From Grist: High winds — although not that high, only 15 mph — led to negative-price wind energy for nine hours on July 24, bringing Germany’s total to 31 hours of below-zero-cost energy this year.

Read the full story

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Meanwhile in Denmark, they have taxes on fatty foods

The Telegraph: Starting from this Saturday, Danes will pay an extra 30p on each pack of butter, 8p on a pack of crisps, and an extra 13p on a pound of mince, as a result of the tax.

The tax is expected to raise about 2.2bn Danish Krone (£140m), and cut consumption of saturated fat by close to 10pc, and butter consumption by 15pc.

Read the full story

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Meanwhile in New York, Zombies #occupywallstreet

TIME: Patrick Bruner, a spokesman for the group, says Occupy Wall Street demonstrators are being urged to dress in business wear with white faces and blood, and will march while eating monopoly money. He says financial workers should see them “reflecting the metaphor of their actions.”

Read the full story, and Full Coverage on Good

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Meanwhile in Japan, they’ve decided to continue killing whales. And New Zealand is not pleased.

CNA: “Japan’s decision is increasingly out of step with international opinion,” Foreign Minister Murray McCully said.

Read the Full Story

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Meanwhile in Singapore, only 1/3 of professionals clear their annual leave

Asia One: ‘The figures reflect that Singaporeans do not have a strong work-life balance,’ says Andrea Ross, Robert Walters’ managing director for Singapore and Malaysia. ‘Singapore is a fast-moving economy and to make the most of this, people tend to work longer hours so that they don’t miss out of any opportunities on the work front.’

Read the Full Story

1. What Sustainability Reports say about the state of Business

2. Will CFO’s ever “Get” Sustainability

3. Quality vs Fluff: Building Blocks for GRI Report Assessments

4. SGX listed firms get sustainability Guide (with guide embedded)

5. The Future of CSR Reporting: Coca Cola Releases Video Report

+1!

6. Integrated Reporting: can it solve the sustainability information gap?

In any case, here are some ideas for gifts for your valuable employees, or even colleagues; after all, you want them to stay happy.

1. First on the list, reusable bags. Ones that last. Ones that are made ethically. Ones that can be brought around easily. Look out for the small things like a higher weight limit, easily foldable, a clip/pouch that can be attached onto your handbag/laptop case.
2. Handkerchiefs. Or Mankerchiefs, whatever floats your boat. These can be used for a couple of days at once, assuming you don’t have the cold, or if you aren’t dining on some chili crab. A quick wash should get rid of perspiration and food stains accumulated over the past couple of days.
3. Reusable mug. Or an insulated bottle, which is cooler. Here in Singapore, the working crowd practically lives on coffee, whether it’s from Starbucks or from the neighborhood coffee shop. With a reusable travel mug, or an insulated bottle, you can order your coffee on ice, or your double shot latte to go, without guilt!
4. Battery Charger. Specifically, an alkaline battery charger. Rechargeable batteries cost a lot, and usually take a long time to re-charge. With an alkaline battery charger, you’ll never have to buy another rechargeable battery ever again. Stick with the current crop of batteries you’re using now, and just re-charge (in under an hour) whenever they run dry. My choice for toy of the year.
5. Lunchbox. I don’t know why, but I see many people taking their lunch back to the office around here in Chinatown. Perhaps it’s to take advantage of the air-conditioning back in the office as opposed to the hawker center, perhaps we work really really hard. Whatever the case, we really ought to cut out the waste generated from takeaway containers and utensils. It’s ridiculous. Did you know that toxic chemicals can leach out of these products into food that they are used to contain, threatening your health and reproductive systems.*

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Vote with your (corporate) dollar. Educate the people you work with on the positive actions that everyone can take towards leading a more environmentally friendly lifestyle. Be the one who takes the first step.

*Try this: grab a brand new Styrofoam lunchbox, and weigh it. Then, pile on some warm food into the same box, remove after an hour or so, and weight it again. I’ve found that the box decreases in weight; I’m not sure what this means to you, but this phenomenon seems to me like a sign that everytime we eat out of a Styrofoam box, we eat some Styrofoam. That’s not cool to me, but if it’s fine by you, don’t stop using them.

An electric car, SRZero, developed by Imperial College’s Energy Futures Lab completed a 25,000 km journey from Alaska to Argentina, on 1 charge. The cost of this 1 charge? £3 (or SGD $6.15 at today’s exchange rate).

From a press release:

Alexander Schey, Racing Green Endurance Project Manager and Bachelor of Engineering undergraduate at Imperial College London, says:

“We wanted to have a car that was exciting to look at, so that when people saw it driving along they wanted to find out more about it. It worked perfectly. At every stop we were surrounded by people from all different backgrounds – from curious businessmen in San Francisco to a 200 strong crowd of onlookers including local farmers at the Guatemalan border – it is a great way to begin a conversation and to tell everybody more about electric vehicles. They were all surprised when we told them that it could run for over 500 kilometres on around $5 of electricity.”

OK. So the car itself cost the team a whopping £750,000, which isn’t by any metric, a consumer friendly price.

That being said I’m sure most would agree that this is a great way to demonstrate that it can be done. And just maybe, it’ll help with putting to rest some apprehensions about EV’s. (though debate over infrastructural challenges remain)

Check out Racing Green Endurance’s Website.

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Swater: A Water Collector & Purifier that runs on Solar.

Designed by Chun Yen Tsao and Hsing-Tan Yang, this device may be a solution that could provide for the billions who do not, and will not have access to clean water.

From Yanko Design:

What Swater does is use sunlight to collect clean distilled water from the condensation that builds up inside of the device. It’s eco friendly and probably will one day save the entire world. The awl-shaped cap has a solar panel that generates the energy needed to run the electrical heating tube and disinfecting light.

Now all they need to do is scale this by a few hundred times, and we’re set.

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Providing 50% of the world’s energy needs by 2050, with sand.

Once again, the Japanese are planning something massive (remember that plan to harvest solar energy from the moon?). This time, they intend to build a “Solar Breeder” in Sahara Desert. Before I attempt to explain what that is, please take some time to appreciate the following image:

Basically (if I didn’t get this wrong), according to them, the desert is abundant in sunlight and silica. So they intend to use silica, to build solar power plants, which in turn supplies energy back to extracting more silica to build more, or “breed” solar power plants. The process repeats itself until the whole Sahara Desert is covered.

After that, we have enough energy to supply the half the world’s energy needs.

From Ecofriend:

According to statistics, the sun delivers 10,000 times more energy to the Earth than the current requirements, which means that even if we harness 0.01 percent of it, it would create a surplus. The plan is to use desert sand to make a substance that provides energy, which will be the key to solving the energy problem. While technology to convert silica into silicon for solar panels doesn’t exist, the researchers are confident that it is definitely doable.

Still not convinced? Watch the video:

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Huishan Dairy in China builds world’s largest Methane Capture System for cows

We all know cows contribute 1/5 of global emissions. So it makes sense that we do something about it.

Now there’s a huge movement of people who advocate that we stop eating meat, and we hence kill the demand for cattle rearing. Which of course, makes a lot of sense too. BUT, looking at scenes like this, and the fact that we’re going to need ramp up food production in the following few decades, I think that’s always going to be a tough battle to fight.

So what do we do? Take the cow emissions out of the air – and use it to generate electricity.

Here’s how it works (from CNNGO):

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Bottled Water = Evil.

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Vampire Energy in your home

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World’s major cities and Rising Sea Levels

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Food Waste

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Shocking CO2 Emissions Statistics

Please enjoy!

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Röyksopp – Remind me

From YouTube: Directed by the French motion graphics studio H5. It features a day in the life of a woman working in the London’s Square Mile solely through infographics; this includes labelled close-ups of everyday objects, product lifecycles, schematic diagrams, charts, and is generally illustrated in a simple isometric visual style.

Not exactly “green” per se, but we can immediately relate and examine the environmental and personal impact of our daily routines, and hopefully inject a little bit of perspective to our lives.

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Radiohead – All I Need

If you were taking bets that this one will pop up, no money for you. We all know and love that Thom York and Radiohead are the most eco-friendly musicians around. Thom reputed to have crashed the party at COP15, the band refuses to fly for their tours (so we’ll probably never get to see them in Singapore), and most of their new t-shirts are made from recycled material (I’ve got one too!).

It’s No Surprises (ahem.) that we’ll be treated to something like this music video, for those who aren’t familiar, I suggest that you get familiar right now.

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Eric Prydz vs Pink Floyd – Proper Education

Not just a dance anthem (as is commonly known), green.tv says: This video Launched green.tv’s music channel with Swedish producer and DJ, Eric Prydz and his remix of Pink Floyd’s ‘Another Brick in the Wall’. Green.tv interviewed Dan Morrell from climate change charity Global Cool who consulted on the video. The tune’s called ‘Proper Education’. The video has a deep green message. It focuses on climate change and the issues surrounding global warming. Set in a London estate, it shows a gang of young people breaking into local flats, in order to switch appliances off standby, change light bulbs for energy efficient alternatives and place bricks in toilet cisterns.

Nuff’ said.

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They Might Be Giants – Electric Car

This one takes green themed music to a whole new level because it IS a song about electric cars. I’ve shared this a few months ago, and the word “enduring” popped up in the comments. I think we can all wholly agree on that.

Check it out!

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Modest Mouse – King Rat

Directed by the late Heath Ledger, this video is definitely one for the whale activists out there. It depicts a world where the tables are turned; where whales hunt humans instead.

Beautifully animated and a brilliant song.

WARNING: Contains Very Grim Scenes (not suitable for children).