ilikeitgreen - Green for Life!

Photo via International Rivers The International Herald Tribune has an interesting (if embarrassingly headlined--in the print edition, they went all-out for an Icarus reference) look at the boom and bust of the Spanish solar industry today. Basically, in a rush to jumpstart a pioneering solar industry, the Spanish gov offered far too sweet a feed-in tariff for solar investors--a whopping 58 U...Read the full story on TreeHugger

A pampering session at the beauty salon always works wonders for morale - not just for humans, but also for sharks and manta ray fish. Australian scientists have discovered that these large marine creatures regularly congregate at certain spots on the Great Barrier Reef to be groomed by smaller fish.

Green members of the European parliament stood en masse and held up placards Tuesday in protest against the EU Commission approval of the cultivation of genetically modified potatoes.

photo via Climate Changer A few weeks ago, UN Climate Chief Yvo de Boer stepped down from his post as the United Nations Climate Change Secretariat. Who replaces him figures to be a signal of where the UN is going on climate change. Developing countries have had a hard road to climb in the UN process and three are stepping up to nominate a replacement for Boer. ...Read the full story on TreeHugger

This photo, via The Telegraph, shows just how difficult it is to move one of the large, primitive cycads. Important specimens from one of the world´s oldest and rarest species of plant were stolen last weekend, covert ops style, from a botanical garden in South Africa. The species, cycads, is so old, in fact, that their broad ...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Image credit: Grist Imagine a hot summer day in a town surrounded by glistening pools of water. Now imagine that no one is swimming—that they can't because the water has been contaminated with a potentially dangerous, yet common, pollutant. For many, this terrible thought is a reality and the culprit is nitrate....Read the full story on TreeHugger

Image credit: Good Passing a strong climate bill, Good tells us in a recent editorial, is a necessity. Such a bill, they write, must be defined by what is good for the country, not what is easy for the Senate to agree upon....Read the full story on TreeHugger

The greater sage-grouse was deemed to be "warranted but precluded" by the U.S. Department of the Interior. Image credit: Wikimedia Commons Though it "warrants" protection under the Endangered Species Act, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar said, the greater sage-grouse will not be added to the list at this time. Instead, it would join nearly 300 other species that have been "precluded"—essentially placed on a waiting list—while other priority species are considered. While the ruling was by no means a total loss for the grouse, it falls far ...Read the full story on TreeHugger

"Orthographic aerial photograph of Kingston Fossil Plant coal fly ash slurry spill, in Kingston, Tennessee, taken the day after the event." Photo: Public domain CO2 is Important, But Not the Only Thing David Roberts over at Grist has a great rebuttal of Thom Friedman's latest column in which he and investor...Read the full story on TreeHugger

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During last year's seal hunt Brian posted about Canada's Governor General gutting a seal and eating its heart. Canada's Minister of Defence helped himself to a seal banquet as well. When it comes to seal, Solidarity Forever. But now they don't have to go to the Arctic for a traditional Inuit feast; they can just pop over to the Parliamentary Restaurant, where seal is the chic thing, the hot ticket item for those who want to show support for the seal hunt. ...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Photo: CarFree.us "I knew I was benefiting myself and the environment by commuting without a car, but to see the real impact is very amazing." If you want to get around faster than your feet can take you while doing as little harm as possible, the bicycle is your best option. An unnamed author has recently started documenting his experience with becoming a bicycle commuter, and the results are interesting (and hopefully encouraging enough that others will do the same!). In a recent post, he does a little math to see how much money his new green commuting habits are saving h...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Image credit: Andrew Zuckerman digg_url = 'http://www.treehugger.com/galleries/2010/03/captivating-animal-portraits-by-andrew-zuckerman-portray-nature-in-a-whole-new-way.php';When Andrew Zuckerman, a renowned commercial photographer, turned his lens on animals, the result was a series of striking images that resonate with emotion. Collected in his book Read the full story on TreeHugger

Image: Knossos Induction Lights Are Close, But No Cigar Most people who have been following lighting tech seem to be convinced that light-emitting diode (LED) lights are the future, but it's always good to see new research being done on them. The more sure we are that they're the way to go, the better. It always sucks to invest a lot of time and money into something only to later realize that it's not nearly as good as we were first led to believe (*cough* corn ethanol *cough*). Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh have conducted the first cradle-to-grave assessment of LED streetlights, and the...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Image credit: eBay "Going green" may be turning into a tired refrain for those that have been working hard to decrease their environmental footprint for years. To corporate America, however, the phrase has just as much vibrancy as ever. At the end of February, Walmart announced a plan to cut the greenhouse gas emissions from the lifecycle of its products by 20 million metric tons by 2015. Now, eBay ...Read the full story on TreeHugger

The guys who run FreeGreen, the free homeplan website, are so smart; they could have just hired architects to do plans, and would have had to go to the trouble of deciding which architect to hire; instead they write a brief and run a competition. Now they have the work of hundreds of architects to chose from; established firms with the works in the drawer, young designers hoping to be discovered. But they are not the only ones who benefit; everyone can look, vote and learn from over 400 submissions. The challenge was to "re-envision the typical suburban home in an ecologically conscious manner that also reflects today's modern lifesty...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Photo via Nectar For people who aren't satisfied with the fact that the greenest thing about their coffee table is the mug of organically grown joe resting on top of it, finally there's a truly appealing alternative in the Voltpot. Not only does its grassy surface bring a bit of oxygen producing plant-life to your living room--the metabolic process is captured and converted to energy to char...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Photo via jurvetson digg_url = 'http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/03/nokia-moving-into-kinetically-charged-cell-phones-files-new-patent.php'; So far, kinetic charging for cell phones has been confined to the realm of external chargers (which are only now starting to be actually useful) and Read the full story on TreeHugger

Survivalism may be going mainstream, what will all the new cave men and off-gridders. But for Heimo and Edna Korth, survival in the wild has been a way of life for three decades. The last humans to be living in the 19.5-million-acre Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and living 130 miles above the Arctic Circle, they are quite possibly the most remote Ameri...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Photo via The Cove The Cove has made a tremendous impact on people when it comes to raising awareness about the slaughter of dolphins and the dark story of whale meat in the fish market. It has changed lives, riled people up, won its Oscar, and now it just might turn into a new TV Series on Animal Planet starting this fall. ...Read the full story on TreeHugger