Daily Archives: December 17, 2008

Image from luigig

It’s easy to dismiss climate change as a threat when you live in a country that hasn’t been affected much or that, at most, has only seen slight alterations. But what if you lived on one of the many South Pacific Islands? Climate scientists believe these islands will be some of the most at risk of succumbing to future sea-level rise—a gloomy scenario that may not be too far off (perhaps as early as 50 years from now), according to new research presented at the AGU conference in San Fr

Faced with the stark truth that the numbers of U.S. students pursuing careers in science are dwindling rapidly, the EPA and the City College of New York have announced a joint effort to encourage and produce environmental scientists of diverse backgrounds to pursue their dreams in the field of environmental science and potentially wind up working for the EPA.

Of course, there’s always the reality that a career at the EPA may not fit the economic aspirations of such driven individuals, but there’s certainly cause for hope that the program through CCNY just may help fill the void at the EPA.

Citing the example of Washington University in St. Louis, students at Penn State are pressing administration to enact a total ban on the sale of plastic water bottles on campus. And doing it in a somewhat humorous way like gathering to sing parodies of Christmas carols with lyrics like “December’s hotter than J. Lo,” and “O Scorching Night” to the tune of the more traditionally acclaimed “O Holy Night”.

But the question is; will it work?

Here is what happens when people are not yet used to bike lanes: on Grand Street in New York they installed a bike lane between the cars and the curb, safer and more secure but not everyone quite gets it yet. First the truck thought that the cars were just stuck and idling and sat waiting for them to move; (they didn’t) and then an SUV driver thought it

Unsustainable consumption levels pose a problem for Turkey, the OECD says. Photograph of Kanyon Mall by dysturb via flickr.

Visiting Turkey this week, Angel Gurría, secretary-general of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), praised the country for its strong economic growth and environmental advances, but warned that the global financial crisis should not be used as an <a href=”http://www.hurriyet

Kim Tait, Associate Curator of Mineralogy at the Royal Ontario Museum

Usually any story about mining or minerals on TreeHugger is about this mountaintop being blown off or that river being contaminated; it is a pleasure to write a post about the wonders that come out of the earth that isn’t dire. It is also a pleasure to report that after close to 25 years, Toronto once again has a gallery where you can see them, and it is a stunner.

photo: b k

With all the media outlets out there and all the articles that get published, even intrepid TreeHugger authors who diligently follow all of it so they can distill it down for you sometimes miss an interesting piece. One such piece, which Biofuels Digest was from back in October and ran in Time (and in turn references an article in