Photo via the New Republic It's a widely held notion that politicians have long been in the pocket of Big Oil. And there's good reason for that perception: oil companies' huge campaign donations, vast lobbying power, and close ties to politicians have ensured that their taxes remain low , that hidden subsidies are around to provide extra funding, and that they receive preferential treatment in US energy policy. But there could be a new, ... View original post here: The Next Big Oil: Big Smart Grid?
So there really isn't anything that deep to this image. It's just a (more or less) life-sized blue whale eye. And on the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society site you can educate yourself/be mesmerized/ waste some time for a while staring at it while the entire life-sized animal scrolls across your browser window. Believe me, it's way cooler than you might think:... Read more from the original source: Ever See a Blue Whale Life-Sized on Your Computer? Now You Can
published August 30, 2010 and has No Comments
Photo: Flickr, CC Negawatts Strike Back The immensely popular LCDs screens that are found everywhere in the modern home (television, computer, laptop, cellphones, etc) use less energy than CRTs, the previous technology, but they are still far from being optimally efficient. Only about 8% of the light emitted by a LCD's backlight makes its way out, and the rest ...
Read more...published August 30, 2010 and has No Comments
Image: EPA Making Guzzlers Stand Out Even More One way to nudge people into making better decisions is to make it easier to compare different products and services. There are still many people out there who have no idea if 16 MPG is a good or bad, but if they saw a big red "D" on a sticker, they ...
Read more...published August 30, 2010 and has No Comments
Image: Google Maps 276 Extra Miles Per Year on Average According to a study by British insurer Sheilas' Wheels (watch out for the bright pink website), men waste about £2,000 in fuel over their lifetime because they won't ask for directions when they are lost, leading to an average of 276 extra miles being driven per year. Definitely not ...
Read more...published August 27, 2010 and has No Comments
I was surprised to see a full page ad on the back of Wood Design and Building for Sustainable Insulation TM that looked suspiciously like fibre glass batts. I wondered, a) how do you trademark the words "sustainable insulation" and b) under any definition, how do you call glass fibre insulation sustainable?... Read the full story on TreeHugger See ...
Read more...published August 24, 2010 and has No Comments
"One of the greenest homes ever built" Katherine Salant writes in the Washington Post: Can a big house be green? Yes, but a smaller house will always be greener because fewer resources were used in its construction and less energy is needed to heat and cool it. It is certainly a point we have been discussing on TreeHugger for ...
Read more...published August 20, 2010 and has No Comments
Image credit: Olive Garden & Peter Baker (Creative Commons) When I wrote about drying clothes indoors , I was surprised to hear that some folks had considered opening the windows and cranking up the heat on the thermostat as a "green" method of clothes drying - even when you wouldn't otherwise need to heat your house. But they're not ...
Read more...published August 19, 2010 and has No Comments
Photo: Cree Let There Be Light At TreeHugger, we've been writing about ways to make lighting more energy efficient for years. Not because it's the most important things to do to reduce your footprint (more important things including: signing up for Green Power with your utility company, buying as little stuff as possible and making it last, and using ...
Read more...published August 17, 2010 and has No Comments
Photo: GM Don't Let More Air In Than You Need There are all kinds of tricks to make cars more aerodynamic (and thus more fuel-efficient- here's an extreme DIY example ). One of those tricks is to have a variable geometry air shutter at the front of the vehicle to let more air in when the engine needs cooling, ...
Read more...published August 13, 2010 and has No Comments
Image via Gizmag Rechargable batteries are not all that great yet. In fact, in a question posted to Pablo Paster in our "Ask Pablo" series, the inquiry wasn't which rechargeable batteries to use, but "Why do rechargeable batteries suck?" But researchers are working on ways to improve them so they last longer per charge and have more recharge cycles ...
Read more...published August 13, 2010 and has No Comments
Image credit: The Journey TV It's been a while since I checked in on The Journey TV —the travelling documentary project that brought us videos on an underused train station turned gardening hub , one man's efforts to restore 600 square miles of ancient forest , See the original post here: Is This Ecotopia? Life at Findhorn Ecovillage (Video)
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A Finnish designer has made a working surfboard from broken skateboards. Read the original here: Hollow Surfboard Is Made from Broken Skateboards
How to grow tastier tomatoes and how to make food taste sweeter without sugar: just two amazing discoveries from a study of the chemical interactions underlying tomato flavor preferences Read the rest here: The Secrets of Tasty Tomatoes Discovered - Can ...
