News of the weird? ..Maybe, but this year’s mysterious and precipitous decline in bee populations has even attracted the attention of the New York Times. As a plant ecologist, I’m all too aware of the role that bees and inspects play in maintaining our food supply and the food supply of countless other species [...]

In a smart move for the region and the nation, the governors of Oregon, California, Washington, New Mexico and Arizona have reached what may very well be a historic agreement to cap and trade greenhouse gas emissions. The move comes six months after California became the first state to cap carbon emissions.
The new [...]

This site documents how one family has created a small, sustainable living space for themselves within a ten minute bicycle commute of downtown Portland, OR. The 2/3 acre site hosts a bi-level cottage with a sleeping loft, passive solar construction and a gravity fed rain water harvesting setup, and was constructed for only $70,000 [...]

I’ve been thinking about what features I’d like to include in an sustainable home design, and I’ve been intrigued by the benefits of green roofs. While the idea dates back to the hanging gardens of babylon, the types of green roofs that are in use today are more numerous than ever before, from ‘grass’ [...]

If you own a home or are thinking of building or buying one, take a look at this database of state and federal incentives for using renewable energy.

I just discovered the Arizona Brevet & Randonnée association after seeing one of their 400km routes posted on bikely. Unfortunately, the year’s shortest Brevet was the January ride. Maybe by next year I’ll be a good enough rider to try out the 200km ride.

This post is a quick plug for Appropedia, a wiki for sustainability and appropriate technology projects to address international development, poverty and bioregional philosophy.
Thanks to PeacePeddler for linking me up with Humboldt U.’s Center for Appropriate Technology, through which I found the site. So far I’ve taken a look at this page on building [...]

This weekend we had some fun at the annual 24-hour mountain bike relay 24-hours in the Old Pueblo.
Set in the beautiful Sonoran desert, riders race in relay-teams of various sizes (except for a few hard-core solo riders), attempting to complete the 18-mile loop as many times as possible in the 24-hour time frame. [...]

This article from the UK Independent discusses how one UK firm is helping airline passengers to offset carbon emissions from their flights.
The article sites a promising example of a low-tech solution to a farmer’s troubles in India as a method for cutting carbon. Passenger’s carbon-offset fees go to replacing dirty and expensive diesel pumps [...]

This is an unusual story out of the UK about Henry Hobhouse, an apple farmer who has converted his apple crop to a souce of fuel. Hobhouse uses tanks and enzymes to decompose half of his annual crop, from which he harvests methane gas to power his car and generate electricity for his home. [...]