Daily Archives: December 26, 2008

The slowing of construction in the USA has created a once-in-a-generation opportunity for driving significant, positive environmental change. Although I hesitate to even use the word because it has so little currency in the USA, an opening exists for a nation-wide consideration of sustainable development.

The construction slow-down reduces pressure on endangered species and prime farmland surrounding urban areas.
Were the US Congress to place a moratorium on taxpayer-supported loans for commercial construction, while it considered amendments to improve the Endangered Species Act, political wars would ensue. Yet, as a consequence of the

Sequoiadendron giganteum seedling

By: Jeanine Pfeiffer

On a recent visit to the newly renovated, hyper-green, and absolutely marvelous California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, I strolled into the museum store and bought a tiny tree in a plastic mailing tube. The tree sat on my rental car dashboard as I visited friends and family throughout California and Oregon, and then traveled in a shoulder bag on a Southwest Airlines flight back to Maynard, Massachusetts.

Now my tree resides on a tabletop under a grow light with a few dozen orchids, where

Image Credit: kqedquest via Flickr
A Bailout of Sorts for Battery Makers Too?
Though the Big Three will end up getting their much sought bailout, no one-except, apparently, for Congress and the White House-is under the illusion that the Big Three are on firm footing, especially relative to Toyota, Honda, BMW, and others. Part of the reason behind the Big Three’s current ills is that they fell so far behind foreign competitors in developing new manufacturing and propulsi

TreeHugger doesn’t show as many LEED buildings as it used to; they have become almost common, and many, LEED notwithstanding, have “issues,” such as being overly large, strange uses, (a LEED airplane hanger?) or boring LEED categories like Existing Buildings: Operations and Maintenance oops, that’s the Mother Ship.

However Preston at Jetson Green gathers together thirty-three LEED Platinum buildings that he covered this year and it is clear that we missed a lot of neat stuff.

Canadians have a great way to voice their concerns about the environment to federal officials.

Power Up Canada offers news, information, statistics, and easy ways to take action and write to political leaders.

Photo credit: keone @ Flickr

Broken bone? Soon, you’ll be able to have the break superglued back together, all thanks to sandcastle worms and biomimicry. Researchers at the University of Utah have been inspired by the sea worms, who secrete their own natural glue that they use to build underwater houses; the researchers have been able to copy and synthesize the glue, and hope it can someday replace pins, screws and such in mending broken bones

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Among the greener filmmaking practices employed on the set were using refillable water bottles and biodegradable plastics, as well as using biodiesel in location vehicles. Images: Film In Focus

Though there are plenty of films out there spreading green messages, if you’ve even been on a film set you know that there are generally more immediate issues at hand than the eco-friendliness of the filmmaking process itself. Well, on the set of Focus Features’ Away We Go, directed by Sam Mendes,

Photo via Original Good

This is Garbage. Or so says its description. This and many other beautiful items are made by an organization called Conserve, which takes non-recyclable trash from the streets of India and turns it into treasures.

Click through for a video about the project.

Community Peak Oil Training Tour Underway
Way back in my early days for writing for TreeHugger, I made a prediction for the year 2007 – arguing that we would see a huge increase in community solutions to climate change and resource depletion. It’s been a wild and bumpy ride since then, but we’ve seen the emergence of all kinds of community groups planning for a better future – from the Fifth US Conference on Peak Oil and Community Solutions,