What happens when your nonprofit asks for a donation of nine bottles of vodka for its "recession special" holiday party and gets nine cases of Grey Goose instead? We crashed Architecture for Humanity's offices last week to find out. The organization has become a media darling for harnessing open source, Web 2.0 technologies to bring greener buildings to communities from Biloxi, Miss., to Banda Aceh, Indonesia. Architecture for Humanity shares an office space with other hip, do-good groups in San Francisco's South of Market area. Armed with crutches, the world's cheapest video camera, and a week-old pink slip, I asked …

You might blame a leading carbon-offset provider of forcing poor kids to work, according to The Times of London. Or not. Carbon credit firm Climate Care pays families in India to use human-powered treadle pumps to get water out of the ground for drinking and farming. As a result, half a million foot pumps have replaced diesel ones, which pollute and cost a lot to fuel. Unfortunately, Climate Care doesn't ensure the diesel pumps are retired instead of finding new life with other owners. Nor does it stick around to make sure that kids aren't doing all the pumping. It …

Don't hum the requiem for the gasoline engine just yet. MIT brainiacs say it's easier than imagined to flip a car between the usual gas-guzzling state to a low-pollution, ultra-efficient mode. The researchers have tested a system that can run on a quarter less than the usual amount of gas without needing any fancy fuel. With the flick of a switch, the setup alternates between regular, spark-triggered combustion and experimental homogeneous charge compression ignition. In the latter system, premixed fuel and air combust when compressed, spewing less soot and NOx from the engine. Volvo has explored the hybrid technology, but …

Got it? You'll flirt and flaunt it. But the human drive to mate could be killing our planet and ultimately our species, according to Matt Prescott via the BBC. We're collectively thinking from the seat of our pants and using the wrong brain, so all of our little earth-saving intentions add up to vain fluffing, he adds. Why? Cheap energy and oil have given us new, ecologically toxic ways to compete for partners: In a world of "bling", the last thing a car is used for is getting from A to B; it is a symbol of wealth, power and …

Al Gore's PowerPoint presentation (which was actually done in Keynote on a Mac) may be the most famous global-warming slide show, but it's one of probably millions. Scores of save-the-planet slide shows have been shown off in boardrooms and classrooms around the world. Here are some cooked up by people from around the globe. Alas, the cute factor is conspicuously missing. So the next time you're dallying in digital presentations, don't forget the pleading penguins and polar bears. More pictures of fire and brimstone would probably help too. You can find these and other slide shows on nearly any subject …

Carbon neutrality is popping up in more glamorous places than Yahoo's headquarters, Al Gore's mansion, and The New Oxford English Dictionary these days. Cosmetics giant Lancome will start paying for its pollution and funding green power projects through the nonprofit CarbonFund. But Lancome isn't greening all its operations; only four boutiques, plus its four jet-setting spokesmodels (including Elettra Rossellini Wiedemann, Isabella's daughter), will buy into carbon offsets. Lancome is tying its green efforts to the release of a new goo built to save your face from the ravages of the savaged environment. Are UV rays pounding through the feeble ozone …