Daily Archives: December 3, 2008

Astral Buoyancy, makers of PFDs for kayakers, rafters and sailors, went seeking an environmentally benign alternative to the petrochemical foams, like PVC, commonly used in Personal Flotation Devices. They found the answer, as a guy called Bob once famously wrote, ‘blowin’ in the wind.’

More precisely they rediscovered Kapok, the wooly floss-like fibre that protects the seed of the Cieba pentandra tree. The fibre, eight times lighter than cotton, assists in the wind propelled propogation of the seed, which is normally only released about five years or so. What Astral also discovered was that this fibre h

Image from National Oceanography Center

Meet Ammonite, Bellamite and Coprolite. You’ve probably never heard of them before (and may not hear much about them thereafter), but these three robots, part of a growing fleet of so-called Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs), could soon become a potent tool in global efforts to forestall the worst of climate change. Developed by a team of oceanographers at the National Oceanography Center, Southamptom, UK, the trio is now busily profiling the top 1,000 m

If you’re familiar with the Captain Planet Foundation, then you know what a great job they do giving out grants to teachers looking to bring environmental learning into their schools and classrooms. And without question, the annual X-MAS party and fundraiser coming up looks like it’s got some great, great items worth bidding on with proceeds going to a great environmental cause.

Just check out some of the fun, creative stuff they’ve come up with…

Photo by Pete Oxford

Only a few days ago, top secondary school teachers from the US and Galapagos were working together to create environmental education plans. Incorporating ideas from their disparate locales, they’d forged some progressive, globally applicable projects and concepts for curriculum. It was, as I reported earlier, pretty fascinating to watch.

But as the time grew nearer for presenting the projects at the Colegio Nacional Galapagos, the teachers’

Photo courtesy of Lind Xu

Why are environmentalists shooting goats? Why have they undertaken an elaborate plan to systematically kill hundreds of thousands of goats by means of aerial and ground hunting operations? Why to preserve life, of course.

Project Isabela: Eradicating Goats in the Name of Biodiversity
Project Isabela is an operation spearheaded by the Charles Darwin Research Center starting in 1998, and its sole purpose was to eliminate the ever-burgeoning

Image credit:Getty Images

From Solar to Nuclear, Energy Myths Explored
We’re all about myth busting here at TreeHugger – from Matthew’s trashing of 5 dire green myths earlier today, to John’s classic post deconstructing the wind turbines kill birds argument. But we’re not the only ones who can play that game – Chris Goodall over at The Guardian is tackling <a href=”http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/nov/27/ren

Belgian design collective Draw Me A Sheep notes:

‘Round’ is perfect in nature, but ‘square’ is perfect for industrial standard. To illustrate, square tree would enable wood industry to lose less material, to cut easier with machines and to store more efficiently.

C’mon, Monsanto, where are you when we need you?

Image via Dvice

In the effort to kick the water bottle habit, we’re open to all suggestions on alternative water containers. But that doesn’t mean we like anything that isn’t a disposable plastic bottle.

There is a new product idea getting attention called the 360 bottle that uses paper instead. But it doesn’t appear to be any sort of ideal solution

.

Like every New York tower that is not yet up to the third floor, Daniel Libeskind’s new 54 storey tower at One Madison Avenue will probably never see the light of day. Too bad; unlike so many of his other buildings, it has some green features and a few right angles

.

photo: Iberdrola Renewables

Wind power may be undeniably better in terms of carbon emissions than fossil fuel energy sources, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t genuine environmental concerns to take into consideration when building projects. And while bird deaths from wind turbines are much less with newer technology than they once were, there are still concerns about migratory bat deaths, and in genera