Environment » Eoin

Solar-powered Christmas lights – a festive way to go green

There are those who love huge outdoor displays of Christmas lights -- life-size reindeer up on the roof and all the trees in the yard covered with glowing bulbs -- and those who groan at the sight of a weather-proof extension cord. If you're in the latter group, this post isn't ...

Putting a human face on climate change

Last week, the White House announced target emissions cuts in advance of the upcoming climate conference in Copenhagen: a 17 percent cut in greenhouse gas emissions relative to 2005 levels by 2020. The president's longer-term goal is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 83 percent by 2050. Meanwhile, as the waves made ...

Global warming: 72 percent of Americans say it’s real, poll finds

Amid all the controversy about the hacked e-mails of climate scientists comes an ABC-Washington Post poll that says a majority of Americans believe that global warming is happening and that a cap on greenhouse gases should be imposed nationally. That's a drop of 8 percentage points (thanks, Don!) compared with those believed ...

Understanding home insulation, from fiberglass to foam

During the next two days I’ll be getting estimates from three different insulation contractors as well as a crash course on air infiltration and R-values. Those are two key elements to understand when looking at insulating a home. Air infiltration refers essentially to how drafty a house is – how much ...

E-waste recycling – are solutions near?

Last week, US Rep. Mike Thompson (D) of California introduced a resolution calling on Congress to better manage disposal of old electronics, or e-waste. The resolution, now in the Committee on House Administration, proposes that the legislative branch recycle its obsolete computers, monitors, cellphones, and other electronic equipment exclusively with recyclers ...

Hacked global warming e-mails – what’s new?

When the news broke that "more than 169 megabytes worth of global-warming emails and related files were either hacked and/or leaked from computers at the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Center in Britain and released to the world via the Internet," as the Monitor's Pete Spotts wrote, some reactions ...

Hacked climate emails: conspiracy or tempest in a teapot?

For all its gee-whiz discoveries and its influence on public policy, science can be a messy, sometimes ugly enterprise. When the science is paleontology, astronomy, or geophysics, internal politics, thinly or not-so-thinly veiled personal attacks, and water-cooler discussions among influential scientists about whose research is junk and not worth publishing draw ...

How will California’s new TV energy standards affect you?

On Wednesday, the California Energy Commission approved new energy-efficiency standards to regulate how much electricity television sets sold in the state can consume. When do the standards take effect? Jan. 1, 2011, with more stringent rules kicking in two years later. Do they apply to the TV sets I currently own? No. ...

Two big advantages of closed-loop geothermal systems

When our heating contractor Tony Silverio told us we had a choice between a closed loop and an open loop geothermal system, our first inclination was simply to go with the least expensive. That’s in part because we already knew we’d be spending significantly more upfront for a geothermal system than ...

‘Going Rogue’: Is Sarah Palin a creationist?

In her memoir, "Going Rogue," Sarah Palin reveals that she has creationist leanings, explicitly rejecting the belief that humans and other species evolved from a common lineage. There's no precise definition of "creationism," but the term generally encompasses those who oppose all or part of the theory – held almost universally ...