An Easy Green Fix . . . OPT OUT!

Here's a great way to halt an antiquated practice . . . the delivery of felled, pulped, bleached and printed trees to your door every year . . . click here to opt out.

OPT OUT

You have to register and receive an email, log in, and then choose NONE from the available list of crap they automatically deliver to your home.  It's a pain, but takes about 8 minutes, and has been vetted by treehugger.com  http://www.treehugger.com/files/2011/02/yellow-pages-industry-unveils-national-opt-out-site-neg-norton-interview.php

New Construction Makes Modern Rocky Ruins in Veitnam

This amazing office (by this architectural firm) in Ho Chi Minh City has stolen my heart this morning.  It's like a modernist batcave and a secret jungle hidey-hole all wrapped into one.  Thick found-stone walls and carefully placed windows keep it cool, and the playful curves keep you guessing in a soothing way.  From Inhabitat.com.

Seven Green Things your Grandparents Did

This list of seven easy life adjustments we could learn from the "greatest" generation compiled by the often excellent Mother Nature Network:  after le leap . . .

Earth Art Memorialized in sad but true exhibit in NYC

January 8, 2011 is the 25th anniversary of the destruction of Adam Purple's monumental "earthwork" The Garden of Eden.  Photos of the artwork and the artist by acclaimed photographer Harvey Wang (also director of The Last New Yorker) will be displayed for the first time at the FusionArts Museum on Stanton Street, from February 1 - 20.

Peg a point for the Pope!

 

Those of you who peruse these pages perennially know that I'm not the biggest pro-papacy-pundit, but I'm also not above passing out Pope props in a post when it's appropriate.

The Vatican has become the "greenest" nation-state in the world.  With the bringing on-line of it's massive photo-voltaic array, it has surpassed Germany (the leader in such awesomeness) with it's now 200 watts/capita at peak times (DL has 80/per, but WAY more capita)

From yahoo:

"As Vatican City is the smallest state in the world, it does not exactly require a large amount of renewable energy to achieve this title. However, the city’s solar installations, which include solar panels installed on the rooftop of Paul VI’s conference hall, mean that the city can now generate enough energy to power all of its 40,000 households."

So there you go, Pope.  For the next 15 minutes, I'll look the other way on homos, AIDS, greed, molestation, the Holocaust, the Crusades . . . am I rambling? . . . and thank you for leading the charge to charge with the sun.  Small "s" . . . and a "u".

BMW introduces new greener rail cars . . . in Poland

Once again Europe gets there a decade or two ahead of the good 'ol USA.  While we're struggling to hold on to Obama's public transit works in several states (light rail plans dropping like flies, as Republicans scream and deny Fed monies) Poland is welcoming these beauties from BMW. 

"The handholds inside the car are lit from above and shaped like tree branches, which according to the designers are a symbol of the cars’ green ambitions. The carriage’s aluminum chassis has been designed to reduce weight and hence reduce the energy consumption. Moreover, the carriages, according to the designers, are 97.5 percent recyclable."

With spacious interiors, hidden mechanics, and wider doors these dreams of the future will be reality in Warsaw next year.  One more pic. . . .

No grime, no crime. Durban students scrub-tag their world

A group of students in Durban, South Africa have taken to removing grime from buildings and retaining walls, in what could be seen as pro-community graffitti or positive negativity.  Less is certainly more :) 

Gallery HERE from inhabitat
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Energy Positive Building in Austria

By researching the patterns of wind and sun in the building's location, designers have created a building with solar and turbine features that is beautiful and MAKES MORE ENERGY than it consumes.  Bravo!


Gallery HERE.
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Enough with the Race to the Skies - or - The Future of Prestige is Green

While the developing nations of the world race to build spires that amaze with their glimmering glass, it might do us a load of good to remember that those kind of accomplishments also require hot water and poop to be pumped up and down a MILE IN THE AIR, which is stupid.

Check out this green Ski Resort from architect Michael Jantzen:  SLIDE SHOW HERE with a built-in slope, wind and solar power and heating, and plenty of luxury amenities.
 
Cool is what we ask for.

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Smaller is better, Slow is too.

Or are you? (more after the jump)

Get your Green Goo OUT.

Find out what this sludge is . . .

New Yorkers! Dump your electronics the green way this Saturday.

If you're in the NYC area, and you have any of this:

  . . . bring them to TekServe (teamed with the Lower East Side Ecology Center) for free collection and recycling.  Like this:

They do it every year, and it protects air, soil and water from insane levels of toxins

"The components in many electronics can be incredibly hazardous to the environment - contributing up to 70% of the toxins found in landfills - so it's important that they are properly recycled. Find out more through our links to articles on computer recycling. Sponsored collection events, like this one, are one of the easiest ways to properly dispose of your old gadgets in NYC. Due to funding constraints, the city's electronics recycling events and the Build It Green electronics drop-off program have been suspended."

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and now . . . Road Rage with Andy Battaglia -- Episode 1 [ding]

From time to time I'll bring you a totally justified rant from the brilliant cramped mind of Andy Battaglia. Here we go!

"To Whom It May Concern: China is currently building 12 high-speed rail lines that will go upwards of 250 miles per hour across thousands of miles and will open by 2012 effectively making air-travel across short distances a thing of the past. In America we're building a two-mile long subway extension in New York that was first proposed in 1920 and will open in 2017 (maybe), and even that is only partly funded and could be halted (for the fourth time).
If you want crumbling highways and bridges packed with traffic and slow Amtrak trains that take two full days to get from New York to Florida, America is the country for you. For the love of all things, can we invest in rail infrastructure! And by invest, I don't mean talk about it for years and spend millions on "studies" only to delay actual construction for it to eventually be derailed by the automobile industry lobby. France, Germany and Sweden have managed to create the most comprehensive rail systems in the world, and I don't think our being a huge country is a good enough reason for us to not be investing in this stuff. We USED to have fancy things and amazing pieces of engineering and infrastructure in the early parts of the last century. Then we stopped investing and sold off thousands of miles of railroad rights-of-way so that "developers" could replace them with strip malls, and McMansion gated communities with no sidewalks and only cars to get to and from anywhere. Ohh and before that GM bought all of our clean electrified light rail and trolley lines across the country, decreased service to make them unattractive, and then ripped them up so they could be replaced with slow smog-producing GM-made buses. But I digress...Thanks. -Andy"

Thank YOU, Andy.

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Cruise Ships and a Sinking Feeling

Let's start with an image.  Ten swimming pools full of human poo. In one week, the average cruise ship, er . . makes and dumps that much poo LEGALLY as close as three nautical miles from US shore!!  

TEN SWIMMING POOLS OF POOP.  (210,000 gallons)

Add to that 40 swimming pools full of grey water (showers, sinks, laundry, kitchens, bars).  

IN ONE WEEK!! 

Detergents and all! (including perchloroethylene from drycleaning, photo-processing wastes, paint waste, solvents, print shop wastes, fluorescent light bulbs, and batteries) 

50 tons of garbage, glass, paper, cardboard, aluminium and steel cans, and plastics. -- tossed right overboard.

35,000 gallons of oil-contaminated water -- these ships take in large quantities of ballast water, which is seawater pumped into the hulls of ships to ensure stability. This water is typically taken in at one port and then discharged at the ship's destination, which can introduce invasive species and serious diseases into U.S. waters. A typical release of ballast water amounts to 1,000 metric tons. 

Between 1993 and 1998, there were 87 confirmed illegal discharges from cruise ships in state waters (81 cases involving oil; 6 involving garbage or plastic). An additional 17 “other alleged incidents” were referred to the countries where the cruise ships were registered. The industry paid more than $30 million in fines for violations and three cruise lines were placed on five-year felony probation.

• Royal Caribbean admitted (in 2001) in court that they INSTALLED pipes that bypassed the pollution control devices!!  They paid 33.5 MILLION.
• In April 2002, Carnival Corporation pleaded guilty to falsifying records to cover up pollution by six ships over several years. They were assessed an $18 million fine
  

IN ADDITION to the water pollution, cruise ships are a hazard to the air we breathe.  They emit particulates that cause health problems like athsma, as well as more heat-trapping carbon dioxide per passenger mile than aircraft.  Most cruise ships burn bunker fuel, which is 1,000 times dirtier than the fuel burned in diesel trucks. While at port, the main engines are turned off, and diesel engines are revved to sustain refrigeration, electricity, pumps . . . demanding that on-board power come from port electric could instantly make a difference.

What to do?

DON'T GO ON A CRUISE.

or

If you must imprison yourself on one of these floating fecal vessels, investigate the cruise line to be sure their ships do not have a record of pollution. If you are on a cruise ship and observe any dumping of plastic or hazardous materials to sea, you should report it to the National Response Center at 1-800-424-8802. 

This is what you're protecting.

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RE-BURBIA WINNERS. Yes! [fist pump]

The winners of RE-BURBIA have been announced. I honestly don't know when it happened, but HERE they are and they are awesome!

"After a dizzying week of heated debate and lively discussion, Reburbia is very pleased to announce the winners of our month-long competition to redesign the suburbs! The competition called for design solutions that would address the problems that plague present-day suburbia by envisioning different scenarios for the future. Proposals tackled McMansions, big box stores, strip malls, parking lots and more with design fixes ranging from community agriculture and algae-based biofuels to transplanted tract developments and zeppelin-based transit."

I can see why the people's choice winner was so popular, and I love the one that's really just a zoning change.

CitiChix or UrbHen, I suppose.

Taking "buy local" to it's limit, some urban locavores are keeping coops in their city co-ops. HERE are the proud chickens from good.is

Nude Coke makes tons of eco-sense!

It's something I've always wondered about packaging: how much ink or paint is used and wasted and removed and sent to the groundwater for products we would recognize anyway? Well here are some answers and an elegant solution.

"So using only classic Coca-Cola's daily sales figures, that means 24,773,757,785 are sold every year. Twenty-four billion cans. That is indeed a lot of paint and paint removal products. Because this doesn't only affect the production. It also affects the recycling process, eliminating one step:"

I likey.

Fun with emissions.

Visit this keen map and roll over the keys for the different renderings of clustered emission data.

"Emissions Map from the Global Climate Change Lobby"

Of particular interest: Check out how small Canada's overall emissions are, and then switch to per capita! China's overall emissions are the highest – scary until you switch again to per capita and see how insanely much EACH AMERICAN must be using. Now check out BRAZIL under each scenario! Unplug! Well, share this post and then unplug and then go for a bike ride :)

The Story of Stuff

So this is not new news, or a new video, but it remains one of the best reminders of the death-grip stranglehold consumerism has on us. Simple and clear.

"THE STORY OF STUFF"

It should be required viewing for every American. It should pop on the television every night as a public service announcement, brought to you by the Dept. of Homeland Security. Al Gore didn't win the Nobel for Peace because there is no Nobel for Film, he won it because dwindling resources are a global security issue, and addressing massive American consumption is the first step we can take to ease tensions.

Putting the FUN in refund.

Well, not a cash refund really, but this experiment in "fun theory" makes so much sense it's hard not to think of the obvious local benefit as a refund.