Here’s a breakdown of the worst-case scenario of global warming: If we continue to burn fossil fuels at an ever-growing rate, the Earth’s average surface temperature is going to increase by ten degrees, severe weather will increase, and life will require great adaptation. Will this happen? Well, it could. Folks don’t agree on whether or not carbon dioxide is actually the culprit, or even whether or not global warming is the biggest issue in the first place. Mind you, there is nothing wrong (and everything right!) about cutting back on our use of fossil fuels. In the early ...

Suburbia is a place that I have avoided all my life. I've met people who grew up thereI've heard about all the drugs that they've done, all the fights they've been in, all the miles they've walked to get out of the suburbs and into the city. Still, though, suburbia is a place I don't understand, for the simple reason that I've never spent much time there.

Enter ...

Rechargeable batteries have successfully reduced the number of batteries entering the landfills. Batteries that are rechargeable don't last forever and eventually need to be disposed of. The trouble is some people are still improperly disposing rechargeable batteries The toxic chemicals that make up batteries can leak once added to a landfill and contaminate water sources by entering into the ground water. There is no need for that when there are easily accessible locations that willing accepts those rechargeable batteries to keep them out of landfills. Big box stores, electronic ...

The Sunrise Celebration seems like the sort of music festival at which a shift to greener practices is to be expected. As one bystander comments, “it does attract a crowd of people who want to know more” about green practices and sustainability. All energy used on-site must come from renewable sources, all food waste is composted and brought back to the site as fertilizer, and no one is allowed to use any disposable containers but the biodegradable ones provided by Sunrise. The Moon Beam café is cooking using solar ...

As a kid, did you ever try using a magnifying glass to focus the sun’s rays and fry an unsuspecting ant? Don’t answer that. But on a small scale, that trick is a good example of how much energy there is available to be harvested from the heat of the sun. Outside of Seville, in southern Spain, a new power plant has been built using the same concept. It’s ridiculously simple—a field of gigantic mirrors direct sunlight toward the top of a tower, where the resulting heat powers a boiler (heats the water) to make steam. After that, it works just like every other power ...

I can’t help being struck by the sight of what looks like a handcrafted wooden artpiece rolling along the road on two bicycle wheels. Not just any two bicycle wheels, either—these are Xentis Kappa carbon fibre! Waldmeister Bikes, of Germany, manufactures wooden frames and fits the components on. So far they only make one model. The frame is made of multiple layers of beech wood, glued together and pressed under high pressure, then shaped to the ...

Look, it’s the future! Jay Leno is taking steps to make his impressive auto garage more environmentally friendly. In this video we meet the Omegasonics Super Pro ultrasonic parts cleaning system, in which sound waves and biodegradable soap take the place of toxic chemicals and degreasers, to clean off dirty or rusted metal parts. They drop in an unrecognizably rusty Allen Key set and in 2 or 3 minutes, it comes out shiny and clean— another 20 minutes, they say, would do the job completely. The machine is noisy, big, and I’m sure it uses a lot of power, but ...

IBM in the U.K. has a new product under development that could make the interpretation of speech into sign language very simple. Called Say It Sign It (or SiSi), the program uses voice recognition software to convert spoken words into text, and then translates the text into signs that are displayed by a digital character. While not yet available for commercial use, the software is eagerly anticipated by spokespersons for the deaf community. It will make lectures, radio, internet, and television more accessible to the deaf and hard of hearing—and having the translation ...

If you have interests or concerns about Genetically Modified Foods, and the future of our food supply I recommend you take ninety minutes of your time to watch "The Future of Food". The film, written & produced by Deborah Koons Garcia & Catherine Lynn Butler Genetically Modified Organisms have been a hot topic since the early 1990's. In the world of biotechnology, problems have started to crop ...

Canadian writer Margaret Atwood invented a way of signing autographs from a distance—a gadget called the “longpen”—to reduce the traveling an author has to do while on a book tour. The longpen uses a digital writing pad at one end and a robotic arm at the other, so that Atwood could be, for example, sitting at home in Toronto, while digitally signing autographs at an event in London. Environmentally conscious, Atwood has a green roof with solar panels on her home. The longpen is now being picked up by various North American companies as a friendly alternative to hydrocarbon-guzzling ...