Daily Archives: December 1, 2008

Photo by Pete Oxford

From a die-hard ecologist’s standpoint, the unequivocal answer is simple:

No.

Tourism invites hordes of people to trample over the delicate island ecosystems, the ever-growing industry attracts migrant workers to join an already unsustainable population which combined with the gaggle of visitors usurps the Galapagos’ limited resources. Not to mention the extensive fossil fuel-frying air travel you’ll most like

:: Unclog your drains the eco-friendly way. The world’s waterways will thank you.

:: Cut out the calories and wasteful packaging from store bought snacks by making your own. How about tasty Tortilla Chips?

:: Check out the anti-gift list for a good laugh–or fright!

This week is Carnival of the Green #156 and it’s being hosted by Healthy Child Healthy World, a blog that gives us simple steps in creating a safe, clean and green home for our family.

So head on over to this week’s Carnival to find a round up of green news and events from the past week, submitted by other bloggers and green sites.

To learn more about Carnival of the Green, where it will be and how to host, please click here to link to

The financial meltdown has proven how badly things need to change. In July the world was focused on faltering trade negotiations, managing high energy and food costs, climate change and ecosystem degradation. Today, the recent financial collapse has led to a large-scale evaporation of trust in markets.

The irony is that leading companies have long been trying to convince the financial markets to value sustainable development, the companies that pursue it, and the long-term view.

The WBCSD has long been calling for bold governance to manage climate change and for governments to recognize business as a solution provider for that and other sustainable development challenges, in te

What to do when your corner of the world consumes 5 million liters of diesel fuel a day and you have a fish processing industry which can produce 120,000 kilograms of processed fish waste daily from just one factory? Turn that waste into biodiesel, obviously.

That’s just what Finland’s VTT Technical Research Center and Vietnamese seafood producer Hiep Thanh Seafood JSC are doing under a three-year project:

Andrew Maynard plug in housing

When I asked Is Home Ownership a Good Thing? a few months ago, the consensus was very much yes. Now some thoughtful people are coming down on the other side. Richard Florida:

Our reliance on single-family homeownership is a product of the past 50 years – and the experiment has outlived its usefulness. Not only is it now readily apparent that not everyone should own a home, and th

photo: Mini USA

You probably heard or read about last week’s announcement that applications for the Mini E field test had been opened and that 500 people in the Los Angeles and New York metro areas would be participating. Maybe you ever applied to have the honor of paying for a year-long lease on one of the two-seat Coopers and giving feedback to Mini in the hopes that sometime, hopefully sooner rather than later, you can actual purchase one. Well, it doesn’t look like that’ll be the case:

Salvia divinorum may not sound familiar to most people, but this herbal high has been available over the Internet and in smoking shops for years. The effects of taking salvia can vary and users generally smoke the substance as they wood smoke weed.
However, unlike weed, which tends to chill a person out, salvia takes users [

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Photo via Ubergizmo

The iPhone isn’t the only cell phone that will allow you to adjust your home’s power consumption. Nokia has entered the smart home scene and is working on providing a new option for controlling your smart home via your mobile phone.

Nokia’s Home Control Center is a Linux-based platform that will be compatable with Zigbee, Z-Wave and other smart home t