Latest Articles
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Playpump
I'm finally reading Cradle to Cradle in earnest, cover to cover, rather than in pieces. I hope to have more to say about it soon.One thing it's made me realize is how ubiquitous and close-at-hand solutions like this are: Check out the playpump, a water pump that runs on the power of a children's roundabout (or as I believe they're called in these parts, "merry-go-round"). Simple, easy to make and repair, contains no proprietary technology, and works with local energy flows. Lovely.
(Via BB)
(I can't believe I finally got to post about something like this before Worldchanging!)
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Green Chiles
As quality of life improves, Chileans get eco-active Last Saturday, thousands of Chileans marched in 14 cities to celebrate two environmental victories. Green activists helped to shut down the Valdivia wood-pulp facility (owned by the country’s biggest industrial firm, Copec) after pollution from the plant killed hundreds of black-necked swans in a nearby wetland; the […]
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A-Raisin’ Money in the Sun
Investors pouring millions into new nanotech solar-energy firms A merger of cutting-edge nanotechnology with the earth’s oldest power source may revolutionize clean energy. At least three U.S. start-ups are aiming to develop thin, flexible sheets of tiny solar cells for the mass market. If perfected, the companies say, these nano-cells would catapult solar to the […]
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Bomb Voyage
Former French president linked to 1985 bombing of Greenpeace ship Late French President François Mitterrand sanctioned plans to sabotage a Greenpeace ship in 1985, according to a just-uncovered report by the top French intelligence official who devised the plan. The ship, the Rainbow Warrior, was bombed in a New Zealand port, where the crew was […]
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CNOOC-ered
Bush security adviser helped firm land lobbying gig for Chinese oil co. The bid by state-owned China National Offshore Oil Corporation to purchase U.S. oil and gas producer Unocal has raised hackles among some national-security types. So it may seem odd that James C. Langdon Jr., the chair of President Bush’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board […]
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The big three automakers, mass transit, and Zipcars
The "big three" have all announced that they will extend their employee discount to all customers through August 1st, making the battle to get people out of cars and using mass transit all the more uphill. The G8 bombings have also steepened the slope.
The move by Ford, Chrysler, and GM highlights one of the disadvantages that proponents of mass transit face regularly though -- the fact that once a person buys a car, there is a large incentive for that person to put many many miles on it. The cost to the owner of the first few miles of driving after buying the car is incredibly high, since the cost per mile is the full cost of the car divided by only a few miles. In order to get the most out of the purchase, and to not feel like a complete idiot, the car has to be driven a pretty significant number of miles. Other overhead costs are present with cars as well, such as insurance and possible parking considerations.
Mass transit has no such overhead. While some systems have monthly or even yearly passes, there is no mode of transport that locks the user in quite like the automobile.
In a lot of ways, though, modes of transportation are changing and getting away from this simple dichotomy. The Zipcar is one way the overhead for cars is being eliminated, collapsing all costs into an hourly rental rate. Zipcar also claims some green benefits: reducing total miles driven by 50 percent and eliminating the need for up to 10 privately owned cars. The reason, according to their website, is that "people have to pay the full cost of using the car each time they drive," and so "they choose to drive only when it makes economic sense." It's only in a few places along the east coast right now but is expanding to fourteen more cities all over the country soon, and is already popular in Europe.
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Go give some money to Sustainablog
Jeff at Sustainablog is, as promised, blogging around the clock tonight. He's already got 32 posts up, and he's about halfway done with his 24 hour blogathon. Yowza!
Now get over there and start reading. My guest post, on procreating (I'm for it), is up, as are guest posts from a whole range of interesting, provocative eco-bloggers. It's quite a party.
And while you're there, don't forget to donate to the Missouri Botanical Garden's Earthways Center -- make Jeff's 24 hours worthwhile.
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The rise of civilization, part one
I'm watching Guns, Germs and Steel on PBS right now. It started at 10 pm here in Eastern Daylight Time land so if you are located on the other side of the Mississippi and have a free hour coming up I'd recommend it. The way it depicts the interaction of humans and the environment is reminiscent of many topics discussed on this very blog. Even if you've read the book by Jared Diamond or his related work, Collapse, the program is not simply a summary. And I've just been informed that part two will be shown on another night, so I'll have a little more warning than the two minutes I got tonight when I saw a banner ad online at approximately 9:58 ...
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Seth Heine of CollectiveGood answers questionsSeth Heine of CollectiveGood answers Grist’s
Seth Heine. With what environmental organizations are you affiliated? I’m the president of CollectiveGood and RIPMobile.com — mobile phone recyclers. What do your organizations do? What, in a perfect world, would constitute “mission accomplished”? CollectiveGood recycles mobile devices (phones, pagers, PDAs) and all of their related accessories, usually in partnerships with charities, companies, and/or governments. […]
