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In Second Life

How did Grist miss this one last week, as reported by National Geographic News?

Tokyo, Amsterdam, and the entire Mediterranean island of Ibiza were inundated with floodwaters today due to rising sea levels brought on by global warming.

Oh:

Gore to open Tribeca film fest

This just in: The Goracle will open the Tribeca Film Festival on April 25, playing host for the global-warming-themed SOS Short Films Program. The program features seven short films and music performances by groups set to appear at the Live Earth concerts on 7/7/07.

Umbra on water conservation

Dear Umbra, Your general drift has been to get us to focus on the big stuff instead of the little paper-or-plastic issues. So what’s the big picture of household water use and overuse? I have a clothes washer and a dishwasher, I wash dishes in the sink, I take showers and flush every time I […]

The latest attempt to make learning about the environment fun is … not fun

Starbucks and Global Green USA have teamed up to put together a new online game called Planet Green. The objective: Travel around a small town called Evergreen (Get it? Ever ... green ... ha!) looking for ways to save on CO2 emissions.

The game reminds me of something that might be produced to teach small children about the dangers of sexual predators or crossing the street in heavy traffic. Well-intentioned, yes. A whole lotta fun? Heck to the no.

Fuel-efficient vehicles could save you several times over

A proposed new California law would take from the guzzlers and give to the sippers:

Call it the Robin Hood approach to global warming. California drivers who buy new Hummers, Ford Expeditions, and other big vehicles that emit high levels of greenhouse gases would pay a fee of up to $2,500.

And drivers who buy more fuel-efficient cars -- like the Toyota Prius or Ford Focus -- would receive rebates of up to $2,500, straight from the gas-guzzlers' pockets.

UC system greens electronics program

Yolanda just posted a bit on UC Berkeley’s pending approval/disapproval of a Green Initiative Fund. And in more green UC news, last week all of the UC system got a little greener by passing an “Environmental Sustainability Policy” that includes provisions on energy, global warming, waste, and eco-friendly electronics purchasing. As part of that pledge, […]

Berkeley students vote on a new sustainability fund

Tomorrow through Friday, UC Berkeley students will vote "yay" or "nay" on TGIF (aka the Green Initiative Fund), a $5 increase in their per-semester fees that will be used to finance "initiatives on renewable energy, energy efficiency, resource conservation, and 'green' student internships."

Last year, UC Santa Barbara (my school, fools) passed TGIF. Now Berkeley folks are playing catch up with this incredibly slick online campaign. Most compelling statistic: UC Berkeley uses as much electricity as Cambodia.

Video below the fold.

Roughnecks have it really rough

It's harder to view oil and gas workers as disposable when their stories are told. And that's what Ray Ring does in the latest issue of High Country News. In a special report, Ring painstakingly documents the stories of oil and gas boom workers who have lost their lives and limbs in the past six years, all in the service of cheap energy. I won't quote much here, since the story simply must be read, but here's an small excerpt:

Workers get crushed by rig collapses, they fall off the steel ledges and the maze of catwalks and ladders and walkways, they get caught in spinning chains, winches and cables. Sometimes they get strangled by their own fall-protection harnesses. On or off the rigs, they handle flammables, and sometimes they get fireballed. They succumb to poisonous hydrogen sulfide, which occurs in natural gas before it's processed; one whiff is fatal. They get slammed by valves and pipes that explode under high pressure. They get hit by lightning, freeze to death and die of heat stroke, because the work takes place outside, and it goes on 24/7, 365 days a year, pretty much no matter what.

Grinding to a Halt

Changes in USDA policy could hit organic coffee hard Hold onto your latte: News is seeping out about a change at the U.S. Department of Agriculture that could affect the cost and availability of organic products from developing countries, including bananas, spices, sugar, and coffee. Normally, a farm must undergo an annual inspection to get […]

Heart of Glass

Wracked with plastic-bottle worries, parents turn to an old standby Anxious parents are snatching up glass baby bottles after a February report showed that plastic bottles can contain bisphenol A, a chemical that mimics estrogen. One website saw about a tenfold increase in glass-bottle sales before running out; a company in Ohio got 300 glassy-eyed […]