Business & Politics

photo by Lisa Norwood

You could have blinked and missed it, and undoubtedly the bleary-eyed masses with lighter wallets certainly did, but the National Clean Energy Summit just took place over the past two days in Las Vegas. Among the speakers at the event, Bill Clinton outlined his 10 recommendations for building a clean energy future in the United States, and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg did something similar for New York City. (Can you tell I’m a New Yorker, equating my fair city with the rest of the country?)

The conference as a whole produced a rather long laundry list (27 items!) of recommendations to both federal and state governments as to how best set the United States on the road away from fossil fuel dependency and a greener future. So here they are, grouped into broad categories:

Cars & Transportation

What Honda's Dedicated Hybrid Might Look Like
Jalopnik has asked KORSdesign to create a mockup of what Honda's upcoming dedicated hybrid, planned for 2010, might look like. They obviously used the spy-shots (see below) that came out a few weeks ago as a foundation, and added some elements from the Honda FCX Hydrogen Fuel Cell car (Honda said their new hybrid would take design cues from it).

In fact, except for the rear, it looks almost exactly like the FCX (pic below), which isn't such a bad thing.

Interact

Researchers discover a new method that could make the open road a solar energy source.

Green Home Huddler rounds up a list of handy green pocket guides.

EcoLibris reviews A Spring Without Bees by Michael Schacker.

The Boston Globe reports on backyards containing lead in the soil.

The Travelodge hotel in London invites guests to sleep in shipping containers.

Most Huggable is a regular roundup of some of Hugg's top green news stories. Why not submit your own green news?

Food & Health

A super ripe Biriba fruit, an orgasmic Amazonian treat!

Now why do some foods become popular and others just don't ever make it to the shelves of your market. Some of the worlds greatest foods are barely eaten outside of their area of origin. How did a fruit like the kiwi go from being nearly unknown outside the Yangtze Valley in China to be found in almost every fruit salad around the world? Just who makes those decisions?

Business & Politics

Ling Wang, Mikisew First Nation

Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are casing the joint at the Alberta Oil Sands, to satisfy "their own curiosity" but also "with investment in mind", according to the National Post.

We wonder if they were shown the mutated fish with two heads that was caught just downstream. Stuart MacMillan of Parks Canada calls it "really unusual. The fish has an obvious abnormality. I had never seen anything like that myself before. I can’t speculate on what might have caused it.”

Native people living in Fort Chip certainly were speculating. George Poitras of the Mikesew Cree showed it at a Keepers of the Water conference: “People were in disbelief. Here they saw a fish that we suspect is very much linked to tarsands development and contamination of the Athabasca River. Our elders tell us that what happens to the animals and the fish is just a sign of what is going to happen to human life.”

Science & Technology

"This is one of my favorite charts: A comparison of the distance a car can drive based on either of the following forms of energy, each produced on 100m x 100m of land (2.5 acres). How come that biofuel does not really cut it? Electric cars are about four times more energy efficient than fuel based cars, no matter whether they are based on biofuel or other fuel. This is because any fuel engine mostly creates heat and thus wastes the majority of the available energy units. Combine this with plants not being very efficient solar energy harvesters relative to semiconductor based solar electricity, and the result is this huge difference."

"I for one have vowed that the Prius I bought six years ago will have been the last fuel powered car I’d buy in my life. Presently, it is baking in the sun all day while I’m at work. My future all-electric car would charge up while idling under a solar carport." Source: Nanosolar Blog

Business & Politics

Fun on the Farm Down Home in Long Island City "P.S. 1, in Long Island City, Queens, has been hosting its weekly summer dance-party series, Warm Up Saturdays, for 10 years. This year, instead of the usual urban beach-themed décor, the courtyard has been transformed into an urban farm: 260 cardboard cylinders, from waist-height to towering, that sprout 51 plant varieties, like Swiss chard, dill, strawberries and tomatoes." ::New York Times

TreeHugger on P.S. Farm? PS1's Public Farm 1 is now open for picking

Drink Outside the Box Tyler Colman, AKA Dr. Vino, says " Producers everywhere need to deliver better wine in a box — and make it snappy. Perhaps they will if consumers start to demand that everyday wines that don’t need to age in a bottle be sold in a box. If you’re sorry about the change, squeeze off another well-preserved, affordable, low-carbon serving of boxed wine and mull it over." ::New York Times

We Disagree: Which Is Greener, Wine Bottle or Box? Neither.
Drinking Outside the Box: Juice Boxes for Wine
Eco-chic: Greenwashing from the Liquor Store
Or Not: Hitting the Bottle or Hitting the Box? The Debate Continues

Travel & Nature

photo by Michael via flickr

We’ve written about colony collapse disorder a number of times, and while a parasitic mite which makes bees more susceptible to disease has been linked to the honey bee die-off, the Natural Resources Defense Council believes that the US Environmental Protection Agency knows more than it is letting on about the connection between pesticides and CCD. In an attempt to force the EPA into giving up the goods, the NRDC has filed a lawsuit in a federal court in Washington DC.

Recent Comment by Cybercat : "If you are surprised by this, you haven't been paying attention. The EPA over the last..." [read]