Well, not gasoline per say but something strangely close. With minimal filtering and no refining these amazing trees produce fuel for up to 70 years and and at a rate of 1 barrel per 4 trees per year. After extraction, the fuel must be used within a few months but can be put almost directly to work in a diesel engine. However, even if the fuel is left for too long it changes into another form of oil that fetches a fairly high market price as a medicinal substance.
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Recycling doesn’t have to be limited to helping the environment: it can also be a challenge and opportunity to ingenious designers who work with materials most people would consider waste to create amazing things. Some of the following designs serve multiple purposes: illustrating the material possibilities of what most would consider trash while also maximizing the aesthetic potential of what would otherwise be considered waste objects. Clothes become rugs, airline trolleys become furniture, cardboard becomes bridges and sewage turns into building blocks!

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Except perhaps in the bathroom, do you really need any kind of paper? These days it seems like paper is just an intermediate step or default conclusion - a copy that will eventually be scanned in or a digitally written paper printed out at the end. Still, is paperless the solution to environmental problems or simply wasteful in another way?

Some families are choosing to go entirely paperless though this choice isn’t necessarily a complete fix for the environment: paperless lists, games, educational tools and other devices still require energy to run. Also, with the virtually unlimited supply of information online and in digital form many people don’t think twice about printing out a copy for temporary use and then discarding it.

Also, while paper use is decreasing in many developed countries there are many places in the world where paper use is still on the rise, such as China and South America. Hopefully as paperless approaches become more the norm at work and at home energy efficiency can be increased and the world will begin to adjust to the new technologies without needing to print out unnecessary hard copies.

More at TreeHugger and the New York Times

Many would say that the Church of Scientology is unsustainable in more ways than one, but few have stopped to consider how that applies to the natural environment. While Scientologists overtly organize to protect nature and profess to protect the planet many of their practices seem to contradict their statements. The overall effect seems to be alarmism couple with inaction: all of the theoretical zest of GreenPeace with all of the inaction of President Bush. Here are some of the ways in which Scientology seems to skew environmental issues and play on public opinion without a correspondingly set of proactive strategies. This side of Scientology seems to have been lost in the scandalous shuffle of recent news but Scientology’s mixed messages and actions on the environment are also important.

Strange Science: Putting aside questions of science versus pseudoscience, dsagree or agree with climate change, the infamous Hubbard Electrometer is purported to measure mysterious “environmental toxins” in one’s bloodstream. This “technology” is misleading at best as well as a waste of resources, from the mechanical components in these myriad devices to the endless pages of paper wasted while producing “diagnoses” of individuals. Perhaps worst of all this strange emphasis on mysterious environmental factors distracts from actual environmental issues.

Global Apocalypse: Still, the E-Meter isn’t their only environmental concern - Scientology is also worried about the future of the planet. Still, if Scientologists are truly concerned with saving the Earth, which in their words may “no longer support life [within our] lifetime,” then why focus on graffiti removal and other short-term city beautification projects? Were this global apocalypse truly a concern for them it would seem that their priorities don’t align with their concerns about the world. Why worry the small things if the entire planet is at stake?

Mixed Recycling: Recycling is in fact an overt priority for Scientology in theory which appears to go unfulfilled in actuality. One of their own organizational loci, the Flag Service Organization, completely fails to recycle even basic soda cans. Moreover, the Church of Scientology prints its pamphlets, magazines and fliers on glossy, heavy, non-environmentally friendly paper before sending them around the world to likely wind up littering streets and tossed into garbage cans. No, they aren’t evil for failing to recycle, but it seems incongruent to publicly advocate recycling and clean living but not to recycle in-house.

What Does it All Mean? Sure, the Church of Scientology puts on a great show for the public. They are active in local settings picking up trash, cleaning up parks and removing graffiti - all things that others outside the organization can see, appreciate and identify with. But one has to wonder if that’s not precisely the point: are they perhaps just focusing on the most obvious sustainable actions for the purposes of improving public perception of the organization and recruiting new individuals to it? Environmentally speaking they are perhaps at best stuck in a previous generation’s thought patterns, when it was believed that little things made the big differences in the end, or at worst just putting on a good show.

Wait so is it global warming, cooling or climate change? Good, bad or ugly? The questions, perspectives and believes about climate issues change almost as much as the proposed solutions or interventions. Some of these supposed answers to core climate questions are truly as bizarre as these weird alternative fuel sources and outlandish as this incredible man-made recycled island. Whatever your opinions on climate change these are, at the very least, entertaining and extremely odd.

A volcanic eruption is a bad thing … right? Well, according to some scientists: not necessarily. The theory goes something like this: a faked volcanic eruption (via rockets shot nearly into space) could disperse sulphur into the upper atmosphere and block incoming and outgoing radiation. Of course, this plan has its critics. Other scientists worry about potential drought and other unforeseen consequences of such a bold and brazen act of geoengineering. And how could the process be undone if needed?

The idea of wrapping entire glaciers with sheets seems a bit far fetched and fanciful yet some scientists have proposed we do just that to prevent their rapid melting. One company has even developed the means to do it: a material dubbed Ice Protector that, in giant swathes, would be used to surround and protect glaciers. In tests the material was able to deflect heat and keep in the cold. Still, at $12 million per square mile this clever idea might not really be an affordable one.

Who ever heard of genetically engineering trees to be more shiny? Well, in a world with square watermelons probably pretty much anything is possible. Such shiny trees are one proposes way to cut down heat absorption on Earth and deflect more of the sun’s rays back into space. A bit quirky? Sure. That much beyond what is already being done to modify our plants and food supply? Probably not.

We always hear that if everyone contributed to a project they can make a world of change. Well, according to scientists, one simple measure - painting all our roofs white - could do just that. Not that it is likely to happen, but scientists believe that if everyone in the world painted their roof white the global temperature would drop to the level it was at a hundred years ago. Again, though, this is just a way to buy time to find other solutions, but it is still something to ponder the next time you re-roof your house!

So, heat is the problem, right? What if we could block a significant part of the sun’s rays entirely? How about 55,000 orbital mirrors to take on that task? That move alone would reduce the increasing levels of carbon dioxide on Earth by half. Of course, these mirrors would each be over 50 square miles in size and they are beyond expensive. Still, just imagine what it would look like to see these new ’stars’ in space! If you’re not sure where you fall on the questions (let alone answers) on the climate change issue, you may want getting this guide to the politics and science of the climate change debate. And for more green stuff, check out this sweet green art and this unusually green vehicles.