Daily Archives: January 30, 2009

We’ve been busy sending people to the five recent public meetings held by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on formaldehyde – all spurred by a 2008 petition by the Sierra Club and other health and environmental organizations.

Formaldehyde was the health culprit in the toxic trailers distributed to more than 140,000 families after hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005. I’ve mentioned this issue before in my column, too. Our work has even prompted EPA to schedule one more public meet

Good News for San Francisco Commuters
While visiting Paris, a city with a quite successful bike-sharing program, San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom announced that his city would get a bike-sharing pilot program in 2009

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photo: Sam Ismail

Here’s a geoengineering approach you may not have heard of: Stuart Strand of the University of Washington proposes making bales of crop residue (stalks and other agricultural waste) and sinking them into the deep ocean to sequester carbon. Strand says they could reduce the build up of atmospheric carbon dioxide by up to 15% per year. Here’s how:

“10% of all vehicles in the transport fleet to be powered by electricity”
These days, there’s certainly no shortage of ambitious goals, especially in Europe. The hard thing is achieving them. Sadly, the problem is that from politicians’ point of view, the hard part is far away in the future while the accolades and political gains are immediate.

Will Ireland’s EV targets for 2020 be different?

Bahrain is among the nations singled out as being a climate freeloader. Despite having per capita carbon emissions exceeding those of the Europe and the United States, they have no emissions reduction targets. Photo: Harold Tejada via flickr

As Fred Pearce puts it in a new piece for Yale Environment 360, it’s time to face up to the fact that there are a growing number of countries in the world which, even though they have high per capita carbon emissions (some higher than many European countries), would like you to think that

Why Own When You Can Borrow?
The Ottawa Public Library has books, DVD, internet-connected computers, and all that, of course. Taking advantage of those is greener than buying your own (especially if it’s a book or DVD you’re only going to read/watch once). But thanks to a grant from the City of Ottawa Community Environmental Grants Program, the library also has made 75 Kill-A-Watt meters available freely. I think all public libraries should do the same!

A selection of H&M’s spring 2009 line made with organic cotton and recycled materials. Image via: H&M

If you’re a fan of H&M’s organic cotton clothing, get ready for more!

H&M is increasing their use of organic cotton in 2009 by 50 percent over last year, when they used an estimated 3,000 tons. Which means, if we do the math, we can expect they’ll be using about 4,500 tons of

I have always loved those great Cities of the Future from the thirties even to the present; they always present some bucolic vision that is never quite achieved. Canon set up a vision at the CES show to showcase their high def cameras; Unpluggd said “Think Playmobil meets TV studio diorama.”

it has a lot of features we talk about on TreeHugger: Green roofs, urban turbines, trees everywhere and sky walkways. It reminded me of some of the other visions of the future shown on TreeHugger; see a<a href=”http://www.treehugger.com/galleries/2009/01/from-th

Recession Squeezing Tesla
Last fall Tesla Motors announced a planned investment of $250 million to build a 500-worker new production plant in San Jose, California, to make its upcoming ‘Model S’ electric sedan. But since then, economic conditions have deteriorated quite a bit and there’s a good chance that Tesla will be forced to look at other options.

Read on for more details

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Image: Mathieu Delorme for the Institute for Rational Urban Mobility

When a plan to extend New York’s 42nd street-crossing no. 7 subway line to 10th avenue was recently scrapped due to a budget crisis, New Yorkers were reminded once again of how much of a schlep it can be to get crosstown. The collective sigh could not be heard over the din of traffic on 42nd street.

But other options exist, and the Institute for Rational Urban Mobility has recently dusted off one of them: closing 42nd Street to traffi