Photo Credit: Elizabeth Redmond

I've been wanting to put in a couple of rain barrels at my house this year. We put in some garden plants this weekend, and they are going to need to be watered….

Rain Shout: high volume = high pressure

We curse the sky when there is drought. Then we rejoice, and bathe, and blow kisses to our plants upon the rainfall. Now that we think about it, doesn’t it…

by Francesca Birks Most of us can recall an awe-inspiring natural landscape from a blockbuster or independent movie that made us wish we could project ourselves from our seats to the other side of the screen. What we might not realize as distant viewers is the environmental impact and degradation that the film may have caused in the process of its production. In recognition of the film production industry’s reliance on the beauty of dramatic, unspoiled natural landscapes, the New Zealand film industry responded by establishing the Greening the Screen project, which was funded by the Ministry for the Environment, Landcare Research and Waitakere City Council, and developed in association with South Pacific Pictures and the Screen Production and Development Association of New Zealand. Project Greening the Screen involved the creation of an environmental toolkit in the belief that “there should be credible and defensible environmentally responsible practices at all levels of the industry, starting with top management commitment and including practices behind the screen as well as on and off the screen and in the public eye”. The toolkit takes a thorough look at the entire film production process from start to finish and stresses taking action by identifying… (more)

(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Media at 11:52 AM)

I write this from the medieval town of Visby, in the shadow of the ruined church of Saint Clement, on Sweden’s Gotland island. I’ve stayed here for a few days on my way to the Tällberg Forum, hoping for a chance to catch my breath. It’s a beautiful place, Visby, a UNESCO World Heritage site of old buildings, tiles roofs, cobblestones, ancient churches and a huge stone wall circling the city, and I’ve spent the last few days wandering the narrow winding streets, sitting in cafes overlooking the ocean, reading and relaxing and trying to catch up with the flow of ideas and information that rolls through my life in what sometimes seems an unstoppable flood. There’s something wonderful about contemplating the future while bathing in history. To read about emerging technologies, new scientific research, innovative social programs — the whole cacophony of change — while standing on ground where Vikings raided, where Hanseatic merchants sold goods, where the piratical Victual Brothers made their base in the 14th Century; it gives one a sense of the long view. Tones things down. Carl Linnaeus spent time here as well. Locals proudly claim that the field research he did on Gotland in… (more)

(Posted by Alex Steffen in Features at 7:35 PM)

Editor's note: Yes, if you've got school-aged children, they're probably on summer vacation right now. Still, we thought Lighter Footstep editor Chris Baskind's article on…

Paper or plastic? By now we've all been educated to respond with a resounding "no thanks!" The benefits of BYOB (bringing your own bag) are overwhelming, but what bag to bring?

Anya…

We can stop the chest beating and flag waving, folks: China has passed the U.S. as the largest annual emitter of carbon dioxide (CO2) pollution.

Although some analysts didn’t expect China to…

Google To Spend $10 Million On Electric Cars
Renewable revolution is here
Crunch Time on Energy
A Wiser Earth Movement
Next Generation Biofuels to Turn Human Waste Into Diesel

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(Posted by David Zaks in News and Views at 7:30 PM)

Last summer, 200 bicycles landed in Botswana destined for free distribution to home health care workers treating HIV/AIDS patients in remote rural areas. It was a donation from Kona Biketown Africa — a partnership between Bicycling magazine’s Biketown program, Kona Bicycle Company, and the Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation (BMS). Kona Biketown emerged from Bicycling’s original Biketown program for giving away free bikes to people in the US in order to promote cycling. With their Africa program, they brought together Kona bike designers who could develop a locally-appropriate bicycle for the rough terrain of the backcountry, as well as the power of a large philanthropic organization like BMS to get the program moving. Kona’s Design Group, normally employed in the design of world cup racing caliber bikes, teamed with African experts and other bicycle industry manufacturers in the research and design of the AfricaBike. The result was a simple, durable, comfortable and effective means of transportation that could handle all of the unique social and environmental challenges Africa presents. The bikes revolutionized the home health care workers’ productivity and effectiveness, enabling them to multiply the number of patients they could see in a single day by five or six. But although the… (more)

(Posted by Sarah Rich in Sustainable Development at 12:58 PM)

Biosphere2 – Citizen PhotoArizona’s much maligned, highly controversial Biosphere 2 is on it’s way to becoming a world-class ecological research facility, according to an article in the Tucson Daily…