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Manuel said:
"This is great news! I hope all cities pass this into law.The practice of using plastic bags just to quickly dispose of them has been going on far t..." [read]
Jay Knecht said:
"What are the performance stats for the Son of Max? ..." [read]
gazelle said:
"@ Dallas:
The book, and the supplementary videos in the "How It All Ends" youtube series, address this in detail, but I'll try to paraphrase:..." [read]
Barry said:
"Kofi Annan has about as much of a clue about electric cars and developing countries as Ann Ann the Panda.
He underestimates the ingenuity o..." [read]
JJ said:
"Very cool. I didn't thought that biodesel might be our future fuel...." [read]
Derek said:
""I guarantee you this will spark huge debates around the world," she said. "We have to delve into this in a way that hasn't been done in a long tim..." [read]
The Cove has shaken up globe when it comes to dolphin hunting. The Oscar-winning documentary brought Japan's slaughter of cetaceans into the tunnel vision of mainstream audiences -- no small feat for small scale documentary makers. Now, the film's director, Louie Psihoyos, is latching on to the craze of 3D and starting a new project, The Singing Planet: The whole world is singing, we just haven't been listening, a documentary about mass extinctions.
We are always extolling the virtues of garage sales; the joy of recycling and re-using and respecting perfectly good finds. And then there is the joy of Ansel Adams' photography: he was one of the original environmentalists who understood the beauty and inspirational quality of nature. Imagine these two coming together: a man in California bought a box of old negatives at a garage sale ten years ago for $45.
Now it turns out that the 65 glass plates may be Adams' negatives and worth $200M ... or not.
The five Barcelona-based Residual Gurus have decided to fight trash with comical roaming concerts, and are touring Europe at the moment. These talented musicians know how to transform rubbish into a spiritual performance that turns the street into a stimulating yet unpredictable haven. "Eastern rhythms, electronic sounds, original instruments, laughter, meditation and improvisation combine in an unrepeatable, collective ritual." The musical group Karam started the show Residual Gurus last year to raise awareness about our trash problem in a very creative and fun way. Have a look at the video below; it'll make you smile if nothing else!
Captain Paul Watson, Shepard Fairey and Crystal Method are throwing a party and you're invited. For the fourth year, the Sea No Evil Art Show auction and fundraising event will benefit the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. It happens this Saturday, July 31. If you're a fan of the Captain's Whale Wars, here's how to get involved. Check out a sampling of the art and more details:
Another day, another BP Gulf oil spill story. With a twist. A Kansas man frustrated by damage to the Gulf of Mexico has turned lemons, er, oil into printing ink. Steve Brooker is using reclaimed oil from the environmental disaster to print T-shirts and make neckaces, and giving some of the proceeds to wildlife groups.
15th century painting, "Poet on a Mountain Top" by Shen Zhou via The Nameless Blog
In an interesting interview over at China Dialogue, reporter for The Guardian and author of the new book When a Billion Chinese Jump Jonathan Watts offers an important insight into the different tugging philosophical perspectives that have driven, and are now driving, China's attitudes towards the environment. It all comes down to the difference between Daoism and Confucianism, between trying to control nature and embracing the wildness of it. Which side is in the ascendency and has implications and applications far beyond China. Here's what Watts says:
Elizabeth Hurley has shocked the fashion world and traded banter with an international man of mystery but nothing, whether on the cat walk or the big screen, compares to her experience with life on an organic farm. It's just one of the eco-reality shows in today's Top 5 Count Down.
George Bernard Shaw's writing shed was incredibly sophisticated. It was built on a turntable so that he could push it around to follow the sun. It had electricity, telephone and a buzzer system. He called it "London" so that he could avoid visitors by having staff say "He's not here, he is in London". Nancy Astor once banged on the door, saying "Come out of there, you old fool. You've written enough nonsense in your life!"
That is just one of the gems you learn from Alex Johnson's wonderful new book "Shedworking."
Image credit: MichaelFranti.com
From his appearance on TreeHugger Radio, to chatting with Planet Green while on tour with John Mayer, Michael Franti has become somewhat of a regular around here. And not without good reason.Both with Spearhead, and his previous bands the Beatnigs and the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy, Michael has been an advocate for peace, justice, human rights and respect for the natural world. With a new single, The Sound of Sunshine, hitting number one on Triple A radio, and a new album with the same name due out in September, we thought it was about time to catch up with the man and talk about the role of music in inspiring social and environmental change. We even got to speculate about the launch of a Spearhead Zeppelin along the way.
TreeHugger: You talked with Planet Green earlier this year, and at the time you were working hard on capturing "the Sound of Sunshine". Did it work?...
Image from art:21
The Fourth Plinth at Trafalgar Square is the premier showcase for artists. Every year a new public art work is exhibited on the empty pedestal and it is always sure to cause a stir. The most infamous was Antony Gormley's which featured a different person on the column every hour for 100 days. Now there is Yinka Shonibare's ship in a glass bottle.
But what's up next? The shortlist of 6 has just been announced and three of the candidates are women and three make their work out of old, recycled and reclaimed materials. Happily, several are concerned with environmental issues. ...
Now that the political prognosticators have sounded the death knell for cap and trade, it seems like a good time to look back on what got us here. Eric Pooley, the deputy editor of Bloomberg Businessweek, has new book out, "The Climate War: True Believers, Power Brokers and the Fight to Save the Planet," which tells the story of how cap and trade became the preferred policy instrument for greens, the coalition of the willing in corporate America, and policymakers serious about climate action--and how we continue to not act while time runs out. ...
Photo via SciFiCool.comInterview magazine brought former co-stars Nicole Kidman and Marion Cotillard together to talk about Cotillard's work with Greenpeace, her environmental choices, and her new film, Inception (which also starts eco-warrior Leonardo DiCaprio). Just back from a trip with Greenpeace to the Congo, where she hopes to make a documentary about deforestation in the region, Cotillard told Kidman that she credits her "desire to protect the Earth" to her upbringing in the French countryside -- and how she's glad to see environmentalism becoming more mainstream....
Photo via A Natural Day
It's been a really crappy week -- what with the definitive death of climate legislation in the Senate and the ongoing fallout from the BP Gulf spill and all. So, suffice to say that I needed this: A hilarious video from Jimmy Fallon tackling the BP spill in the most juvenile way possible. Thanks Jimmy, I truly needed "(Tar)Balls in Your Mouth." Video is after the jump. ...
Photo: Planet Green
Thanksgiving on The Fabulous Beekman Boys. Oh my. It's either a great joy or a profound nightmare, depending on your familial situation and your propensity to binge. I could see it going either way at Beekman, and given that we know the farm is haunted, there could be some beast/ghost/holiday drama. And I should let you, my reader, know I once spent Thanksgiving at Beekman Farm, so I have some insight to what it's like there on a holiday. As always, I use the goat scale to indicate whether what I see makes it more or less likely that I follow Josh and Brent's lead and move to the country myself....
Image from Ping!
What a way to meet someone new, get a bit of exercise, or just a laugh. It's ping pong, that easy going (or not) sport that anyone can play. Now, and for the next month, one hundred ping pong tables will pop up across London: in squares, pubs, Tube stations, Terminal 3 at the airport and the Tate Britain.
Last year there were 30 pianos strewn around town and this year it's Ping! From master classes to competitions and random acts of ping pong--it's all free, all over. Just put back the bat after you are finished.
...
A TED Favorite, Worth Watching
Hans Rosling, the Swedish expert on world population trends and probably the person who has been invited the most times to speak at TED in recent years, gave a great talk that looks at world population trends in the past 50 years and in the next 40. During the talk, he makes an excellent point that is worth highlighting here It's a bit counter-intuitive, but if more children survive in poorer countries (where they currently have high child mortality rates), world population will stabilize. At first glance, it might look like lower child mortality would lead to big family, but it's actually the other way around. People have big families because they don't know how many children will survive. In all other countries with very low child mortality, as well as education and better economic opportunities, family size is barely at the replacement rate, if not lower. Hence "Child survival is the new green". See also:This Device Provides Clean Water for Pennies a Day...
Image via Climate Culture
We need to make commitments for decreasing our reliance on oil. That's no news flash. But when it comes to making real change, it can be confusing on where to start -- oil is, after all, ubiquitous. To help get the ball rolling, Climate Culture has launched a new tool for taking action with measurable results for how much oil you can save by making a few small changes in your life...which will hopefully lead to ever bigger changes. ...
Image from einesigns
It's a tradition: heads of state exchange gifts when visiting each other. So on his recent trip to the USA, Prime Minister Cameron has given President Obama a piece of graffiti art by British graffiti artist Ben Eine. In fact it was a swap: in return, Mr. Cameron was given a litho by the American Ed Ruscha.
What a rise in fame and status for graffiti. It used to be called defacing public property. Then the elusive Banksy began getting thousands for his pieces. And now the President of the USA has it hanging in the White House.
...
There's a French proverb out there that goes: "Hope is the dream of a soul awake." With an endless ebb and flow of media, information and literature out there that overwhelmingly focuses on the negative, the catastrophic and the heartbreaking, is it no wonder that some of us suffer from a vague feeling of burnout? During such trying times, the best antidote is to look to the positive side of things, which is why we find 100 Words, Two Hundred Visionaries a treasure trove of inspiration, full of farsighted gems gathered from two hundred thinkers and changemakers living today.
...
Photo Credit: Christy McDonald
Annie Leonard's The Story of Stuff project - a series of succinct animated videos explaining the systemic problems with some everyday items - has been a phenomenal success, reaching millions of viewers, sparking important thought and discussion and even causing its fair share of controversy. With her videos The Story of Stuff, The Story of Bottled Water, The Story of Cap and Trade and her new release, The Story of Cosmetics, what started as a simple video trying to explain the problems with modern day consumption, has turned into an incredible video series that keeps getting better with each new release.
Watch her videos and learn more about the project after the jump....
Image via BP
An amusing footnote to the BP Gulf spill surfaced yesterday, when a blogger noticed that the oil company had (badly) photoshopped pictures of its supposed crisis command center in Austin, Texas. See the bizarre photos, and the proof of the photo-doctoring here. That photo above, in fact, isn't authentic. So what does BP's crisis command center truly look like? Boing Boing unearthed a photo of the real thing:...
Photo: Imgur, via Digg
Better to Laugh than to Cry
Getting off oil is one of the hardest things that our petroleum-addicted society will have to do. It's a challenge of epic proportions, and it's going to be hard especially in the transportation sector where oil utterly dominates as a source of energy. We'll need to change our cities (make them more like Copenhagen), and change our vehicles (allow them to be powered by clean(er) sources, like electricity from renewables). All of this will be hard, but there's at least one early adopter out there who seems to be enjoying the ride. He can be found in California in an orange Tesla Roadster with a license plate that says "LOL OIL". Via Digg. See also:Toyota RAV4 EV with Tesla Powertrain Coming to the U.S. in 2012...
Photo via vauvau
What things can you absolutely not live without? Pause for a second and really think about that. You can't live without it. What did you come up with? This question when applied to our lives and, more importantly, the pausing it takes to honestly consider the answers, is at the heart of moving beyond our addiction to oil -- that sticky, dangerous stuff we use to make a whole lot of things and use to ship those things all over the world.
...
Photo via Car ConnectionOn the Lighter Side...
Smart cars can be great little urban cars, but for some people, they aren't exciting enough. Do-it-yourself enthusiasts have fixed that by doing all kinds of things to the diminutive ForTwo, including, among others, putting in a high-revving motorcycle engine in place of the tame factory diesel and putting monster tuck wheels on it. The craziest mods that I've seen are probably the "tank" conversions. Check out the video below for a ForTwo with tracks on the rear wheels....
Last week we wrote about PETA's latest campaign that features Olivia Munn in the buff, intended to bring attention to the cruel treatment of circus elephants. We questioned the ad's true effectiveness. PETA sent in a response to the post, expressing reasons why they feel the use of nudity works to further their cause.
Thanks for making some points about Ringling's cruelty to animals even though you don't like PETA's new anti-circus PSA featuring Olivia Munn. The fact that baby elephants are taken away from their mothers and beaten and tied down so that they can be taught stupid tricks and that these elephants will spend their entire lives on chains is horrific, and we're with you: If we could just tell the world about this abuse without resorting to gimmickry, that'd be great. However, we would like to address the criticisms raised in the blog about the use of nudity, which we know some people object to.
Via dirtshirt.com
Most people use washing machines to remove dirt. A company in Hawaii sells shirts dyed with the impossible-to-remove volcanic red dirt of the islands. Why? A 1992 hurricane threatened to sink the company when red dirt blew in and stained all of its white T-shirts. The company sold the shirts as is, and they became a hit....
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on 07.29.10
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Photo: Planet Green
Thanksgiving on 
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There's a French proverb out there that goes: "Hope is the dream of a soul awake." With an endless ebb and flow of media, information and literature out there that overwhelmingly focuses on the negative, the catastrophic and the heartbreaking, is it no wonder that some of us suffer from a vague feeling of burnout? During such trying times, the best antidote is to look to the positive side of things, which is why we find 100 Words, Two Hundred Visionaries a treasure trove of inspiration, full of farsighted gems gathered from two hundred thinkers and changemakers living today.
...
Photo Credit: Christy McDonald
Annie Leonard's 
Image via BP
An amusing footnote to the BP Gulf spill surfaced yesterday, when a blogger noticed that the oil company had (badly) photoshopped pictures of its supposed crisis command center in Austin, Texas. See the bizarre photos, and the 
Photo: Imgur, via Digg
Better to Laugh than to Cry
Getting off oil is one of the hardest things that our petroleum-addicted society will have to do. It's a challenge of epic proportions, and it's going to be hard especially in the transportation sector where oil utterly dominates as a source of energy. We'll need to change our cities (make them 
Photo via 
Photo via 
Last week we wrote about 
Photo via 
Via dirtshirt.com
Most people use washing machines to remove dirt. A company in Hawaii sells shirts dyed with the impossible-to-remove volcanic red dirt of the islands. Why? A 1992 hurricane threatened to sink the company when red dirt blew in and stained all of its white T-shirts. The company sold the shirts as is, and they became a hit....
