green_featured // Current TV

Here We Grow

Craig King, a natural food chef is the brains behind this 90 minute documentary, which... more

JanforGore
added this
3 years ago
|
4 comments

Save The Mother

Environmental information message, music video and animation

radfax
added this
3 years ago
|
1 comment

Green energy investments bury Fossil Fuels for the first time ever

Green energy overtook fossil fuels in attracting investment for power generation for... more

jeffissleeping
added this
3 years ago
|
8 comments

Britain to reintroduce extinct bumblebee

Poul Christensen, Natural England's acting chairman, said: "Bumblebees are... more

jeffissleeping
added this
3 years ago
|
0 comments

'09 could see seven hurricanes

With the official start of Hurricane Season today, forecasters are calling for a "normal" year of 14 named storms that could threaten the eastern United States.

Of those, the National Weather Service predicts seven could become hurricanes, including up to three major hurricanes of Category Three or higher.

North Carolina has been spared a really bad storm for a decade, while states along the Gulf of Mexico have borne the brunt of nature's fury -- Hurricane Katrina being the most destructive and deadly example.

Ryan Ellis, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Raleigh, said winds, ocean currents and other factors have conspired to push the storms along a more southerly track in recent years.

But it is not clear whether that trend will carry over into 2009. Early measurements are indicative of warm ocean temperatures that could yield powerful storms.

''Last year was a relatively inactive year overall," Ellis said. "Something they're looking at that could indicate this year will be more active is increased rainfall over western Africa. That's an indicator of storms being able to form there later in the year. Basically that gives another birth region for hurricanes. They can form in the Gulf, in the Caribbean or out of Africa, where they move into the Atlantic and then all the way across."

It has been 10 years since Hurricane Floyd flooded inland North Carolina counties all the way to Interstate 95, and 13 years since Fran cut a path of destruction into Raleigh.

Five years ago, Francis and Ivan caused devastating landslides and floods that killed a dozen people in the western part of the state.

Authorities say they have not been lulled into complacency by the state's recent good fortune.

Last week, the state's Division of Emergency Management coordinated with other agencies to hold a drill simulating how they would respond if a major storm hit the state. Though a large portion of the N.C. National Guard is currently deployed in Iraq, officials say they still have adequate resources available if a major storm bears down on the state.

''I've had a lot of friends deploy recently, and it's true there's a lot of manpower over there," said Mike Sprayberry, the state's deputy director of emergency management. "But we do a gap analysis and plan so that if we are down some equipment, we coordinate with other states to provide that equipment. Primarily, we're pretty good to go on the personnel side of things and we're good on our helicopters and aircraft and things like that.

''But all bets are off if we get a huge Category Four or Category Five. Like any other state, we would have to ask for some assistance."With the official start of Hurricane Season today, forecasters are calling for a... more

ClipsFC
added this
3 years ago
|
2 comments

Abu Gharib Video

Ghosts of Abu Ghraib "How could ordinary American soldiers come to engage in... more

Highr0ller [removed]
added this
3 years ago
|
6 comments

US Violated Geneva Convention

Gen. Petraeus : US Violated Geneva Convention 3 Minute Video and Transcript... more

Highr0ller [removed]
added this
3 years ago
|
15 comments

How Green is Sonia Sotomayor?

Now that some of the dust has settled after the initial news frenzy, we've gotten... more

unimatrix0
added this
3 years ago
|
11 comments

US wants to paint the world white to save energy

US Energy Secretary Steven Chu said Tuesday the Obama administration wanted to paint... more

retro_Syl
added this
3 years ago
|
65 comments

World's first battery fuelled by air?

"Scientists say the revolutionary 'STAIR' (St Andrews Air) battery... more

DeliaTheArtist
added this
3 years ago
|
56 comments

How human genes become patented

Here's a little-known fact: Under current law, it's possible to hold a... more

JanforGore
added this
4 years ago
|
24 comments

A guide to which carbon offsets actually work (and the rip-offs to avoid)

Two words of advice for anyone looking into carbon offsets: buyer beware. In the... more

retro_Syl
added this
4 years ago
|
4 comments

G.E. Begins to Dredge Hudson for PCBs

Twenty-five years after the federal government declared a long stretch of the Hudson... more

SoundBigfoot
added this
4 years ago
|
5 comments

10 Ways to Change the World Through Social Media

Citizen journalism, open government, status updates, community building, information... more

maxgladwell
added this
4 years ago
|
5 comments

Current Green Featured Community Member: Seajade

Last week JanforGore recommended SeaJade to be the next featured community member.... more

leahl
added this
4 years ago
|
7 comments

15 green-leaning mayors

Grist makes a nice summary of green mayors... Climate change is a global... more

leahl
added this
4 years ago
|
0 comments

Coming July: New green light bulb lasts 25 years.

Warner Philips, the founder of Lemnis Lighting of the Netherlands, is confident that his company’s new 6-watt Pharox LED Light isn’t just ready for the consumer market, it’s ready to take over the lighting market from both incandescents (increasingly being phased out in many countries) and energy-efficient compact fluorescent bulbs.

“C.F.L.s are officially an outdated technology,” Mr. Philips said during a recent conversation with Green Inc. “You can’t recycle C.F.L.s. You can’t get a fully dimmable product. That should make them obsolete.”

The Pharox bulb was introduced Wednesday at Lightfair International in New York, where lighting designers from around the globe are showing off their wares. According to Lemnis Lighting, the new Pharox can match the light output of a 60-watt incandescent, and it can be used smoothly and reliably with dimmer switches — unlike many C.F.L. bulbs. It’s also designed to be heat-resistant, the company notes and, also unlike C.F.L.s, mercury-free.

The packaging says the bulb will last 25 years given average use (four hours a day), or more than 36,000 hours.

Come July, the bulb will be sold on Amazon.com for just under $50 – still more expensive than dimmable C.F.L.s, but with a lifespan that the company says is eight times longer and with more incandescent-like dimming capabilities. The Pharox’s payback time at that price, according to Lemnis, is 3.5 years.

Mr. Philips says he sees the price dropping rather quickly, as it did with a 5-watt, 40-watt equivalent bulb the company introduced six months ago at $40. It is now selling for $35 — a decrease attributable in large part to assistance from the Clinton Climate Initiative, which is sponsoring a giveaway of 2.5 million bulbs in Europe.

(The fact that Google gave 25,000 bulbs to its employees in honor of Earth Day last month doesn’t hurt either.)

Mr. Philips said problems with heat build-up inside enclosed lighting fixtures, which cause L.E.D.s and C.F.L.s to fail early, has been addressed with a vented design that allows for better air flow.

Still, the company told us that the preferred use of the Pharox is in open fixtures. Using it in enclosed fixtures — like recessed ceiling cans — will reduce the lifetime of the bulbs by about 25 percent, the company said (a data point not evident on the bulb’s packaging, it should be noted.)

Indeed, as with many would-be replacements for the incandescent bulb, a bit of incongruity exists between performance claims that may well pertain in a laboratory, and a bulb’s performance in the real world.

For starters, the advertised light output of the Pharox is about 300 “lumens” — the metric used for measuring the light coming off a bulb. That places it somewhere between a 25-watt and 40-watt incandescent. A 60-watt incandescent emits up to 900 lumens.

The company explained that the light output is comparable to a 60-watt bulb, depending on where one uses the bulb and for what purpose. “There are 60-watt soft tone/flame bulbs that generate less light than a Pharox 6-watt,” the company said.

It’s also worth noting that an earlier version of the Pharox — a 4-watt, 40-watt equivalent bulb dubbed the Pharox LS — had some trouble when it was tested in a Department of Energy program that evaluates the performance of L.E.D. products.Warner Philips, the founder of Lemnis Lighting of the Netherlands, is confident that... more

ClipsFC
added this
4 years ago
|
32 comments

Chocolate-powered Race Car

It can't be confirmed but some scientists have unveiled a racer that they claim... more

MikeBunnell
added this
4 years ago
|
5 comments

Energy efficiency and sex

David Roberts has been reporting for Grist from France for the past week, and has apparently been influneced by the city of love...

".....This, it seems to me, is the great shortcoming in the push for efficiency. The word itself reeks of sterile technocracy. It envisions communal life as a business process, purely a practical matter, to be stripped of ornamentation, trimmed and tucked, standardized and expedited. It’s no wonder advocates have such a hard time getting it the prominence it deserves on the public agenda, no wonder it hasn’t captured the public imagination.

Several speakers noted the fact in different ways, lamenting that efficiency is “boring,” pleading with the attendees to be “passionate.” One, EU parliamentarian Claude Turmes, spoke plaintively of the need to make energy efficiency “sexy.”

But efficiency and sex are antithetical. Sex is voluptuous and beautiful, virile and messy—anything but efficient. If sexiness is not efficient, why should the converse be true?

What’s needed is not just a new term (please lord, not another “climate change” vs. “global warming”). What’s needed is a new vision, a new way of thinking about what efficiency advocates are really after.

Architect William McDonough, who frequently makes a similar point, has suggested “energy effectiveness.” Unless you have 10 minutes for McDonough to explain what that means, though, I doubt it’s going to do much for you; the connotations aren’t much better.

In passing, Turmes himself suggested what struck me as a promising alternative: “resource intelligence.”

I’ll have to think about it more, but at first blush I like it—at least it has a spark of humanity. “Intelligence” carries connotations not only of adeptness but of sophistication and even elegance. After all, there’s something marvelous about how a mind like, say, Einstein’s took what seemed like a jumble of parts and derived compact, holistic explanations out of them. Intelligence doesn’t imply less, like efficiency, but better. And that’s what people want—not less, but better.

Consider McDonough’s frequent example: is a tree “efficient”? No, it grows far more leaves/acorns/branches than it needs and scatters them everywhere. But the tree itself is an intelligent integration of a system into a larger system. There is no waste. When you understand the elegance and intelligence behind the beauty, there’s real resonance, even, dare I say, a kind of passion.

Now, imagine you live in a house that gathers rainwater and captures, cleans, and recycles 100% of the water used in it. In that house, you do not need to use less water; the house’s design provides you with an abundance! The water is not used in a miserly way, but in an intelligent way....."David Roberts has been reporting for Grist from France for the past week, and has... more

leahl
added this
4 years ago
|
1 comment

Yo Boss! I rode my bike to work so have to leave early!

A little round up re: commuting issues, bike commuting blogs, and you guessed it, a... more

leahl
added this
4 years ago
|
0 comments

select your country

Community Spotlight

TAGS

tagged w/ green_featured

top videos

find current on tv

find current online

recent comments

© 2013 Current TV, LLC All Rights Reserved

the basics

follow us online

tools

stay in touch

© 2013 Current TV, LLC
All Rights Reserved