There are few things more fashionable these days than being “green”, but separating a truly eco-friendly bottle of sunscreen from a bottle of emerald-tinted snake-oil can be tough even for the shrewdest of consumers.
On the morning of September 21, 2017, Carlos Lago and Justina Díaz Bisbal emerged from their household into a post-apocalyptic world. Their once-lush five-acre fruit farm in southern Puerto Rico was entirely stripped of its foliage. Tree limbs were broken or twisted; pieces of metal from nearby homes, trash, and even…
The straw lobby has lost the capitalists. Just a few weeks after Starbucks announced it was eliminating plastic straws, Disney has said it’s doing the same.
On Monday, Starbucks announced it would be joining the bevy of fast food eateries that have pledged to be more environmentally friendly. The global coffee giant is phasing out single-use plastics straws from more than 28,000 of its stores worldwide come 2020, a move Starbucks says will eliminate over a billion plastic…
Walking around Amsterdam, at times, feels like strolling through the city of the future. Solar panels abound. Electric vehicles fill the roads, and everybody else is on a bike. Meanwhile, tucked away in the western part of town, some 50 families have agreed to turn their houses into living laboratories to figure out a…
Earlier this week, a pilot whale died after being found with 17 pounds of plastic bags in its stomach. The horrific incident was our latest reminder that plastic bags contribute to the scourge of marine litter. By sheer coincidence, it came on the heels of a major U.N. report pointing to plastic bag levies or bans as…
It takes a lot of electricity to mine bitcoins, and as more miners try to cash in on the crypto craze, the amount of energy required to win new coins increases accordingly. New research suggests the entire bitcoin network could consume as much as 7.7 gigawatts of electricity by the end of this year—enough to power a…
AMSTERDAM—Walking into De Ceuvel feels a bit like walking into a post-apocalyptic utopia. A dozen or so houseboats litter the ground around a gathering place, where a rusted hull has been cut in half and converted into benches. Slanted solar panels pepper the rooftops of structures built out of recycled materials, all…
Frank Alsema describes himself as a “city maker.” The TV producer lives in north Amsterdam, where his house has become a lab for more sustainable urban lifestyle. The community there and throughout the Netherlands aspire to what they call a “circular economy.” That means recycling and reusing everything, including…
Wooden skyscrapers are fast becoming a trend in sustainable construction, with dozens planned across the country. Two buildings in Portland, Oregon—Carbon12, a new all-timber high-rise building, and Framework, another in progress that will be 12 stories—offer an early look at what it will take for the trend to develop…
It can be tough to reconcile being a LEGO geek and a fan of the environment (raises hand). But LEGO is trying to make that a little easier.
If you’re anything like me, you wouldn’t survive a workday without that steaming, morning cup o’ Joe. And the four to five cups that follow it. Okay, maybe I have a problem but who doesn’t these days?
Nearly everything about the small block says “wood”: its texture, appearance, sturdiness, and color are like an especially high-quality piece of particle board. But it’s just a bit too dense for wood, which gives it away. The block is made of straw bound together by mycelium, the root-like tendrils of mushrooms.
An extremely expensive truffle has been grown farther north than ever before, a phenomenon researchers attribute to altered growing conditions created by climate change. For the first time, a Mediterranean black truffle, also known as a Périgord truffle, has been grown in the United Kingdom—and not a moment too soon…
Your childhood NES that hasn’t booted up in a decade. Your stash of old flip phones that you’ve kept in a shoebox in the closet for “sentimental” value. That gallon bag of used batteries that you know you’re not supposed to toss in the dumpster, but after five years of carting them around from apartment to apartment,…
There’s no doubt that if we’re going to stop or even slow down climate change, we have to get our collective shit together. But collective action starts with individual choices, and for all the data-driven decision makers out there, the path forward just got a bit more lucid. A new study in Environmental Research…
By now it’s well documented that those tiny plastic microbeads used in face scrubs and toothpastes are contaminating lakes and oceans at an alarming rate. Starting next month they’ll be officially banned in the US for personal care products, but oily faces rejoice, eco-friendly replacements are already in the works.
A 720-foot-tall wind turbine featuring 35 ton blades has just set a new world record, producing a whopping 216,000 kWh of energy over a span of 24 hours. That’s enough to power an average American household for twenty years.
Populations of wild vertebrates are on track to fall 67 percent by 2020, according to a new report on the state of Earth’s ecosystems. It’s another stunning reminder of the scale of humanity’s impact on the planet, and a frightening glimpse into the realities of life in the Anthropocene.
Today is Earth Overshoot Day—the day when humanity has consumed more natural resources than the planet is able to generate in a single calendar year. Disturbingly, this date is happening earlier with each passing year.
