Dear Germany, When You Get To The Green Future, Please Throw The Rest Of Us A Rope!

Hailing from Freiburg, Germany, Rolf Disch is a renowned architect that has put his little city front and center on the eco-map. Literally transforming Freiburg into Germany’s eco-capital where about 35% of residents don’t own a car and new homes routinely incorporate photovoltaic panels. And now, a popular destination for tourist world-wide seeking the reality of sustainable architecture and the inspiration for better eco-friendly housing options for their future. (more…)

A Message from Michael

Love him or hate him, he makes sense…

Friday, December 12th, 2008
Friends,

They could have given the loan on the condition that the automakers start building
only cars and mass transit that reduce our dependency on oil.

They could have given the loan on the condition that the automakers build cars that
reduce global warming.

They could have given the loan on the condition that the automakers withdraw their
many lawsuits against state governments in their attempts to not comply with our (more…)

Doug Bizell is the mad scientist of the South. Turning something no
one wants into something everyone needs. He makes a product called
Kudzunol, made from Kudzu. Kudzu is a weed that grows 12 inches a
day, every single day. It will reach 66 – 98 feet in trees.

Used for erosion control in the 1930s, it now covers anything and
everything in the southern U.S. Since Doug lives in Tennessee, he
has no problem finding it. It covers 7 million acres in the American
South.

You cannot kill it, highway departments are trying to control it
which is a neverending and often losing battle. It will grow out in (more…)

Planet Green is now in Greensburg filming 6 new episodes on how the town is
coming along in their effort to be the first green town in America.

They also went on the trip to China for the EcoPartnership with a town hit by the
earthquakes. There were 4 guys from Greensburg that went on that trip. The new mayor
(Bob Dixon) the City Administrator (Steve Hewitt) the Superintendent (Darin Headrick)
and the President of the Chamber (Steve Kirk).

Greensburg was one of seven governmental or business entities of this country signing
separate cooperative agreements with corresponding Chinese agencies as part of the
American-Sino affair. Greensburg’s agreement was a three-year cooperative partnership
with the Chinese city of Mianzhu, a part of Sichuan Province, where a devastating
earthquake last May 12 killed nearly 100,000 Chinese, including around 10,000 school (more…)

This is a guest article focused on the environmental effects of domestic oil
refinery use from Mesothelioma.com, a leading web resource for information about
mesothelioma cancer and its various causes.

CFCs and Fossil Fuels Have Short, Long Tail Effects

Often when considering the environmental hazards presented by human behavior, we fail to
see further than the direct effect on our planet. However, if we examine further, we can
gather that our behavior is affecting not only the earth we live on but also the general
human condition. There are essentially two levels to the damage posed by destructive
environmental actions. Let’s examine each of them in depth for a better comprehension of
this hazard.

(more…)

The Global Seed Vault, opened this year on the far-northern Norwegian island of Spitsbergen, is a backup for the backups. It’s badly needed as around half the seed banks in developing countries are at risk from natural disasters or general instability.

Superman had it right: if you want to keep something safe, build a mountain fortress above the Arctic Circle. That’s the thinking — more or less — behind the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. Almost every nation keeps collections of native seeds so local crops can be replanted in case of an agricultural disaster. The Global Seed Vault, opened this year on the far-northern Norwegian island of Spitsbergen, is a backup for the backups. It’s badly needed — as many as half the seed banks in developing (more…)

Since Hurricane Ike, the City of Houston has been trying to figure out how
to recycle the wood debris.  From Galveston to North of Houston, there is
plenty of wood debris to be collected but not sent to the local landfills.

So the City has come up with a nationwide contest in hopes of someone coming
up with a recycling idea that will get rid of 5.6 million cubic yards of
tree waste cleaned up from households and front yards. (more…)