From the news that the first known male elephant twins were born in the north-eastern province of Surin, Thailand to sustainable clothing ensembles and the The Cove's Oscar win at the Academy Awards, a lot happened this week in green. Find out what else happened in the world of green this week in our photo roundup of most popular, most important, and most oddball stories. ...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Image: Infrastructurist Risk assessment is hard. We humans are hard-wired with many cognitive biases that can often distort our perception of reality and make us fear the wrong things. For example, on average, people will be more afraid of something with which they are unfamiliar compared to something that they see every day. Cars fall into the "familiar" category, and the nice people are the Infrastructurists made a really cool infographic that shows how cars are killing people around the world....Read the full story on TreeHugger

Photo via Sörn @ flickr On Thursday, the Trust for Public Land released a roster of Hollywood A-listers and companies--including Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson, the Walt Disney Company, the LucasFilm Foundation, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Steven Spielberg, Warner Bros., Fox, Sony, NBC Universal, and Time Warner--who have collectively donated more than $3 million to save one iconic piece of land: Cahuenga Peak....Read the full story on TreeHugger

Image credit: Good When one Peace Corps volunteer came to understand the flimsy safeguards a "reserve" provided the forest near his post in Paraguay, he was motivated to do something that would provide true protections for the trees. The solution he settled on involved two wheels and a lot of miles....Read the full story on TreeHugger

We haven’t lost a web popularity contest in a few weeks so we thought we would take this golden opportunity. Jackson Design and Remodeling has chosen us as one of their favorite “Construction Business” blogs and pitted us against our fellow internet ramblers. You (and a couple hundred of you friends) could be a big help in turning the voting to our favor. Just head over to JDR and vote for the 100k House blog as the best Construction Business blog. At the very least your vote will give us a little false confidence before our inevitable defeat.

In all seriousness, we want to thank JDR for the honor of the nomination and thank all of you who will take the extra couple clicks to vote for us. We are always glad to see evidence of appreciation for the amount of time and effort we put into this blog. Hopefully, with your help, we can continue to make it a better and better version of itself.

Related posts:

1. Postgreen Update: Two Awards and a Speaking Engagement
2. ISA Takes Four Honors at AIA Philadelphia’s Awards Banquette

Photo via Guardian Most cap and trade schemes proposed by governments include provisions that allow polluting companies to buy carbon offsets--initiatives that pay for tree planting in South America or solar panel installation in India and so forth--instead of cutting emissions exclusively from their own operations. So, surprise, surprise, a recent report from the AP in the Huffpo Green has revealed that companies pa...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Suzy Amis Cameron and James Cameron reveal Jillian Granz's winning sustainable dress at Global Green's Pre-Oscar Party. Photo: Cerraeh Laykin I know, the dress looks blue—Avatar blue to be exact. But, it's actually about 85% green. The Red Carpet Green Dress Contest was created by Suzy Amis Cameron, wife of Avatar director James Cameron, to send a message that one can wear green on the red carpet. In addition to designing Oscar-worthy gowns out of sustainable fabrics, the contest also serves as an international fundraiser event for her beloved Read the full story on TreeHugger

Image credit: marfis75/Flickr Tanzania and Zambia, conservationists fear, may receive special permission from the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) to auction off a combined total of 112 tonnes of stockpiled ivory. Though such auctions are strictly monitored by international organizations and the revenue earned is required to be used for elephant conservation projects, many believe that the sale could drive market demand for ivory and Read the full story on TreeHugger

Image: ACS, Yang et al. Theoretical Energy Density: 1550 Wh/KG ! A few months ago I wrote about a battery breakthrough related to silicon nanowire anodes. The researchers said that it showed great promise, but that one of the main challenges to its commercialization was finding a cathode that could handle all this extra power. Well, it looks like that problem has been solved (that was quick!) thanks to a new lithium sulfide (Li2S) cathode with 10 times the power density of con...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Photos by Lloyd Alter With the constant rewiring of the internet, deferred maintenance and the inevitable freeze-thaw cycle, you need good teeth to ride in Toronto bike lanes; otherwise they are shaken out of your skull. The Urban Repair Squad to the rescue, giving our roads a Pow! Bam! and Crunch!, just like an old Batman episode, warning us if the dangers ahead. ...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Photo via A Green Living That's the topic of an ongoing online debate over at the Economist.com. In one corner, green jobs advocate Van Jones, who argues that governments should engage in the active practice of creating green jobs, by, for example, incentivizing clean energy projects. In the other, Andrew P. Morriss, a professor of business and law at the University of Illinois, who argues that green job creation should be left to the marketplace. ...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Image: Shefaet, Flickr This one goes out to mig. Mig wrote us and explained that yesterday a distant facebook friend posted this: "Oceans are the single largest CO2 reduction system in the world. Water Vapor is the biggest contributor of CO2 in the atmosphere and 97% of all CO2 in the atmosphere comes from natural sources, not man made." Mig says: "Now, i'm not a scientist and don't know enough about all of this to debunk or confidently argue the point or the source. Have you heard of this?"...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Screenshot via youtube video German company Bundesdruckerei showed off what it is calling the world's first e-passport equipped with an AMOLED display at CeBIT 2010. It could be the future of airport security, ditching paper passports for one driver's license-like card that can display a rotating view of the passport owner. And what's even more amazing is that the card doesn't need a battery for the screen to function. ...Read the full story on TreeHugger

All charts and graphs via EnviroKnow I've written before about the ever-increasing politicization of climate change--the thesis that the scientifically backed consensus that human activity is warming the planet is now treated as a political belief isn't a hard one to prove. But just in case I need to back the claim up with some hard numbers, Gallup has released the results of its most recent poll on climate change. In it, it's revealed t...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Photo: CC The Food Was Too Expensive... Sad story of the day: 11 rare and endangered Siberian Tigers starved to death while confined to "cold, cramped metal cages" at the Shenyang Forest Wild Animal Zoo in China's North-East. The deaths took place in the past three months, with reports saying that "the tigers starved to death, having been fed nothing but chicken bones". The food bill for the tigers ran to about $1,320 (9,000 yuan) a day....Read the full story on TreeHugger

Kapor Klein House model, Marcy Wong Donn Logan Architects There is a fight going on in Berkeley, over the construction of a house for Mitch Kapor, the founder of Lotus and creator of Lotus 123, the program that made personal computers useful. Neighbours, architects and others call it "absurd" that the house should be called green, saying its 10,000 square feet is far too big. One neighbour complains that "green building begins with using 'just enough' and preserving what already exists. Clearly the idea of 'just enough' is not part of the design concept." But how much is too much?...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Photo via press release The Joos Solar Charger makes some bold claims. First, the company states that it generates 20 times the charge of other personal solar chargers on the market. There is no data on their website showing exactly what numbers they're measuring, so we can only assume they're talking about chargers with similar sized solar cells, and not personal solar chargers in general. The Joos can deliver 2.5 hours of talk time on your cell phone for every one hour of sunlight it sucks up....Read the full story on TreeHugger

Photo via Michael R Perry Sea lions are having a hard time finding food this spring, and pups are feeling the squeeze. Marine mammal experts report that dozens of sick and hungry sea lion pups have washed up on California shores this winter, many not making it even with the help they get at rescue centers. The Pacific Marine Mammal Center in Laguna Beach alone has treated 27 pups found since December. Only 11 have survived. And researchers are blaming a lack of food. ...Read the full story on TreeHugger

all images: Gallup.com There have been a number of surveys released in the past few months about shifting attitudes of the American public regarding global warming. The general trend seems to be towards more climate skepticism and issue fatigue, and this latest one from Gallup just backs that up. It also correlates attitudes with political affiliation and ideology, again yielding ...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Photo via FeatheredTar According to new research from IDC Energy Insights, utilities are not even remotely ready for the smart grid particularly when it comes to one vital piece of the puzzle - customer interaction. So far, utilities have been this big, lumbering entity to which you send money every month in order to have your lights stay on, your refrigerator keep cold, your heater to keep you warm. You don't think about it daily, nor do you call up your utility for a chat often - or at all other than when you're moving. But with real time pricing and new inte...Read the full story on TreeHugger