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[ Comments Off ]Posted on October 11, 2009 by admin in Clean & Green, Technology
Sunday, October 11th, 2009They just announced the Green Car of the Year finalists, but with Tuvalu disappearing into the ocean, maybe we should think a little further ahead.
Although the Green Car of the Year finalists were announced recently, maybe we should be even more forward-thinking. In spite of the fact that there’s a growing movement that claims global warming is a myth, this Scientific American piece points out that most of these naysayers are non-scientists, and I for one refuse to ignore the fact that Tuvalu is disappearing into the Pacific Ocean, or that a third of Florida is in danger of disappearing too. So as awkward and foolish looking as amphibious cars have always been, maybe their time has come. One of the coolest options out there is the Squba concept car, which, while vaguely reminiscent of James Bond’s aquatic Lotus Esprit, is a tiny bit less stylish, and carries considerably fewer armaments and secret weapons. Although only a concept, it possesses a couple of advantages when compared to vehicles like those produced by companies like WaterCar though: 1.) It’s not butt-ugly, and 2.) It will still be useful when the world is one big ocean like in Waterworld
Is The Age of Stupid Stupid?
[ Comments Off ]Posted on September 21, 2009 by admin in Clean & Green, Popular Media
Monday, September 21st, 2009Today is the global premiere of The Age of Stupid, a dystopian eco-film that the New York Times is calling a sterner and more alarming polemic than An Inconvenient Truth. But is it based on solid science?
In spite of being almost foolishly utopian in nature (I genuinely like to believe humans will come to their senses, commingle, and create a beautiful single race blended from all of the current allegedly separate ones) I still loves me a good dystopian film now and then. Which is why I’m disappointed that I’ll probably miss the special global premiere of The Age of Stupid today. In spite of some complaints from the more level-headed members of the progressive scientific community that the film’s heavy-handed assertions about the end of the world as we know it are poorly supported by science, it looks like a thought-provoking film. It’s also getting decent reviews from sources like Wired and the NYT. The clip featured here, for instance, provides an amusing and brief history of war, which, as the clip points out, is always over resources. They move quickly through war for animals, war for water, war for “shiny things”, war for fertile land, war for “nutmeg slice and tea”, and finally diamonds, slaves and oil. The global premiere of the film – which takes place today and tomorrow – will feature a “green carpet” solar-powered cinema tent in New York, and will be linked by satellite to 442 cinemas across the USA (find a theater here) and to more than 200 cinemas abroad. Special guests include the likes of Kofi Annan and Thom Yorke of Radiohead. The film was put together by Franny Armstrong, director of McLibel
Is Reading A Book Bad For The Environment?
[ 3 Comments ]Posted on September 9, 2009 by admin in Clean & Green, Technology
Wednesday, September 9th, 2009One of the many reasons books and I are entering couples counseling.
I have a troubled relationship with books, and when I describe it, it sounds like a should see a couples’ counselor. I’d like to spend more time with them, but I have myriad excuses, mostly relating to feeling distracted or too busy. Or I say I’d like to get together when I can spend some quality time together. Which is a cheap out, because I can speed read (I can comfortably read 950wpm according to spreeder.com, try it yourself). The fact is that as much as I love the tactile feeling of kicking back with a good book – the feel, the smell – it also started seeming intuitively wrong a number of years ago. I worked at a now-defunct book store when eBooks were first being discussed as a possibility, and they intrigued me. My bibliophilic coworkers would sneer at me, tsk-tsking me for questioning the sacred nature of a physical book, which was a little ironic: the store sold remainders and reprints. For the record, the publishing industry is not particularly green; only 5% of the paper used in books is recycled, around 35% of books printed are never read, and instead are returned to the publisher and end up in landfills, and around 70% of the world’s paper supply comes from natural forests, rather than tree farms. So what’s an eco-minded book lover to do? The fact is that although eBook readers ultimately are greener than printed books (although there’s a fair amount of debate on the topic), they still, frankly, kind of suck. Compare these reviews and prices. The most popular reader – Amazon’s Kindle
How Green Are You?
[ 2 Comments ]Posted on August 20, 2009 by admin in Clean & Green, Lifestyle & Culture
Thursday, August 20th, 2009Take Some Simple Quizzes To Find Out
 This Guy Still Wins My Green Living Award |
I have a confession to make. This week I threw away two tuna cans, an egg carton, and a fruit juice bottle. In the trash. Not the recycle bin. The trash. I wouldn’t be confessing my sins like this, except I live in a small, allegedly progressive college town full of liberal elitist tree huggers and hippy co-op types. When I walked down the street this week, I carried a silent shame, convinced that they all somehow knew what I had done. Then I suddenly remembered that the liberal elitist treehuggers all drove BMW’s when they went to dinner at restaurants where they wasted half the meals, and if they did ask for a take out box, it was styrofoam, and they forgot and left it on the table ’cause they didn’t drink enough unfairly-traded coffee or evil Fiji water after getting drunk on wine that’s destroying the planet. So I felt better, but remained curious. Just how green am I really? Well, because of my poverty-inspired market-to-table and mass-transit oriented lifestyle, pretty darn green; just check out that crazy score below. So how green are you? Take some quizzes and find out. After reviewing about a dozen annoying Flash-based quizzes like this British Council How Green Are You quiz that seemed geared more toward making the publishers feel green about themselves, I found two that seemed to actually help you assess how green you are. The Low Impact Living Index (my results are below, a 23, thank you very much) asks some smart questions, and gives some fairly useful answers at the end. The Airhead Calculator was a little less detailed, but I discovered that I emitted 849 pounds of air pollution last month. Hmm. I had no idea I was so, um, emissive. So how green are you? Read the rest of this entry »
Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Solves Peak Oil Problem
[ 1 Comment ]Posted on July 7, 2009 by admin in Clean & Green, Technology
Tuesday, July 7th, 2009It’s nice to know that while Detroit automakers go bankrupt, there’s still a market for $2.1 million cars
Let’s see. Buy a house? Or buy a car? If you happen to have $2.1 million laying around, the Bugatti Veyron 16.4 might actually make this a difficult decision. I generally think of combustion engine vehicles as rather Luddite, but the inevitability of peak oil makes me feel like just funneling all the remaining petrol in the world into the 1001HP, 16-cylinder engine of this thing and burning it all up. With a 7-speed transmission and 4 turbochargers to get enough fuel and air into its monstrous 8.0 liter power-plant to keep it happy, the Veyron 16.4 has a top end of 253mph. But don’t get too excited about the idea that you can travel 253 miles away in an hour, because at its rate of fuel consumption at top speed, you’d theoretically have to refuel every 12 minutes. At least you’d look cool doing it though, partly because the car lowers to just 3.5 inches above the ground and automatically extends a rear spoiler, and partly because, well, c’mon. This thing is simply amazing to look at. In fact, I’d say more, but I keep drooling all over my keyboard. Check out this Wired.com piece for more photos and a description of what it’s like to drive the new Veyron; Bugatti didn’t offer us a test drive or a press tour for some reason. You can also configure your own with Bugatti’s configurator page. I was kind of partial to violet; the green option just didn’t look right somehow.