Environmental

Image source: 2twentythree3.com So. You've been reading Treehugger for years. You know everything there is to know about green. You probably know what we're going to post even before we do. In that case, you're probably up for the Smart Cart Quiz Challenge. Brought to you by the new eBay Marketplace, World of Good, The Smart Cart Quiz shows consumers how they can "vote" with their almighty dollar. Each question asks what sounds like an outrageous statement, and then includes facts with the answer so the reader has a comparative figure for what that money could be use...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is refusing to disclose records about a new class of pesticides that could be playing a role in the disappearance of millions of honeybees in the United States, a lawsuit filed Monday charges.

Proving that Big Coal's nefarious influence knows no bounds, a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has shown that pollution from coal burning has contaminated the Arctic for the last 100 years. Measurements taken from an ice core in Greenland, dating from 1772 to 2003, showed that the levels of the toxic heavy metals cadmium, thallium and lead were much higher than predicted -- which may have impa...

Obama lovers can wear their presidential endorsement on their sleeves—literally—with pro-Barack T-shirts from Obama Is The Man, the brain child of Aron Kressner of Vivavi. Made from 100 percent organic cotton and printed with water-based inks, the shirts come in six different sizes, in both men's and women's styles. (How's that for democratic?) Better still, a buck from each sale goes to the Obama campaign. You can even view videos made by people who are promoting change in their own live...

:: Beat the back to school blues with a splash of green! Consult our How to Go Green: Back to School guide. :: Take comfort food to healthier heights with this fresh-from-the-farm Olive Oil Mashed Potatoes recipe. :: Follow these five uplifting and energizing tips to give green conferences, parties and gatherings more zest. ...

When By Kids For Kids (BKFK) and The Weather Channel launched the Going Green Challenge to inspire kids to come up with neat inventions to help make an eco-difference there’s little doubt that the field was an open one. With a myriad of issues in need of resolution, the grand prize winner, Elizabeth Rintels, 12, of Keswick, Virginia, came up with a “Water Watcher” invention that helps monitor water usage in an ingenious way....

Geothermal energy is probably the greatest potential renewable energy source with the least amount of public awareness. It certainly spends much less time in the public gaze than wind, solar or biofuels. Recently the US Department of Ene...

photo by Theirry via flickr I find it more than slightly ironic that the National Clean Energy Summit is being held in Las Vegas, a city that on environmental grounds and water usage alone probably should not exist, but nonetheless it’s happening. Yesterday evening Bill Clinton opened the event will a speech which, among other things, outlined what he believes the US government should do to support renewable energy. At the Federal level these are his recommendations: And my comments, where warranted, in italics. ...

Via PhotoBasement Bike Paths World's 10 Best Biking Trails That's the Bike Path? Good Luck! Mexico City to Build 186 Miles of Bike Paths by 2012...

photo by tokyofortwo via flickr In an effort to raise awareness of global warming, Japan is planning to label a range of consumer goods to show the amount of greenhouse gasses emitted in their manufacture, delivery and disposal. The project, the exact scope of which has yet to be finalized, is expected to begin in April 2009, AFP reports. Labeling products with their carbon footprint could be a good way to make people more aware of the environmental impact of things...

The Summer Olympic Games in Beijing kicked off on August 8 amidst competition, national pride and a Blue Sky day. Well, a ŒBlue Sky day‚ according to Beijing standards. The Detroit Free Press reports that only one percent of China‚s urban dwellers breathe air that is safe according to European norms. Accordingly, many athletes are training outside Beijing, and some have caused a stir by

Nils Olav already has medals for good conduct and long service. He made honorary colonel-in-chief of the elite Norwegian King's Guard in 2005. And on Friday he was knighted. Not bad for a 3-foot tall penguin — actually, three of them.

An international fund to protect the Amazon forest launched by Brazil this month marks an important step in harnessing the forest's wealth in less destructive ways, a leading Amazon expert said on Thursday. The $100 million initially pledged by Norway would only have a marginal impact on deforestation even if it was repeated for 20 years, said Carlos Nobre, a senior scientist at the National Institute for Space Research.

Despite the amount of technological barriers to overcome, leaps in reliability and battery life make them a better environmental option for computer storage, if only slightly. The question comes with the news that Dell is now offering the storage drives in their consumer level M1330 and M1530 laptops.

The damage done to Myanmar by Cyclone Nargis this past May raised familiar problems for the humanitarian community. Almost overnight, governments and NGOs mobilized to help a poor and isolated community deal with the immediate costs of disaster, and the longer-term problems of sickness, displacement, and food shortage.

Image source: WildGreenYonder With "need" (how to ensure all of those alternative plastics - corn, soy, sugarcane- are reused, now that regular plastic is poo-poo'd), comes a "market." The Bioplastics Recycling Consortium was created to "develop an effective, efficient and economical recovery system and end markets for post-consumer bioplastic material." Bioplastics are the alternatives to petroleum-based plastics, and are commonly made from corn, soy, sugar cane, or maize, and are thought to be a better source than petroleum-based plastic because they biodegrade - or at least can break down within a year under the right c...

photo: FUEL Given that there are much better feedstocks for biofuels than corn, it never ceases to amaze me when I hear about another corn ethanol biorefinery opening. Oh wait, I forgot, the United States is addicted to corn and corn subsidies and then dumping it in foreign markets or producing a biofuel from that very nearly requires more energy to make it than it provides...forgive me, that’s another post entirely. This one’s just about telling you about a new corn ethanol plant opening. 100 Million Gallons of Corn Ethanol Produced Annually In a bit over two-months’ time the state of Georgia will have its first corn-based ethanol...

The Federal Food and Drug Administration, responsible for determining the safety of what Americans put in their bodies, has looked at the dangers of Bisphenol A and concluded that "adequate margin of safety exists for BPA at current levels of exposure from food contact uses.” Their study acknowledges that the stuff gets into our bodies: "FDA estimates that BPA exposure from use in food contact materials in infants and adults is 2.42 µg/kg bw/day and 0.185 µg/kg bw/day, respectively." but also states that the "FDA has determined the appropriate no observed adverse effect level (NOAEL) for its assessment of BPA to be the NOAEL for systemic toxicity of 5 mg/kg bw/da...

O'burger, the first organic fast food joint in Los Angeles, where the burgers and everything else are all organic. What does that mean exactly? Well, "the buns, the sauce, the vegetables, meat, ketchup, mustard, fries and salad dressing" - it's all organic. Yum! What about the burgers? Well the beef comes from grass-fed cows, the turkey burgers all come from free-range, grass fed turkeys and the veggie patties are vegan-friendly and made in-house from corn, oats and vegetables. According to O'burger, "if its edible, its organic."...

This year, Unilever-owned Ben & Jerry's sponsored a student/green entrepreneur from each of eight European countries in its three-year-old mentoring program called Climate Change College. CO2 reductions plus behavior change The sponsorship chose the eight students for their innovative business ideas on climate change reductions - the winning solutions had to not only reduce CO2 but also change behavior. For nine months, students received mentoring on their business plans (worth about $30,000), and in addition, a scientific field trip to the Arctic and approximately $10,000 to launch their selected idea. Ben & Jerry's considers its graduat...