Archive for the 'Environmentalism' Category

Let There Be Light

Published on April 18, 2007 in Environmentalism and Gadgets and Gear. 1 Comment

Remember this coming Sunday is Earth Day. And remember, if you’re near a Home Depot store, to swing by and pick up one of the one million free compact fluorescent bulbs the chain is handing out as part of its Eco-Options Campaign.

Installing CFLs in your home or apartment is one of the easiest ways to ‘green-up’ your lifestyle. They last ten times as long as regular incandescent bulbs, can use up to 75% less energy, and work with your existing fixtures. The main problem people seem to have with them is they’re more expensive up-front than that old 19th Century technology, but now that the Depot’s giving ‘em away for free, you’ve got no excuse.

Home Depot estimates its Million Bulb Giveaway will result in $12 million in saved energy costs and eliminating 196 million pounds of CO2 - which is like removing 70,000 cars from American highways.

Awesome!

41 Pounds

Published on April 12, 2007 in Environmentalism and Web Sites and Apps. 4 Comments

41 pounds is the amount of junk mail the average American gets each year. And if you’re like me, I’m betting that 99% of that mail goes unopened.

41lbs.org is an especially green consumer group that promises to get you off of almost every mailing list for five years. It costs 41 bucks, and almost half of that goes directly to environmental groups - American Forests, WildWest Institute, New American Dream, and Friends of the Urban Forest.

According to the site,

To produce and process 4 million tons of junk mail a year, 100 million trees are destroyed, 28 billion gallons of water is wasted, and energy equivalent to 2.8 million cars is spent – which produces greenhouse gases and more global warming.

Sounds like that’s worth the cash, right? If not, I know I’ll just be happy to not get three dozen credit card applications every other day.

Federal Judge Blocks Mountaintop Removal Ruling

Published on March 27, 2007 in Environmentalism and Politics. 2 Comments

Well, would you look at that?

Federal Judges in West Virginia just overturned an old ruling that made mountaintop removal permits easy to obtain — even without getting an environmental impact statement.

Hopefully, this is the start of a broader investigation into this practice and its effects on the surrounding environment…

ViceTV on Mountaintop Removal

Published on March 27, 2007 in Environmentalism, Web Sites and Apps and in the media. 1 Comment

Google Earth files and pictures are great, but nothing does the injustice of Mountaintop Removal like full-motion video.

Luckily, ViceTV takes care of that for us, with a five-part mini-documentary called Toxic West Virginia.

Eco-Chick was kind enough to embed the first episode of the series, which has some nice production value to it. Well worth checking out.

Via Treehugger.

10 Most Magnificent Trees

Published on March 21, 2007 in Environmentalism and Web Sites and Apps. 1 Comment

We couldn’t call ourselves treehuggers if we didn’t occasionally link to great pictures of trees.

Neatorama just posted a list of the ten most magnificent trees in the world — some of them individuals, and others just groups or whole species.

I’m sure there’s no scientific method to the list, but it’s always interesting to read up on some of the world’s lesser known areas. And half the list is in California, which is cool by me.

Missing Mountains

Published on March 16, 2007 in Environmentalism, Politics, Web Sites and Apps and in the media. 4 Comments

Google Earth is a great program. You can use for anything from casual sightseeing, browsing a hike, or spying on your neighbors. Now it’s also being used as a visceral visual aid for a continuing environmental tragedy that somehow continues to go unnoticed.

“Mountaintop Removal” is the surprisingly accurate name for a popular type of mining in Appalachia. Basically, to get at coal veins, the top of a mountain is deforested and exploded, with the debris pushed into neighboring valleys. The coal is processed, leaving huge lakes of toxic slurry behind, and then the mine operators plant some non-native vegetation and move on to the next mountain.

Obviously, this causes some problems. Deforestation increases the risk of landslides, and several slurry ponds have burst through their dams or through old mine shafts, wreaking havoc on the communities below them. The 2000 Martin County Sludge Spill contaminated the drinking water of 27,000 people and was 30 times larger than the Exxon Valez spill.

As the push for “clean” coal escalates in the coming years, mountaintop removal is likely to increase … unless more people know about it. And that’s where Google Earth comes in.

I Love Mountains hosts a comprehensive Google Earth “Memorial For the Mountains,” which shows the mountains before and after mountaintop removal mining began. It’s also got detailed information on each mountain, written by local residents, maps of all the sludge dams in the mountains, and an overlay of the larger mining sites on top of major cities — so us urbanites can get a good idea of just how huge these things are. Here’s one of the mines nearly covering the entire island of Manhattan:

Pretty crazy, eh?

And if Google Earth doesn’t float your boat, they’ve also got some Flickr pools of photographic evidence:

Convenient Truths

Published on March 9, 2007 in Environmentalism, Web Sites and Apps and in the media. 0 Comments

Treehugger and Seventh Generation have been running an online video contest called “Convenient Truths.”

Participants were asked to create original 2 minute movies aimed at inspiring, raising awareness, or showing how us Average Joes can make a difference in the climate crisis. The videos are up and waiting to voted on by us, the environmentally-leaning internet audience.

I’ve been scanning the site for a little while now, and the entries run the gamut from MySpace-quality video blogs to documentary teasers to surprisingly effective public relations pieces.

Many of the entries are, unfortunately, aimed at the sort of people who are probably already doing everything they can to reduce their carbon footprint. It’s great to see people converting their cars to biodiesel or installing composting toilets in their yards, but the biggest change is probably going to be from masses of people making small changes in their habits. That’s why these two videos, encouraging the switch to CFL bulbs and biking to work, are probably my favorites of the nearly 100 candidates:


Click To Play


Click To Play

I also really, really like this one. But that’s mainly because I have a not so secret love affair with the Prelinger Archives:


Click To Play

Disagree? Go vote, why don’tcha?

Hear No, See No, Speak No …

Published on March 8, 2007 in Environmentalism and Politics. 0 Comments

The New York Times is reporting a government memo sent to the Alaskan Federal Fish and Wildlife Service, basically telling them they’re not allowed to speak to the media about global warming, ice levels, or polar bears.

The government’s not saying no one’s allowed to speak about these things, they just want to know who the designated media spokesman is. And to make sure they know what the Official Government Position on those issues is. And presumably, that they parrot that position.

Hardcore Hikers and Dry Spells

Published on March 6, 2007 in Environmentalism, Geek Stuff, Technology and Web Sites and Apps. 0 Comments

A quick bit of link-lovin’:

- A pair of sure-footed explorers who are determined to walk the length of the Andes, courtesy of BestHike.

- The world’s most comprehensive PCT trail journal, courtesy Two-Heel Drive. I thought I had a data obsession. Bearcan’t has graphs on top of other graphs, along with some great commentary and inspiring pictures. He did the trail in 2005, when most of my native San Gabriels were covered in much more snow than they are now …

- … which is a worry Robert at End Pavement shares, along with the L.A. Times. This has been one of the driest winters on record in Southern California, which has the potential to make for a nasty fire season later on in the year … not to mention me needing lots more chap stick.

My New Dream Home

Published on March 2, 2007 in Environmentalism and Technology. 0 Comments

The BASF Chemical Company has gone and made a dreamhouse for everyone: the Near Zero Energy House.

Built in Paterson, New Jersey as a model home for a disadvantaged family, the house manages to be state of the art, inexpensive to build, and ‘normal-looking.’ ‘Cause as cool as we might think they look, no neighborhood is going to let a Jetsons-style space-pod settle down in their cul-de-sac without a fight.

The big selling point for this home, though, is the fact that it uses 80% less energy than a comparable ‘traditional’ house. And that, combined with the efficient construction materials, easy installation, and strong structural elements that can cut down on insurance and maintenance costs, and you’ve got yourself a house that’s both affordable and keeps its value over time.

As such, it’s going to used as a template for a 3,000 unit low-income housing project in New Jersey, which should have a huge impact on the energy consumption of Paterson.

Also, it looks pretty swank on the interior.

Via Treehugger.