Daily Archives: December 24, 2008

It has been said that the pictures taken on Christmas Eve forty years ago created the environmental movement, that for the first time people really could see that we really were all together on one little boat floating in space. This was the first, the black and white shot. Historian Christopher Riley writes in the BBC that Frank Borman saw it: “Oh, my God! Look at that picture over there!” Then they ran for the colour film.

Image Credit: Yves Roumazeilles

Josh Donlan wants conservation biology to have teeth. He’s at the forefront of a hot new discipline called REWILDING. If he has his way, the bump in the night might be a lion or cheetah stalking you for dinner, and deer crossing signs will needed to be replaced with African Elephant caution lights. Rewiliding promises to restore North American

An environmental disaster of epic proportions just happened in Tennessee. Monday night 2.6 million cubic yards (the equivalent of 525.2 million gallons, 48 times more than the Exxon Valdez spill by volume) of coal ash sludge broke through a dike of a 40-acre holding pond at TVA’s Kingston coal-fired power

We are pleased to welcome a new entry into the green blogosphere; TreeHugger hero Rupert Murdoch, fresh off our “CEOs Who Made an Environmental U-Turn” post, has launched How Green? on Fox News. In it’s trademarked Fair and Balanced style (seen earlier in it’s exposé of working conditions and insufficient clothing for PETA workers) it covers green living, green tech, and since imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, we cannot help

Photo Via: East Tennessee Clean Fuels

When you think of success in any endeavor the simple truth is that a grade of “C” is rarely considered top-notch. Mediocre is perhaps more like it, but that’s just what Coca-Cola, called the top U.S. beverage maker, received when As You Sow, a corporate watchdog group, released their findings recently as the result of an investigation into the recycling practices of the top 23 U.S. beverage companies. Unfortunately, many more failed, with 16 of the 23 surveyed receiving an “F.” Did your favorite beverage maker top of the “somewhat nice” list? Find out below the fold.

Photo: Stefan

I’m not sure if its naming is brilliant (it does roll off the tongue) or pathetic (what’s next ‘genius bombs’?) but Optimal Technologies International, who develops electric grid technologies, is advocating not for a ‘smart grid’ but a ‘genius grid’ as an integral component of any transition towards greater renewable energy in the United States. We’ve gone over the need for better electric transmission<

Photo Via: Darrell Sapp/Post-Gazette

If you’re looking for a more eco-friendly way to create a festival of holiday lights in the future, consider what Pennsylvania homeowner Jim Berroth has taken on as a more environmentally friendly approach to dealing with holiday decorations that’s stopping traffic in his neck of the woods. It’s a unique twist on your tired old Christmas tree, and his six grandkids, already schooled in the necessity to recycle what once filled landfills, call the creative display “Pap’s pop can trees.”

image: Goddard Space Flight Center

You may find this hard to believe considering the wintry weather across much of the US, but the long term trend is still for warmer ice-free summers in Arctic. In fact we have probably already passed a tipping point and are 20 years ahead of schedule on the melting front, according to Mark Sezzere of the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado. Sezzere recently presented new evidence supporting his case:

Pesticides have been found in half the foods eaten by Europeans, with six of the most dangerous consistently in the top ten measured. But the battle to act against the risks of pesticides pits productivity, reductions in disease vectors, and other benefits against the difficult to prove risks of developing cancer or the hypothesis that sharp declines in bee populations can be attributed, at least in part, to pesticide contamination in the environment.

Now, spurred on by a political commitment to the precautionary principle, German green representative Hiltrud Breyer has stewarded a proposal for a directive on sustainable pesticides through the compromise process to an outcome that