Bling

An Op-Ed piece the Boston Globe connects with, and expands upon, the idea of the GUPPY.

I'm not a professional, so I guess I'm just a GUY (some would argue that I'm not even that, more of a GU). But whatever the label, this is what How to Save the World for Free is about- finding a better way to use resources that also serves as a more rewarding, financially, physically and morally, way to live.

via Worldchanging

Technorati tag: GUPPY

Back to school

The Hockerton Housing Project is a residential sustainable development near Southwell in Nottinghamshire. Completed in 1998 it was built using organic and recycled materials and is made to be as near self sufficient and undamaging over the whole life cycle as possible. Now those of us who want to go down the same road can learn from Hockerton, as there is a master class and tour on July 14th. Off Grid has more information.

Technorati tag: EcoHouse

GUPPYS

Green urban professionals who are young. A combination of younger families, higher paying jobs and ground and energy costs- and the fact that it's becoming trendy- has led to an upswing in the amount of energy concious building in the US' Northwest.

via Sustainablog

Technorati tag: EcoHouse, Lifestyle

Pitching Green

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) has launched Pitching Green, a guide for producers and consumers of Green products. Consumers can download a guide to what all the eco labels mean and suppliers can subscribe to a newsletter explaining how and why to pitch green products.

via CityHippy

Technorati tag: Green products

3 blades to the wind

In a way, the Navy are the obvious armed force to take to wind power. It is part of their heritage, after all. The US Navy has erected four windmills at its most controversial base.

Standing 275-foot tall, with blades spanning 177 feet, the Navy's four new 3-blade wind turbines are among the most noticeable features at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Each of the four turbines will generate 950 kilowatts (kw) of electricity. Together, the four turbines will generate 3,800 kw, and in years of typical weather the wind turbines will produce almost 8 million kilowatt-hours of electricity. They will reduce the consumption of 650,000 gallons of diesel fuel, reduce air pollution by 26 tons of sulfur dioxide and 15 tons of nitrous oxide, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 13 million pounds each year.

Technorati tag: Wind power, Guantanamo

46 Reasons Why

Building Green puts forward a selection of benefits to, erm, building green, for architects to pick and choose the ones relevant to a project and make selling it to the client more likely.

To those of us entrenched in the green building world the benefits seem obvious. Why would anyone choose to build in a way that isn’t comfortable, healthy, and energy efficient? In the process of designing and building green, however, we keep running into others who are not yet as convinced. For those situations, it’s useful to be able to spell out the benefits.

The building owner ultimately calls the shots, so getting that person or group on board early is essential. But not every owner will find the same arguments compelling: a hospital board may opt for green because certain green features promote healing, a commercial office property holding company may incorporate green features to speed the lease-out and thus lower carrying costs, a federal agency may desire green features to improve employee morale and increase job retention.

Even within a single project, different team members often have different reasons for promoting a green agenda. The architect may promote environmental measures because she feels it’s the right thing to do. The facilities manager who will take care of a building may recognize inherent durability and maintenance advantages. And the owner may look strictly at bottom-line financial benefits of green.

via Treehugger

Technorati tag: EcoHouse, Green building

Staying Current

Bring up the subject of banking and you'll quickly hear me moan about how shit NatWest are. Not so much the charges and other bullshit, because I expect those from any bank, but the repetitive incompetence that's seen me in negative feedback cycles of ever increasing charges and overdraft. I'm changing bank sooner or later and the Cooperative has been at the top of my list of potential new homes for my cash for a while.

Hippyshopper draws attention to the Coop's Privilege account, which is full of special offers designed to warm the Green heart. As with all premium accounts, you have to weigh up the pros and cons. Money off Ecotricity electricity is tempting, and an incentive to switch, but travel insurance deals aren't much use to me at the moment. And there's a charge, of course. Discounting the other benefits the interest rate on the account means you have to maintain a balance of over 5 grand to cover the expense of the account. If I had that much money to sit in a bank account I'd find one where it worked for me.

The Coop is still top of my list for my next current account, but I don't want their Privilege account for the time being.

Technorati tag: Banking

John "Solar Panel" Prescott

Tucked away at the bottom of this news piece about a defecting Labour MP-

Elsewhere, four Greenpeace activists tried to install a solar panel on the rooftop of Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott's home in Hull in protest at the government's energy record.

Update Ananova has more information.

[Ben Stewart, of Greenpeace,] said: "We have people up on the roof who have got the equipment to fit a solar panel.

"We want to draw attention to the Government's record on energy efficiency.

"We have unveiled a banner which says 'Oi Two Jags. Hit Targets, Not Voters'.

"I don't know if Mr Prescott is at home but we think his wife, Pauline, is inside."

Technorati tag: Solar Power, Election

Nuclear Future

Honourable Fiend has a compelling take on the recent upsurge in interest in Nuclear power as "environmentalyy friendly" and a good stop gap towards the zero carbon future.

It's also extremely bad news for the commercial entities which depend on that weapons-power-weapons cycle for their bread and butter. Hence the current US fad idea of building new nuclear power stations "to reduce CO2 emissions while renewables are too expensive". Which is obviously a complete crock of shit since it's only cheaper because it's subsidized to the lug'oles, and it's only subsidized to the lug'oles because it's required to maintain a weapons programme. Plus of course there's the minor issue of waste management.

I worked at Sellafield for a while in the early nineties and there was a certain smugness that must come from being a protected industry. The biggest example of which has to be the THORP programme, which went ahead before the main customer, Japan, had signed any contracts on the understanding that if anything went wrong then the Government would surely underwrite something that had already cost X hundred million pounds rather than risk BNFL collapsing.

Technorati tag: Nuclear Power

Wind/Gas

Another example of an experiment to use surplus wind power to make hydrogen for when the wind isn't blowing. This one is at a University of Minnesota campus that already generates a lot of its own electricity and sells its excess to the grid.

Technorati tag: Wind Power, Hydrogen

Hippy flats

The four flat block at 56 Tomlins Grove, E3 is very nearly self sufficient energy wise. The building has a silent wind turbine on the roof, solar panels and a conservatory for each flat that acts as a miniature power station.

Technorati tag: Energy Efficiency, Green building

Treehugger gets it

I took issue yesterday with the suggestion that Green is expensive, and today Justin Thomas at Treehugger says pretty much the same thing (only a little more eloquently). Got to keep pushing the message- "Saving the world makes you richer."

Technorati tag: Green, Money

That's old ice

A 900,000 year ice core sample should provide more data about the historical correlation of Carbon dioxide concentration to periods of global warming, further discrediting the naysayers.

Technorati tag: Global Warming

No Waste Like Home

It looks like the BBC has had an idea similar to How to Save the World for Free, and they're looking for volunteers to take part in the show.

Technorati tag: Waste, BBC

London Green Lifestyle Show

Scheduled for World Environment Day on June 5th, there is to be a big Green living show in Greenwich. It's a bit far for me to travel, I should check out what similar events MAnchester council has planned.

Londoners will be able to pick up tips on how to make changes at home, work or in their leisure time to help improve their own standard of living and protect and enjoy the environment.

The event is part of Mr Livingstone's aim of making London a sustainable city powered using renewable energy sources, where waste will be minimised and recycled, food waste will be composted and noise and air pollution will be reduced.

Technorati tag: Green Living, London

Hydrogen Village

One of the major complaints about wind power is that it isn't an "on demand" power source, you get electricity when the wind speed is within a certain range, which isn't always the time when the power is needed. A pilot scheme on Canada's Prince Edward Island may have the answer. It uses power from windmills to convert water to hydrogen, which can be stored and used as combustible fuel or in fuel cells. Though there are questions about the efficiency of conversion it does offer one possible solution. Possibly future wind farms could incorporate a small hydrogen power plant. When output is greater than demand hydrogen can be produced that would run the plant when output from the windmills dropped below a certain level.

Technorati tag: Wind Power, Fuel Cell, Hydrogen

Dry Ton

Biomass could provide up to one third of the US' fuel requirements, without requiring major changes in production methods, a scientific report has concluded.

Looking at just forestland and agricultural land, the two largest potential biomass sources, the study found potential exceeding 1.3 billion dry tons per year. That amount is enough to produce biofuels to meet more than one-third of the current demand for transportation fuels, according to the report.

Technorati tag: Biomass, Alternative Energy

It's only the future, no need to worry the voters with it

Greenpeace has attacked the three main parties for leaving the environment out of their election campaigns. I heard a bit about this on Today this morning and they kept coming back to the meme that the "average voter" didn't want to hear about having to reduce their living standards in order to tackle environmental problems.

There's a simple answer to that. Don't tell them they'll have to reduce their living standards. Because they won't have to, if the issue is tackled properly. Of course, when 50% of people think that saving energy is going to cost them money- because they have a stupidly short sighted outlook and can't calculate long term savings against upfront cost, it's going to be a hard sell. But that's one of the things I set up this blog for.

Technorati tag: Election, Environment

Shrinkage

A comprehensive study of the Antarctic Peninsula, using aerial photographs dating back to the 1940s and more recent satellite images, shows that most of the area's glaciers have been steadily retreating for the last 50 years. The rate of retreat has increased since the millennium. It can't all be explained by global warming, and some glaciers have grown (32, compared to the 212 that have shrunk), but man made effects have exacerbated natural climate variations.

Technorati tag: Global Warming

Fair trade mahogany

Following similar principles to those of Fair Trade coffee, a scheme run by the Rainforest Alliance hopes to make hardwood harvesting sustainable.

Technorati tag: Fair Trade, Forests

The people's solar house

Mother Earth News on the quest for cheap net-zero-energy houses.

Technorati tag: EcoHouse

Polysilicon

One knock on effect of the dot-com bust was an oversupply of polycrystalline silicon. The low prices gave a boost to the photovoltaic industry and increased margins and profits even as unit prices came down. Now, however, the price is on the way up again. The industry has two factors protecting it, the fact that a great deal of solar power installation is legislated for or subsidised and the increase in efficiency and systems that use no silicon at all.

Because of all the reselling, reprocessing, and recycling in the silicon industry, silicon producers don’t keep track of what happens to the silicon once they sell it, he said. “No one on the planet understands what is happening with the silicon supply,” [Rogol] said.

Technorati tag: Solar Power

If you happen to be on Fulton Street

No website for this, so, from the press release-

In an effort to promote environmental consciousness among NYC businesses, Habana Outpost is pioneering the use of solar panels as a primary energy source, and green products whenever possible (everything from eco-friendly detergents to environmental wood alternative wood benches).

(PRWEB) April 21, 2005 -- Cafe Habana is opening an outpost and new location on saturday, May 21, 2005 and run to Halloween from 12-8pm. Located at 755-757 Fulton Street in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, the Outpost will include indoor and outdoor spaces.

The launch of Habana Outpost: Brooklyn, a new venture by entrepreneur/restauranteur, Sean Meenan (owner of Nolita’s Cafe Habana), the Outpost’s patented and famous grilled corn and other Cuban favorites, will be served to you from the Habana food truck. You have your choice to eat inside, or on the spacious patio. In an effort to promote environmental consciousness among NYC businesses, Habana Outpost is pioneering the use of solar panels as a primary energy source, and green products whenever possible. Everything from eco-friendly detergents to environmental wood alternative wood benches.

Technorati tag: Solar Power, Environmental business

Earth Day bump

It's Earth Day tomorrow, so a number of mainstream sources are doing themed stories, such as this one- Christian Science Monitor on green technology- and this one- looking at encouraging Green trends.

Technorati tag: Earth Day

Electric Dream Machine

The perfect solution for medium length commutes (between 10 and 20 miles as far as I'm concerned)- an electric scooter with added solar panels so it can recharge during the day. The owner reckons the solar cells generate enough charge over the 9 hours he's in the office to half top up the batteries.

Technorati tag: Electric scooter, Transportation

I want to break free

Next week is National Downshifting Week. I don't think I was ever in a high enough gear, but the principles of making your life simpler and cutting down on unnecessary expenses is in tune with what this blog is all about.

via hippyshopper

Technorati tag: Downshifting, Lifestyle

Wind time

I'd prefer a solar mobile charger, but this wind up one is cool and a lot cheaper. You could give it to kids to restrict the calls they made on their mobile and get them to exercise.

Though with one arm much more pumped up than the other, people might start to talk.....

via hippyshopper, who have a far more sensible idea of using it at festivals and other occasions when you don't want to be caught in a field with no charge.

Technorati tag: Recharge

Ethel

I've been neglecting the other source of biofuel for vehicles. Micro Fuel Plants produce ethanol stills for anyone wishing to run their cars on alcohol. Currently only available directly in the US and Canada, they do have a contact e-mail for those of us in other countries.

For the full Dukes of Hazzard effect, they also make moonshine stills.

Technorati tag: Bio Fuel

Forage

Digest- the Spinneyhead food, diet and health blog- will be launching later this week. Amongst the planned features, my sister is going to be writing up her experiences of growing food in a small city garden and the urban opportunities open to the keen epicurean. In the mean time, Off Grid reviews books dedicated to "Wild foods".

Technorati tag: Wild food

Saving the Earth, one room at a time

Green Remodelling, a guide to improving your home and lowering your ecological impact in easy stages.

via Treehugger

Technorati tag: Books

A+

It's going to be a long time before I can afford to build my own eco-house, or own an ordinary one to make more efficient. Until then I'll have to get by trying to green up rented places. This is a tricky prospect, because some of the most power hungry equipment is the stuff the landlord includes in the deal. I've purchased a washing machine for a flat, but the real baddie in the kitchen, it would appear, is that whitest of white goods- the fridge.

Technorati tag: Energy efficiency

Green bags

Hippyshopper points us all to alotoforganics, their favourite source for all things green and ethical.

Technorati tag: Organic

Value for money, part two

In a similar vein to my rant about energy efficiency and property values, Worldchanging reprints an essay about the hidden benefits of greening.

Technorati tag: Energy efficiency, Green business

Pro and Con

The Independent assesses the cases for and against various organic foods. Organic milk, pork and chicken are definitely better, whereas with fruit and veg the important thing is to eat, or freeze, them as soon after harvesting as possible.

Technorati tag: Food

Value for Money

One complaint I heard a couple of times yesterday was that the inclusion of energy saving features in houses, whether they be new builds or refurbishments, doesn't enhance their value. It has to be time to do something about this. Other, sometimes ludicrous, "improvements" can do wonders for a house's price, so why not ones that save money?

I was looking at gas boilers and found a Powergen stand touting the WhisperGen micro Combined Heat and Power system which I've mentioned before. Take up the company's offer and you can have the CHP installed for around £3000, with a special deal whereby you sell excess electricity back to them. They estimate the system will write off the greater expense of its installation, in saved electric bills and power sold back, within 4 years. But what if you want to move out in 2 years time? You haven't fully recouped the costs and the new owner will inherit £150 a year (PowerGen's figures) in electricity savings. Surely that has to be worth something on top of all the other factors that affect a building's cost? Even after you've passed into profit the presence of such money saving tech should add to the value of your house.

Surely anything that makes a house cheaper to run, from insulation through to full energy independence, should make it more valuable. A green home that's off the grid for most of the year has to be worth more to a buyer than an equivalent sized muggle house whose occupants are being charged to damage the environment. I don't know where we go to increase the value of green choices, but I say we start here.

Technorati tag: Housing, Combined Heat and Power

Zip

The BBC takes a look at Zipcar car rentals, short term, mostly urban and very high tech ways to get a car.

Technorati tag: Transport, Zipcar

Bug Out

Organic insect control methods.

Technorati tag: Gardening

The future's bright, the future's LED

Light emitting diodes could eventually pass the compact flourescent bulb as the energy saver's lighting of choice. Bulbs are made up of arrays of red, blue and green bulbs which can produce white light up to six times brighter than equivalent power incandescent bulbs. The levels can also be varied to produce mood lighting. At the moment unit costs are far too high for domestic use, but that used to be the main drawback of compact flourescent as well. Development and a growing market should bring them into sensible price bands soon enough.

via Slashdot

Technorati tag: Lighting

I can't drive for miles and miles

Volkswagen have halted development of a super efficient vehicle. The two seater had a 300cc diesel engine and super light frame and could manage 60 miles per litre. However it lacked luggage space and was going to be too expensive to produce. It's sort of a loss and not a loss. VW are still producing the Lupo TDI, which does 20 miles per litre. Combine that with biodiesel and you could be onto a winner.

via Jalopnik

Technorati tag: Fuel economy, Volkswagen

You are what you throw away

Around a third of all food in the UK is thrown away. The process starts with the need for perfect, symmetrical and clean groceries and continues all the way through the process to failure to reuse left overs and throwing out stuff that's a second past its sell by date. I couldn't calculate it, but I'd hazard a guess that Casa Spinneyhead's cost per capita in food waste is less than the national average of £420 per year, especially now we've started composting. (A matter for another time is just what the hell am I going to do with the compost when it matures? It's not like we have a garden or anything.)

Technorati tag: Food, Waste

The bride wore green

I doubt Greensage will ship to the UK, the shipping would negate any ecological benefits from the products, but if you're in the US and want an Earth friendly wedding, they offer a wedding list service.

via Treehugger

Technorati tag: Green Shopping

Domespace

They look like a Teletubby home, but Domespace buildings are optimised to catch the sun, made from renewable nmaterials and can even turn to track the best light during the day. All you need to do is dress your Vroomba up as NuNu and you're sorted.

via Treehugger

Technorati tag: EcoHouse

Six of one, half a dozen the other

With Chloroflourocarbons phased out the ozone layer may be safer, but the replacement chemicals are proving to be greenhouse gases.

"Initially, it was thought these were an ideal solution -- obviously that was not the case if they were contributing to another problem."

While CFCs contribute more per unit to global warming, the rapid increase in the use of replacement chemicals makes them now the greater threat to climate stability, Metz told the AP in a telephone interview.

Technorati tag: CFCs, greenhouse gases

Turkey Guts

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Big Bang at the ballot box

Call me a cynic, but Tony Blair's hinted renewal of support for the Metrolink smacks of electioneering to me. I'd like to see trams running in the south of Manchester but for the next few weeks I'm going to be even less inclined than normal to believe a word the PM says.

Technorati tag: Transport, Manchester, Election

Strange Days

National Geographic's Strange Days on Planet Earth promises to offer simple ways for individuals to change the world and tackle issues ranging from climate change to invasive species.

(And it's hosted by Edward Norton, Fight Club fans.)

Technorati tag: Activism

Green Paper

The Green Party launch their election manifesto today, expanding beyond their obvious base into areas of social justice.

Technorati tag: Election

Reverse

It's a guilty pleasure, but I do enjoy Top Gear. I disagree with Clarkson on just about everything, but he is eternally watchable, and the Little Man is a Casa Spinneyhead favourite. I wouldn't go as far as Transport 2000 and say the programme should be scrapped completely, but there definitely should be a Two Wheels Good or How To Save The World For Free (two programmes I'd like to pitch) as balance.

Technorati tag: Transport

Flat Earth

The Flat Earth Awards, open for voting and to be awarded to the person judged the dumbest environmental naysayer. The website was set up by a bunch of college students as part of a class on climate change and activism

Technorati tag: Environmentalism, Climate Change

Energy Gap

Radio 4 has challenged a British family to live on the same energy as an Indian family and are tracking the results in a series of 15 minute programmes this week. The aim is to highlight the current difference between our countries and also consider the world's requirements as India and China catch up with the West. There's no dedicated page yet, but you can listen to Monday's episode via streaming.

Technorati tag: Energy

Swell Power

Treehugger examines the four main types of wave power, easily the least polluting and- with the two buoy variants anyway- least intrusive form of energy generation.

Technorati tag: Wave Power

Home on the NEC

On Friday, trains and other things permitting, I should be attending the Home Building Show at the NEC. It has a Green Village and, running alongside, the Smart Homes Show. I'll be dividing my time between the two.

Technorati tag: Self Build

Clean Green

It's all well and good going over to biodiesel as a way to free yourself from the oil industry, but you're still burning fuel and pumping something out the back. Is it actually any cleaner?

Yes, according to the study cited by WVOfuels.

Technorati tag: Biodiesel

Power Shower

Hippyshopper isn't happy with their water bill, and has some plans to cut it.

Technorati tag: Water

Not through my bars

A different take to wind power's NIMBY problem. The company running a windmill close to Whitemoor jail have agreed to turn it off early in the morning because flickering shadows from the spinning blades were aggravating prisoners.

Whitemoor contains prisoners it is best not to upset, including road rage killer Kenneth Noye, Jeremy Bamber who murdered his family, and Barry George, who killed television presenter Jill Dando.

Technorati tag: Wind Power

Auf Wiedersehn, Pet?

A robotic wall laying machine could dramatically change the way buildings are erected. From an eco point of view, the materials used can be changed and complex shapes formed- if the solar ventilation for a pbuilding requires complex ducting the robo-builder can do it from CAD designs- and labour savings can bring the prices down.

Khoshnevis is inspired by the technology’s potential to build dignified low-income housing. “A billion people today do not have adequate shelter,” he says. Using soil dug from the building site and stabilized with cement, the contour crafter could erect inexpensive dwellings customized to a family’s needs.

via Slashdot

Technorati tag: Construction

Smarter than Smart

The G-Wiz promises to be the greenest car to run in the UK. Charge it up overnight for daily running costs as low as £1.64. You don't even need to worry that the electricity used is unsound, the company promises to carbon balance the production, shipping and first 16,000 miles of running. Whilst being carbon neutral in your daily transport you can campaign for more green electricity to charge it in its twilight years.

I might even forgive the school run if this is what the mums were turning up in.

via Treehugger

Technorati tag: Electric car, Transport

Compost

Casa Spinneyhead still throws away a lot of perfectly good composting material, so I'm looking at ways to utilise it.

Hippyshopper recommends wormeries, but I'm working on a budget. Recyclemore.co.uk has cheaper options. The Community Composting Network has resources if I wanted to get my neighbours to muck in. Allegedly the council has a scheme where I can get cheap compost boxes, but the number on the website has been disconnected, so that's not much use. They do run the Kerb it green waste recycling service, but we're obviously not in any of the chosen pilot areas.

To conclude- it's off to B&Q I go!

UpdateJeff pointed me to this easy DIY wormery, and I found the Green Cone, designed to speed up the composting through solar heating and insulation and feed the nutrients direct into your soil.

Technorati tag: Compost

Toward the Carnot limit

The Carnot Limit is the maximum efficiency possible for a heat engine. Until now thermoelectric devices have only had an efficiency of 15% of the Carnot limit. However, research with nanostructured materials will allow a new generation of thermoelectric devices to operate nearer to the limit, opening up a whole range potential uses from silent computer cooling to geothermal power.

Technorati tag: Heat Engine

CCL

The Climate Change Levy (Fuel Use and Recycling Processes) Regulations 2005. I'm going to go back and digest this later.

Technorati tag: Climate Change

Solar Campus

A new building on Napier University's Merchiston Campus is to have solar panels installed on one wall that will power 80 of the building's 500 PCs and sell electricity to the grid on the days the building is empty.The University is also going to be using the array to research the efficiency and effectiveness of the panels.

Technorati tag: Solar Power, Green Building

Waterworld

CLIMSystems of New Zealand have released SimCLIM, a program that will simulate sea level changes at various scales. From the press release-

CLIMsystems Ltd., Hamilton, New Zealand (PRWEB) April 7, 2005 -- A new software package has just been released on the World Wide Web that enables coastal zone managers, coastal zone property owners and any other people or organisations interested in coastal zone issues to create scenarios of future sea-level change at global, regional and local scales. The SimCLIM Sea-Level Scenario Generator software, found at http://www.climsystems.com/site/home/, provides an easy-to-navigate windows platform for creating a wide range of sea-level change scenarios using the latest scientific knowledge. The software is unique as it is the first of its type to provide users with the capacity to create scenarios of future sea-level anywhere in the world that take into account global, regional and local components of change.

I'm going to use it to see what conditions would result in a beach on my doorstep, but it will have serioususes for coastal inhabitants and the people who manage our coastlines.

Technorati tag: Sea Levels, Global Warming

Planting on the ceiling

Recommended by Treehugger- Planting Green Roofs and Living Walls. The book details weight bearing requirements and the various other requirements for a thriving lawn on a roof- which will improve insulation in winter and cooling in summer as well as cutting down on the amount of run off water for drainage systems to deal with.

Technorati tag: Architecture, Grass

Long Road

Worldchanging reprints another piece from The Natural Advantage of Nations. It's about just how much we have to do to create sustainable development in the developing world and "sustainable re-development" in the industrialised world.

Technorati tag: Sustainable Development

Rurbanism

An extract from The Natural Advantage of Nations has been reprinted on Worldchanging today. I'm going to go back and read it later.

Technorati tag: Books

Yes, Minister

The Commons environment, food and rural affairs select committee says that, if the Government's grand proclamations about reducing greenhouse gas emmissions are to be taken seriously, the UK should have a dedicated Minister for Climate Change.

via WorldChanging

Technorati tag: Climate Change, Greenhouse Gasses, Politics

Multi Rotor

WorldChanging on a new, more efficient wind turbine design that uses multiple turbines on a single turbine unit.

Technorati tag: Wind power

Recar

Lots of current cars are built to be recycled, but what about older vehicles? After being crushed the larger chunks of metal can be re-used, but that leaves a sludge of smaller parts that can leach toxins into landfills.

CSIRO Minerals are developing methods to clean this sludge up and get the maximum value from it by using mineral processing techniques. At present it's a low margin operation but any number of factors, from rising material costs to more stringent landfill controls, could make it a money spinner.

Technorati tag: Recycling, Landfill

Home Brew

Off-Grid on making your own Biodiesel. I almost wish I had a car so I could try this stuff out.

The book recommended in the post isn't available through Amazon, but you can get How to make Biodiesel

Technorati tag: Biodiesel

Carbon calculator

Work out how many trees a year you need to plant to become carbon neutral.

via Power Frontiers

Technorati tag: Energy consumption, Carbon Neutral

Eco Blogging

Chandrasutra has a long article on eco blogging, with a lot of resources that I'm going to check out later.

Technorati tag: EcoBlog

Recommended Reading

A few books reviewed or suggested by other green blogs

The Natural Advantage of Nations. Reviewed at World Changing

Save Cash and Save the Planet. Suggested by Hippyshopper.

A Good Life. Also from Hippyshopper.

Technorati tag: Books

Grass

I remember haytime. the bales produced on the local farms generally went to produce winter feed and bedding. An American professor is arguing that grass from marginal farmland could be turned into pellets and used as fuel.

via Slashdot

Technorati tag: Bio Fuel

Green State

Washington state now has a law requiring that new municipal buildings incorporate energy saving and "green" technologies. It costs more up front, but the long term savings more than cover it. The law's supporters also promised a better environment for those who work and study there, which is probably true, but a lot harder to argue in any concrete way.

Technorati tag: Sustainable development

The Party Party

The Greens stand even less chance than the Lib-Dems of making it into Government, so their election pledges are things they plan to do anyway.

Green Party Website

Technorati tag: Politics, Election, Green Party