Electric cars win big at the Detroit Autoshow and a real plan is emerging to fix the nation’s transportation problems.

Foreign automakers aren’t the only ones rushing electric cars to market, it’s domestic manufacturers including Ford who’ve unveiled prototypes at this year’s auto show.  Unlike the electric golf carts you may be familiar with, the new green fleet of autos are quiet and quick and don’t require the noxious burning of ancient plants.

While this innovation does reduce carbon emissions, what about it’s effect on the power grid?  Experts agree that cars won’t burden the grid if owners charge their batteries at night.

Other solutions to our transportation dilemma include airport improvements, expansions, and creating high-speed rail links. Eliminating the horror of terminal gridlock on our runways may lessen headaches for travelers and increase jobs for contractors.  High-speed rail links between city centers bring the classic form of train travel up to date ushering time-crunched travelers to and from their points of passage.

For more transportation innovations, check out some of these sites:

Green Transportation (Mother Earth News)

League of American Bicyclists

Green Autos

Green Eye

Photo by rmarinello.

While snowy slopes are fun for skiers and snowboarders, what are the environmental costs of this winter sport?

60 million vacationers will head for the hills this year and resorts are being forced to expand drastically.  This means more trees chopped to clear trails, more wildlife displaced, and more energy needed to run the lifts and lodges.

So is there anything to stop this?

Recently, the Ski Area Citizens Coalition (SACC) called foul an effort where resorts were required to assess their own eco-friendliness.  The problem with this self-evaluation, they said, is the absence of accountability.

The coalition fired back with their own environmental scorecards based on water usage, energy and waste management, and forest, air, and wildlife preservation.

By giving consumers the ability to choose destinations with higher scores, inadequately scored resorts are forced to steepen their efforts.

For more on skiing green, check out some of the following links.

How green are your vallées? (Guardian UK)

Ski resorts environmental impact (Suite 101)

How to become a greener skier (ResponsibleTravel.com)

How green is your mountain? (Time)

Is greener whiter yet?  The Sustainable Slopes Program after five years (SACC)

Photo by Mount Ararat Trek.

Ancient practices employed today in search of the river’s treasures.

What mutating mass lurks 1000 miles off the coast of Hawaii and is reported to be the size of Texas?

More frightening than Captain Ahab’s worst nightmare, it’s garbage island.

The floating island of garbage, or Great Pacific Garbage Patch, is a freak occurrence caused by tidal flows converging in a remote part of the Pacific Ocean.  Buoys, plastic debris, and styrafoam spend years faring the high seas from as far off as the coast of Asia, tens of thousands of miles away.

The island of garbage is a highly concentrated whirlpool of plastic particles easily mistaken as food by fish and other organisms.  For every one piece of sea life in this region, there are 60 pieces of plastic.

The damage done by this mat of floating trash is even more significant as it’s disrupts the base of the ocean food chain, genetically interrupting generations upon generations of life underwater and on land.

For video footage of the floating island of garbage, click here.

Photo by Megan.

Special thanks to the newsmakers and researchers who risked life and limb filming their voyage:

Thomas Morton (VBS)

Joe Goodman (volunteer researcher)

Meredith Danluck (VBS)

Dr. Lorena M. Rios-Mendoza (Dept. of Chemistry at University of the Pacific)

Jake Burghart (VBS)

Captain Charlie Moore (Captain of the ORV Alguita)

At long last, the ORV Alguita enters the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

Full AP article here.

Green Air Filter:

With wacky weather the world over, it seems the Games might have finally caught it’s breath from some recent downpours.  The heavy rains have cleansed the smog and brightened up the skies over Beijing but is this reason to rejoice?

Global precipitation patterns have been changing as a result of rising atmospheric temperatures and many areas have received increased amounts of rain and snow over the course of this past year while some have received less.

Global warming increases the intensity of precipitation in two key ways:

1.) By increasing the temperature of the land and the oceans, global warming causes water to evaporate faster.

2.) By increasing air temperature, global warming enables the atmosphere to hold more water vapor.

These factors combine to make clouds richer with moisture, making heavy downpours or snowstorms more likely.  With periods of heavy rains, it’s believed that these will punctuate longer periods of relative dryness, increasing the risk of drought.

It appears while the Games might have gotten their lucky weather break, the larger climate problem lingers all the more ominously overhead.

Photo by northcapital.

The Olympics kick off in Beijing but have the Chinese succeeded in their goal to Green the Games in time?

For well over two thousand years, Olympic athletes have pushed themselves beyond the limitations of human nature. This summer, however, nature will be setting the limits for the athletes.

It’s the stifling smog mixed with hot humid temperatures forecast for Beijing that are worrying athletes more than their competitors.  Despite efforts to limit city traffic and industrial emissions, a thick haze of smog is cutting visibility and threatening the health of this elite group of dedicated men and women.

World record holding distance runner, Haile Gebrselassie of Ethiopia, has pulled out of the games altogether fearing irreparable lung damage while still more athletes are flooding the International Olympic Committee’s mailbox with requests for asthma medication.

With CO2 levels fluctuating only slightly from last minute efforts, it’s now clear to the world that our climate problems require more than a quick fix.

Photo by Natalie Behring.

If commuting by bike won’t work because your destination requires wings rather than wheels, a new kind of Green air is taking to the skies.

All big change starts small and the Greening of the airline industry is no exception.  As of this summer, SeaPort, a new commuter airline in Seattle has announced it will mitigate the amount of jet fuel it burns through donations to the Columbia Land Trust, an organization helping to preserve forest land in the Pacific Northwest.

This “carbon offset” balancing act is just one way the industry hopes to satisfy consumer demands for clean air travel.  In Europe, elevated smog and short lived ski seasons have spurred on the EU to cap aircraft carbon emissions by requiring the airlines to purchase carbon credits.

Fortunately, exciting new turbofan jet engine technology promises to revolutionize efficiency and may curb the need for emissions credit purchases by 2013.

For more on Green air travel, check out some of the following related articles:

On the Horizon of Green Air Travel (greenupgrader.com)

NASA’s Personal “Green” Air Vehicle 400 Mile Race! (dailygalaxy.com)

Photo by viola II.

The summer driving season is here and gas is nearly 5 bucks per gallon… so why aren’t hybrids selling?

America’s love/hate relationship with the SUV may have turned love/love had Detroit rolled out hybrid electric cars that actually live up to their promises.

So why haven’t GM and other manufacturers adopted true hybrid standards knowing full well the consumer isn’t willing to pay 20-30 thousand dollars more to save 6 measly miles per gallon in fuel economy?

Ron Ananian, the Car Doctor.

So while we’re waiting for manufacturers to cut production costs, smaller compact cars are still the better alternative to the larger gas guzzlers.

How green is YOUR city?

As we swing from tree growing programs to recycled tire sidewalks, we’re noticing American cities Greening up! Air pollution, untreated wastewater, and outdated infrastructure are all maligning forces that will rot our cities from the core. Given the current technology and dedicated individuals in government, science, and in the community eager to see ecological solutions happen in their city, a massive surge of improvements are taking place, some of which we think should be recognized.

Chicago, Illinois: The windy city is also the leader in wind power innovations. University of Illinois professor and inventor, Bil Becker, has found a way to harness the downtown winds that bounce off buildings and pavements and convert them to electricity with turbines built into the buildings themselves!

St. Louis, Missouri: There’s MUCH more than meets the arch when it comes to collaborative programs like the St. Louis Gateway Initiative. This powerful force combines local citizens and state and local governments to identify environmental concerns, set priorities, and develop comprehensive solutions.

Dallas, Texas is living large and thinking Green as one of the first major US cities to pass comprehensive building standards for both residential and commercial construction aimed at reducing energy and water consumption in all new city structures.

Photo by Jimmy Six Bellies

With Memorial Day weekend upon us, the travel bug is biting. But does Green travel have to involve a backpack and a zip line?

Travel and tourism is a 1.3 trillion dollar industry in the US, according to the Travel Industry Association of America, and globally provides 200 million jobs or about 8% of total global employment. The way in which we travel and how this industry operates demands as much sensitivity, if not more, than how we go about our everyday lives.

To generate awareness, the World Tourism Organization adopted a few simple strategies for sustainable tourism.

1.) Make optimal use of the environmental resources afforded to you. Proceed with frugality in your expenditure of resources and you may notice some life left in your wallet by the end of your journey.

2.) Respect the socio-cultural authenticity of host communities. As they say, “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.” Everyday customs that may seem unfamiliar or downright intolerable may be vital to the survival of the host ecosystem.

and 3.) Provide socio-economic benefits to all stakeholders. Just because things are cheaper in some places abroad, shouldn’t stimulate the need to penny pinch more. Travel can be the best form of philanthropy so acknowledge your role as a guest in a foreign land.