Blogs & Ecology

Clean Car or Dirty Pedicab?
While we're all for encouraging the use of more pedi-cabs in urban environments, MINI's publicity stunt in Beijing isn't exactly green. Not the worse thing happening in China right now, of course, but probably the most polluting pedi-cab in the world when total footprint is calculated: The body of the car was shipped from Germany to Hong Kong, where it was modified and assembled. From there it was shipped to Beijing for the olympics. Read on for more photos....

Renewable energy sources are those that are naturally available and replenished. Renewable energy sources include solar, wind, hydro (water), geothermal, Tidal power or ocean wave energy, and biomass. Non-renewable energy sources, such as the combustion of fossil fuels, rely on a limited supply that can be considered non-renewable since they are replenished slowly (or not at all). Because of their finite supply, non-renewable energy sources can become more difficult and costly to extract as their supplies decrease. In addition, recovery of fossil fuels can eventually be damaging to the [[environment], such as in the case of oil drilling and /or mining.

Back when we were tooting our own collective Discovery Communications horn about the launch of the first TV channel dedicated to green living, Planet Green, we gave you a brief glimpse of the new series Stuff Happens. Now that the start of the 13-part series is drawing closer, here’s a bit more about what you’ll be seeing.

Bill Nye Shows Us Where Our Stuff Comes From, And Where It Goes

We have a vision for the Southwest that involves solar panels and windmills -- a future of clean-energy generation and green jobs, not the smokestacks, pollution, and health problems that accompany a coal-fired power plant. However, that vision got a bit hazy recently when the U.S. EPA issued an air quality permit for construction of the Desert Rock Energy Facility, yet another massive coal-fired power plant on Navajo land in northwest New Mexico.

It’s been a few days without any word about T. Boone Pickens and the Pickens Plan, so I was starting to feel a bit uneasy. After all...

Shaun from Deputy Dog has reavealed the lengths some people will go to to get a suntan. In an attempt to have sunlight 24/7, Italian ship engineer, Angelo Invernizzi, from Marcellise, and his architect friend Ettore Fagiouli created a house that rotates to face the sun all year-round.

Sporting a 43 meter tower and weighing a whopping 1,500 tons the wedged shaped building rotates on a circular track at a speed of 4mm per second, which means the building would take just over 9 hours to make a complete rotation.

Built between 1929 and 1935, this amazing feat of architectural brilliance was way ahead of its time.

Real Life Thailand lists the possible outcomes of the ongoing trial involving former Thai leader Thaksin Shinawatra and his family

When we recently pointed out that some school districts were eyeing a four day school week as a way to cut costs and save energy there were some who thought the whole idea was just too outlandish to pull off. And at the K-12 level it just may be; but when faced with huge cuts in state aid the officials at Brevard Community College in Dayton Beach, Florida took the plunge and the students and staff members are reaping enormous benefits.

But what benefits are they now enjoying?

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Eating for the sake of your body and the planet doesn’t mean giving up on the foods you love. It does mean becoming more actively aware of where your food comes from, how it’s produced and how its production affects the Earth.

Fundamental to greening your diet is eating ‘real’ food. Processed and refined foods are, let’s face it, not good for you. Most of them are produced as part of the push by marketers to ‘make your life easier’ but they’re usually laden with chemicals, additives, pesticides, and barely disguised GM derivatives.

Photo from a tar sands protest action in Calgary, January 2008 by Steve Loo via flickr.

It's a victory for the Whitsunday Islands and the Great Barrier Reef, with a 20-year moratorium on all new shale oil projects in the region. Led by the Save Our Foreshore group, the success shows just how powerful local, grassroots campaigns can be.

Image courtesy of Getty Images.

Beginning in Tampa, FL and Dallas, TX Pizza Hut chains, the popular pie company will soon offer a pizza made with a multigrain crust, organic tomato sauce and preservative-free toppings, dubbed "The Natural."

Back in the day five years ago when Graham was dreaming up TreeHugger, the idea was to take the concept of "green" away from the hippie imagery and make it cool and mainstream. However, after crisis piled on after crisis, it quickly became apparent that it isn't about being cool, it is about survival. It also became obvious that there is no point going on about "oh my god we're all gonna die" if we want anyone to bother reading us, but that we have to be upbeat and positive about the things that we have to do and that individuals CAN do to move forward. So we talk a lot less about bamboo skivvies and a lot more about vegetable gardens.

Five...

In a baffling shift of climate, Hell has frozen over. The flash freeze wasn’t precipitated by a crumbling ice shelf or rising sea—or maybe it was. Rupert Murdoch, the founder and CEO of News Corporation, has decided to render his global conglomerate carbon neutral, as well as educate the public and green up the many tendrils of his enormous news business. Murdoch’s media empire contains such brands as Fox Broadcasting, MySpace, and the Wall Street Journal.