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How four green parents deal with the plastics scare

Pop quiz time: plastic baby bottles are a) completely safe, or b) a risk to you, your baby, and every other living thing in the entire universe? The answer lies somewhere in between — but you wouldn’t know it from most media reports. Over the last year, countless stories have sprung up citing research about […]

Thompson and Romney quibble over oil drilling in the Everglades

Here's a fun game for campaign reporters: Ask Fred Thompson questions. The results are often hilarious:

Republican presidential hopeful Fred Thompson seemed taken by surprise when asked Tuesday about oil drilling in the Everglades, apparently unaware it's been a major Florida issue.

Before answering, he laughed at the question.

"Gosh, no one has told me that there's any major reserves in the Everglades, but maybe that's one of the things I need to learn while I'm down here," Thompson said after talking over state issues with Gov. Charlie Crist.

Thompson, who has called for seeking U.S. oil resources wherever they exist, was asked by an Associated Press reporter whether that included drilling in the Everglades.

"I'm not going to start out by taking this, that or the other off the table in terms of our overall energy situation," he said.

Upon learning of this, Mitt Romney took an obvious, but I suppose laudable, political swipe at Thompson:

"You're kidding?" said Romney, who also was campaigning in Florida. "Let's take that off the table. We're not going to drill in the Everglades. There are certain places in America that are national treasures and the Everglades is one of those."

Of course, Romney is a huge fan of the idea of drilling in ANWR and off the Gulf Coast of Florida. About the latter he made the cool, sober point that, "If we don't do it, Castro will," according to the DNC. I'm sure that what we have here is a principled disagreement about what, exactly, constitutes a "national treasure."

Should USGBC certify a 15,000-sq.-ft. home as green?

A "speculative 15,000 square foot mansion in Manalapan, Fla., will be the first home of its size to be certified green by the U.S. Green Building Council and the Florida Green Building Council."

Is that a good idea for USGBC? That's my question to you. Obviously people are going to build big homes -- and it is better if they have green features. But should USGBC single out such "eco-mansions" for positive recognition?

On the big side, the mansion has:

... eight bedrooms, 11 bathrooms, two elevators, two laundry rooms, two wine cellars (one for red, one white), a movie theater and guesthouse.

On the green side, the mansion has a:

... state-of-the-art air purification system and eco-friendly light fixtures that will reduce energy consumption by 90 percent.

Making this mansion green, probably tacked on additional costs of between 7 and 10 percent ...

For instance, instead of using a rare Brazilian cherry for the home's hardwood floors, he's using reclaimed teak -- thus sparing 7.5 acres of Brazilian rain forest ...

The house will also have a massive solar panel system (price tag: $120,000), a water system that uses "gray water" from the showers and sinks to irrigate the lawn and gardens, as well as a series of pools, reflecting ponds and water gardens to cool down the 1.5 acre property by 2 to 3 degrees.

Arctic sea ice continues to melt at alarming rate

A chunk of Arctic sea ice roughly the size of Florida melted in just six days, according to scientists who warn that ice in the region continues to melt at an alarming rate.

Reports are already surfacing of the detrimental effects such rapid habitat loss is having on marine mammals, such as polar bears, which use the ice to hunt and migrate. Most recently scientists have said polar bear populations could drop by 66 percent by mid-century.

Virtually every day there is news about the impacts of climate change on the oceans, from whale deaths due to lack of food, to potential coral destruction; from rising temperatures and increased ocean acidity, to the disappearance of cold water species because of warming ocean temperatures.

The oceans are suffering from climate change. More than ever we all need to do our part to step up and protect them.

Urban growth rates in Qatar and China leave Friedman skeptical about climate change mitigation

First the good news from The New York Times:

We have ended TimesSelect. All of our Op-Ed and news columns are now available free of charge. Additionally, The New York Times Archive is available free back to 1987.

Good for them. Interestingly, even though I had paid my money to get TimesSelect, I pretty much stopped reading the stuff behind the barrier because I couldn't connect readers (i.e., you) to the material. The NYT had basically taken some of their best columnists out of the global discussion. Now they are back.

Friedman has a new piece titled "Doha and Dalian" -- "Doha [top] is the capital of Qatar, a tiny state east of Saudi Arabia. Dalian [bottom] is in northeast China and is one of China's Silicon Valley." Their growth rates have surprised even itinerant Tom:

Greens helped convince Lieberman that auctioning permits is the way to go

As I noted earlier today, Sen. Lieberman indicated that he’d be open to moving toward 100 percent auction of pollution permits under his and Sen. Warner’s cap-and-trade proposal. I called David McIntosh, Lieberman’s counsel and legislative assistant for energy and the environment, to find out why this potentially tectonic shift has suddenly become a live […]

Bike routes need names

I recently bicycled from Seattle to Bellevue, Washington, across Lake Washington on the I-90 floating bridge. This trip is not complicated. Once you're on the wide, well-shielded bike lane, you'd think that getting to Bellevue would be assured. You'd be wrong. First, you have to get across Mercer Island.

On the island, the bike route leaves the freeway and vanishes into a labyrinth of branching paths. They're beautiful bikeways, no doubt: wide, separated from traffic, well-graded, gracefully curved for smooth cornering -- a pleasure to ride. But they're almost entirely unmarked. Where there are signs at all, they only say "Bike Route." (All of them are bike routes. Duh!) Imagine traveling in a city without street signs -- or with ones that only say "Car Route." Next time you see a sign like the one above that says "Bike Route," remember, it's a symptom of Car-head. (Photo by orangejack via Flickr.)

Everglades still polluted, says EPA analysis

Pollution in the Everglades remains significant despite billions of dollars spent on cleaning and restoring the park over the last decade, according to new analysis from the U.S. EPA. On the bright side, erosion has stabilized and mercury levels in the tiny mosquitofish have dropped; on the, um, not-bright side, mercury levels still accumulate in […]

On kids, zucchini, and an experiment with pizza soup

A few weeks ago, when I made zucchini blueberry bread with my friends’ kids, it was revealed that one of them didn’t care much for zucchini in its non-dessert incarnations, seeing as how it was a vegetable and all. So I challenged myself to invent some kid-friendly zucchini dishes to see if I could get […]

Lieberman expresses openness to auction all carbon permits

A cap-and-trade system begins by placing a cap on carbon emissions and distributing permits (permission to emit a certain amount of CO2) equal to the capped amount. The notion is that permits will be bought and sold, allowing market forces to determine where emission reductions can be made fastest and easiest. The question is how […]