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1. 7 Tips for (Truthful) Green Marketing: Beware the Panda
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2. OEMtek Turns Hybrids into Plug-in Hybrids
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3. Kluster: Crowdsourcing Design to Get Stuff Done
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4. Green Eyes On: Greening Any Home
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5. Water Photolysis: Turning the Sun's Light Directly into Hydrogen
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6. Top 100 (SIGGnificant) Eco Moments of All Time
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7. China's Environmental Push: Pollution-Absorbing Parking Lots and other Nanotechnology Innovations
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8. Constructive: Design Encouraging Debate About Sustainability
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9. British Columbia Introduces Smart Carbon Tax
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10. A Picture is Worth... Solar Power in California
7 Tips for (Truthful) Green Marketing: Beware the Panda
2008-02-20 22:16
Business & Politics
Choosing not to heed advice on green marketing could see companies fined up to $1.1 million AUD. So, think carefully about badging your offering with icons of trees, planets, pandas, dolphins, etc. And if you label your product or service with the following terms, expect the Australian consumer watchdog to be looking over your shoulder, to ensure you substantiate your claim: 'environmentally friendly', 'environmentally safe', 'energy efficient', 'recyclable', 'carbon neutral', 'renewable' or 'green' energy. The ACCC assert that "Consumers are entitled to rely on any environmental claims you ma... 
OEMtek Turns Hybrids into Plug-in Hybrids
2008-02-20 20:09
Business & Politics
OEMtek can turn your Prius hybrid into a plug-in hybrid. Concretely, this means adding a battery pack in the spare tire trunk of the car (without removing it) to extend the battery capacity* of the vehicle. The 9 kWh BREEZ battery can be recharged from the grid and is composed of standard-size cylindrical lithium-phosphate cells and can give the Prius an all-electric range of 30-35 miles (48-56 kilometers) per full charge. This increases fuel economy to 90 miles per gallon on the first 47 miles on the highway, and more than 150 mpg in low-speed urban driving for about the first 30-35 miles. OEMtek has been getting 125 mpg in combined driving during their own test (~70... 
Kluster: Crowdsourcing Design to Get Stuff Done
2008-02-20 19:25
Business & Politics
Crowdsourcing works great for information -- check out a little site called Wikipedia to see it in action -- but the concept hasn't jumped to business with much aplomb, just yet. That's something that the guys at Kluster are betting on changing, with their freshly-launched beta site that will get its first serious workout next week at TED. The idea behind it is pretty cool: projects with a defined goal -- a logo or product design, event, campaign, etc. -- are submitted, and the community users submit their ideas, designs or solutions that meet the goal. Broken down in... 
Green Eyes On: Greening Any Home
2008-02-20 19:14
Culture & Celebrity
A few years ago, my husband and I were looking to move. We strongly considered buying some land far from the city and erecting some cool modern eco-home. When I was a kid my parents, inspired by a drive and commitment to live off of the Earth as much as possible, moved us from our home in the city of Ann Arbor to a house we built in the woods about 20 to 30 minutes outside of town. We had solar panels (that never really worked), compost piles, huge organic gardens and we kept warm via 
Water Photolysis: Turning the Sun's Light Directly into Hydrogen
2008-02-20 18:10
alternative energy
The concept of the "hydrogen economy" was quite popular until people started to ask where all that hydrogen would come from. One possible path is using bacteria, another is solar energy: Penn State researchers have announced a proof-of-concept device that can split water and produce recoverable hydrogen. So far, it's quite inefficient. "But ultimately, catalytic systems with 10 to 15 percent solar conversion efficiency might be achievable," said Thomas E. Mallouk, Professor of Materials Chemistry and Physics. "If this could be realized, water photolysis would provide a clean source of hy... 
Top 100 (SIGGnificant) Eco Moments of All Time
2008-02-20 17:37
Culture & Celebrity
The good people at SIGG have teamed up with Laurie David's Stop Global Warming virtual march (remember, you can march with TreeHugger) to count down 100 Eco Moments in honor of the Swiss bottle-maker's 100th birthday. From now until Earth Day (April 22), they'll celebrate one "SIGGnificant" moment -- both good and bad -- each day. So far, the list includes events like Jacques Cousteau's birth, the beginning of the automobile assembly line and the creation of the national park service; they've got a ways to ... 
China's Environmental Push: Pollution-Absorbing Parking Lots and...
2008-02-20 17:15
Science & Technology
Image courtesy of meckleychina via flickr In preparation for the upcoming Beijing Olympics - its unofficial coming out party to the world (and its chance to prove its eco-progressive, technological chops) - China has announced its intention to invest heavily in nanotechnology. At least that was the message conveyed to Richard Applebaum and Rachel Parker of UCBS's Center for Nanotechnology in Society, who conducted 60 interviews with Chinese officials about the state of nanotechnology. Reporting from the AAAS meeting, 
Constructive: Design Encouraging Debate About Sustainability
2008-02-20 17:05
Design & Architecture
Swedish designers Form Us With Love (who first appeared on TreeHugger with their cool flat pack office accessories) recently held an exhibition at Stockholm Design Week that explored sustainability. Called "Constructive," the exhibition featured six designs that approached sustainability through materials, manufacturing, and smart, efficient design. Above (on the left) are the "Duplicate" tables, which uses the same form and materials (extendable base, plywood top) to create a variety of table sizes, reducing the number of necessary steps in the production process. "Button," (... 
British Columbia Introduces Smart Carbon Tax
2008-02-20 16:40
Business & Politics
The finance minister of British Columbia, Canada, has just introduced a new "escalating carbon tax" that will affect most fossil fuels. They are not the first in the country - that would be Quebec with its ridiculously low and non revenue-neutral carbon tax - but their plan has a better chance to make a difference. The carbon tax will start on July 1 at a rate based on C$10 per tonne of carbon emissions and rise C$5 a year to C$30 per tonne by 2012. It works out to an extra 2.4 cents on a liter of gasoline, rising to 7.24 cents per liter of gasoline by 2012. The carbon tax on diesel and hom... 
A Picture is Worth... Solar Power in California
2008-02-20 16:40
Science & Technology
Image courtesy of Cooler Planet The good people at Cooler Planet have come up with a neat way to visualize the progress solar energy has made in California over the past decade - a Google Maps mash-up with data provided by the California Energy Commission (lots of great stats to play around with). This particular map shows all of the solar installations installed in the state since 2002. Here's the inspiration for the project: "Rather than reading ove... 
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