William McDonough: Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things
Michael Pollan: The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
Eric Ryan and Adam Lowry: Squeaky Green: The Method Guide to Detoxing Your Home
Commentary: Water, water, everywhere, but so is the need to curb speculators
By Thomas Kostigen, MarketWatch
SANTA MONICA, Calif. (MarketWatch) -- A majority of U.S. mayors voted to stop paying for bottled water with taxpayers' money. Instead, they are opting to use tap water at city meetings and for city employees.
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom introduced the idea at the U.S. Conference of Mayors that took place earlier this week in Miami, and it was quickly embraced by others.
To be sure, the beverage industry isn't happy about the move. "A few mayors have chosen sound-bite environmentalism over sound public policy in their zeal to appease liberal activist groups that are pedaling misinformation about bottled water," the Associated Press quoted Kevin Keane, a senior vice president of the industry's American Beverage Association, as saying.
But the mayors' move is smart. About 25% of bottled water comes from municipal sources anyway -- the same municipal sources that provide tap water. They also regulate and monitor water quality more regularly, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council.
My friend Marc C. sent this from Japan where he had a personal encounter with the energy-sucking commode.
By Blaine Harden Washington Post Foreign Service
TOKYO -- When it comes to saving energy, the Japanese have much to teach the United States and other rich countries, whose leaders descend on Japan next month for a Group of Eight summit.
Energy consumption per person here is about half that in the United States, and the growth of greenhouse gas emissions is slower than anywhere in the industrialized world.
There is a hiccup, though, in this world-beating record. It happens inside the Japanese home, where energy use is surging. And nothing embodies the surge quite like the toilet -- a plumbing fixture that has been reengineered here as an ultracomfy energy hog.
Japanese toilets can warm and wash one's bottom, whisk away odors with built-in fans and play water noises that drown out potty sounds. They play relaxation music, too. "Ave Maria" is a favorite.
High-end toilets can also sense when someone enters or leaves the bathroom, raising or lowering their lids accordingly. Many models have a "learning mode," which allows them to memorize the lavatory schedules of household members.
Continue reading "In Energy-Stingy Japan, an Extravagant Indulgence: Posh Privies" »
New Forest Service rules could let largest private owner convert land
By Karl Vick, The Washington Post
MISSOULA, Mont. - The Bush administration is preparing to ease the way for the nation's largest private landowner to convert hundreds of thousands of acres of mountain forestland to residential subdivisions.
The deal was struck behind closed doors between Mark E. Rey, the former timber lobbyist who oversees the U.S. Forest Service, and Plum Creek Timber Co., a former logging company turned real estate investment trust that is building homes. Plum Creek owns more than 8 million acres nationwide, including 1.2 million acres in the mountains of western Montana, where local officials were stunned and outraged at the deal.
Plans are afoot to prod the nation into using much more renewable energy. Can it be done, and what's the cost?
By Steve Hargreaves, CNNMoney.com staff writer
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- High-profile personalities have been telling the nation to ditch that dirty fossil fuel and turn to renewable energy.
T. Boone Pickens, the billionaire oilman, has been hitting the airwaves, pitching a plan to use wind to replace all the natural gas that's used to produce electricity, then using that saved natural gas to fuel cars.
In addition to weaning the nation from foreign oil, Pickens' plan is not entirely altruistic. He's investing hundreds of millions of dollars on a giant wind farm in the Texas panhandle, and his hedge fund, BP Capital, is said to own stakes in several companies that equip cars to run on natural gas. If his energy efforts pan out, he could get even richer in the process.
Then there's Al Gore. The former U.S. vice president and Nobel Prize winner said last week that electricity generation should be completely fossil-fuel free in 10 years.
The question is, are these plans realistic or just dreams?
Thanks to Eleanor B. for sending this article!!
Link to post on earth2tech
Researchers at MIT say they have delivered a major breakthrough in storing solar energy, inspired by photosynthesis and using a catalyst made up of cobalt metal. In a paper published today in Science, MIT professor of energy, Daniel Nocera, says he’s developed a process that uses electricity generated from the sun or other renewable sources to split water into hydrogen and oxygen using abundant, non-toxic natural materials. The gases can then be stored and reintroduced into a fuel cell that can produce electricity.
Visit post on earth2tech for more!
My friend Marie M. tried being a localvore for two weeks last year - with great success! Now she has a big garden in her backyard where she grows most of her own produce.
Once the purview of foodies and hippies, 'locavorism' is going mainstream
By Allison Linn
When Katherine Gray takes her kids to the grocery store, they can pick out as many apples and pears as their hearts desire. But bananas? Pineapples? Mangoes? Sorry kids, if they weren’t grown within 100 miles of Gray’s house in Portland, Ore., chances are they won’t make it into the grocery cart.
For years, the idea of eating only food grown locally and in season was reserved for upscale chefs like Alice Waters of Chez Panisse in Berkeley, Calif., or serious hippies living off the grid, while the rest of us didn’t think twice about gulping down blueberries from Chile or avocadoes from Mexico.
Recently, however, a small but devoted number of Americans have started to think a lot more about the origin of the food going into their grocery cart. Worried about the environmental impact of shipping food hundreds of miles, plus the dwindling fate of local farmers – and obsessed with the idea of eating really good food – these extreme eaters try to only buy food that is grown within a 100-mile radius of their own home.
Thanks to Collin A. for sending this my way!
* Some types of algae are about 50 percent oil, suitable for biodiesel
* U.S. government is once again experimenting with algae as fuel source
* Scientists say there may be hundreds of thousands of species not yet identified
* Algae have extraordinarily diverse sex lives
By Marsha Walton, CNN
ANTHONY, Texas (CNN) -- Texas may be best known for "Big Oil." But the oil that could some day make a dent in the country's use of fossil fuels is small. Microscopic, in fact: algae. Literally and figuratively, this is green fuel.
"Algae is the ultimate in renewable energy," Glen Kertz, president and CEO of Valcent Products, told CNN while conducting a tour of his algae greenhouse on the outskirts of El Paso.
Kertz, a plant physiologist and entrepreneur, holds about 20 patents. And he is psyched about the potential algae holds, both as an energy source and as a way to deal with global warming.
Continue reading "Algae: The Ultimate in Renewable Energy" »
* Story Highlights
* Findings discussed in National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration report
* Twenty-five percent of all marine species need coral reefs to live and grow
* Since last NOAA report in 2005, the Caribbean has lost 50 percent of its corals
* Problem caused by rising sea temperatures, land-based pollution and other factors
FORT LAUDERDALE, Florida (AP) -- Almost half the coral reef ecosystems in United States territory are in poor or fair condition, mostly because of rising ocean temperatures, according to a government report released Monday.
The reefs discussed in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration report serve as breeding grounds for many of the world's seafood species and act as indicators of overall ocean health.
"They are a major indicator of something that could go wrong with the environment," said Timothy Keeney, NOAA's deputy assistant secretary for oceans and atmosphere.
Continue reading "Coral Reefs in Trouble, Scientists Warn" »
Thanks to Brooke L. for this article!
By Donovan Hohn, New York Times
Off Gore Point, where tide rips collide, the rolling swells rear up and steepen into whitecaps. Quiet with concentration, Chris Pallister decelerates from 15 knots to 8, strains to peer through a windshield blurry with spray, tightens his grip on the wheel and, like a skier negotiating moguls, coaxes his home-built boat, the Opus — aptly named for a comic-strip penguin — through the chaos of waves. Our progress becomes a series of concussions punctuated by troughs of anxious calm. In this it resembles the rest of Pallister’s life.
A 55-year-old lawyer with a monkish haircut, glasses that look difficult to break, an allergy of the eyes that makes him squint and a private law practice in Anchorage, Pallister spends most of his time directing a nonprofit group called the Gulf of Alaska Keeper, or GoAK (pronounced GO-ay-kay). According to its mission statement, GoAK’s lofty purpose is to “protect, preserve, enhance and restore the ecological integrity, wilderness quality and productivity of Prince William Sound and the North Gulf Coast of Alaska.” In practice, the group has, since Pallister and a few like-minded buddies founded it in 2005, done little else besides clean trash from beaches. All along Alaska’s outer coast, Chris Pallister will tell you, there are shores strewn with marine debris, as man-made flotsam and jetsam is officially known. Most of that debris is plastic, and much of it crosses the Gulf of Alaska or even the Pacific Ocean to arrive there.
