Green Environment

Three astronauts who recently spent months together aboard the International Space Station reunited on Earth on May 23 during a Google+ Hangout to talk about their experiences aboard the orbiting lab and the challenge of readapting to life with gravity.

Read the rest of ‘The Shack’ is a Marin County Retreat with Restored Old-Growth Timber Features Permalink | Add to del.icio.us | digg Post tags: bay area, California, Feldman Architecture, green interiors, green renovation, green roofs, home renovations, home tours, interior design, Landscape Architecture, Loretta Gargan, marin county, Northern California, Ross, San Francisco, SF Bay Area, The Shack, timber

French cyclist François Gissy strapped a rocket to the frame of his bike and achieved a top speed of 263 kilometers per hour (163mph) in an epic thrill ride that took place at abandoned runway in the northeast of France. Pushing a simple mountain bike to the speed limits it has never seen before, the Frenchman broke the rocket-powered bike record of 242.6 kilometers per hour set in 2002. Read the rest of 163MPH Rocket-Powered Bike Sets New World Land Speed Record Permalink | Add to del.icio.us | digg Post tags: bike design, bike speed, cycling, cycling records, François Gissy bike, François Gissy bike world record, green transportation, guinness book of world records, mountain bike design, rocket-powered bike, rocket-powered vehicle

Clear skies and a passing space station combined for an extraordinary view of Alaska's erupting Pavlof volcano on May 18. An astronaut aboard the International Space Station snapped a photo of ash streaming from the fiery peak in the Aleutian Islands, about 625 miles (1,000 kilometers) southwest of Anchorage.

(Credit: Andreas Gebert/EPA/Corbis) German brewers are sounding the alarm that allowing fracking could pollute water and ruin German beer. [Telegraph] German brewers have warned Chancellor Angela Merkel that any law allowing the controversial drilling technique known as fracking could damage the country’s cherished beer industry. The Brauer-Bund beer association is worried that fracking for shale gas, which involves pumping water and chemicals at high pressure into the ground, could pollute water used for brewing and break a 500-year-old industry rule on water purity. Germany, home to Munich’s annual Oktoberfest – the world’s biggest folk festival which attracts around 7m visitors – has a proud tradition of brewing and beer drinking. Under the “Reinheitsgebot”, or German purity law, brewers have to produce beer using only malt, hops, yeast and water. “The water has to be pure and more than half Germany’s brewers have their own wells which are situated outside areas that could be protected under the government’s current planned legislation on fracking,” said a Brauer-Bund spokesman. “You cannot be sure that the water won’t be polluted by chemicals so we have urged the government to carry out more research before it goes ahead with a fracking law,” he added. Eugene Robinson: “President Obama should spend his remaining years in office making the United States part of the solution to climate change, not part of the problem.” [Washington Post] Former Republican Governor Jane Swift commends President Obama for choosing Gina McCarthy to run the EPA, and urges the Senate to confirm this “qualified nominee.” [Boston Globe] New research says that Mount Everest’s glaciers have shrunk 13 percent in the last 50 years, and that rate is accelerating. [Guardian] Budget woes, the sequester, and system failures have seriously impacted National Weather Service warning and forecasting capabilities. [Capital Weather Gang] NOAA predicts a very active hurricane season in 2013. [Washington Post] An economist’s take on climate change’s odds: “Prudence would seem to dictate taking action to cut back greenhouse gas emissions significantly.” [PBS] CA Gov. Jerry Brown on climate change: “We’ve got a big challenge. It’s daunting. This is not just about science, this is about activism.” [AP] Will a changing climate lead to increased plagues of locusts? [Guardian] What China is doing about their serious air pollution problem. [NPR] More than a hundred rallied against the potential LA Times sale to the conservative activist Koch brothers. [LA Times] The interesting thing about this week’s Keystone vote was not that it passed, but that it lost Democratic support. [Washington Post] The State Department has begun releasing the 1.2 million comments it received regarding the Keystone pipeline, revealing how controversial the project is. [The Hill] Russia approved an incentive program to boost renewable-energy production, targeting almost 6 gigawatts of new capacity by 2020 and its first solar parks. [Bloomberg] Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton signed legislation that included the state’s first solar energy standard. [Minnesota Clean Energy & Jobs] Rural Australians who have been protesting coal seam gas reportedly encountered gunfire today, but are standing their ground. [The Chronicle] Houston’s air quality is dangerous already — what happen should tar sands begin to flow from Alberta to Harris County? [DeSmogBlog] The world’s first wind/current power system will be installed off the coast of Japan this year. [CleanTechnica]

Read the rest of 8 Scrumptious Vegan BBQ Recipes for Summer Permalink | Add to del.icio.us | digg Post tags: 8 Yummy Vegan BBQ Recipes to Make Meat-Eaters Jealous, chili lime tofu, eco design, elote, green design, grilled artichokes, grilled corn, grilled mushrooms, sustainable design, teriyaki eggplant, tofu kebabs, vegan bbq, vegan bbq alternatives, vegan bbq recipes, vegan food, vegan recipes, vegetarian alternative recipes, vegetarian bbq, vegetarian recipes

Recently Inhabitat wrote about the Glowing Plants project, an idea that uses the science of bioluminescence to light up a room using plants. The Kickstarter campaign, created by the team of bio-engineers responsible for the technology, has been such a hit that the creators have decided to reward pledgers with the best gift yet: a kit that allows anyone to grow their own glowing plants right at home. READ MORE > Read the rest of The Glowing Plant Project: New DIY Kits Let Anyone Create Their Own Bioluminescent Blooms Permalink | Add to del.icio.us | digg Post tags: bioluminescence, bioluminescence innovation, bioluminescence technology, Glowing Plant Kickstarter Campaign, Glowing Plant Maker Kit, Glowing Plant Project, green lighting, kickstarter project, Rewards for Kickstarter Pledges, sustainable lighting innovations, sustainable lighting plants

More than 100 people from the Gainesville area are expected to join thousands of others around the world on Saturday to protest a corporation at the forefront of genetically modified crops and the use of insecticides. The March Against Monsanto spans more than 40 countries, with protests planned for about 250 cities, including 15 in Florida, organizers say. via Dozens expected to protest genetically altered food in a March Against Monsanto | Gainesville.com.

The Low Impact Living Affordable Community (LILAC) recently opened its doors to a community of earth-friendly Leeds residents. Each of the 20 homes was built using straw bale construction and timber and marks the first genuinely green co-housing project in the country. Conceived more than six years ago by Paul Chatterton and others, LILAC is a physical manifestation of the group’s desire to reduce their environmental footprint with earth-friendly construction materials, self-subsistent gardening, and community living based on Denmark’s co-housing model. Read the rest of LILAC: UK’s First Strawbale Co-Housing Project Opens in Leeds Permalink | Add to del.icio.us | digg Post tags: cohousing in the UK, Danish cohousing model, eco design, eco-friendly housing Leeds, green design, homes with low environmental footprint, LILAC, Low Impact Living Affordable Community, prefabricated design, strawbale construction, sustainable design, UK, urban gardening

Read the rest of Qihoo 360′s Office has Floating Cloud-Like Meeting Rooms and Spiraling Slides! Permalink | Add to del.icio.us | digg Post tags: David Ho, eco design, edg Corporation, flexible workspace, green design, Qihoo 360 headquarters, strawboard, sustainable bamboo flooring, sustainable design