Round up of Ecological Interest

New Green Blog Counters “Eco Snobbery” with Humor and Inclusiveness

Jeffrey Davis has written for several years at Mother nature network has started a new blog called Eco Snobbery Sucks.

According to Jeffrey, the reason he founded Eco-Snobbery Sucks is to bring attention to the oft-forgotten truth that every step taken towards green matters, big or small. According to the site's faq, eco-snobbery could also play out when:

• People look down their noses at others for not doing “as much” as they do.
• Businesses make their operations or products seem more eco-friendly than they really are.
• Manufacturers charge an unfair “eco-premium” for products that don’t warrant it.

Another new blog

Mother Craft Collective is a collective of Cape Town crafters. They aren’t all from Cape Town originally, but live there now. Here is their story:

In mid 2010 Tracy (the only born Capetownian in the collective so far) moved house, and consequently met two Zimbabwean crafters selling their wares at a busy set of traffic lights nearby in Newlands, Cape Town. These two Zimbabweans are Cuthbert and Alex.

“Cuthbert and Alex spent their days making crafts and selling at the traffic lights. This would have been a good system for them as the traffic lights are on a main route with lots of potential customers passing by every day. BUT there is a problem! It’s not legal to sell at traffic lights (you may be fooled into thinking that this is not the case if you drive around Cape Town, because almost every set of traffic lights has someone trying to sell you something). So these two Zimbabweans became adept at running very fast from the police, and hiding their wares at a moment’s notice.”

In Wake of Four Loko Ban, Recycler Turns Caffeine-spiked Booze into Biofuel

Four Loko—that high-octane alcohol- and caffeine-fueled malt beverage that drew the ire of federal authorities late last year—has found a new and appropriate role in the energy cycle: automotive fuel. A Virginia ethanol recycler is taking shipments of the product, which has been pulled from store shelves in several states, and recycling it into ethanol for use in gasoline.

Earth’s Hot Past: Prologue to Future Climate?

   

The magnitude of climate change during Earth’s deep past suggests that future temperatures may eventually rise far more than projected if society continues its pace of emitting greenhouse gases, a new analysis concludes.

The study, by National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) scientist Jeffrey Kiehl, will appear as a “Perspectives” article in this week’s issue of the journal Science.