Artist Sonia Rentsch created this striking series of sculptures for January Biannual (photographed by Albert Comper and art direction by Olivia Nichols), using natural materials like leaves, sticks and seed pods to mimic the form of guns and other weapons. Entitled "Harm Less," the images stir thoughts of beauty and violence within man and nature.© Sonia Rentsch This type of art always grabs my attention. As children, we're often finding bits of nature that mean something to us, be it a stick th...

Wind power is booming, and shows no signs of letting up, which bodes well for our clean energy future, but it's not all moonlight and roses.Even the cleanest renewable energy developments, such as wind energy, will have an impact on the environment, even after considering or offsetting the eco-footprint of manufacturing. Most of that impact will be seen and felt right at the point-of-use, through the effects that the turbines and infrastructure have on local wildlife and ecosystems.But a new eff...

Who needs the Pritzker Prize for Architecture when you can enter the Shed of the Year competition. Sheds are a big deal in the UK, and there are hundreds to chose from, with special categories like eco, garden office, drinking and even Tardis. My favourite of the eco-sheds this year is Marcus Shield's bike shed in Camden Town. It has a gorgeous green roof:© Marcus ShieldsThe green roof utilises a water-cell reservoir to control run-off and retain moisture for the plants. My wife and I gathered t...

Credit: AutomobileMag.com Tesla Motors Company is coming off a very good week. On Wednesday, the company reported that it had sold more electric vehicles than any other automaker during the first quarter of the year, and turned a profit for the first time in its 10 year history. On Thursday, Consumer Reports — the famously austere purveyors of customer satisfaction surveys and product testing for all manner of consumer goods — announced that Tesla’s Model S roadster outperformed every other comm...

“Nowadays, in an age of rising population and scarcities of food and water in some regions, it’s a wonder that humanitarians aren’t clamoring for more atmospheric carbon dioxide.” No, it’s not The Onion. It’s The Wall Street Journal editorial page, which nowadays is much the same thing. Once again, the country’s leading financial newspaper is recycling long-debunked myths from disinformers with PhDs posing as climate scientists — in this case, Harrison H. Schmitt and William Happer, “In Defense ...

In many ways, plants are the ultimate solar energy technology. Through photosynthesis, plants use sunlight to produce energy at nearly 100 percent efficiency, so it's no surprise that for years scientists have been trying to either mimic that process through creating artificial leaves or have found ways to tap plants themselves as energy sources.We've seen technologies where the electrons in the soil near plants' roots was are used to power a fuel cell and concepts for moss-powered lamps, but th...

(Credit: www.jxnews.com.cn) A new report out today shows that over 30 million people were displaced by climate-related extreme weather events … [Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre Publications] The Global Estimates report reveals that 32.4 million people were forced to flee their homes in 2012 by disasters such as floods, storms and earthquakes. While Asia and west and central Africa bore the brunt, 1.3 million were displaced in rich countries, with the USA particularly affected. 98% of al...

Senate nominee Gabriel Gomez (R-MA) (Credit: The Republican) Gabriel Gomez acknowledges that ”science says climate change is real.” But the Republican nominee to fill John Kerry’s open Senate seat in Massachusetts says he is unwilling to take serious steps to combat it, lest is hurt the economy in the short term. His support for a “serious energy agenda,” including the risky Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, coincides with his own significant investments in dirty energy companies. On his campaign ...

We've always been advocates of freecycling -- the act of recirculating unwanted but usable items for free to neighbors and community members. It's a take what you need, give away what you don't sort of model. Every so often we come across someone who really takes the idea of freecycling seriously, and Instructables user IamWe is one of them.In this Instructable -- an entry for the Green Design Contest currently happening -- step-by-step instructions are given for building your own Free Things Bo...

In any discussion about installing bike lanes the argument often is put forward that they are bad for business, what with the loss of parking spaces and the increased difficulty of loading and deliveries. But what if this is completely backwards? TreeHugger alluded to this in How bicycles bring business to your community and There IS a Bicycle Economy, Two Cities Find, but here is the real proof from New York's Department of Transportation.The most shocking data are from the protected bike lanes...

Jaymi's Notes:I've been doing The Cooking Project for about two months now, and with nearly 50 different recipes tried and tested during that time, this non-recipe couldn't have been a better celebration of what I've learned about cooking so far. This stew is all about cooking intuitively, figuring out what flavors you like and what will mix well together, and knowing how to use what you already have in the cupboards.This also turned into one of our favorite meals, and it was all based on using ...

Talk about good timing. Vancouver designer Darryl Agawin makes a splash in Mocoloco with No, Sweat!, a line of furniture designed to combine workout and workspace furniture, and the New York Times comes out with the Scientific 7-Minute Workout that looks like it was made for Darryl's designs. It even looks like him in the illustrations, sort of.© New York TimesDarryl writes:When design No, Sweat!, first hand research was used to establish a working baseline; exploring various exercise discipline...

In the savannas of Zimbabwe, home to some of Africa's most iconic wildlife, poaching of elephants is at an all-time high. But as their numbers continue to slip lower despite efforts to curb illegal hunting, the elephants themselves may soon prove to be a poacher's greatest deterrent.According to Zimbabwe's Sunday Mail, the trampled body of an illegal hunter was discovered in Charara National Park, following the arrest of his partner late last month. The report indicates that the deceased poacher...

It's hard to beat honey, but humans can sure be sweet.Last week, tree surgeon John Joinson was called out to dismantle and remove a large tree that was in danger of collapsing onto a roadway in Childer Thornton, England. But as John was preparing for his work, he noticed that bees were coming and going through a crack in the tree's trunk. So, lest he find himself the target of a bee-stinging campaign in defense of their hive homeland, the arborist wisely thought twice before revving up the chain...

We have pushed atmospheric CO2 levels to 400 parts per million (ppm) for the first time in human existence. At the same time, a truly remarkably set of paleoclimate data shows the climate is much more sensitive to CO2 than we thought. And that means returning as quickly as possible back to 350 ppm is a vastly more rational course of action for a non-suicidal civilization, than, say continuing our unrestrained march toward 600 ppm, then 800, and then 1000. NOAA reported Friday that the daily mean...

GE's new Brilliant 2.5 megawatt turbine. (Credit: GE) According to Bloomberg, Warren Buffet’s MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co. is gearing up to drop $1.9 billion on new wind farms in Iowa. The investment might build as many as 656 new turbines by 2015, which would add as much as 1,050 megawatts of wind power capacity to the 2,285 megawatts the company already operates in the state. The project could also herald a revival in American wind power in general. The anticipated expiration of the product...

By Mari Hernandez In the new report Rate Design Matters: The Impact of Tariff Structure on Solar Project Economics in the U.S., GTM Research uncovers the often-not-discussed effect of utility rate structures on distributed solar generation. In the report, GTM analyzes the electricity rates charged by Southern California Edison (SCE) and San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) and calculates the avoided cost (i.e. rate savings) for a 500-kilowatt commercial photovoltaics (PV) system within each ...

On Friday, the City of New York allocated $294 million of Superstorm Sandy recovery funds for resiliency projects to respond to the threat of fossil-fueled climate change. The announcement was part of the unveiling of NYC’s plan for $1.77 billion in Sandy recovery initiatives by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan, and Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) at New York City Hall: The City has set aside $294 million for resiliency investments to be detailed in a re...

TreeHugger readers have a soft spot for cute animals; the demise of the Taiwan clouded leopard is the most popular post of the week. Stephen reports: Formosan clouded leopards, a subspecies of those found on mainland Asia, were once highly sought-after by poachers for their valuable skins. And despite the fact that the last reliable evidence of their continued existence is from a 1910 diary entry, biologists believed that the notoriously elusive animal might have avoided extinction in the years...

Opine away! Original linkOriginal author: Joe Romm