EarthChamps

Breaking: BP Spill is Over, Oil is Gone, Problem Solved

Photo via Free Extras

According to some of the mainstream media, anyway
After taking a look back to assess the media’s coverage of the BP spill this week, I think only one internet-born acronym will suffice to convey my opinion. And that, of course, is WTF. It seems like we’ve been bombarded with headlines and stories that were cranked out directly by BP’s PR machine — only way rosier than BP would likely venture. Stories about how all that dern oil has just up and vanished! How BP must be doing an amazing job of skimming, and how all of us silly worrywarts were up in arms over nothin…Read the full story on TreeHugger

Algae Biofuel Grown in Bioreactors Has 3.7x the Carbon Footprint of Petro-Diesel: Study

photo: jurveston via flickr

Algae biofuels are probably the most touted future hope to replace large amounts of petroleum-based liquid fuels with a renewable source. However, a new study in Energy and Fuels shows that when you grow that algae in bioreactors made up of clear tubes, so much energy is required that the carbon footprint of the biofuel is o…Read the full story on TreeHugger

GM Wants to Convince You the Volt is Better Than Other Electric Cars (Video)

The Chevy Volt will soon be launched commercially, and so GM is intensifying its campaign to convince potential buyers. Here are only some of the recent Volt news items to hit the wire: a <a href="http://www.treehugger.com/file…Read the full story on TreeHugger

Modern-Day Captain Ahab Spears Whale With Cruise Ship

Image credit: AP Photo/NOAA

The Sapphire Princess, a cruise ship operated by Princess Cruises, struck a 43 foot long female humpback whale on Wednesday, causing it to become lodged in an undersea protuberance of the bow.

The ship, en route to Juneau, Alaska, was forced to make a detour to Douglas Island, where the whale was removed from the bow and taken into the custody of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. A necropsy will be performed to determine the cause of death….Read the full story on TreeHugger

Not Waiting For National Action, Western Climate Initiative Carbon Trading Scheme Moves Forward

photo: Franco Folini via flickr

Even though it often seems that even mentioning climate change or pricing carbon on a national basis is an utter nonstarter, here’s another example of how states aren’t waiting for the Feds to get their act together: The Sacramento Bee reports on progress with the Western Climate Initiative. Specifically, California and 10 …Read the full story on TreeHugger

Why We Need to Reform the Filibuster to Fight Climate Change

They may seem like two disparate topics: climate change and an archaic Senate procedural rule. But they have more in common than you might think. Thanks to the Senate filibuster rule, essentially any piece of legislation needs 60 votes, a super-majority, if it hopes to pass. This is one of the reasons that the climate bill was killed in the Senate — it could only muster a normal majority, like 55 votes. In a true democracy, that should be enough to fly. But in our political culture, it’s still miles away, and reason enough to sound a deat…Read the full story on TreeHugger

Should The Galapagos Be Taken Off The Endangered Sites List?

Tourists meet Tortoise. Credit Brian Merchant

Yesterday Brian wrote Galapagos Islands Moved Off Endangered Sites List, concluding:

If anything, the problems have only grown more complex and fundamental — there’s now a growing island population that must learn to live sustainably with severely limited resources, and a bevy of threats from other invasive species remain at large.

Three TreeHuggers, Brian Merchant, myself and founder Graham Hill have been to the Galapagos in three consecutive years, and w…Read the full story on TreeHugger

Would Simply Slowing Down Our Travel & Shipping Help Kick Our Oil Habit?

Making a slow boat look fast… photo: Neal McQ via flickr.

Having assessed the overall picture of how our patterns of global shipping and global aviation use tons of fuel, leave a high environmental footprint, and how technological changes can help but perhaps not fully solve the problem, let’s move on to how we can change ourselves and our habits. Remember, we want to keep as much of the benefits of gl…Read the full story on TreeHugger

A Decade of Prius: 1.8 Million Sold, Half in the U.S.

Photo: Michael Graham Richard

The Little Car that Could
The Toyota Prius hybrid has been sold in the U.S. for 10 years (even longer in Japan, where it was first introduced in 1997), and during that decade this car went from a small niche player considered ‘weird’ by most people (I remember back when the #1 question was “do you have to plug it in?”) to a best-seller halo car whose technology has found its way in many other models, including vehicles made by Toyota’s competitors. During that decade in the U.S., Toyota has sold about 900,000 Prius hybrids there, and about 1.8 million w…Read the full story on TreeHugger