Latest Articles
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If you’re building in L.A., you gotta build green
Los Angeles has become the biggest U.S. city to pass green-building laws. Under the regulations announced Tuesday, new commercial and residential structures of more than 50,000 square feet will have to be LEED certified by the U.S. Green Building Council. The law also applies to major renovations. “We look toward the future through a greener […]
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Prez candidates talk up Earth Day, Clinton clinches Pennsylvania primary
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton won her party’s primary in Pennsylvania Tuesday by a 10-point margin over rival Barack Obama. It’s unclear what role environmental issues played in the Pennsylvania contest, if any, though Pennsylvania is one of many important coal states in the Democratic contest and both Clinton and Obama have regularly touted “clean […]
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Interactive poster from German designer
German designer Timm Kekeritz took the "virtual water" data that Sarah posted about from Waterfootprint.org and created this cool interactive poster. We featured Timm's work in the February issue of Seed (not online, but Treehugger wrote about it), which prompted me to order a giant paper version of the double-sided poster. With one side devoted to "footprints of nations" and the other side showing the water "inside" products, this enormous and graphically riveting wall-hanging makes a very cool, if intimidating, addition to any interior décor.
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For Nanosolar, the future is municipal solar power plants
The following post is by Earl Killian, guest blogger at Climate Progress.
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Traditional photovoltaic (PV) is typically installed on rooftops and competes with retail electricity. Over 40 percent of the cost of a system can be in the installation, which must be customized to every rooftop. So technologies that dramatically lower PV cost end up having a less dramatic impact on total residential system cost. So it is natural that the next generation technologies, such as thin films of copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) printed as ink on conductive substrates, need to look at non-rooftop applications, where the installation of a large solar farm is fairly turnkey.Nanosolar, a thin-film PV startup, has just announced their vision in their blog and newsletter. They see the best fit for solar being municipal solar plants of 2-10 MW in size and suggest such plants can be done in 12 months, providing a significant advantage over coal or nuclear. Martin Roscheisen, Nanosolar's CEO, writes:
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Celebrate Earth Day by ditching annoying green clichés
I’m all about the three R’s that have been the standby of every Earth Day since 1970: reduce, reuse, recycle. Got it. Even so, this Earth Day, I’m beseeching the world to do the unthinkable: stop recycling … those annoying green clichés, that is. I think it’s gee-golly-swell that environmental issues have started gaining such […]
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Snippets from the news
• Then-EPA chief Christine Todd Whitman is found not liable for touting the breathability of the Manhattan air after 9/11. • Bush administration’s spotted-owl plan still unimpressive. • Can airlines achieve carbon-neutral growth? • China will model its emissions reduction after California. • Toys “R” us will phase out baby bottles containing BPA. • Meet […]
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Time hearts Grist, Grist hearts flattery
In tandem with its green issue, Time magazine has made a list of its fave green websites. And my, my, who is that at the top? “Grist is the Colbert Report of climate change, the Daily Show of deforestation, the Oprah of oil dependency — except with real reporting and analytical journalism,” says Time. “The […]
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Putting a bounty of paper towels to the test
Are your paper towels poisoning the planet? OK, I admit it: it’s not the sexiest product to test. Hard as I tried to convince a recent pair of weekend houseguests to take part in my experiments, they left without touching a single sheet. But paper towels are an everyday item that can make a big […]
