We use shampoo because hair collects oil. Turns out it can soak up oil spills, too. Check out the clever work of this nonprofit.
You think you’re so clever, huh?
Climate change couldn’t possibly be real! How do I know? Look outside, asshat! We’ve had a metric fuckload of snow this year. And … game. Set. Match.
Not so fast!
Here are the facts.
Fact: Climate change causes more frequent and severe snowstorms
Record snowstorms need two things: temperatures below freezing, and very high humidity. On a planet warmer by a few degrees on average, the Northeast US will still have plenty of days below freezing; the big difference will be warmer seas producing higher levels of moisture in the air — and therefore more severe cold-season storms.1
Fact: We can expect more extreme weather
Scientists tell us that climate change has already led to more extreme weather in the United States and we can expect stronger hurricanes, more wildfires, heatwaves and droughts, to name a few.2 The cost of inaction could reach half a trillion dollars a year.3
Fact: The world is warming at a quickening pace
Weather in one region over days or months should not be confused with climate or the patterns of weather over decades and centuries. And the science is clear here: the last decade was the hottest on record.4 And to put this year’s weather in perspective, January was warmer than average for the continental United States.5
February 23, 2010
Bin Laden blasts US for climate change
Fuuuuuck. The man’s got a point. Well played, asshole.
He blamed Western industrialized nations for hunger, desertification and floods across the globe, and called for “drastic solutions” to global warming, and “not solutions that partially reduce the effect of climate change.”
January 29, 2010
Finding a Way to Pay for Green Makeovers
This is exactly the stuff I work on and it’s so encouraging to see it in The New York Times. In fact, the subject of the article, Sean Neill, is a colleague whom I’ve worked with for a few years. Last March, I helped organize a conference on green leasing; he was a speaker.
Building legislation and green leases aren’t sexy. They don’t make headlines on sites like Treehugger. But they will ensure that New York City remains the most sustainable city in North America for decades to come.
Last year, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg proposed four laws and two programs that would have required the owners of New York’s largest buildings to pay for improvements to make their properties more energy-efficient.
The City Council passed a modified version of the proposal in December that required landlords to audit their buildings’ energy use once a decade and publish the results, but made investments to reduce energy waste optional.
Building owners had questioned the feasibility of mandated improvements, arguing that they often bear the burden of paying for investments without any codified way to share costs with tenants.
Sean Neill, a 37-year-old economist who started a consulting company a year ago to address the murky question of how landlords might pay for retrofits, says change will be very difficult to achieve if it does not address the way leases are written.
January 14, 2010
Detroit is particularly well suited to become a pioneer in urban agriculture at a commercial scale.
—
What Should We Do With a Semi-Abandoned U.S. City? » INFRASTRUCTURIST
Hantz Farms will use a trellised system that’s compact, highly efficient, and tourist-friendly. It won’t be like apple picking in Massachusetts, and that’s the point. Score wants visitors to Hantz Farms to see that agriculture is not just something that takes place in the countryside. They will be able to “walk down the row pushing a baby stroller,” he promises…For the most part the farms will focus on high-margin edibles: peaches, berries, plums, nectarines, and exotic greens. Score says that the first crops are likely to be lettuce and heirloom tomatoes.
(via jayparkinsonmd, noosphere, tragos)
January 13, 2010
Can fast fashion ever be sustainable? H & M would like you to think so. Their Garden Collection, arriving in stores in March, is made from organic materials and recycled waste, including PET bottles and textiles. The pieces are undeniably lovely, but they’re designed (and priced) to be scooped up in bulk, worn once or twice, and replaced come the next season.
(Pause.)
Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Seriously, have you seen the stuff?
I’ll take one in every color, s’il vous plait.
(Bad environmentalist! Bad!)
Ok. Here’s the compromise. I get to wear that dress on the left but while doing so I must promise to only attend barbecue fiestas featuring super-local, super-sustainable pork, and I must get to and from said parties in zippy cars that use very little gas. Also, as a New Yorker, I will heroically forgo California wines for French, with have a smaller carbon footprint because they’re shipped on boats.
I can live with that.
{Images via Refinery 29.}
January 6, 2010
Letter to the Editor: In New York City, a Bill to Enhance Energy Efficiency
Rohit Aggarwala, Director of the NYC Mayor’s Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability, explains how proposed legislation will reduce energy consumption in buildings and significantly curtail the city’s carbon footprint, while creating jobs and maintaining economic competitiveness. He spoke on these matters at a conference I helped organize last week.
Consider it a much-needed antidote to that OTHER op-ed (which I refuse to link to directly.)
December 9, 2009
Obama to Go to Copenhagen With Pledge of Emissions Cuts
Mr. Obama will tell the delegates to the climate conference that the United States intends to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions “in the range of” 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 and 83 percent by 2050, officials said.
Yeah, we’re fucked. Awesome gesture but not enough. And this is contingent on Congress making strict news laws against carbon pollution … not likely.
November 25, 2009
Have you seen Glenn Beck’s interview with PETA president Ingrid Newkirk? She bashes Al Gore for eating meat* and in the process brings the clumsy art of pandering to sordid new lows.
* Look, you know how I feel about this — eat less meat, and when you do, choose ethical, sustainable product. But giving up meat and fish is not going to save the planet — even if a lot of us do it. The only people who have the power to save the planet are legislators, and they will only take bold and necessary steps to cap carbon emissions and make corporations pay for their pollution if they are pressured from below. Al Gore lit and stoked that fire. Let the man have his fucking cheeseburger.
(Via Inhabitat, with hat tip to Nathan.)
November 9, 2009
Last week I had the pleasure of seeing Nobel Prize winner Al Gore speak at the American Museum of Natural History on his new book Our Choice.
I sat 3rd row center, right behind Tipper, entranced as our former vice-president gave the most inspiring, informative, entertaining talks I have ever attended. The man speaks with such experience and authority, such compassion that I cannot fathom how there are still disbelievers. Regardless, he’s given us the tools to reverse the path of the climate crisis, it’s now our job to pick up these tools and go to work!
Oh, and for the record, Letterman was right, he looks great!
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