Daily Archives: November 13, 2008

I thought I could delve into this topic like an engineer or architect, showing: heating degree-day isotherms, cooling degree-day isotherms, and mean annual temperature maps. But, alas, the graphics just don’t work at blog-format. What else, then?

Turns out that, for the USA at least, plant hardiness zone maps get the overall idea across much b

In a historic milestone, after years of negotiations with American Rivers and other parties, PacifiCorp has agreed to remove four dams on the Klamath River in California and Oregon. The deal is par

photo: Brian Kong

It’s still up in the air whether president-elect Barack Obama will decide to create a new position of White House ‘Climate Czar’, but one thing’s for certain: Al Gore won’t be taking the job.

Though Barack Obama has said that, “Al Gore will be at the table and play a central part in us figuring out how we solve this problem [of climate change],” according to a Gore spokesperson, it’ll have to be in an unofficial capacity:

photo: ACUPCC

More and more centers of higher education are embracing renewable energy and environmental commitments in one form or another. One of the latest pan-institutional efforts is the American College & University Presidents Climate Commitment. The ACUPCC, with 593 signatories to date, provides a framework for institutions who become signatories of the commitment to both reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and raise awareness of their sustainability efforts.

In order to provide “clear, rigorous standards” for institutions wanting to offset their carbon emissions, the ACUPCC ha

Tesla Out, Fisker In
Tesla Motors recently announced some layoffs and the closing of their Rochester Hills office near Detroit, and almost mirroring this exactly, Fisker Automotive has announce that it plans to open a 34,000 square feet engineering and development center in Pontiac, near Detroit, where up to 200 people will work on the companies <a href=”http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/07/fisker-karma-plug-in-hybrid-electric-car-finland-va

It’s All About Incentives, Baby
It’s not big mystery: If you have a flat rate for water, people will waste more of it than if they pay in function of how much they use. The same thing also certainly applies to cars. If people paid less insurance if they drove less, that would be an incentive to put fewer miles on their vehicles, thus using less fuel and polluting less. This would also reduce road congestion and accidents.

One company that has understood this is MileMeter from Texas. Read on for more details

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Avi at Dark Roasted Blend does a great collection of images of distant worlds, but I was most interested in the visions of space stations from NASA Ames in the early 1970s; notice how everything is so green

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It’s Dangerous Being Green in India
It can be dangerous to fight polluters. This story reminds me of many others that I’ve read in a book called “The War Against the Greens“.

It all started when Challa Krishnamurthy, a 60-year-old organic farmer from Gowribidanur, India, noticed that a local distillery and sugarcane factory was dumping toxic waste on his property. “He had alerted the Pollution Control Board and a dozen agencies including the government and police, but all came to naught.” That’s when he decided that the only way to fight back was to alert the media

Year after year of the same turkey, stuffing and cranberry sauce can be tiresome. This Thanksgiving why not try out something new using only local ingredients found within a 100-mile radius of your home. Bahar Zakar, winner of the 2006 100-Mile Challenge created this stunning three-courser:

Photo via HP

UPS has long been interested in improving efficiency. For a year and a half, HP and UPS have been working together to develop a scanner/printer that prints sorting labels directly on packages. The time and effort looks to be worth it because this awesome little device means huge paper, money and time savin