Lots of vehicle news this week… from greener AC to electric vehicles for rent. Here are your green tech finds.

• A new model for solar cells — blowfly eyes: A team of researchers at Penn State thinks blowfly corneas could provide a viable model for solar cells (via Discovery News)
  
  
• Climate-friendly air conditioning for your car: GM plans to roll out a new air conditioning refrigerant in 2013 which performs 99.7% better in terms of greenhouse gas impact than current HFCs. (via Green Tech Pastures)
  
  

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Oil Spill Charity “F-Bomb-A-Thon” from UnF–kTheGulf.com on Vimeo.

This hilarious website, t-shirt, and non-profit, called Un F–k The Gulf, has me giggling. Which is a hard thing to do when thinking about the Gulf oil spill. Using humor, and the F-bomb, with dramatic effect and with electric results the campaign’s aim is get people mad about the spill. It’s working.

So mad that they’ll actually do something. The simplicity in message, design, and humor really works. And it’s totally f–king funny.

“I am the Lorax. I speak for the trees. I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues.” — Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax

Almost anyone who was a child in the last forty years probably received their first introduction to environmentalism through Theodore Geisel’s (aka Dr. Seuss) classic 1971 book The Lorax. A year after its publication, the story came to the small screen; now, according to Variety (and a few green blogs), a feature-length version of the story is set for a March 2, 2012 release (which is also Geisel’s 108th birthday).

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When my wife and I decided to buy a house in St. Louis, we wanted something older, with a little character… and easy access to the Missouri Botanical Garden. We found what we wanted… a mere two blocks from the US’ oldest continuously operated garden. MOBOT isn’t just a great place to escape the urban environment… it’s also become St. Louis’ premiere institution for promoting sustainability and green living. Now, I’m just as likely to spend my time in the Kemper Gardening Center for tips on better maintaining my little organic garden as I am enjoying the view in the Japanese garden.

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With state budgets in shambles, public universities have had to get creative about funding. In Austin, the University of Texas has taken an approach to funding scholarships that could undermine the region’s otherwise sterling green credentials: the sale of H2Orange bottled tap water (which comes in a bottle shaped like the UT Tower).

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Infrared photography, a green Motel 6, and solar in the South Pole… this week’s green tech finds.

• Lower-carbon flying: Air travel is pretty energy and carbon-intensive, but GE’s trying to make flying a bit greener with “software that will help pilots choose the most environmentally efficient flight trajectories taking into account conditions on four dimensions – latitude, longitude, altitude and time.”
  
  
• California’s the green energy leader… right? Maybe now, but according to Alexis Madrigal at The Atlantic, Alaska and Hawaii may have some of the most innovative approaches out there for moving to low-carbon energy sources.
  

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Among the ten finalists for Nau’s $10k Grant for Change are a design for an infant warmer, a mobile food and film project, a U.S. Marine youth fitness program and a platform that connects designers to non-profits in need of some visual know-how. Now in its second year, Grant for Change accepts any proposal that puts design at the forefront of driving social change. To give contestants an idea of what they’re looking for, Nau cites projects like TED, Engineers Without Borders and the Eye Writer Project, which makes me wonder how the all-vegetarian group “The Giving Tree Band” made the cut. The so-called “greenest act in America” has a mission statement that just might make you turn a shade of their favorite color:

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Lead in your lipstick? Carcinogens in your child’s baby shampoo… even when it’s labeled “natural” or “organic?” It turns out that cosmetics and personal care products have been on the voluntary self-regulation train for generations… so Annie Leonard and the folks at the Story of Stuff Project have once again teamed up with Free Range Studios to make another video: “The Story of Cosmetics.”

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Last week, Lafayette, Louisiana crawfisherman Drew Landry brought a meeting of the White House oil spill commission to awed silence as he sang a song he’d written about the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and the economic environment in Southern Louisiana. Landry’s become a bit of an internet sensation… watch the video above, and you’ll see why — but he’s just one of numerous musicians that have tried to encapsulate the Gulf tragedy in song.

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From the Great Pacific Garbage Patch to the Gulf oil spill, you don’t have to look far for evidence of how heavily we pollute our oceans. The effects of this pollution are both environmental and economic: harming ocean life diminishes our capacity to make use of the many resources on which we rely provided by the planet’s ample blue spaces. Just take a look at some of the numbers from NOAA, National Geographic, and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute:

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Fishy iPhone apps, soy car parts, and another solar Air Force base… this week’s green tech finds.

• Sustainable seafood and wine? There’s an app for that… The Blue Ocean Institute and Brancott have launched the free Fishphone iPhone app, which not only provides sustainable seafood information on the go, but also suggest wine pairings.
  
  
• The eco-travel planner: The Rainforest Alliance has beta launched its new sustainable travel guide and planner, SustainableTrip.org. Currently focused on south of the border destinations, the site features tour operators, hotels, restaurants and other amenities that have been certified by reputable NGOs.
  
  

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