Daily Archives: November 4, 2008

Welcome to our new “TreeHugger Deals” column, which will run every Tuesday and is exclusively for TreeHugger readers.

This week’s TreeHugger Deals comes to you from Little Bits by Monica Rodgers, whose firm belief is that every little bit does, in fact, count. From recycling to literacy, to some of the company’s personal beneficiaries, their hope is for action. We love Little Bits’ car seat covers (<a href=”http://www.treehugger.co

photo: Storm Crypt

A few quick wind power predictions to file away: One of the most interesting statistics coming out of the Global Wind Power conference in Beijing (the news of which comes via Cleantech) is that not only does China have the fattest growing wind power market, it is also expected to be the largest manufacturer of wind power equipment in the world by the end of the 2009.

Other wind power stats/predications coming out of the <a href=”http://www.gwec.net/fileadmin/documents/Pub

photo: SolFocus

Though it won’t be completed until 2010, and its overall capacity will be divided across several sites, SolFocus has announced that it has signed a deal with EMPE Solar worth $103 million that will install over 10 megawatts of CPV power at sites in southern Spain. SolFocus says that the project will create enough electricity for a city of about 40,000 people. While the company claims it as being the largest CPV project in Europe, Greentech Media points out that it will be the largest in the world.

In case you’re not familiar with how concentrating solar PV works (and there a

Buy Nothing Day is only a few weeks away, but perhaps we should skip it this year, as we are already in the middle of a buy nothing season. According to the Wall Street Journal, nobody is doing much shopping these days. “It’s definitely all of a sudden very cool to be cheap,” says one former serious shopper. It happens every recession, but they suggest that this one combines economics with the environment.

“Our retail and manufacturing clients are seeing almost an aversion to consumption,” says Todd Lavieri, chief executive of Archstone Consulting, which tracks retail spending patterns. “In previous downturns [such as in 1991 and 2001], we have often se

Inspired by an earlier Bill McKibbon essay, a “New Green Deal” post appeared on TreeHugger back in April 2008 (see Imagine: Another “New Deal” – Greener Than The First).

However, the idea for a “New Green Deal” (NGD) as a climate action approach was in gestation with the March 2007 TreeHugger post: New Deal II: The Next Dam Thing?.

A UK group called New Economics Foundation (NEF) suggested a New Green Deal as well – with global intent. Jeremy filled us on the details of the NEF p

Antarctica photo: Mike Martoccia

A quick one here: In case you had any doubts about that human activities are responsible for the rise in temperatures at both of the Earth’s poles, new work published in the journal Nature Geoscience (and reported on by the BBC) confirms that we are to blame for polar global warming:

Photo of flowers on the Ulmo tree, in which the fungus was found: Wikipedia.

If there’s a holy grail of biofuels industry it would be something like this

The Guardian is reporting on research done at Montana State University which has discovered that fungus which grows inside a tree in the Patagonian rainforest natural produces chemicals which are “remarkably similar to diesel” fuel.

Montana State plant scientist Gary Strobel describes the significance of the discovery,

While the federal government has been asleep at the wheel for most of the last decade, local and state government officials have been a driving force in many green initiatives. Through the U.S. Conference of Mayors and regional alliances such as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initative (RGGI), environmental action has been taken which hopefully will spread to other cities and states, and lead to more stringent federal environmental regulations. Here is what five of the top US state and local government leaders have been doing for their cities and states.

First up, New York City’s Subway

Looking a little like a wedge of hard cheese, this modernistic Swedish passive house is perched on a rock and with a view of the sea in the southeastern Swedish hamlet of Trosa.

Passive house combines eco-techniques and “modern” design
Trosa is a bit off the beaten path for a department store devoted to the most ecological building supplies, which is perhaps why Ekologiska Byggnvaruhus undertook its own building project. The Trosa house needs has no radiators and not even a conventional heat pump. Sola