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Another rad bike

The coolest, greenest bike ever.

Tubular, dude!

Nature is still the best engineer -- though good human ones take advantage whenever possible.

Here's a terrific, hopeful story about a bike designer who got a dog-gone good idea about making bike frames out of a widely grown, cheap, strong, environmentally sound material: bamboo.

Now we just need to get BioD and this guy hooked up:

An editorial in the NYT

Al Gore: … we should demand that the United States join an international treaty within the next two years that cuts global warming pollution by 90 percent in developed countries and by more than half worldwide in time for the next generation to inherit a healthy Earth. … We should aim to complete this global […]

Predicts rabbit out of hat in three years, too

Here's a film clip of Al Gore making a firm prediction that "next generation ethanol" not dependent on corn or food crops will move out of the lab in "three years."

He discusses the energy balance question, fails to question the use of coal for process heat, and suggests that there is some sort of "distribution network" that's going to be built.

Sad.

Some good news and some bad news

First up is an interview with Jack Ewing, owner of an eco-lodge in Costa Rica. I must admit that writing checks to conservation organizations is about as pleasurable as a trip to the dentist. Spending a week in a place like Hacienda Barú also supports conservation and is a hell of a lot more fun. I managed to photograph about half of the wildlife I saw while staying less than a week in Costa Rica. Best vacation I've ever had. I might put the video (much more interesting than photos) on YouTube one of these days.

After reading that upbeat article, grit your teeth and click on the one about the eminent extinction of the orangutan and understand that palm biodiesel will play a large role in it.

Taking ’em to the mat

The first rule of Carbon Offsets is, you do not talk about Carbon Offsets.

Just kidding. This isn't Fight Club, but I do aim to pick a fight with those overhyping offsets.

If a smart company like Google can seriously think it can go green by burning coal and then buying offsets and if a smart company like PG&E is bragging about a new program that allows customers to offset their electricity emissions by planting trees (a dopey program I'll blog about later), then something is very wrong about the general understanding of offsets.

For those who want a basic introduction to offsets, Wikipedia has an excellent entry. I believe the more you know about and think about offsets, the less appealing they are, as these articles make clear.

No rules of the road exist for offsets. Until now. In subsequent posts, I will offer my own rules based on dozens of discussions over the past decade with environmentalists, energy experts, corporations, and would-be offsetters. I'll post the first rule tomorrow, but it can be summed up in two words: No trees!

This post was created for ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

What next? Socialized medicine?

A new report (PDF) claims that more Americans are likely to opt for diesel vehicles over hybrids in the near future in the quest for fuel economy: total sales of hybrids and diesels will hit 2.7 million annually by 2012, and diesels will account for more than half (1.5 million) of those sales.

"A new diesel's cost burden is lower than hybrid's for similar fuel economy -- even with the 'clean' technologies needed to meet tough U.S. emissions regulations (including California)," the report claims.

Good or bad, there's little doubt that more diesel vehicles are on the horizon.

15 Green Movies

And … action! We’ve reeled in a cast of green-themed flicks; pop some popcorn, see what made the cut, then play critic in the comments section at the bottom of the page. An Inconvenient Truth Mr. Gore went to Washington, and we all know how that turned out. But when Al hit Hollywood, it was […]

An oil exec gets the diagnosis right

One hesitates to agree with the CEO of a major oil company, but … I can’t really figure where Jeroen van der Veer, head of Royal Dutch Shell, is wrong in all this. He says: Energy demand is growing, and is likely to double by 2050. Oil and gas are going to become more difficult […]

From Die Hard to Diet

Welcome to the party, pal Is Bruce Willis saying he’d live green or die hard? On David Letterman this week, the fourquel star wore a wind turban and recycled-rubber boxers, joked about “global humidity,” and plugged a new film project, An Unappealing Hunch. Uh, what you talkin’ ’bout, Willis? Photo: Harold Cunningham / WireImage.com Pipe […]