Blogs & Ecology

Creative Commons: Invisible Hour

It would be no big deal if this photo were taken in Buffalo or Montreal, but Seattle? There is climate chaos everywhere; In Canada, it is the first coast-to-coast white Christmas in thirty years, and parts of the Northeast are still without power from the storms. Now you are freezing in the dark. Collin advises how to Weather the Storm with These 6 Green Tips, but what could you have done to prepare?

Photo credit: moohaha @ Flickr

The persistent snow and other bad weather that has blanketed the northern U.S. and much of Canada has ground several cities to a halt and made many everyday activities all but impossible for folks from Seattle to Boston and Toronto to Portland. But just because you're snowed in doesn't mean you have to start burning your furniture for heat or trapping neighborhood squirrels (if you can find any) for food.

Book Cover: McGraw-Hill

Electric vehicles are a hot topic right now, but the problem is there really isn't much to choose from other than a handful of hybrids and NEV's. What if we were to tell you that for the price of a new bottom of the barrel, no thrills or frills subcompact, you could turn just about any vehicle into an EV?

Google Earth is an excellent tool for environmental activism. And of course it was only a matter of time before they developed an app for the iPhone – putting the tool right in your pocket (if you have an iPhone, of course).

So, if you have this amazing tool on your iPhone, wouldn’t it be great to use it to defeat the forces of evil, or at least have some fun? We’ve gathered up a few ways you can use the Google Earth iPhone app to save the planet. ...

It's really easy to gather up stacks and stacks of paper at a conference, most of which you end up not needing or wanting, and so tossing into a recycling bin. I try to avoid paper at conferences for this reason, opting to write down pertinent info in a note pad, or grabbing the good old-fashioned business card which gives the info needed on the smallest amount of paper.

However, there are ways to green up even tiny business cards....

photo: Solar Living Institute

One of the certain things in renewable energy is that more and more people are interested in getting in on the act, from a careers perspective. In the two days of Solar Power International so far you can’t wander far without overhearing a conversation about someone who has attended looking to change career and get a job in the solar industry.

Image courtesy of Urban Go Green

The Urban Go Green Tour is kicking off in Harlem this month. It’s an innovative event that fuses together a sustainable product expo, hip-hop concert and green job fair with an emphasis on urban environmentalism. The event will focus mainly on developing awareness of environmentally related employment opportunities for city-dwellers via training programs and panel discussions—and it’ll do it all to a hip-hop beat....

Photo credit: Getty Images

Cleo, spokescat for the Environmental Working Group's Pets for the Environment offers a rundown on the pros and cons of various kitty litters on the market, as well as the dos and don'ts of poop disposal. (Be sure to watch the video of the toilet-trained cat, which always manages to crack us up and confound us simultaneously.)

It is sort of like brass baby booties; when our walls are all embedded with LEDs and lighting is part of the fabric of our house, we will be able to answer the question "grandpa, what's a lightbulb?" If we have made these lovely concrete lightbulb wall hooks.

MAKE Magazine informs us about this neat time line generator from Dipity. It generates a nice visual of the stories TreeHugger readers have shared on the social media site, Digg. View the TreeHugger on Digg timeline.

You may have noticed the different buttons at the top of all posts here on TreeHugger (the ones below the authors name). These link you to different social media sites, which allow you to share storie...

How to be a Green Entrepreneur

While the traditional economy slows down, green is booming. Riding the wave of the green trend, people are finding or creating unusual new jobs. Earn money and save the planet -- all in a day's work! To further inspire this trend, TreeHugger has collected a list of curious green entrepreneur opportunities we can find in the booming green economy. ...

I am not certain that bentwood chair inventor Michael Thonet would approve, but the wiz kids over at Evil Mad Scientist show how to mash your favourite old jeans with your favourite old chair in need of reupholstering. After all, "A broken-in pair of jeans is one of the comfiest things in the world. Unfortunately, they do eventually wear out. Luckily, they leave behind the best upholstery material: soft, comfy, durable denim. Chair seats wear out, too, especially kitchen table chairs, which can take a lot of abuse."...

If you haven't taken our advice to get rid of junk mail, or you have, but still have some coming in and find yourself in a crafty mood, ProQuo has sent us a list of 10 ways to reuse junk mail.

It's a jungle out there. Whether you like it or not, high gas prices are forcing Americans to become TreeHuggers. That means more people are riding their bikes to school and work. Obviously where to park the bike when you get there is one question (inside or out?) and also what to where when biking and what to change into once you arrive all sweaty at your destination.