In what the study calls "the efficiency paradox," consumers have taken money saved from greater energy efficiency and spent it on more and bigger appliances and vehicles, consuming even more energy in the process.

A new type of fuel cell powered with glucose derived from biomass is described in the latest issue of the Inderscience Publication International Journal of Global Energy Issues. The experimental device works by using sunlight to convert the glucose into hydrogen to power the cell, which produces several hundred millivolts.

The use of biological resources, such as food waste and managed high-energy crops, are gradually becoming a viable approach to reducing our reliance on fossil fuels. However, imaginative ways to convert these materials into useful, electrical energy are still required. Renewable biomass resources include starch, cellulose, sucrose, and lactose. These complex sugar molecules can be readily converted to the much simpler glucose molecule with little energy cost through fermentation processes.

Hydrogen from bacteria, from coal - and how about a hydrogen generator small enough to power your lawn mower?

Atlanta, Georgia - First a word about something called "greywater". Greywater is basically washwater. As homeowners, we make a lot of it each day. It's all wastewater excepting toilet wastes and food wastes derived from garbage grinders. No surprise, this partially used water can be re-used in your home for toilet flushing and watering gardens. Good for you, good for your water bill and good for the environment. Especially in drought stricken parts of the country like Georgia where the state's Environmental Protection Division declared a level four drought for sixty-one counties in the state.

I don't know why other companies don't do this, but Target has just become the first major retailer to offer "refurbished" electronics. Instead of just sending the (mostly perfectly good) electronics to be recycled, Target is fixing them up, and then selling them at reduced rates.

From my perspective, the hope is that electronics will become more like cars, having multiple owners throughout their lifespan and staying in use for up to 10 years (instead of the more normal [and dismal] three). It's just a test program, but Target's website is offering a variety of refurbished electronics, including iPods, camcorders, and a ton of flat screen televisions.

The site says that all refurbished items are "essentially as good as new" and that they've all be certified and guaranteed to be so.

Unfortunately, you won't find any refurbished items at brick and mortar stores, but quality pre-owned items at a big retailer like Target is definitely a good start.

Via TreeHugger and Reuters

Search giant Google is to spend tens of millions on renewable energy technologies.

Here is a clever idea from Craft Bits to give old wool sweaters new lives. It's easy, it's fun, and one sweater has enough material for several pairs of warm and stylish (especially if you mix and match and decorate with buttons, ribbon or embroidery) mittens. I sewed several pairs this weekend while watching movies. A perfect handmade holiday gift for the green people in your life.

French designers continue to put the “fab” in prefab: Construisons Demain, a brilliant design from architect Eric Wuilmot, premiered at Batimat in Paris earlier this month. The system showcases low-energy living with three prefabricated wooden modules, resource and energy efficient systems, healthy finish materials, and inviting living spaces.

(more…)

Kyoto was a valiant first attempt to tackle global carbon emissions, and support for the Kyoto Protocol is still needed in the international community, but it will not be enough to make a breakthrough with climate change.

OSLO (Reuters) - Levels of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas emitted by burning fossil fuels, hit a record high in the atmosphere in 2006, accelerating global warming, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Friday.

Tis the season to be jolly, and if you happen to be in New York, green! This year New York’s finest Christmas landmark is going green in the spirit of the Christmas season. For the first time in its history, the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree, will be getting a new set of energy efficient LED Christmas lights which will be fully powered by solar panels.

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Design company Hulger has created a series of sculptural low-energy bulb prototypes as a reaction against the ugliness of exsiting products.

Full set of images at Dezeen.com

Recently we covered a new service (buymybrokenipod.com) that, instead of making you pay to get your borked iPod recycled, actually pays you! And then, instead of sending the device to get torn apart by desperate people in desperate places, they actually use the parts for repairs so that the devices can continue their lives.

A fantastic service...and it just got better. BuyMyBrokeniPod has become BuyMyTronics.com. Now they'll take your iPod, your iPhone, or any game console back to the GameCube/PS2 generation including PSPs and GBAs. Answer a few questions about the condition of your device and they'll let you know what it's worth to them (a severely damaged Wii without controllers or games nets $33, while a perfect GameCube with controllers gets you $20.)

Used in concert with CellForCash.com there aren't many electronics you'll have to throw away anymore! Unless...of course...you're me, and you still have an N64...

Technology is generally about letting our species be more effective and efficient, which is why it has become such an overwhelming force for green. But sometimes, technology is bad...even an EcoGeek must recognize it.

And the worst new energy technology in the world is undeniably liquid coal. Some people (mostly people who own coal mines) want to replace 100% of America's gasoline usage with a fuel that comes from coal. It produces two times more CO₂, consumes three times more water than gasoline, and gives us more incentive to tear down our mountain ranges.

Even better, it's not currently economically viable, so coal companies are trying to get Congress to subsidize these billion-dollar coal to liquid plants. Luckily the NRDC and the Union of Concerned Scientists are on our side. The NRDC has created a great (and frighteningly accurate) animation to spread the word, while the UoCS has released a report on the dangers of the technology.

The best thing we can do is get educated. Coal is the fuel of the past, not the future...if Congress is going to subsidize anything, it ought to be, at the very least, clean.

You can Take Action at NRDC.org

How US policy gets made -- the Cape Wind controversy as a case in point...

From E&E News:
This fall, the Minerals Management Service is expected to release a report on the environmental impact of the controversial Cape Wind project -- a project that would place wind turbines off the coast of Massachusetts. During today's OnPoint, Robert Whitcomb author of the book, "Cape Wind: Money, Celebrity, Class, Politics, and the Battle for our Energy Future on Nantucket Sound," discusses the debate over Cape Wind from its inception. He describes the different characters that have played a major role in the debate and takes a comedic approach at discussing the back-and-forth that has permeated not only the affected communities in Massachusetts but also Capitol Hill.

On the tip of many a TreeHugging tongue over the past year, the word "locavore" -- along with the accompanying philosophy for sourcing eats from your local foodshed, or from within 100 miles -- has made a big splash in 2007. Big enough that the Oxford University Press unveiled it as 2007's Word of the Year in the New Oxford American Dictionary. Like

The British Geological Survey teams up with its Chinese counterparts to launch a nearly emission-free demonstration coal plant by 2015.

The Longpen, an invention that allows books signings to take place without the need for an author to travel miles, has graced our pages many times before. From the Longpen Bookfest at the Green Living Show, to keeping Conrad Black out of jail, the concept has been saving emissions and opening minds all over the place. We’ve just come across an interview with the pen’s inventor Margaret Atwood, over at the Friends of the Earth UK website, explaining her motivations behind...

The delay in autumnal leaf coloration and leaf fall in trees is caused by rising levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere and not by increased global temperatures, suggests a new study by researchers at the University of Southampton.

In recent years, woodland autumnal colour changes have been occurring later in the season whilst re-greening in spring has been occurring earlier. During the last 30 years across Europe, autumnal senescence – the process of plant aging where leaves discolour and then fall – has been delayed by 1.3 - 1.8 days a decade. To date, this has been explained by global warming, with increasing temperatures causing longer growing seasons.

One of our sibling blogs, Carectomy.com, just went into some detail discussing a new walker-powered backpack. The straps of the pack are made of a special material that can harness static electricity generated from the energy of walking.

My first thought is that the energy from this action would be negligable in all situations, but Josh at Carectomy points out

A soldier carrying a 100-pound load and walking at 2-3 miles per hour would generate 45.6 milliwatts of power. To put this into context, an LED headlamp consumes about 38mW, an iPod nano 46mW, and a Motorola Razr cell phone 9mW in standby mode and 360mW while talking.

That's pretty impressive, actually. The only material necessary to generate the power are the backpack's straps, which are made from polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF), and possibly an onboard battery. Of course, the technology is a while away, but maybe someday we'll have whole wardrobes made of PVDF and we'll shuffle our feet on the carpet to keep our cell phones juiced up.

Via Carectomy

It is time to turn the theory of a global hydrogen economy in a reality because fossil fuels are not going to last forever.

A UK initiative called ConnectingSouthwark.com is putting the green in public transportation with an EcoPod tram station that provides information and a great teaching tool for environmental responsibility. Made from recycled shipping containers and powered by renewable energy such as solar panels and wind turbines, the EcoPod is a great symbol of the green principles underpinning both the tram and its recent regeneration program.

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We love treehouses here at Inhabitat and are enamored with eco-architect Mitchell Joachim’s visionary ideas about how to grow living treehouses from ficus molded around frame structures. We’ve covered these brilliantly playful architectural ideas before on Inhabitat, but now we have a video from Mitchell Joachim explaining the details of how they work. Joachim does much better justice to his future-forward ecological designs than we are able to do in a mere post, so if you have any interest in living treehouses (and we know you do), check out this fascinating video below.

And if you enjoy this 5-minute video and want to see more, check out the full-length video of TeReForm’s many cool projects, over at ScribeMedia>

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The website Eternal Sunset uses 272 west-facing webcams in over 50 countries to show a live sunset 24 hours a day. Right now, for example, we're checking out the pastel hues over the water in Valle Gran Rey, Spain.

Now all we need is a never-ending bottle of merlot and a loop of Marvin Gaye.

Via VSL.

flaneur: one who strolls about aimlessly; a lounger; a loafer.

Nanosolar Powersheet, a very thin film solar panel, has won the Popular Science Innovation of the Year award. The technology uses no expensive silicon and the production process is so efficient that it can make solar cells for about 30 cents per watt, or about one tenth of the cost of making traditional solar cells.

The incredibly low costs are achieved by using a printing press style machine to deposit a layer of solar absorbing “ink” on thin rolled metal sheeting. In addition to low costs, the process is also fast, making several hundred feet per minute.

Backing Nanosolar is funding from Google’s founders and the U.S. Department of Energy.

From PopSci:

Nanosolar’s cells use no silicon, and the company’s manufacturing process allows it to create cells that are as efficient as most commercial cells for as little as 30 cents a watt. “You’re talking about printing rolls of the stuff—printing it on the roofs of 18-wheeler trailers, printing it on garages, printing it wherever you want it,” says Dan Kammen, founding director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory at the University of California at Berkeley. “It really is quite a big deal in terms of altering the way we think about solar and in inherently altering the economics of solar.”

Via: PopSci

An LCD screen dissolves from green to blue… a timer begins counting down as the screen starts pulsing, finally shifting colors to a crimson red. Something from the latest sci-fi epic? No, just an easy way to conserve energy. ConsumerPowerline is giving out digital units that display visual cues of peak energy usage hours, allowing participants to conserve power during that time and to get a nice kickback for it.

This is possible simply because utility companies have to ramp up their electricity production during peak times, which is expensive and inefficient. ConsumerPowerline seized this as an opportunity by notifying businesses, apartment complexes and any other participants to conserve their power, selling the reduced demand in electricity to other utilities. They did this previously by using common forms of communication like e-mail and voice mails, but with these new digital gauges they can give a visual cue to people in their program. The gauges receive updates on energy usage times from a satellite pager network.

By Tom Philpott, Grist Magazine, 14 Nov 2007

Apologists for industrial food production often level what they see as a devastating charge against organic agriculture: that it could never "feed the world."

The claim goes like this: industrial ag produces higher yields, and as global population grows, we're going to have to squeeze as much food as possible out of the earth, by any means necessary, to produce enough sustenance.

Not so long ago Norman Borlaug, that aging lion of industrial ag, growled:

[D]on't tell the world that we can feed the present population without chemical fertilizer. That's when this [pro-organic] misinformation becomes destructive.
(Borlaug and his followers rarely mention that even in this age of petrochemical-charged agriculture, some 820 million lack enough food to eat.)

But mounting evidence suggests that organic agriculture at least matches, and may even outperform, chemical agriculture, even in terms of yield. The latest evidence: a study from Iowa State University.

After a nine-year study involving what researchers believe to be the "largest randomized, replicated comparison of organic and conventional crops in the nation," the researchers found that for corn organic yields beat conventional, while for soy the two styles performed similarly.

And while conventional agriculture has been shown to degrade soil structure and impede its ability to hold water, organically managed soil holds up much better.

[Head researcher Kathleen] Delate said the organic plots infiltrate more water, which reduces soil runoff and more effectively recharges groundwater supplies. The organic soils also cycle nutrients more efficiently, making them available when and where the plants need them. Soil structural stability also remained good, despite increased tillage involved with the organic rotations.
Thus organic ag seems to not only produce as much as or more than conventional, it also does a much better job of conserving soil and water in the process -- surely an important consideration for any long-term plans to "feed the world."

The Iowa State findings echo those of other studies. This past summer, researchers at the University of Michigan found that in developed countries, organic and conventional growing styles yield roughly the same amount of food.

But in the global south, "food production could double or triple using organic methods."

Accent on Wellness Presents:

Kilowatt Ours
A Plan to Re-Energize America
by Jeff Barrie

Monday, November 26th
7:30 pm
Please arrive promptly.

Gravity East Village
515 East 5 Street
between Avenue A & Avenue B
Keypad- 104 'Bell' Symbol Button

Please R.S.V.P. by e-mail or call 212 254 9453
Seating is limited.
Fee: $5.00

Accent on Wellness Hotline: 212 760 5953

What would you find if you traced the wires from your light switch to their energy source? Mountain top removal, childhood asthma, global warming, or hope?

Follow filmmaker Jeff Barrie from the coal mines of West Virginia to the solar panel fields of Florida as he discovers solutions to America's energy related problems.

Along the way you'll meet everyday Americans finding ways to harness power from the wind and sun.

Find out how Jeff and his wife Heather cut their energy bills in half and use a portion of their savings to buy green power.

Best of all, Kilowatt Ours will teach you how to dramatically reduce your own energy bill! You can save hundreds on your energy bills!

A new site, Carbon Monitoring for Action (CARMA), tracks the highest CO2 emitting power plants in the world and hosts a google mash up for you to explore the data. CARMA is produced and financed by the Confronting Climate Change Initiative at the Center for Global Development, an independent and non-partisan think tank located in Washington, DC.

They say:
"We are pleased to announce the launch of the Carbon Monitoring for Action database at www.carma.org. CARMA provides the world's most detailed and comprehensive information on carbon emissions resulting from the production of electricity. Power sector emissions make up 25% of the global total, 40% of carbon emissions in the United States, and are a primary cause of global warming. CARMA is a product of the Confronting Climate Change Initiative at the Center for Global Development, an independent and non-partisan think tank located in Washington, DC."

And, according to their new study, Center for Global Development determines that Australian power plants produce more carbon dioxide emissions per person each year than the United States, and almost five times as much as China. [Sorry Amanda!]

Photo: Tungabhadra River

Imagine my delight when I got to interview Bangalore-based designer Mohan Rao of Integrated Design (ID), whose small, multidisciplinary firm is now working on a sustainable restoration scheme of the reservoirs around the small but legendary town of Hampi, in the Indian state of Karnataka – a World Heritage site and certainly one of most magical places on the subcontinent and where the surrounding ruins mark the historical location of the fourteenth-century South Indian empire of the Vijayanagara

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has challenged the world's policymakers to start devising a comprehensive deal for tackling climate change at next month's summit in Bali, Indonesia, after a United Nations report released Nov. 17 found that global warming is unequivocal and could cause irreversible damage to the planet. Launching the fourth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which brings together hundreds of scientific experts, Mr. Ban said that slowing and even reversing the effects of climate change "is the defining challenge of our age." He also stressed the report makes clear that "concerted and sustained action now can still avoid some of the most catastrophic scenarios" in the IPCC forecasts.

Some warned of crop disaster when honeybees started to disappear. Crops didn't fail, but farmers and beekeepers aren't out of danger yet.

Engineers have begun cooling the "doomsday vault", which aims to protect the world's crop varieties from disaster.

NYTimes covers MIXER:

MIXER Not to be outdone by other cultural-turned-party institutions around town, Eyebeam gallery, devoted to high-tech projects and research, is now starting its own art-and-fun series, Mixer. The inaugural event begins Saturday with a live multimedia performance by the video artist Benton-C Bainbridge. In “Brother Islands (Places to Lose People),” above, Mr. Bainbridge, who was a recent Eyebeam teaching fellow, documents the history of two abandoned East River islands; using video, photos, music and actors playing ghosts, he hopes to explore the idea and mechanics of quarantine.

Eco-Vis Challenge Critique at Upgrade!

Recorded live at the Upgrade! on Thursday, November 8, 2007; Eyebeam presents the podcast of the Eco-Vis Critique paneled by Michael Mandiberg, Natalie Jeremijemko, Zachary Lieberman, and Upgrade! founder Mushon Zer-Aviv. Participants included Jeff Eaton, Aislinn Dewey, Bart Woodstrup, Andy Deck, Jerry Juarez, and Carlos Martinez. Recorded by Chris McDonald.

Length: 2.25 hrs
File Size: 41.6 MB

According to researchers at the University of Michigan, organic farms can produce more than enough food to support the world’s population without converting any additional land to crop production. Cooks David Crooker and Daran Poulin have been sustainably feeding a much smaller population of 1,700 college students at Bowdoin College in Maine for years. They’re profiled, along with Arnold Luce of Luce’s Meats in UCS’s

Matthew Yi, Chronicle Sacramento Bureau
Thursday, November 15, 2007

http://www.sfgate.com/flat/archive/2007/11/15/chronicle/archive/2007/11/15/BAHMTD7IA.html

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals today tossed new federal fuel economy standards for some sport utility vehicles, minivans and light trucks, arguing that regulators failed to properly assess the risk of global warming and that the new rules didn't include larger SUVs and trucks.

The decision is a huge win for several environmental groups and 11 states that argued that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's new fuel economy standards, announced in March 2006, ignored the effects of carbon dioxide emissions.

Currently, those vehicles are required to achieve 22.2 mpg for 2007 models. The new standards would have boosted that requirement to 24.1 mpg by 2011.

But the Center for Biological Diversity petitioned the federal appeals court a month after the new standards were revealed, arguing that a38 mpg benchmark can be readily achieved by 2015.
Since then, other environmental groups, including Sierra Club, and 11 states led by California have joined the petition asking the federal regulators to come up with a new standard that considers global warming impacts.

"The court decision is a rebuke to the Bush administration and its refusal to make meaningful steps to reduce global warming pollution from our automobiles," said Pat Gallagher, director of environmental law at Sierra Club. "The decision tells the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that it can't monkey the numbers when it sets fuel economy standards by ignoring the cost of carbon emissions."
The court decision is the latest evidence of mounting pressure on the White House to address global warming.

Last week, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in an effort to force the federal agency to grant a waiver that would allow the Golden States to require automobile manufacturers to sell more fuel efficient vehicles starting next year.

Using mats made of hair, they are absorbing the droplets of oil that have washed ashore since a cargo ship rammed the base of a Bay Bridge tower last week, spilling 58,000 gallons of fuel.

Hair, which naturally absorbs oil from air and water, acts as a perfect sponge, said Lisa Gautier of San Francisco, who provided 1,000 hair mats. They are about the size of a doormat, tightly woven with dark hair, and feel somewhat like an S.O.S pad.

While the mats may not be the obvious choice among hazardous waste experts, they hit San Francisco's green chord: More than 700 volunteers have tried them in recent days. Organizers hope their success will inspire more ecological responses to toxic waste removal.

Gautier had 1,000 of them on hand because she runs a nonprofit, Matter of Trust, which matches donations from businesses with needy nonprofits. She collects human hair from Bay Area salons and sends it to Georgia to be woven into mats, which she then gives to the San Francisco Department of the Environment to absorb used motor oil.

Once the mats are soaked with black gunk, oyster mushrooms will take over, growing on the mats and absorbing the oil.

National mushroom expert Paul Stamets was in town the weekend after the spill for the Green Festival, heard of Gautier's work and donated $10,000 worth of oyster mushrooms to harvest on the oily hair mats.

Gautier said the mushrooms will absorb the oil within 12 weeks, Gautier said, turning the hair mats into nontoxic compost.

"You make it like a lasagna," Gautier said. "You layer the oily hair mats with mushrooms and straw, turn it in six weeks, and by 12 weeks you have good soil."
The soil may not be good enough to grow carrots but is certainly good enough to use for landscaping along roads, she said.

The Environmental Protection Agency caught wind of the hair brigade and is giving the volunteers four-hour classes to certify them to clean up oil, Gautier said.

Cole Hardware provided discount white Tyvex protection suits, and city workers from the Department of the Environment pitched in the 800 hair mats they had on hand.

On Tuesday, volunteers used the mats and white plastic forks to gingerly lift tiny oil blobs from the sand at Ocean Beach.

"It's interesting how when we are challenged, we become more inventive," said volunteer David Hirtz, who lives nearby and is a member of the Neighborhood Emergency Response Team run through the San Francisco Fire Department.

"Instead of yelling and complaining and blaming, you are doing something about it," he said.

By Tuesday afternoon, piles of garbage bags full of the used hair mats were sitting on Ocean Beach. Gautier says they will be placed in bins until she can locate a place to make one huge pile and sprinkle in the mushrooms. She's tried to contact people from the O'Brien's Group, hired by the ship owner to do cleanup with skimmers, to ask them to take the pile, but so far hasn't gotten a response.

The Coast Guard, which in the first days after the spill turned hundreds of volunteers away from the beaches due to safety concerns, was not delighted when informed of the latest eco-volunteer effort.

"I live in San Francisco, too, and I understand wanting to clean the beach in a way that's good for the environment, but this stuff is toxic, and people who are not trained shouldn't touch it," said Coast Guard Petty Officer Mariana O'Leary.

Gautier said nearly all the people using hair mats have since been trained. Even so, she ran out of hair mats Tuesday.

She's been talking with a company in China that makes industrial-sized hair mats about getting more shipped to San Francisco. Gautier said she can even have large sea booms made by stuffing hair into nylon stockings.

"This can completely revolutionize oil spill cleanup," she said, reaching down with a mat to soak up a glob on Ocean Beach.

Two barefoot joggers passed by.

"That's amazing," Gautier said. "Haven't they heard it's dangerous out here?"
Online Resources
To donate hair:
www.matteroftrust.org/programs/hairmatsinfo.html
YouTube video of volunteers using hair mats:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=WscZJ2Dh0RY.

But carbon and energy neutral potato chips are still unhealthy as all get out... can you say carbon neutral heart attack? Can we brand and market that too? I can only imagine the ads.

At Frito-Lay’s factory here, more than 500,000 pounds of potatoes arrive every day from New Mexico to be washed, sliced, fried, seasoned and portioned into bags of Lay’s and Ruffles chips. The process devours enormous amounts of energy, and creates vast amounts of wastewater, starch and potato peelings. Skip to next paragraph

Now, Frito-Lay is embarking on an ambitious plan to change the way this factory operates, and in the process, create a new type of snack: the environmentally benign chip.

Kurt Campbell writes Op Ed in the nytimes about why United Statesians are so reluctant to deal w/ climate change.

Probably the most important reason for this absence of urgency is the profound lack of public knowledge on issues related to climate matters, that is, beyond the simple conflation of weather with climate in the public mind. The serious national media have done a miserable job in educating the public about just what the stakes involved are when it comes to climate change — its science, causes, the politics of, and remediation efforts.

The absence of visionary political leadership at the national level is also undeniable. While it is easy to scapegoat President Bush and his team for a profound lack of initiative on all matters of climate, it must be said that on this issue he merely mirrors the dominant attitudes of obliviousness and denial among many of the American people. On climate, alas, we have gotten the president we deserve.

Imagine you are one of the billion people on this planet who live with intermittent power. You may live in Baghdad, or more likely you live in one of the many Squatter Cities where power is bootlegged or in short supply.

When your lights go out, which is every night, you get out your trusty kerosene lamps and light your home with the most inefficient light source known to man. If you are like most of your neighbors you will spend $60.00 - $75.00 per year to keep your home from going dark.

The GaiaLux light is a new design I’ve entered in the NASA Create the Future Design Contest. It is a simple, inexpensive, sustainable alternative to kerosene lamps. The key components are a recycled cell phone charger, a set of rechargeable batteries, and very efficient LED lights. When power is available, it charges the batteries; when light is needed the batteries can provide up to 40 hours of continuous use. What is really cool is that most cell phone chargers draw very little current when they are done charging batteries. (We have measured this.)

The benefits of this simple invention are several: First, the GaiaLux light reuses some of the 125 million cell phone chargers we throw away each year; second, it saves lots of CO2 emissions, (up to 50 million metric tons per year); third it reduces toxic emissions in people's homes, so people are healthier; and fourth, the return on investment is fantastic. The GaiaLux light pays for itself in just a few months. After that people save money for more important things, like putting food on the table and buying clothes for the kids.

Please visit the NASA Create the Future Design Contest. Entries are judged in part by the number of people who click through and read them. The contest site has some really great entries as well as some pretty “out there” ideas for making the world a better place.

Web site Howstuffworks answers the age-old household safety question on everyone's mind as they prepare to string lights up around every square inch of their home: How many things can you plug into an electrical outlet before it catches fire?

Say you're using 2,000 watts of power with your holiday lights and other decorations. You divide that number by the volts in your house (usually 120) and you come up with 16.6 amps of current that you're using. With a 20 amp electrical outlet, you're using around 80 percent of the available current, which is the most you should be using per circuit.

According to the article, out of the 5,300 annual household electrical fires, about 2,000 of those occur over the holiday season. By getting a better idea of how household electricity works, you can avoid the danger and blown fuses caused by overloaded outlets.

OK...this is pretty much the greenest building that has ever existed. The Aldo Leopold Foundation Headquarters in Fairfield, WI, has just been opened to some hoppin' green reviews. LEED is the organization that certifies buildings as energy efficient, and this center has won it's highest award. And while that's been done before, it's never been done with a 100% carbon-neutral building.

It wears its carbon neutrality right on its sleeve with 198 solar panels that is rated at about 40 kilowatts, or 15% more than the center needs. The building also uses passive and radient heating and some geothermal energy. And hey, it only cost 'em $4 million.

For more pictures and information, check out Inhabitat.

[Image: Bannerman's Island, copyright Shaun O'Boyle].

I have a thing for abandoned islands, so I was excited to see Shaun O'Boyle's photo series of Bannerman's Island, an old, half-flooded and fire-damaged derelict mansion built on a small island in the Hudson River.

[Images: Bannerman's Island, copyright Shaun O'Boyle].

As American Heritage describes it, "this island fortress was once the private arsenal of the world’s largest arms dealer." And that was Frank "Francis" Bannerman.
Bannerman, we learn, "bought up ninety per cent of all captured guns, ammunition, and other equipment auctioned off after the Spanish-American War. He also bought weapons directly from the Spanish government before it evacuated Cuba. These purchases vastly exceeded the firm’s capacity at its store in Manhattan and filled three huge Brooklyn warehouses with munitions, including thirty million cartridges." Accordinglty, "Bannerman now needed an arsenal."
Or, more accurately speaking: he needed a private island.

[Image: Bannerman's Island, copyright Shaun O'Boyle].

Bannerman soon purchased "six and a half acres of scrub-covered rock called Polopel’s Island, about fifty-five miles north of New York City." But even that wasn't enough. He then "bought seven acres more of underwater land in front of the island from the state of New York. He ringed the submerged area with sunken canalboats, barges, and railroad floats to form a breakwater" – a kind of artificial reef.
"The island was under continuous construction for eighteen years."

[Image: Bannerman's Island, copyright Shaun O'Boyle].

Quoting at length:

The castle was Bannerman’s vision and his execution. It was creviced and encrusted with battlements, towers, turrets, crenellations, parapets, embrasures, casements, and corbelling. Huge iron baskets suspended from the castle corners held gas-fed lamps that burned in the night like ancient torches. By day Bannerman’s castle gave the river a fairyland aspect. By night it threw a brooding silhouette against the Hudson skyline.

[Image: Bannerman's Island, copyright Shaun O'Boyle].

More:

Visitors approached the place along a breakwater bristling with cannon and then passed through an opening flanked by two watchtowers. After tying up their boat at a large unloading dock they crossed a moat spanned by a drawbridge and passed under a portcullis crowned by the Bannerman coat of arms carved in stone.

Bannerman died a week after the end of World War I – and the island had sunk into a state of "monumental decay" by the 1960s.
It was then gutted by arsonists.
And then photographer Shaun O'Boyle came into the picture.

[Image: Bannerman's Island, copyright Shaun O'Boyle].

"I found the island," Shaun explained to me over email, "while commuting to NYC via the Amtrak train along the east bank of the Hudson River, which passes by the island and is plainly visible. It is located north of Cold Spring, NY, and can be seen when crossing the Beacon Bridge."
"New York state owns the island now," O'Boyle added, "and there are renovations going on, but I'm not sure what their plans are for public access. You can take tours of the island, via kayak, or motor boat."

[Image: Bannerman's Island, copyright Shaun O'Boyle].

O'Boyle goes on to describe how he "explored the island using a kayak with friends," and that he's "made 3 visits, 2 in the past 2 years. The last visit we climbed the mountain adjacent to the river," he adds, "and that is where the aerial views are from."
When I asked him about what appear to be flooded foundation walls, ringing the island like a tropical atoll, Shaun said: "What look like sunken foundations in the Hudson are actually part of the breakwater constructed to form a harbor for unloading the ships of supplies."
And when I asked him about the actual construction of the building – how the ruined walls handle themselves today, maintaining their shape and structure – O'Boyle wrote that "the construction quality was lacking, and I heard that Bannerman used old musket barrels to reinforce some of the concrete walls."
Architecture as a kind of thinly described weapon: like almost all archaeology, scrape deep enough and you'll uncover the residues of warfare.

[Images: Bannerman's Island, copyright Shaun O'Boyle].

O'Boyle:

The island is a beautiful place. I have been there in the mid-summer only, and thick vegetation covers everything, making it a challenge to move around anywhere but the paths. It certainly is a different kind of ruin for me to photograph: most of my photography work is of large scale industrial ruins, like Bethlehem Steel, and some of the industries that feed the steel mills – like coal and mining. Although my latest work is a bit different, I have been photographing the coal mining region of Pennsylvania – the towns, buildings and landscapes. It's a fascinating area. But Bannerman's is a more romantic ruin, set among the beautiful hills of the Hudson river.

It's also the perfect setting for a future Patrick McGrath novel.
And the island – or at least Bannerman's arsenal – has had its effects elsewhere. As O'Boyle explained, Bannerman "published a catalogue of all his products – Bannermans Catalogue – and, in fact, I currently have a 1925 edition on order from a used book store. Word has it that many of the canons you find in front of American Legions and town halls around the country are from Bannermans."

[Images: Bannerman's Island, copyright Shaun O'Boyle].

Don't miss the rest of O'Boyle's website, Modern Ruins, including his exquisite visual tour of Philadelphia's Eastern State Penitentiary – where my wife once worked as a tour guide – as well as this freaky crypt.
Of course, you can also support the artist by purchasing a print.
Finally, you can read more about Bannerman's Island here and here – and, while you're at it, why not read a bit about Boldt Castle, another ruined, island-bound mansion, this one standing amidst vegetation further north in the Thousand Islands. I used to visit that place as a kid; we'd go up to see my grandpa, a boatbuilder, who lived on one of the nearby islands, and then we'd toot on over to Boldt Castle.

Andrew Revkin reviews three new centrist books on climate change in the nytimes.

But in three other recent books, there seems to be a bit of a warming trend between the two camps. Instead of bashing old foes, the authors, all influential voices in the climate debate with roots on the left or the right, tend to chide their own political brethren and urge a move to the pragmatic center on climate and energy.

We've got a few iPhones around the GOOD offices, so we're a little concerned about the high levels of "toxic chemicals" they may contain.

In the video below Greenpeace takes apart an iPhone to expose its possibly poisonous innards to the world. It's cool to see an iPhone dismantled in fast-motion to a techno-thriller soundtrack, but by the end of the video we were left wondering what exactly the health risks are. The video cites high levels of bromine and phthalates. Sounds...dangerous? Delicious? We don't know. We've never heard of those.

Turns out they are pretty dangerous. Bromine does blisters and mental dullness. Phthalates screw with your hormones. Hopefully the concentrations are small and/or this stuff doesn't get out of the products at all. Those of us without iPhones are still kinda jealous.