Survivalism may be going mainstream, what will all the new cave men and off-gridders. But for Heimo and Edna Korth, survival in the wild has been a way of life for three decades. The last humans to be living in the 19.5-million-acre Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and living 130 miles above the Arctic Circle, they are quite possibly the most remote Ameri...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Photo via The Cove The Cove has made a tremendous impact on people when it comes to raising awareness about the slaughter of dolphins and the dark story of whale meat in the fish market. It has changed lives, riled people up, won its Oscar, and now it just might turn into a new TV Series on Animal Planet starting this fall. ...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Photo: Monica M. Davey/Feature Photo Service for IBM 13 Billion PET Plastic Bottles are Thrown Away Each Year Certain things are harder to recycle than others. While it's relatively easy to make a new aluminum can out of an old aluminum can, making a new plastic bottle out of an old one is a lot harder. Currently, most recycled plastic is not truly recycled, but rather downcycled to a lesser use. But thanks to a breakthrough in green chemistry by IBM and Stanford researchers, this might be about to change!...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Image via Amazon The viral video phenomenon The Story of Stuff has made a big impact on audiences worldwide. Since its release in 2007, it's been viewed over 10 million times, showing we're as fascinated by learning about our Stuff as we are with the items themselves. The short movie with its fun and idea-clarifying animations lays out how stuff is made, distributed and discarded - the take-make-waste cycled as creator Annie Leonard calls it. It sums up our processes and problems in a smart, tidy package that has been a source of controver...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Lloyd Alter Many small towns are experiencing a comeback these days; a combination of aging boomers and the green movement, combined with technology that lets people work just about anywhere make them a viable alternative to urban and suburban life. Sami has written extensively in TreeHugger about the Transition Town movement, where people are looking for resilient communities that can survive in a crisis. Smaller cities also have character, walkable main streets, apartments above shops that could be attractive to relocating urbanites. Then there are towns like Br...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Photo via jurvetson So far, kinetic charging for cell phones has been confined to the realm of external chargers (which are only now starting to be actually useful) and concept designs for futuristic phones. But Nokia looks to be taking piezoelectric charging for cell phones seriously. The company has filed a patent for a cell phone - patent appl...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Photos: Courtesy of Louis Rigano. We've seen plenty of things with fused plastic bags, one of the best being the Chilean plastic bags boots we featured last year. However, few look like something that you would wear or that can be easily done. Until now....Read the full story on TreeHugger

photo: Kartikeya Kaul via flickr. India the world's last major emitter to formally back the Copenhagen Accord has done so. Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said the decision reflected India's contributions in shaping the Accord. Ramesh went on to list the three conditions under which India will participate:...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Image via Eurekalert, Credit: Courtesy of Jeremy Agresti, Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences Just a bit smaller than an iPod Nano, a new pocket-sized laboratory could revolutionize the way biofuels are discovered. The device - a "microfluidic sorting device" - can sort enzymes and compounds about 1,000 times faster than the larger equipment in use today, and thus can sniff out potential for new microbe-based biofuels much faster, cheaper and more energy efficiently, than ever before. ...Read the full story on TreeHugger

TOMS Shoes has announced their third annual One Day Without Shoes campaign for Apr...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Distributed generation for utilities is part of the mandate. Photo: Solar Dave via flickr. Now this is getting somewhere... Climate Progress reports that the Colorado House of Representatives has passed an increase in the state's Read the full story on TreeHugger

Credit: hessnatur We announced the Planet Green and hessnatur Eco-Tee Design Challenge winner, Lindsay Seligman for her One Life design, back in September 2009 and we are happy to report that the organic cotton t-shirt is available now. Click through to watch a video with the designer and to find out which animal outlines are "hidden" in the final design, above. ...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Photos via Dell Dell has been one of the leaders of the computer pack in developing more and more efficient computers. The Dell Studio Hybrid shows off how compact but powerful a computer can be, and while the company took a hit from Greenpeace in last summer's green gadget guide for failing to meet its promise ...Read the full story on TreeHugger

photo: Alexander Torrenegra via flickr. Just as its announced that Brazil and the United States will work together to slow Amazon deforestation, Cool Green Science asks an important question: Has it been policy or recession driving down deforestation in Brazil?...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Image credit: Timberland Earthkeepers From recycled plastic bottles to the 100% locally sourced tee, Kara's list of 7 dark green t shirts we'd actually wear showcased some of the best in sustainable apparel. But what if you could get a sustainable, 100% recycled t-shirt that could also help earthquake victims in Haiti? This is where Timberland Earthkeepers come in—launching their line of 100% recycled cotton tees that were designed by kids in Haiti last year, long before the devastating events of t...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Image of a traditional tombstone with an RFID tag that carries a little more personal data. Via Objecs. Objecs is selling its Personal Rosetta Stone passive RFID-enabled data tags as an addition to a loved one's tomb stone - you can enter the person's name and choose some represetative symbols, perhaps a small epitaph via the web - then you embed the tag into a larger traditional tombstone. But as green burials grow more common and land for huge cemetaries shrinks, perhaps the company's other product - tag-embedded mi...Read the full story on TreeHugger

photo: Kevin Walsh via flickr. You've probably heard the stat that extinction rates are currently somewhere between 100-1000 times historic levels, which is bad enough, but now the Guardian reports the head of the Species Survival Commission for the International Union for the Conservation of Nature says that we've "almost certainly" crossed the thresho...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Photo via Osaka University Plastic recycling is often a conundrum. Sorting at home can be iffy, since consumers don't always know what's recyclable and what's not in their area, and some plastic types like bioplastics aren't easily discernible, or recyclable at all. This keeps recycling rates in many areas low. In Japan, only two types of plastics are currently recycled...Read the full story on TreeHugger

image: Carnegie Institution We've written about the phenomenon of outsourced carbon emissions a number of times, with the example of perhaps up to one third of China's emissions coming from manufacturing goods destined for consumption abroad being most prominent. Well, a new study by scientists at the Carnegie Institution adds some more data to our our understanding of this issue:...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Image from minkyu.co.uk. Last week we wrote an idiosyncratic view of the candidates for the Brit Insurance Designs of the Year awards. With over 100 items in seven different categories, it is an Oscar-worthy show of the international design world's best work of the past year. And the winners are... As predicted: the folding plug! Given the size, weight and general clunkiness of the existing UK converter plug, Read the full story on TreeHugger