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Condor Born in 1910 Finally Kicks the Bucket
Photo via Tom Nord The planet is short one centenarian this week after Hector, the world's oldest condor, passed away in Algeria at the ripe old age of 100. Experts say Hector's long life was quite a feat considering that the scavenging birds generally don't live past 50. But as impressive as his longevity was, Hector's entire species of condor has a place in the record books, too, for having the longest wingspan of any land bird on the planet. Perhaps those magnificent wings came in...Read the[...]
Sandra Bullock Gets Duped by Big Oil's Restore the Gulf Campaign
Photo: Youtube Something's Not Right With This CampaignNot long ago, many celebrities got together to make a PSA for the "Be The One" campaign, urging people to sign a petition to save the Gulf of Mexico on the website RestoreTheGulf.com (very similar to the government's website at RestoreTheGulf.gov, which might have caused confusion). This all seems good, until you look at the fine print and dig below the surface... Which is what Read the full story on TreeHugger [...]
Newspaper Upcycled Into Wallpaper From Weitzner Limited
Photos: Weitzner Limited From papier mache beads to your own homemade kitty litter, there's reams of clever ways to reuse that huge pile of old newspapers, but what about wallpaper? "Newsworthy" is this upcycled newspaper wallcovering from New York-based company Weitzner Limited - made from 100 percent recycled newsprint....Read the full story on TreeHugger [...]
EPA Denies 10 Challenges to its Ability to Regulate Carbon
Photo via Celsias A total of 10 petitions, including one from the US Chamber of Commerce, were sent to the EPA challenging its 2009 ruling that it can regulate greenhouse gases as a harmful pollutant under the Clean Air Act. Today, those 10 petitions were denied on grounds that its finding is still supported conclusively by sound science. The EPA's endangerment finding, which is backed by a landmark Supreme...Read the full story on TreeHugger [...]
California's 'Controversial' Climate Law Supported by Overwhelming Majority
Image via a Green Living You'd be forgiven for thinking that AB 32, California's climate change law, was truly controversial. Republican candidates running for office this year have taken to publicly bashing it, calling it a job killer and worse. And given that the effort to reign in carbon emissions on a national level just deflated because it was viewed by senators as too controversial as well, you might think that fighting climate change is a contentious issue across the board. Well, it's[...]
The G-List: Choosing the Best Green Buildings Of The Last 30 Years
Adam Joseph Lewis Center, William McDonough + Partners Voted Greenest Building since 1980 When covering Vanity Fair's World Architecture Survey I asked "Where's The Green?" and wrote that there was a "profound disconnect between the architecture shown and the problems that architects have to solve today." Lance Hosey, formerly a partner at William McDonough+ Partners and now a writer at Architect magazine, thought the same but didn't just whine, he organized his own survey, the G-list. ...Read[...]
Signal Shed: A Tiny, Affordable, Off-Grid Getaway In The Woods
Ryan Lingard Design Ryan Lingard designed and built this lovely litte cabin near Joseph, Oregon in a couple of weeks for under $10,000. Preston at Jetson Green tells us that it has a wood stove, metal roof, cedar rainscreen, reused windows, portable toilet, and operable shutters....Read the full story on TreeHugger [...]
Babies, Recovery and No TV on The Fabulous Beekman Boys
Image credit: Planet Green Babies babies babies. Looks like this episode of The Fabulous Beekman Boys is all about babies. I love babies. Doesn't everybody love babies? How can you not love a baby? Even a goat baby. Looks like this is going to be fun. As usual, I will rank the events depicted on the show using a scale of goats. Five goats is good. One goat is bad. At the end, the number of goats will indicate whether I am more or less likely to follo...Read the full story on TreeHugger [...]
Sandra Bullock Pulls Out Of Gulf Greenwashing Campaign
Greenwashing is defined as ?the act of misleading consumers regarding the environmental practices of a company or the environmental benefits of a product or service? and every so often, even the savviest among us can occasionally get the wool pulled over our eyes. Even though there?s now a handy website called the Greenwashing Index that [...][...]
Great, Green Back-to-School Gear for College Students (Slideshow)
Whether you're a first-year or only two semesters away from that hard-earned degree in your hands, packing for college is never easy. But don't despair: Our back-to-school slideshow is here to make all those buying decisions easier -- and greener -- with the smartest, hippest, and greenest school supplies, appliances, bikes, and laundry must-haves for an eco-friendly college experience. Read the full story on TreeHugger [...]
"Gut-Sliding" Movement of Caterpillars Inspires Soft-Bodied Robots
Photo by Anne Toal You're likely familiar with the way a caterpillar works its way up a stem or across a leaf -- that move-the-front-then-move-the-back process is one of their charms. But what you might not know is that a caterpillar actually moves its internal organs forward before moving its legs. A team of researchers at Massachusetts' Tufts University is working on soft-bodied robots and has looked to this quirk of caterpillars as biomimetic inspiration for their designs. The future of[...]
Is Being Uncivilized Sustainable? Keith Farnish on Disconnecting (Video)
Image credit: Peak Moment I'll admit it. I may advocate peeing in public, stopping showering (quite as much), and I am a big fan of dumpster diving and the moneyless man. But despite these nods toward the crunchier end of green living...Read the full story on TreeHugger [...]
Rachel Carson Film In Development
A film about Rachel Carson, marine biologist, nature writer, and revered goddess in the green scene, is now in the production pipeline.According to The Hollywood Reporter, Peter Bratt has been hired to direct the biopic titled “Silent Spring of Rachel Carson”. From the site,The movie will focus on the five years that Carson struggled to [...][...]
How to Recycle A Used CFL Bulb
They last a long time, but not forever. Compact Flourescent bulbs contain mercury and need to be disposed of properly. Disposing them improperly will lead to more environmental hazzards than you want to be responsible for.Your best bet is to see if you have a municipal recycling center in your area that will take them off your hands. I am lucky enough to have one in my area that will take the bulbs and other hazzardous products back and handle them properly. You can also return them to IKEA if[...]
What Are Twinkie's Made Of?
One of America's favorite snack cakes isn't made with the ingredients you would expect. Turns out rocks, yes rocks are pretty high on the ingredients list.Five ingredients come from rocks.This got my attention. However, it only got worse when I discovered that the ingredients come from phosphate mines in Idaho, gypsum mines in Oklahoma, and oil fields in China. Okay, so now I was wondering if I was watching a real news story?come to find out, I was.The Twinkie, which was created during the[...]
Food Danger Alerts
This useful online search tool from the Center For Science In The Public Interest allows you to search for food problems by food type, pathogen or state. Find out what's wrong with the food in your neighborhood now, you can't be too cautious these days.The Outbreak Alert Database[...]
Tomorrow Today - Electricity Vendors
Mouna Andraos has created the Power Cart for the 2007 Conflux Festival in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. It's a portable street vending cart (complete with umbrella for shade) that can charge your gadgets with solar and crank power. via Craft[...]
Food's Future
An intersting look at where farming is headed.[...]
Is Carbon Offsetting Cheating?
Watch this video to understand the situationAs the saying goes, you can?t have your cake and eat it too. So goes the running argument about whether offsetting your carbon footprint is a useful contribution to our eco-system or just another futile exercise in pretending to be doing good by spending your all-mighty dollar.It?s in the headlines: NewsCorp and Yahoo have been some of the more vocal companies offsetting their footprints. While Yahoo is quite honest that their plan is for the future,[...]
Did You Know?
An 18-hole golf course uses enough water daily to supply more than 2000 families.[...]