Latest Articles

In which we ask a mess of smart people what should happen in New Orleans

Unless you’ve been living under a rock — and these days, we can’t say we’d blame you — you’ve probably put at least a smidgen of thought toward the fate of New Orleans. It’s a rare thing to reconstruct an American city from scratch (though we can think of a few more cities we’d put […]

George A. Polisner, socially responsible e-shopkeeper, answers questions

George A. Polisner. What work do you do? I’m the founder and president/CEO of alonovo.com. What does your organization do? We are working to empower people by fully informing their market decisions. We are infusing the online shopping experience with a simple ratings system based upon trusted research data on social responsibility. People can choose […]

Umbra on the perfect eco-day

Dear Umbra, But the question was paper or plastic. We are asked every time we go shopping. What if we’re doing all those things you suggested, and we still want to know if we should use paper or plastic? I think your answer was haughty and irresponsible. CurtNewton, N.J. Dearest Curt, So many annoyed readers […]

The Pinch of Tides

Spiking utility costs may hit laundromat customers in the pocketbook Better start hoarding those quarters: Soaring energy rates are driving up the price of washing your stinky drawers. The Coin Laundry Association, a trade group representing about 5,000 “retail self-service laundries” nationwide, says its members are looking for ways to rein in skyrocketing utility bills. […]

Boy Vey!

Air pollution may cut number of boy births Looking to score, fellas? The secret may be moving to a highly polluted area. Turns out air pollution may skew the ratio of female to male births in favor of the former, by altering the proportion of sperm that carry an X vs. a Y chromosome. A […]

With This Ring I Thee Bled

Gold mining’s toll on environment mounts as supply grows scarcer That one-ounce gold ring you’re wearing? Think of it as 30 tons of rock mined, moved, and saturated with diluted cyanide. Gold mining wreaks enormous environmental destruction, almost all of it in service of the voracious global market for gold jewelry. And as good gold […]

Ironweed: Films for the curious

Do you like movies, but are dissatisfied with the selection from the likes of Blockbuster and Netflix? Then perhaps Ironweed might interest you:

Ironweed is more than a monthly film club...

...it's a growing movement of people like you championing independent filmmakers who tell engaging, important, human stories.

Extraordinary films are produced each year that never get beyond film festivals in coastal cities and high mountain ski resorts. With you as our partner, Ironweed scours the festival scene and brings the best new films to your home each month. As a subscriber, your membership fees help support filmmakers and our non-profit partners.

Act Now Productions, which was founded by Adam Werbach and has been producing and distributing socially-conscious media since 1997, is the organization behind Ironweed.

The first DVD should be available sometime in November and will include a documentary about immigrants traveling from Nicaragua to America and two video shorts (one on NYC watering holes and the other on Iraqis and the future of their country).

Coming soon to Ironweed, and what might be particularly of interest to enviros, is Power Trip, "the tragicomic film that follows an American company that buys the energy system in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia and then sends two bungling Americans to make the Georgians pay for power." You can watch the trailer for Power Trip here.

Accidental invention points to end of light bulbs

Regular readers of Treehugger know that they go all ga-ga over LED lighting. So I was surprised not to find a post about this:

An accidental discovery announced this week has taken LED lighting to a new level, suggesting it could soon offer a cheaper, longer-lasting alternative to the traditional light bulb. The miniature breakthrough adds to a growing trend that is likely to eventually make Thomas Edison's bright invention obsolete.

Read the short article over at LiveScience.com to learn about the science behind the accident. On why this is of interest to enviros:

LEDs produce twice as much light as a regular 60 watt bulb and burn for over 50,000 hours. The Department of Energy estimates LED lighting could reduce U.S. energy consumption for lighting by 29 percent by 2025. LEDs don't emit heat, so they're also more energy efficient. And they're much harder to break.

SUVs are about perceived safety, not actual safety

Just noted: this abstract from an article (pdf) in the journal Crime, Media, and Culture:

Driven to extremes: Fear of crime and the rise of the sport utility vehicle in the United States

During the mid-1980s, the sport utility vehicle (SUV) emerged as one of the most popular automobiles in the United States, a trend that continued throughout the 1990s ... Situating the SUV in the context of fear of crime and risk management during the 1980s and 1990s, it is suggested that the SUV's popularity reflects American attitudes toward crime, random violence, and the importance of defended personal space. While consumer attraction to the SUV is typically attributed to two key features -- safety and interior space -- these pragmatic justifications may be viewed as euphemistic. Safety is not road safety but personal safety. Space is not interior cargo space but social space, including the privileged ability to traverse inhospitable terrain to remove oneself from society. (Emphasis added.)

This seems somewhat right to me. SUVs aren't particularly safe vehicles to drive. But they feel safe, at least to some drivers. And that mostly has to do with being large and imposing -- or, essentially, with being perceived as a menace. Managing other people's perceptions might be important if the threat is strangers who mean to do you harm. But it's irrelevant -- or, more accurately, dangerous -- if the threat is flipping upside down at 60 mph.

Which makes me wonder if there's any way to convince people that being safe is actually more important than feeling safe. Sometimes I doubt it.

Warming oceans and Hurricane Wilma

In Environmental Science & Technology, Paul Thacker interviews Judith Curry, climatologist and coauthor of a recent paper in Science on the connection between warming oceans and hurricanes. In her work she found -- as did two similar papers published in peer-reviewed journals recently -- that hurricane intensity is increasing, and it's linked to increasing ocean temperatures, and this is true across the globe. She says:

... you can't use hurricanes to prove that there is global warming. What you can do is show an unambiguous link between the increase in hurricane intensity and the warming sea surface temperatures. And if you look for why the sea surface temperatures are warming since the 1970s, you don't have any explanation other than greenhouse warming.

In totally unrelated news, Hurricane Wilma is the most powerful storm in Atlantic history -- it went from fairly mild to the strongest effing storm ever in 18 hours, blowing away the previous record for speed of intensification.

... Keith Blackwell, hurricane researcher at the University of South Alabama's Coastal Weather Research Center in Mobile ... said Wilma's rapid intensification was caused by the warm waters of the northwest Caribbean, which have spawned other extremely powerful storms.

...

"There are so many astounding things about this season," Blackwell said.

Wacky.