Sustainability Digest

Stop reading blogs and go to your polling place.  Take a friend.
We’ll do an update once everyone gets a chance to catch their breath.

The Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show showcases the DSe Hybrid 12m from Island Pilot–a boat powered using a combination of diesel, solar and electric power.

The Statue of Liberty lights up NYC the eco-way by tapping into wind energy.

…On a sadder NYC note, a federal judge puts a halt to the city’s fuel-efficient hybrid taxis.

Copenhagen draws plans to experiment with MIT’s SmartBiking project starting in November 2009.

The 2008 Geneva International Motor Show unveils the w…

If you’re anything like me, you’re both thrilled and relieved that the 2008 presidential elections will actually be happening tomorrow, and on Wednesday we will finally (barring technical, judicial malfunctions…fingers crossed) be able to, as fellow TreeHugger Lloyd Alter puts it, get back to green instead of red and blue.

But we’re not quite there yet, and in the spirit of helping out the handful of TreeHugger readers who haven’t yet made up their minds and to stimulate post-election policy discussion, I’d just like to again point out and summarize some of the differences between Barack Obama and John McCain on energy and climate change policy:
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Image: ChinaTrace website
From tainted green beans to toxic pet food, melamine in milk may only be the tip of the iceberg in China’s recent food scare concerns. To address these problems, a new online traceability system for Chinese products and food ingredients is being launched to improve accountability and safety of the “Made in China brand” b…

Skylights are wonderful things; they bring in natural light for free and can be part of a passive solar heating design. Or, they can be kilowatt-sucking imitations of the real thing “displaying terabytes of HD content in the structure of a full-size faux skylight, SkyV presents the essence of nature’s sky-events in vivid sequences.”

More on virtual skylights, plus a roundup of other ridiculous stuff, below the fold. …

Riedel Recycling’s new thin-film solar roof, photo: Solar Buzz

It’s not often that I literally let out a ‘Wow!’ when I see a new example of renewable energy technology, but when I first saw the above photo I was uncontrollably impressed. What you’re looking at is over 11,000 thin-film solar modules from First Solar, with a total capacity of 837 kW, covering the roof of a Riedel Recycling facility in Moers, Germany.

OK, so objectively 837 kW isn’t a lot of power, but still… Wow, t…

Image source: Namaste Solar

Starting Fall 2009, the incoming class at John Brown University, in Siloam Springs, Arkansas, has a new focus of study - a Bachelor of Science in Renewable Energy. Students can choose from courses focusing on solar, wind, biomass and will then focus on one of three designations within the major: design, installation or international development….

Anti-Chevron protest, photo: Rainforest Action Network.

With all the focus on the US presidential race, thankfully coming to a close tomorrow, here’s another one of those things you’d be forgiven for not noticing, but which has some potentially great legal implications for the environment and human rights.

Fellow TreeHugger Alex Smith wrote about the Bowoto v Chevron human rights case beginning in federal court in San Francisco last week, but here’s some more background on the case, as well as…

Need to “create jobs for the less-educated workers who have been hit hardest by the transition to an information economy?” Give that man a shovel!

Now the conservative commentators are jumping on the infrastructure investment bandwagon- the fight is no longer about whether the Government should put the country to work, but who gets the money. David Brooks at the New York Times comes out clearly in favor of 1950 car-based carbon-spewing style, with his National [personal] Mobility Project.

An infrastructure resurgence is desperately needed. Americans now spend 3.5 billion hours a year stuck in traffic, a figure expected to double by 2020. The U.S. popula…

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