Instead of funding tree planting in Indonesia, wind farms in China or methane capture right here at home, S.F.-based Village Green (of "Green My Vino" fame) is trying a different route - selling directly to consumers permits from the fledgling carbon cap and trade market just starting up in the U.S. Northeastern states.

Buy a permit, rip it up
The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) makes power plants hold one permit for each ton of carbon they emit. If a TreeHugger buys that permit instead through Village Green (which admits it will take a 10% cut of the transaction), that's one less available for the power plant - and theoretically one less ton emitted. Thus Village Green "offsets" will cost, it says (depending on current RGGI prices at carbon auction) around $4 a ton. But carbon offsets and cheaper Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) both are getting a bum rap because of less-than-scrupulous management by some companies involved - why trust Village Green?

Using Corrugated Plastic to Heat Your House
OK, so the video might be a little over long, but the idea is neat. Using corrugated materials to create a forced air heater that can supplement the heating in your house. And while the demo version is built out of cardboard, presenter Dan Rojas suggests that in about a month's time there will be a fair amount of corrugated plastic signs littering people's yards across the US that could be about perfect for the job. The presenters claim that the device can provide temperature increases of as much as 45 degrees, and it's rediculously inexpensive to build. Of course the sun isn't always at its hottest when we need to heat our house, so we'd be interested to know how this works out in midwinter, but it certainly can't hurt. And this isn't the only cheap DIY green energy project that the folks at Green Power Science have put together.

Letterpress is literally a dying art; the inks were toxic and printers often died young. It is almost completely extinct, practiced only by a few hobbyists and craftspeople. As a teenager I used to visit a neighbour who did letterpress in his basement; I loved watching his hands fly over the galleys of type and I loved the way you could actually feel the letters pressed into the paper. Graphic designer Douglas Wilson loves letterpress too, even though he acknowledges that "it will force us out of house and home."

Wilson delivers simple messages that resonate in these difficult times, preserving a technology that we may need again someday.

This is a reconstruction of a previously published post lost when a Porsche crashed into our server farm.

A commenter at BoingBoing noted that our roundup of container housing did not include the Redondo Beach house by DeMaria Design; I am pleased to rectify that herein. The house is a hybrid design that takes advantage of the best attributes of containers, (cheap, strong and rigid) and minimizes their defects (narrow inside) by combining them with conventional construction to create impressive spaces between two rows of stacked containers.

photo: Chandra Marsono

Now that the legislative dust seems to have settled and the issue of renewable energy tax incentives resolved, at least for the time being, in the United States it might be tempting to overlook the following announcement coming out of Gainesville, Florida, but you shouldn’t.

In a plan outlined on Monday, Gainesville has indicated that it is considering adopting feed-in-tariffs for renewable energy along the lines of the program which has enabled Germany to become a world leader in the industry.

If adopted, the plan would be the first of its kind in the nation:

TreeHugger Alan was surprised by his gas bill and possibly surprised a lot of other TreeHuggers and bought an electric blanket. Was this wise?

One of the largest wind farms in development, onshore or offshore, the 1 gigawatt London Array just got one step closer to reality. Abu Dhabi’s Masdar— of self-proclaimed zero carbon city and alternative energy investment fund fame—just announced that it has acquired a 20% stake in the project.

The on-again, off-again, offshore wind farm has had a rocky road in the past few years, but hopefully with the participation of Masdar the £1.5 billion ($2.55 billion) facility's future is more assured. More on Masdar’s involvement:

Will Allen fishing for tilapia by cpentecost via flickr

Earlier this year, Sami recognized the good work of the organization Growing Power. The John D and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation took the praise one step further and named the organization's co-founder and CEO as a "MacArthur Genius". Will Allen is one of over two dozen recipients - including doctors, scientists and artists - of the foundation's $500,000 no strings attached fellowship award for 2008.

Check out the foundation's video about Allen and why he was chosen for the award after the jump.