While everyone’s attention is on the BP oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, we should remember - this ain’t news. Have you ever heard of Ecuador and a little company called Texaco? Probably not - and that’s the problem.
I just finished viewing “Crude: The Real Price of Oil,” and what I learned about […]

Green Label Organic t-shirts more than live up to their name. In addition to being 100% organic cotton, Green Label Organic t-shirts are dyed with eco-conscious low-impact dyes and printed with water-based inks - not the usual PVC or other harsh chemicals. The lack of heavy metals in the printing also contributes to the shirts’ […]

From the Department of Silver Linings: Alaska’s Chukchi and Beaufort seas are safe, at least for the moment. And Virginia’s offshore lease appears to be, well, dead in the water. Thanks, BP!
In the Obama administration’s most decisive policy response yet to the BP oil spill, today Barack Obama delayed or canceled deepwater offshore oil exploration […]

Olivia Bouler, a 10-year-old from Islip, New York, is, in her words, “devastated” about the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. But she isn’t just wringing her hands; she’s wielding pens and colored pencils to help the recovery effort.
Olivia, a frequent visitor to Orange Beach, Alabama, loves the birds there - and loves […]

Running shoes don’t last long: 300 miles of pounding, and they’re trashed - sometimes literally. And in the landfill, they last practically forever. Except my Brooks. Why? They’ve got BioMoGo.
No matter how many lives I give my running shoes - from training to casual street wear to yard work to the donation pile - eventually […]

Green Product Category: Messenger Bags; $90
We gave our Keen Cornell II sustainable messenger bag the ultimate test: a middle schooler. He lugged books, lunches and lacrosse sticks, stuffing the bag to well beyond capacity - and lobbing it at his locker. Despite the abuse, the material held up well, with seams and zippers intact. Aside […]

Welcome to 2010, the soon-to-be hottest year on record.
This week the US National Oceanic and Atomspheric Administration (NOAA) released its preliminary global temperatures for April. Verdict: hot.
In fact, this April was the hottest on record:

April global land and ocean surface temperature: warmest on record.
April global ocean surface temperature: warmest on record.
January to April global land […]

If Annie Leonard’s Story of Bottled Water doesn’t convince you that bottled water is a scam, maybe comedian Lewis Black will. Black waxes bombastic on the bottled water industry: “Because when I think clean water - oh, yeah - I f***ing think Coke and Pepsi.”
Beware: Black’s language is about as clean as Coca-Cola’s waste stream.

Thanks […]

I figured I’d regret giving BP credit for its oil spill response. Daniel Gross catalogs BP bumbling.

I’m trying to teach my 6-year-old about conserving resources and reducing waste. My recent object lesson: paper towels in public restrooms.
“See,” I show her, “I used one paper towel, getting it thoroughly wet while getting my hands dry enough.”
She dutifully uses one towel. She looks at me quizzically. “My hands still feel wet.”
“They’ll dry in […]

Thinking about solar panels for your roof, but not sure about the cost? Use Google Earth to suss out your home’s solar energy footprint.
RoofRay.com zeroes in on your rooftop via Google Earth to analyze your roof’s sunlight potential and estimate your solar ROI: how much would solar panels cost you, and how much could you […]

In Dell’s ongoing efforts to green their business, the company just announced that their new bamboo cushion packaging is certifiably compostable, having received the American Society for Testing and Materials ASTM D6400 certification. Dell started shipping netbooks in the packaging in November 2009; they now use it for some of their Inspiron line of laptops […]

The THINK electric car company just received a $40 million “battery charge” - an equity investment designed to help the company increase product development and launch in the United States. The Norwegian automaker plans to start selling the THINK City EV in the US in 2010 and will begin manufacturing the vehicle in Elkhart, Indiana, […]

CNN has a good description of why the dome failed to cap BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill: methane hydrates. So what’s next?

Next up: a “top hat” temporary containment solution, followed by a “junk shot” - filling the hole full of debris and then sealing it off with concrete. Eh?And if that doesn’t work, they’ve […]

A new study is out showing that climate change could render much of the world physically uninhabitable:
“We found that … a 21-degree warming would put half of the world’s population in an uninhabitable environment,”says study co-author Matthew Huber of Purdue University.
Unless, of course, we do even better than that and wipe out the entire planet.
But […]

Is Arizona the root of all evil? The ongoing FDA investigation of a recent lettuce-induced E. coli outbreak is focusing “on lettuce grown in Arizona,” according to the AP. The outbreak has sickened at least 19 people, 3 seriously, in 23 eastern states and the District of Columbia, including students on three college campuses.
Students at […]

Over the last few years, BP, the petroleum company formerly known as British Petroleum, has been in a mad rush to re-brand themselves, launching the disingenuous “Beyond Petroleum” campaign and making big statements about “alternative energy” - which, in their very generous definition, includes natural gas. They even change the color of all their stations […]

Amtrak has thrown us enviros an eco-curveball. The rail operator recently announced the nation’s first biofuel-powered locomotive on its line from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma to Fort Worth, Texas. Awesome! The catch? The biodiesel feedstock is beef tallow.
Of course we want to support biodiesel efforts that have real benefits in reduced emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), […]