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Browse the web like an eco-chic geek

The eco-revolution will not be televised. This time, it’s on the web in the form of a sleek new web browser at Flock.com. If you want to keep tabs on the latest green scene while staying caught up on whatever your friends are doing, then the Flock Eco browser is all you need. Based on […]

It’s happening, reports The New York Sun

Is the U.S. on the brink of food rationing? Possibly. Reports The New York Sun: Major retailers in New York, in areas of New England, and on the West Coast are limiting purchases of flour, rice, and cooking oil as demand outstrips supply. It’s hard to know what to make of the report, though. The […]

New server farm projected to use 103 MW of power

Interesting feature in the March issue of Harper's if you missed it: Google's server farms use a heckuva lot of energy. A planned server farm in The Dalles, Ore. will probably use 103 megawatts of mega-hydro electrons, enough to power 82,000 homes, according to the author, Ginger Strand. Server farms used more power than TVs in the U.S. in 2006, and this may increase as other search firms gear up to battle Google. Of course, the proliferation of flat-screen energy hogs since then may level that playing field ...

But the point here is that internet search isn't impact-free, and Google's good efforts to develop the renewable industry through grants and investments might be better viewed as more of an offset for its own impacts.

Calculate how much water your lifestyle requires

Remember when calculating your carbon footprint was all the rage? Ah, those were the days … but the carbon crisis is so yesterday’s news. The Next Big Thing is the water crisis, and as such, I present a little website called Waterfootprint.org. Use it to calculate your individual water footprint — or see how much […]

New and improved ecological footprint calculator from Redefining Progress

Redefining Progress, which had one of the original and most influential "ecological footprint" calculators, has rebuilt their ecological footprint quiz from the ground up. Check it out, and report your results here. What’s your footprint?

A toxic tour, coming to a city near you

The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act -- better known as the Superfund -- was born in 1980, largely in response to the Love Canal disaster. At the time, experts thought the allocated $1.6 billion would more than cover the costs of cleaning up the sites. But today, the fund is exhausted (it officially went broke in 2003), and as of September 2007, there are 1,315 final and proposed sites with thousands more awaiting approval. So it is taxpayers, instead of the polluting companies, that are footing the bill. Still, few people -- except, perhaps, those who live near a Superfund site -- know about this toxic legacy.

Artist Brooke Singer has decided to make it relevant again. Last year, she and her team began visiting one toxic site per day, starting at a chemical plant in New Jersey, then jumping over to some zinc piles in Pennsylvania, then some landfills in Connecticut. They have cataloged all the toxics data, plus photos and histories, all on a cool visualization application called Superfund365. Visitors to the website are encouraged to contribute their own stories and images as well.

The tour will wrap up next year at the Pearl Harbor Naval Complex in Hawaii. Hopefully by that time, thanks to Singer and co., Americans will be more aware of the problem ... and of the people who live with it daily.

New online game illustrates the impacts of overfishing

Following in the footsteps of other web-based enviro games such as Whale's Revenge, Planet Green, and, uh, Catstration (okay, maybe that one is a stretch) comes Ocean Survivor. The game has no relation to a certain CBS reality show; players swim through the sea as a bluefin tuna and avoid obstacles like death-by-bottom-trawler:

Chris Anderson: Paper mags are better on carbon than websites

From 1998 until 2006, the Wired website and Wired magazine had different owners and were run separately. In 2006, Condé Nast bought the website back and reunited them. I’ve heard rumors that there were some tensions along the way. I can’t help but wonder if those tensions are behind an odd post from Chris Anderson, […]

Encyclopedia of Life up, but empty

A tip from Canis sent me to the Encyclopedia of Life, which came online last week. I posted on this project about nine months ago. I was skeptical that it would amount to much back then, so I was curious to see if I had missed the mark (as usual). I typed in a bunch of species and found nothing but placeholders for them. The site is still an empty shell, about 99.999 percent short of its goal. They have the categories in place, ready for armies of professional, hand-selected curators with nothing better to do than volunteer their free time to fill in the information.

Yes, I'm still skeptical. The whole idea behind Wikipedia is bottom-up data acquisition. In a sense, it is analogous to a free market: iterative and imperfect, but productive and useful. If every article in Wikipedia had to pass muster from an appointed expert on each subject, there would be no Wikipedia. The EOL will never see the success of Wikipedia with its present top-down, command-and-control structure.