Articles by Chris Schults

Get a free (Terra)Pass for $79.95

For you all SUV drivers who fear the "eco-terrorists" mentioned here, and must continue to drive said SUVs, there is some potentially good news: TerraPass decals.

In Washington, DC, eco-vandals smear SUV door handles with dog crap. In Santa Cruz, California, protestors tag more than 60 gas-guzzlers with anti-oil graffiti. In Los Angeles, a Caltech grad student is sentenced to eight years in prison for trashing more than 120 SUVs around the city. It's almost enough to make you feel bad for SUV drivers. After all, some of them are green, too - just not as hardcore about it.

Now they have TerraPass, a clever eco-capitalism experiment. Launched by a group of Wharton Business School classmates, the startup sells a decal that drivers can slap on their windshields. The sticker price - $79.95 for SUVs, less for greener cars - gets invested in renewable energy projects and credits. The credits are traded through local brokers on the new Chicago Climate Exchange.

To purchase your decal, or to learn more, do not pass Go and head directly to the TerraPass website.

(Via Wired)

[editor's note, by Chris Schults] And to read Grist's piece on the aforementioned Chicago Climate Exchange go here.

They’re everywhere!

I can't go outside anymore in Seattle without seeing a Toyota Prius -- actually make that several. To escape the onslaught, I ducked into a movie theater this past weekend to watch War of the Worlds. Just as I was thinking it would be just me, Tom, Dakota and a few alien friends, Mr. Prius showed up on the big screen to remind me that he's watching me. Is there no escape!?

Or, try a lab burger.

Several Gristmillians, myself included, believe that going veg is one of many ways to help prevent climate change. That belief is now supported by British scientist Alan Calverd, who wrote in the journal Physics World that "carbon emissions could be slashed by an incredible 21% overnight if we all stopped eating meat" (via edie news centre).

Can't kick the animal flesh habit? Then maybe you want to look into lab burgers -- that is animal tissue engineered in a laboratory:

Writing in the journal Tissue Engineering, Matheny said scientists could grow cells from the muscle tissue of cattle, pigs, poultry or fish in large flat sheets on thin membranes. These sheets of cells would be grown and stretched, then removed from the membranes and stacked to increase thickness and resemble meat.

Using another method, scientists could grow muscle cells on small three-dimensional beads that stretch with small changes in temperature. The resulting tissue could be used to make processed meat such as chicken nuggets or hamburgers.

Sounds appetizing doesn't it? I'll stick with good ol' plant-based foods thank you.

Planting the seeds of sustainability in pop culture.

Okay. It is Friday and the last day of Grist's summer publishing break -- which means a little diversion from the more serious posts.

Now, the images below are not conceptual renderings of DestiNY part deux, but pics of Olympus, a fictional "utopian" city featured in the anime movie Appleseed. While I won't go on and rave about this movie as I did with Sky Blue, I did want to mention that Olympus had a few interesting qualities.

One, a million solar roofs that would make Arnold envious. (Okay, so I'm not sure how many there were, but it seemed like a million).

Two, green roofs.

Three, Olympus seemed to be an efficiently dense city.

Four, it is run by Gaia! (So what if this Gaia is actually a self evolving computer network -- they used the term Gaia!)