There may come a day when unspoiled natural scenery has no connection to our physical health, due to insanely high-tech medicine. But what kind of world would it be?
The author Paolo Bacigalupi said in a great interview about his career at the Mumpsimus blog, “With “Sand and Slag”, I had a beef with an old […]
Organic farmers should appreciate the vigilance of the rat terrier breed of dog against rabbits, squirrels, rats and other nibblers of your produce. Calmer than Jack Russell terriers, rat terriers are also more appropriate as a typical family dog.
A Boing Boing post by Cory Doctorow about rats in an upscale L.A. community got me thinking […]
Louise Meyer and Patricia McArdle of Solar Household Energy, Inc. and the resource site SolarCooking.org, demonstrate several solar ovens, ranging from shaped trash cardboard covered with foil (cheap, effective, but not durable), one used in Afghanistan that sells for about $25, to an elegant origami folded aluminum product that will last forever. Solar ovens might […]
A Boing Boing post links to a National Geographic article about honeybees used in Tokyo to protect seabirds (terns) from attack by crows. A related NatGeo story tells of a gun club hunting crows at a city’s request.
Wizard Saruman isn’t going to like this.
A commenter on another site said “crows are the new dogs” after […]
Cassava is “Africa’s Food Security Crop” according to the World Bank.
A CNN report about Nigerian civil engineer, Dr Joseph Adelegan, and his projects to convert waste into useful commodities, describes his latest idea to recover energy from cassava processing waste, which in the past would be dumped untreated to pollute local water supplies.
Through innovative biogas […]
Greywater Guerrillas help stop pollution of the water supply by using greywater to irrigate trees and other plants in the garden.
Greywater is water that flows down sink, shower, and washing machine drains–but not the toilet. Greywater may contain traces of dirt, food, grease, hair, and household cleaning products. While greywater may look “dirty,” it is […]
This remains my favorite of the TED talks (except maybe Ray Kurzweil).
William McDonough, co-author of Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, discusses sustainable design in architecture and ends with his astounding plans for twelve new cities in China. Quite a contrast from the toxic hell that is Beijing. From Wikipedia:
Air pollution […]
Gardeners can fight pests while remaining organic by using beneficial insects to eat harmful bugs.
The fly in this ointment is that one of PETA’s recent campaigns is to treat the sale of common predator bugs the same as cows in the slaughterhouse or dogs from the pet store.
Don’t we get enough puritanism from the right? […]
J. Neil Schulman told me that Fox News Channel aired a report about a Cuban refinery for Venezuelan oil. Here’s the Havana take on it.
An older report from another Cuban source says:
The Cienfuegos oil refinery, a new joint Cuba- Venezuela project, reached 112.9 percent its target production for the first two months of operation.
That’s an […]
One of my favorite scenes in the 1980 film, The Formula, is when the oil magnate played by Marlon Brando tells the detective named Barney played by George C. Scott, who’s been sniffing out clues on murders involving a Nazi-developed synfuel formula to “get out of the oil business, Barney.” At least Brando offers Scott […]
LA Times Emerald City Blog reports a journey by a raft made of thousands of water bottles departing from Long Beach to Hawaii.
From the YouTube description:
Dr. Marcus Eriksen and Joel Paschal depart from the Long Beach Aquarium in California for Hawaii on a raft of 15,000 plastic bottles in order to help call attention […]
UK Guardian reports a possible breakthrough that could offset any warming effects of carbon dioxide emissions. A prototype that would remove more CO2 from the air than the device’s carbon cost to build and operate is planned to be demonstrated within two years. A diagram of the “CO2 Extractor” and a description of its discovery […]
Media star Daryl Hannah is known to geeks mostly as the replicant from Blade Runner and to green activists for her protesting the bulldozing of the South Central Farm by living in a tree on the site until she was removed by the authorities so another warehouse could be built.
I find the natural pest repellent […]
Paypal founder Peter Thiel is funding The Seasteading Institute to investigate the legal and technical advantages of living offshore in off-grid artificial habitats.
It might sound like the setting for the videogame Bioshock, but the institute isn’t playing around: It plans to splash a prototype into the San Francisco Bay within the next two years, the […]
Food aid is not being delivered because of fuel costs, and the cost of food is skyrocketing by itself. Biofuel from corn or even switchgrass requires turning agricultural land into not very efficient fields dedicated to fuel production instead. Kurzweil AI reports a Physorg article about genetically altered cyanobacterium (blue-green algae) that produces cellulose and […]
The U.S. is no longer number 1, according to a University of California research team quoted in this BBC online story.
We’ve got to try harder! Er, I mean to stop China’s reckless industry, that is.
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Green Living Expo is in Los Angeles this weekend. Free Admission!
“Over 200 exhibits.” Organic food, alternative energy, sustainable fashions, clean household goods, music, art, and health products.
I’ll be wandering around there since I’m in town.
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Boing Boing’s Cory Doctorow posted an article, “Can aviation go green with algae-based biofuels?” about biojet aviation fuel for Virgin Atlantic.
The link to a World Changing story, “Taking Aloft With Sustainable Biojet”, describes the next test:
When the Air New Zealand test takes place, it will be with a second generation feedstock. Of the possibilities, two […]
Off Grid story from March 22 (again, not an April Fool’s Day joke) about personal nuclear reactors.
Think I’m lying? How about this Gizmodo story?
Stephen Years quotes a Santa Fe Reporter article about Los Alamos based Hyperion’s planned product.
The portable nuclear reactor is the size of a hot tub. It’s shaped like a sake cup, filled […]
Eco Chick’s Starre Vartan was on what looks like a local Fox News affiliate in New York, talking about eco friendly consumer choices such as eliminating water bottles, junk mail, overly packaged wipes, shoes, and my favorite: switching to a laptop computer instead of a desktop. Done that!
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Adelaide over at the Wild Charlock blog covers green-related weirdness in Portland, Oregon. Her latest post is a link to an Awareness Test from the U.K. that has some relevance for transportation alternatives.
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Toxic Trailers is a great resource about the health effects of formaldehyde and other chemicals found in RVs used as emergency housing for hurricane Katrina victims. The trailer toxicity issue continues to get national TV coverage.
To the site’s credit, they also link to skeptical articles from the RV industry, quoting:
Air samples were taken daily on […]
AP Probe Finds Drugs in Drinking Water from PhysOrg.com
(AP) A vast array of pharmaceuticals — including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones - have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans, an Associated Press investigation shows.
[…]
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An inspiring documentary on the Cradle to Cradle design concept.
Click image of the view of Earth from Apollo 8 over Rama’s interior to see a list of O’Neill cylinders and other space habitats.
The Story of Stuff, an entertaining video presentation, illustrates among many other concepts, the limitations of recycling. For every barrel you recycle, 70 barrels of waste were required in manufacturing the item. […]
Digg reports that a story in ecogeek describes success with nanocrystal LEDs, further explained at New Scientist.
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My WordPress setup doesn’t like to edit these embedded objects, so I’m reposting fresh to fix the weird layout problems. Sigh.
The above episode (number 106) of The Boaters TV discusses international ship pollution regulations and follows with a story about the upcoming Independence 60 solar luxury yacht.
Occasional green boating stories appear, but especially noteworthy in […]
Clarence Eckerson, Jr. of Steetfilms writes of Bogotá, Colombia’s Ciclovia, “a weekly event in which over 70 miles of city streets are closed to traffic where residents come out to walk, bike, run, skate, recreate, picnic, and talk with family, neighbors & strangers…it is simply one of the most moving experiences I have had in […]
Oh, happy day! (If you’re a prison stock investor.) Digg links to a New York Times story reporting that more than 1 out of 100 Americans are in jail. So forget the 750 per 100,000 I mentioned before, it’s up to over 1,000!
See also the SVTC campaign against toxic prison sweatshops.
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There have been several BBC online reports this week about polluters in China.
The first was official concern about the pollution impact of the Beijing Olympics.
The next day a report about a river running red due to pollution.
And today an announcement of a plan to log industrial pollution sources.
Water supplies to about 200,000 people in central […]
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