Photo credit: Manimal Everything old eventually becomes new again. Take moccasins, for example, once the objects of my sartorially misguided prepubescent affection—in blinding white, no less, fringe, beads, and all. The squaw-worthy foot warmers just got a major style upgrade under Kristen Lombardi's nimble fingers. ...

Image via: Getty Images. In 2007, US Department of Defense (DOD) spent $13 billion USD on fuel and this number jumped to $20 billion USD in 2008. With the military planning on moving forces from Iraq to Afghanistan this year, that dollar figure is only expected to rise further. In response, this week a panel of retired military brass called on colleagues to not turn a blind eye to going green....

Photo credit: Teko My favorite performance socks, hands—or would that be feet?—down is now available for tinier tootsies. Woven from chlorine-free, certified-organic merino wool and recycled polyester, then colored with nontoxic dyes, Teko's new kid's socks are just sized-down versions of their adult forebears, which means you get the same seamless toe, footbed cushioning, arch support, shrink resistance, and oh-so-comfy bundled-up toastiness....

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10cLittle Crop of Horrors

Photo via Bloomberg And now it's official: there's a brand new national auto emission standard in effect, which will force all cars to get an average of 35.5 MPG when sold in 2016. We broke the news earlier today that Obama made the important announcement, but here's how it all played out. After running down the massive benefits of the move (like huge oil and emissions savings...

HP is no slouch in the greener packaging sector. Mark Solomon, Lead Designer in the Innovation Program Office at the company showed off some interesting packaging ideas for one of their notebooks. However, does it boarder on greenhushing?...

A panel this morning at Greener by Design featured Angela Nahikian from Steelcase, Inc, Adam Lowry from Method, and Joseph Fiksel from the Center for Resilience at Ohio State University. The three offered some great pieces of information about product design and sustainability, from how to remember the resources we use to getting consumers to actually buy what it is designers create. ...

Wouldn't it be great if we designed products in the same way that living things are designed? This is a question often posed by William McDonough, and was again asked today at Greener by Design. In other words, what if the products we design do what living things do, and that is grow, use free energy from the sun, and have an open metabolism in which what is consumed is also returned. McDonough pointed out to the audience that to do this, designers must keep intent in mind when dreaming up new ideas. And the first q...

Joel Makower welcomed the many green minded designers with a positive thought: We're witnessing the first time when, during a recession and times of lay offs, the leaders in sustainability of companies are not the first to get thrown overboard. Instead, sustainability and eco-innovation is still a major priority among companies. That means we're witnessing the New Normal. ...

Photo courtesy of: EcoFriend The Robo Taxi -- which hopefully behaves nothing like RoboCop -- is a robotic taxi designed for large metropolitan cities. Conceived by designer Kubik Petr, the vehicle holds only two passengers with a minimal amount of luggage. It's driven by

Photos via the NY Times The North Carolina company Semprius is looking to produce what may be some of the tiniest solar cells ever made. Borne out of research by Illinois University professor John A. Rogers, the cells will be smaller than one-tenth the thickness of conventional panels and flexible enough to attach to fabric and plastics. According to the New York Times, Semprius plans on pioneering the use of solar cells in a slew of places never thought practical before: sunroofs of cars, awnings--e...

Photo via Kentucky Environmental Matters Things just never get any better when it comes to news about the ash spill at TVA's Kingston plant in Tennessee. Even though the spill hit way back in December, the repercussions keep on piling up--now, the Appalachian Voices has completed a study showing that the nearby Emory River, a source of drinking water, has been contaminated with "260...

photo: Kyle Eertmoed Though cap-and-trade is currently winning the day in the how to set a price on carbon battle, proponents of a carbon tax as being the better way to go certainly have valid arguments on their side. Too bad that both take the wrong approach if the end goal is reducing greenhouse gas emissions and doing so by substituting polluting and finite energy sources with cle...

Mileage sticker from older model Dodge Dakota. Image credit:EastPlaza . TreeHugger "business & politics" blogger Brian Merchant sparked a great discussion yesterday when he wrote about the Obama administration's proposed new fuel-economy standards to be announced today. This is one for the history books, folks. The Sierra Club and others have tackled this issue in so many ways, over so many years, it's hard to recount all the letter-writing campaigns, rallies, court hearings, phone-banks, flyers, ...

Deer mouse, one of the species studied. Photo: Wikipedia, Public domain. Bio-what? *cough* *cough* It's obvious that biodiversity is a good thing, but we're still discovering new ways that it helps us. Indeed, a new study gives more evidence that reduced biodiversity can increase the chances that certain diseases will jump from animals to humans. "In the last few years, scientists have increasingly noticed that, when biodiversity dips, rates of Lyme disease, West Nile virus, SARS and other infectious diseases rise. Called zoonotic diseases, ...

We are pretty blase about reusable shopping bags these days, but how could we pass Japan design company H Concept's bag in a bunny. Jason Gilbert of their American distributor demonstrates below the fold. ...

Photo: EPA First of Two EPA Hearings on Greenhouse Gas Regulation As Washington fluttered with climate change action yesterday, actor and environmental campaigner Pierce Brosnan added some star power to a public hearing at the Environmental Protection Agency about greenhouse gas emissions. But Brosnan said nothing about the hearing's topic, the endangerment finding that could mean regulations over emissions sources under the Clean Air Act. Instead...

photo: James Gagen via flickr. Orangutans in Indonesia just can't catch a break. The latest instance is that the only area in which orangutans have been successfully reintroduced into the wild is under threat from logging operations planned by Asian Pulp & Paper and the Sinar Mas Group:...

It’s that time of the year…the weather is getting warmer which means more events and more lists, which also means more notebooks and binders to organize. If you need to stock up, look no further than O'BON, an eco-friendly pencil and stationery company that has been gaining visibility due to the eye-catching design of their products. O'Bon's colorful pencils are made by tightly wrapping recycled newspaper around graphite, and they're much more durable than traditional pencils made from wood. O'BON's notebooks and folders are made from recycled ma...

This guy won't be too happy. Photo: Lydia Marcus Feel Average of 35.5 MPG in 2016 We already knew it was coming, but now it's official. the US fuel economy standards are being beefed up starting in 2012, ramping up by 5% a year to a fleet average (cars & trucks) of 35.5 MPG in 2016. This makes the CAFE law passed by Congress in 2007 (requiring an average fuel economy of 35 mpg in 2020) pretty much obsolete. More details below....