (above left), submitted by Leah Dickey.For her efforts, Ms. Dickey gets to choose the non-profit where $20,000 in prize money goes; both second place, "Yahoo! Leaf" (above, center) and third place, "green yahoo! tree mod" (above right) ...

Plug-In Stinkers (And Others) Taken Off Shelves
We always thought those things you plug into a wall receptacle to "freshen" the room were a waste of electricity. Why do people spend money on that stuff? The explanation has to be that many of us live lives of stinky desperation. Maybe they wouldn't feel so crappy if they took a breath of actual fresh air once in awhile. Or, cleaned out the cat box more often."Managers at 111 Walgreens stores in Minnesota and thousands more nationwide pulled three types of air fresheners off their shelves over the weekend, after advocacy groups reported that some sprays, gels and plug-in fresheners contain potentially hazardous chemicals.""The Natural Resources Defense Council ...

A Picture is Worth... Plastic Spoon
::Original on Stumbleupon, via ::Reddit...

World Bike Relief To Send 7,000 Bikes to Africa
World Bike Relief has pledged to send 7,000 bicycles to seven countries in Africa by November 2008. Its commitment, announced at the Clinton Global Initiative, will focus on Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Malawi, Rwanda, Uganda, and Zambia, and is expected to cost $980,000 once assembly, training, and program evaluation costs are factored in.The Chicago, Ill.-based non-profit aims to "directly empower the poorest people through affordable access to sustainable, quality mobility resources." Or, in plain speak, it gives the world's poor bicycles so they can get around in a non-polluting way. Mob...

Power Shift 2007: Youth Climate Summit
There's no two ways about it: sequels usually suck. Go ahead, try and convince us that Jaws 2 was a good idea - not gonna happen. So, we are glad that the sequel to this April's Step It Up event is already shaping up to be a success. Part of the excitement about November's Step It Up is the collaboration of different organizations participating. One of the largest is sure to be Power Shift, an event that bills itself as the first youth-led summit on climate change. With the national Step It Up activities happening on November 3 ...

Standard Chartered Pledges $8-to-10 Billion to Renewable Energy
As far as this year's Clinton Global Initiative annual meeting goes, this is the mother lode of commitments. Standard Chartered Bank has pledged $8-to-10 billion (yes, billion, folks) over five years to renewable-energy projectswind, hydro, geothermal, solar, biomass, and so onin Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. At a press conference an hour ago, Peter Sands, the bank's group chief executive, made no bones about the fact that this wasn't a purely altruistic gesture (go, capitalism!) "We expect to make a lot of money from this," he s...

Multi-Functioning Funiture: Table/Chairs Combo by Joel Hesselgren
Sometimes you need extra chairs, and sometimes you need an extra table. Designer Joel Hesselgren, who knows a thing or two about transforming, adaptive design, has dreamed up an ingenious way to quickly and easily combine two chairs and a table. Great for small spaces, and a great way to maximize materials and function. Are you seeing this, IKEA? Get up close and personal with more pics after the jump, via ::Yanko Design...

The New World, Design From 5 Continents
The best part of the London Design Festival is the surprise of discovering something new and wonderful. This show, The New World, Design from Five Continents, is sponsored by the British Council, an agency promoting international design links. And international it is--Heath Nash from South Africa, Paula Dib from Brazil and Padmaja Krishnan from India, plus Slovenian and Mexican designers. Both Nash and Dib have been written about in treehugger and it is thrilling to see their work in the flesh. Nash is a South African who works in recycled...

Quote of the Day: Yang Jiechi on Sustainable Economic Growth
A review of history shows that climate change occurs in the course of development. It is both an environment issue and a development issue. But ultimately, it is a development issue.As pointed out in the United Nations framework convention on climate change, most of historical and current global emissions of greenhouse gases originated in developed countries, while per capita emissions in developing countries are still relatively low.The share of global emissions originating in developing countries will grow as they work to meet their social and development needs. To prevent climate change from endangering human survival ...

VIDEO S&WFF: The Fallz
Here's your deep breath for the day. A chance to step back and consider. Filmmaker Larry Huntington shares the great power of nature at the Iguazu Waterfall on the border of Argentina and Brazil. (US, 2005, Short, 6min). You've still got until September 29th to enter your film in the Wild & Scenic Film Festival