Green Options

Honey bees are disappearing. The story has been in the news on and off since 2006, but for one reason or another, most people have paid little attention. And the situation is significantly dire.

Market Facilitation in Ecosystem Services; Contemporary Developing Cases in the UK

Is there reason to believe that there maybe profit to be made by investing in eco investments while conserving the environment?

There does exist some scepticism about the market’s involvement in green initiatives. Even though research conducted by Frost & Sullivan about the telecom industry, which is yet to be published, next month (but was mentioned in The Guardian in late April) apparently shows that there is no measurable link between a company’s share price and investments in green initiatives. However, if pursued they could reflect an improved brand value for a company with an environmental focus.

There is an entire world of craft radio out there in the ether. In the same way in which I blog, obsessively, every single day about my crafty life on my personal blog and read the crafty blogs of others, there is also an audio/video version of that same crafty obsession that can be watched or listened to at one’s leisure.

While you grade papers, or wash the dishes, or eat your lunch, or walk home from school at night, you can listen to craft news (the CPSIA, although delayed, is still a big deal), craft opinion (which type of knitting needles are the best?) and interviews with other crafty people (Alicia Paulson has a lot of interesting things to say about the process of writing a craft how-to book).

I heart podcasts.

In an effort to make Environmental Law more accessible, Harabara, a green business consultancy and LexSite, an online legal resources website will jointly launch a new Environmental Law Database for India.

This week at ZapRoot: Is Google destroying the planet one search at a time? The recycling market has gone bust. And check out “That’s Just Weird.”

Ah, the smell of coffee wafting through the evening air. Except this time that aroma doesn’t come from our French press but rather our fireplace. No, we haven’t thrown can of perfectly unacceptable canned, non-fair trade supermarket java into the fire, but rather a firelog partially made from coffee grounds. Sounds rather sustainable, huh?

Okay, we probably won’t often claim that burning anything is sustainable as the CO2 wafts into the atmosphere. [...]

According to a recent UNESCO study, fresh water supply is expected to drop by one-third within 20 years. UNESCO points out that up to 7 billion people could face water shortages by 2020 as global warming will affect water supply in more than 50 countries.

Water as a priority in national strategic discourse is not new but its prominence in recent years illustrates the emergence of a new battlefront. A broader acceptance of climate change associated with global warming has led [...]

Last week, the East Bay Express published an article regarding the California Air Resources Board’s (CARB) plans for aftermarket, plug-in hybrid conversions.

Proving once again that CARB is a political machine with something more than “clean air” in its agenda, the board is set to deal a punishing, bureaucratic body-blow to startup companies like 3 Prong Power and A123 Systems.

It gets worse:  CARB just got carte blanche to do whatever it wants.

Find out what the guys at CARB have to say about the evil of plug-in hybrid cars after the jump (and feel free to guess which corrupt CARB members will have to be bribed in the comments!).

A startling new WWF study has revealed that people living in Hong Kong currently use twice as many resources as residents in China, more than double the sustainable level.

To feed the vibrant city’s massive demand for natural resources, and absorb the CO2 emitted, residents need an area of land and sea larger than 250 Hong Kong’s, an incredible seven-fold increase since 1965.

According to Mathis Wackernagel, Executive Director of the Global Footprint Network, “Although small geographically, Hong Kong not only has significant resource demands, but it also has an over-proportional influence on the world.

After nearly destroying a forest and obliterating a species, one corporation does a 180 and becomes an EcoHero.

The story begins in the 1830’s, when the South Carolina Canal and Railroad Company (SCCRC) bought a 100,000 acre plot of longleaf pine forest near Dorchester, South Carolina. Timber from the forest was an essential element in SCCRC’s expansion, development and continued operation. Not only did timber provide material for cross-ties, trestles and bridges, but most of the then steam powered locomotives burned wood to heat their boilers. This meant a nonstop and insatiable demand for timber which the forest was unable to support.

Following the destruction and carnage of the civil war, more timber was needed to repair the railroads of the South. Reconstruction was successful; too successful in fact, and SCCRC developed new lines, became overextended and ran into financial trouble. In 1893, the railroad was reorganized as Southern Railway. Most of the mature timber was gone by this time, and nearly all but 14,000 acres of the original 100,000 acre forest had been parceled out and sold off. Red-cockaded woodpeckers, who depend on longleaf pine forests for their survival, were also close to extinction.

Southern Railway’s 180

In 1920, the railway began replanting longleaf and loblolly pines for pulpwood production. Soon afterward, it began to construct a demonstration area for local landowners who were interested in reforesting their land. Southern Railway also opened up its land to forestry students from Universities all across the South.

I think it’s the stubborn in me, but at this time of year, instead of getting a jump on the Christmas season and having, oh, I don’t know, a RELAXED holiday for a change, I feel the urge to really dig down into the autumn leaves and embrace the glories of this season. I live in the north, and so the trees are a treasure to behold, the temperature is blissfully breezy and crisp, and I look dang cute in jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt. So celebrate with me the apple harvest and my casual cuteness with these thematically-appropriate projects taken from some of my favorite Web sites: