The Energy Challenge – Houses With No Furnace but Plenty of Heat – Series – NYTimes.com

This is a very good article on passive housing and what really grabs you is how this house in Germany owned by Berthold Kaufmann uses about one -twentieth the heating energy of his parents home, even the US Army is considering building their barracks on this standard.

Nabih Tahan, a California architect who worked in Austria for 11 years, is completing one of the first passive houses in the United States for his family in Berkeley. He heads a group of 70 Bay Area architects and engineers working to encourage wider acceptance of the standards. “This is a recipe for energy that makes sense to people,” Mr. Tahan said. “Why not reuse this heat you get for free?”

The Energy Challenge – Houses With No Furnace but Plenty of Heat – Series – NYTimes.com

Filed under: Environment

Hackers ‘Responsible’ for £546m of Illegal Deforestation in the Amazon

In what has come as a shocking revelation, it appears that hi-tech hackers have played an instrumental role in the illegal deforestation of 1.7million cubic meters of the Amazon rain forest.

According to reports from environmental organization Greenpeace, the hackers were hired by at least 107 different companies to access and alter timber export records held by the Brazilian government. As a result, it’s estimated that an area of forest the size of 780 Olympic swimming pools has been cleared illegally.

Hackers ‘Responsible’ for £546m of Illegal Deforestation in the Amazon

Filed under: Environment

Report: N. America oversaturated in CO2 – USATODAY.com

North America’s ability to absorb global-warming gases created by the USA, Canada and Mexico is smaller than some experts thought and likely to shrink further, a federal climate study said Tuesday.

This study is a little different than what we have been hearing, this takes into account of just how much CO2 is being absorbed and off-set by vegetation. The findings do not look good from the stand-point and scientists are seeing that we are (along with the world) contributing far to much carbon for the planet’s vegetation to absorb to really make any affect on the pollutants.

This in turn has an affect on global-warming and the ultimate changing of the planets climate, which affect the life on the planet everything from insects up to mammals are affected by the pollutants being discharged into the environment. The shrinking ice in the Arctic has already reeked havoc on the inhabitants there and the warming of the planet if pollution is not dealt with will be eventually a devastating effect planet wide.

Report: N. America oversaturated in CO2 – USATODAY.com

Filed under: Environment