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We use shampoo because hair collects oil. Turns out it can soak...

Fri, 07 May 2010 11:00:00 -0400

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?

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 15:08:00 -0500

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

Bin Laden blasts US for climate change

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 11:42:09 -0500

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.”

Finding a Way to Pay for Green Makeovers

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 13:26:00 -0500

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.

"Detroit is particularly well suited to become a pioneer in urban agriculture at a commercial scale."

Wed, 13 Jan 2010 12:20:34 -0500

“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)

Can fast fashion ever be sustainable? H & M would like you...

Wed, 06 Jan 2010 11:52:00 -0500

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.}

Letter to the Editor: In New York City, a Bill to Enhance Energy Efficiency

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 12:50:00 -0500

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.)

Obama to Go to Copenhagen With Pledge of Emissions Cuts

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 13:29:00 -0500

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.

Have you seen Glenn Beck’s interview with PETA president...

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 21:50:00 -0500

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.)

lauraemily: Last week I had the pleasure of seeing Nobel Prize...

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:46:33 -0500

lauraemily:

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!

mattlehrer: Chris Jordan: Visualizing the 2.4 million pieces of...

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 13:41:46 -0400

mattlehrer:

Chris Jordan: Visualizing the 2.4 million pieces of plastic that enter the world’s oceans every hour. “All of the plastic in this image was collected from the Pacific Ocean.”
Close up of the dark area of the wave:

via MUG.

When the solution creates another problem...

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 17:28:17 -0400

NPR reports:

More than twenty years ago, an international treaty known as the Montreal Protocol phased out a group of chemicals that were destroying the earth’s ozone layer.

But since then, scientists have discovered that that some of the chemicals developed to replace those destructive compounds might be contributing to another problem: global warming.

These new chemicals are known as HFCs, and they’re used as coolants in refrigerators. HFCs have largely replaced older refrigerants, such as CFCs. These replacements are non-flammable and don’t hurt the ozone.

But when it comes to global warming, HFCs aren’t so good, says Kert Davies of Greenpeace.

“We call them the super greenhouse gases,” Davies says. “They’re the global warming threat that no one has really heard about.”

[…]

By 2050, LaBudde says, the global warming from HFCs could cancel out all the reductions in CO2 likely to emerge from the United Nations climate talks that will take place in Copenhagen in December.

startmeup: Create yarn from plastic bags! How to here. So cool....

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 11:35:00 -0400

startmeup:

Create yarn from plastic bags! How to here.

So cool. Knitting is a surprisingly luxurious hobby because yarn is expensive. I’m so curious to see what a plastic bag scarf looks like (though I can’t imagine it would be particularly cozy).

Apple-Licensed iPod Solar Charger Case Coming soon and...

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 13:27:26 -0400

Apple-Licensed iPod Solar Charger Case

Coming soon and … mildly useful. Maybe if you live in the south or work outdoors.

(Via texturism, biteofpythias & evangotlib.)

Cleaning some of the Fox off of Van Jones

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 15:05:41 -0400

Cleaning some of the Fox off of Van Jones:

If you want to know what Jones thinks now, instead of what he thought in his early 20s, read his book: The Green Collar Economy: How One Solution Can Fix Our Two Biggest Problems. He’s out to save America’s free-market economy and get its people working. If the conservative movement were smart it would take yes for an answer and claim him as one if its own. But then, it’s not smart. It’s Beck.

If it’s not going to claim him, the right is correct to fear him, though. He has synthesized the best of environmentalism, progressivism, and capitalism into a program with appeal both broad and intense. It’s particularly notable among young people, but Jones gets acclaim from virtually everyone who’s met him or seen him speak. The more his kind of can-do, entrepreneurial, win-win green solutions spread, the more modern-day conservatives look like panicked, lumbering dinosaurs.

Link via azspot.

I’ve written a lot about this brilliant thinker and charismatic leader.

Truly horrifying: undercover footage shot in Hy-Line Hatchery in...

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 11:33:00 -0400

Truly horrifying: undercover footage shot in Hy-Line Hatchery in Iowa, “the world’s largest hatchery for egg-laying breed chicks.” Workers roughly separate male chicks from females. Males are unwanted by the poultry industry because they can’t lay eggs and they can’t grow fast enough to be sold for meat (as you probably know, poultry companies force chickens to grow unnaturally fast to maximize profit).

The male chicks continue riding on a conveyor belt and STRAIGHT INTO A MEAT GRINDER WHILE STILL ALIVE.

Adam Werbach, the author of Strategy for Sustainability, urges you to sign a petition urging McDonald’s, one of the nation’s largest chicken meat customers, to demand that the poultry industry adopt humane standards.

And I urge you to stop eating meat if you don’t know where it’s from. Period.

(Hat tip to @silbatron.)

Aquaduct: Mobile Filtration Vehicle … so cool. (Thanks,...

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 14:11:50 -0400

Aquaduct: Mobile Filtration Vehicle … so cool.

(Thanks, Alexi!)

"That’s more or less the premise of the “Eco Assist” dashboard features on the 2010 Honda Insight..."

Sat, 22 Aug 2009 01:02:00 -0400

“That’s more or less the premise of the “Eco Assist” dashboard features on the 2010 Honda Insight hybrid. Much the way many video games have heads-up displays that change color according to the condition of a character’s health; the Insight’s speedometer readout has a crescent icon that changes hue based on the driver’s acceleration/deceleration rate, glowing green when it’s most fuel efficient, but turning blue as it becomes wasteful. Like a role-playing game, the driver’s behavior is also tallied over time, and displayed symbolically — here, in the form of an ivy-ringed trophy achievement that a driver can gradually unlock with green-friendly driving. It’s sort of like Wii Fit, but for cars.”

- Upcoming Honda Insight Turns Eco-Friendly Driving Into Game (via @arainert, dpstyles & mattlehrer).

The coming electric cars might just be cool enough to make this NYC girl want to drive again.

Plastics in Ocean Decompose After All

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 13:40:25 -0400

Plastics in Ocean Decompose After All:

And that’s not good news. Islands of plastic waste floating in the oceans are filled with supposedly “indestructible” plastics that are decomposing quickly and releasing toxic substances into the water.

Planting the garden is just the beginning

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 09:59:01 -0400

Last week, I had dinner with a woman who works for the Brooklyn Botanic Garden doing outreach to the borough’s growing number of home gardeners and community gardens (plots of land managed by a dedicated cadre of neighbors). She said that a lot of the education she does is about the potential dangers of Brooklyn soil. In many areas, there are high levels of certain toxins that can seep into produce. A lot of it is from the dust of the World Trade Center that settled over the city after 9/11.

The NYT reports that the Obamas’ kitchen garden was tested for lead and was found to have 93 parts per million.

The level is well below the 400 p.p.m. considered hazardous by the Environmental Protection Agency, though not below the more stringent goals recommended by some countries like the Netherlands, at 40 p.p.m.

Sam Kass, who has the totally awesome job of both White House assistant chef and garden overseer, has remediated the soil organically, adding “lime, green sand and crab meal as well as organic matter in the form of compost made by the National Park Service.”

If you have a garden, even a small backyard one, you should take advantage of a program offered by the EPA’s Cooperative Extension office in your area. Call (800) 424-5323 for more info.