Photo by Lena Tashjian

Lonesome George slovenly lumbers out of the brush in his compound, painstakingly climbs the minor incline up to his pool, and collapses. The famed giant tortoise seems exhausted and lethargic, even by tortoise standards. And I can't blame him—if I were 100 years old, the very last male of my species left in existence, and had little hope of fathering children, I'd probably have trouble getting out of bed in the morning too.

:: Make your holiday spritzers sustainably yummy with our How to Go Green: Cocktails guide.

:: Reuse old, mangled earphones to make this easy DIY speaker set-up.

:: Three delicious words: Cheddar Buttermilk Biscuits. Need we say more?

It takes years to get to be an exhibitor at the One of a Kind Show in Toronto, an institution every Christmas season where you can load up on the work of artists, craftspeople and artisans. (It is coming to New York and Chicago this year, don't miss it) It usually has a big green section, but this show the pickings were thinner than usual in the green department.

One idea I liked was Botanical Art, where Diane De Roo starts with "real pressed and preserved vegetables and fruits, which are then meticulously hand-painted and mounted in contemporary black frames and shadow boxes."

The stepwell at Chand Baori, India, is a hundred feet deep and has 3500 steps. Legend says that it has so many steps to make it impossible for someone to retrieve a coin if it is dropped into the well.

Earth image via Woodleywonderworks, and Dell images via Dell

Instead, it says taking smaller steps constantly is better.

With the economy tanking, doing major overhauls of data centers to make them efficient isn’t really an option for many businesses right now. And yet radically changing data centers is a key component of improving conserving resources nationally and world wide – something we discuss often. So how do businesses balance their need for big changes with their strapped investment resources?

Dell proposes a solution, or really a bunch of small solutions, and has shown the philosophy’s viability by following it itself.

A couple weeks back I highlighted a piece of direct action by Greenpeace activists in Indonesia which elicited comments ranging from praise to vociferous derision. Here’s another one which may have some of you scratching your heads.

Activists from Rising Tide North America invaded the Washington DC offices of Environmental Defense. ED was targeted “because of the organization’s key role in promoting the discredited approach of carbon trading as a solution to climate change.”

Adding a further twist is that one of the leader activists was Dr Rachel Smolker, the daughter of one of Environmental Defense’s founders. Dr Smolker elaborated on the motivation for the action:

Photo: Golden Millet, Beekeeper, St. George, Utah, July 2007 (Photo: Kate Kunath)

The mystery of bees disappearing all over the world is continuing to baffle scientists and beekeepers alike: is it parasitic mites? Or Bayer's pesticides? Reports of bee colony collapse disorder (CCD) happening in the United States, United Kingdom, Spain, France and Germany have prompted beekeepers to agitate for government action - absolutely essential when faced with the fact that bee pollination accounts for one-third of global food crops, and the possibility that global bee populations may be wiped out by 2035.

Of course, in our industrial food system it's rare to see the human side that's affected by such disasters in the making, but New York and Los-Angeles-based photographer Kate Kunath's beautiful photo essay on the subject fulfills this critical dimension. Like a lot of her subjects, they "often find her by coincidence" and the bee crisis found her by the way of a radio report in early 2007. See more of the photo essay after the jump.

Image Credit: thingermejig

greenteadrinker:

On Renovation Nation they often speak to the roof's that people are installing. It got me to thinking, which is more beneficial? Solar panels-free electricity (once the initial investment is paid off) Green roof system? Stops/slows water run off and helps insulate the homes interior.

Have an opinion or expertise?