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 February 1, 2011 and has No Comments
Image: Sportsnewscaster The National Football League has announced that it will be offsetting pretty much all of Super Bowl XLV's energy expenditures this year -- an amount that evidently adds up to a staggering 15,000 megawatt hours. They'll be offsetting the energy use with renewable energy certificates provided by Just Energy , and it will cover a long list ...
Read more...published January 29, 2011 and has No Comments
Photo Credit: Average Jane , Flickr. Granola can be a good source of fiber, and granola can be used as another word for Treehugger. Then there's grano.la. Notice the dot. It's a software program developed by a Virginia Tech prof with a TV star name and a graduate student with a fantastic mustache. The program can reportedly increase the ...
Read more...published January 6, 2011 and has No Comments
Photo: FaceMePLS , Flickr, CC We knew it was going to happen, and now it has: Republicans have killed the House Select Committee for Energy Independence and Global Warming. They did so as promised, shortly after taking office. The committee was designed specifically to shape policy on global warming and energy issues. Since its creation in 2006, it held ...
Read more...published January 6, 2011 and has No Comments
image: Thomas / Creative Commons You may have seen headlines this morning about how global spam email levels have suddenly fallen , declining from approximately 200 billion spam messages in August to just 50 billion in December. Which got me thinking: Since spam is about 80% of email traffic , how much energy and gr... Read the full story ...
Read more...published January 4, 2011 and has No Comments
Boston, MA. Photo: Wikipedia , CC That's the Plan, Anyway... Ian Bowles, the secretary of the Massachusetts Energy and Environmental Affairs (EEA), has announced an ambitious (compared to some) greenhouse gas emission limit for his state. The goal is a 25% reduction compared to 1990 levels, and that has to be achieved by 2020. "Massachusetts has already taken great ...
Read more...published December 28, 2010 and has No Comments
File this one in the interestingly geeky diversion category: Coming to TreeHugger via The Cost of Energy is what they are calling the "coolest looking graph in climate science"--which helps visualize... Read the full story on TreeHugger Continued here: Watch The Earth Breathe: A History of Atmospheric CO2 (Video)
Read more...published December 28, 2010 and has No Comments
Image via FlyingSinger Modeling systems are incredibly helpful for anticipating the effects of everything from weather to policy decisions on the environment and human populations. They can simulate what might happen when a storm hits a coastline or a new farming policy is enacted that could impact ground water. Typically modeling systems are specific to topics or geographic areas. ...
Read more...published December 21, 2010 and has No Comments
Image Credit: Resources for a Sustainable Future There is a strange debate going on at Green Building Advisor, where a writer thinks "home buyers have been "brainwashed" into thinking only about R-values, as energy codes give short shrift to the importance of airtightness." The debate goes back and forth, but not once to they address the real point: How ...
Read more...published December 21, 2010 and has No Comments
Photo by respres via Flickr Creative Commons When I first read the headline of the article on PressDemocrat stating that kids are now to have access to fresh water where they eat their lunches, my jaw dropped a little. Have I been out of school long enough for all the water fountains in cafeterias to have disappeared?! Apparently, yes. ...
Read more...published December 21, 2010 and has No Comments
Image credit: Earthshipkirst Appalachian Gothic architecture made from recycled pallet wood is by no means the only DIY housing option using reclaimed materials. In fact, TreeHugger has featured countless posts on "earthships"—self-sufficient passive solar homes built from old tires, cans, mud and concrete. From Justin's introduction to the earthship concept , via Kristin's post on Read the original here: How ...
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The office building, going for LEED Platinum, is built on top of a brick factory from another era. It rises to the challenge. Go here to read the rest: The Centre For Green Cities At Evergreen Brickworks Demonstrates How To ...
"The stakes are very high and scientists are not the best people to deal with the social, ethical or political issues that geoengineering raises." View original here: Geoengineering is a Technical Fix for a Political Problem
