Earth Island Institute

NYC Taxis Get in on Ridesharing – March 17, 2010

This seems like such a simple solution, I’m surprised it hasn’t been done before:  earlier this month, the NYC Taxi & Limousine Commission launched a program to organize cab-shares in the city. Called the Group Rides program, it’s being run as a pilot project for the first year. If the idea takes off, which everyone hopes it will, the program will be expanded throughout the city.

It works like this: First, the Taxi & Limousine Commission will installed a small network of official Group Rides stands in Manhattan (three in Manhattan proper and three at La Guardia). Passengers …more

by: Amy Westervelt

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Listening to Ice Melt – March 16, 2010

Paul D. Miller—aka DJ Spooky, That Subliminal Kid—is a man on a mission. The DJ recently told Psychology Today magazine: "If I'm going to think about something, I'd rather really think about it."

Right now he's really thinking about the environment. Miller spent a month in Antarctica recently, recording the sound of ice melting. He has since mixed those sounds with other melodies and beats, and integrated them with a series of images to create the multimedia Sinfonia Antarctica. The name is a shout-out to British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, who created a metaphorical portrait of Antarctica by …more

by: Amy Westervelt

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One Rosenfeld, Two Rosenfeld, Three Rosenfeld, Four – March 11, 2010

The first step toward giving something value is giving it a specific form of measure. Such is the thinking behind a paper drafted by 54 leading scientists and published earlier this week: “Defining a standard metric for electricity savings". The report's authors hail from 26 institutions around the world, all of whom are happy to have Arthur Rosenfeld's name be as synonymous with energy efficiency as Tesla's is with magnetic fields and the Curies are with radioactivity.

“In keeping with the tradition among scientists of naming units in honor of …more

by: Amy Westervelt

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Ric O’Barry Recaps His Oscar Moment – March 8, 2010

It’s axiomatic that any time the powers-that-be try to censor political speech they just end up drawing more attention to the message they wanted to squelch.

Evidence of that truth was on display last night during the 82 Annual Academy Awards, when Ric O’Barry — protagonist of the film, The Cove, which took home the trophy for Best Documentary — tried to use his 15 seconds of screen time to jolt new energy into the campaign to halt the dolphin capture and slaughter in Taiji, Japan.

As soon as he got on stage, co-director Fisher Stevens rattled off the obligatory Thank-Yous then included, “My hero, Ric O’Barry, …more

by: Jason Mark

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Letting Buildings Breathe – March 3, 2010

This super-cool new product from a company called Breathing Buildings in the United Kingdom really kicks natural ventilation up a notch. Whereas usually naturally ventilated buildings can be cooled without air conditioning, which cuts down on energy costs, the Breathing Buildings system also uses natural ventilation to heat the building. I know, sounds impossible. Except that it totally isn't, all you need is an operable window on your ceiling.

Here's how it works: When it's cold outside, the lower-level windows are closed, but the heat produced by the building and its occupants is actually more than …more

by: Amy Westervelt

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Anglomania: The UK’s Smart Approach to Cleantech – March 3, 2010

It always annoys me to hear American journalists or experts fawning over Europe and how much better European countries handle pretty much everything, even though I know in many cases it’s true. So I was loathe to admit, after speaking with a number of UK companies and government officials at a cleantech conference last week, that the limeys probably have us beat on the research front.

It all boils down to what venture capitalist and Silicon Valley golden boy Vinod Khosla calls “being technology-neutral”: essentially, if you are too financially or emotionally invested in any one solution, you may lose …more

by: Amy Westervelt

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Musings on the Growing Backlash Against Certification – February 25, 2010

Today, at a Cleantech Forum San Francisco panel on how start-ups can connect with corporations looking to spend money on "green" technologies, Arlin Wasserman of cafeteria food giant Sodexo said something sort of amazing. It was more of an aside than anything else, but it spoke volumes.

"When agricultural supply chains get more complex, as ours is with the thousands of products we're dealing with every day, they become very opaque," he said. "So we're really looking for a technology that would increase the transparency of that …more

by: Amy Westervelt

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