Modern media shapes nearly everything in our culture. The TV set, the daily newspaper, the internet and radio stations have become the central meeting point for curious minds. It is not hard to understand why the messages that the media puts out into society can have a tremendous impact on everything that society does.

Modern media can be a powerful tool for focusing people’s attention on their role in the green movement. Your voice wields more influence than you might expect.

There is a wonderful event about modern media and its role in promoting the green movement. Read below for more details on the discussion panel leaders.

Actress, author and green activist Annabelle Gurwitch [www.annabellegurwitch.com], host of “Wa$ted” on Planet Green, moderates a robust discussion about the media’s role in the green movement. The panel of experts includes Elizabeth Royte [www.bottlemania.net] (author of Bottlemania and Garbageland), Graham Hill [www.treehugger.com] (founder of Treehugger.com and co-author of Ready Set Green ), Lynne Kirby (Senior VP, Original Programming & Development, Sundance Channel ) , Andrew C. Revkin (Chief Environment Reporter for the NY Times) and Ira Flatow [www.npr.org]] (host of Science Friday on NPR).

Date & Time: Thu, Nov 13, 2008, 7:00pm
Location: 92YTribeca, 200 Hudson Street
Venue: 92YTribeca Lecture Hall

Filling out the big top 10 is the catalyst — both good and bad — in all of this: people. Each of us plays a role in the way the world works, and we each have the power to change it; that’s why we can’t underestimate the value in human equity, fair trade [www.sundancechannel.com] labor and overall health and happiness.

Here’s the challenge we face for a greener future when it comes to every human who inhabits this planet: “Some in the industrialized world live in relative poverty, while many in the developing world cannot meet their basic needs from what they produce or sell.” Wealth, resources and power are generally not equitably distributed throughout the planet, and, while this is a planetary problem, there are local solutions. The two (equity and fair trade) go hand in hand; with more of one, we can have more of the other. How can this happen? Ensure that your community’s (and not just your neighborhood, but your office, your family, your online community and wherever else you tend to leave your footprint) impact on other communities is positive. Promote equity and fair trading relationships to ensure that all of these communities have a beneficial impact on other communities both locally and globally. This means: supporting fair trade labor practices by buying Fair Trade-certified goods (often commodities like coffee and chocolate); not supporting those who are not equitable in their distribution of wealth (like many big corporations in the US, like Wal-Mart) and really considering what it must have taken to create your apparel and garments and other dry goods that require labor before arriving in your home.

At the risk of sounding a little out there, let’s consider the final piece of this green puzzle: health and happiness. Notions of what make us happy and healthy as individuals mean many different things; for some, it’s money and financial health; for others, it’s fulfilling work that insures more equity in the world. There is also a significant portion of this equation that can be tied to where we live; not only locale, like city vs. country, but location, like apartment vs. farm. Living in well-designed space and community is a big part of contributing to our general well-being, since we spend so much time in our homes and in our communities. The solution, according to One Planet, is a good one: “Promote healthy lifestyles and physical, mental & spiritual well-being through well-designed structures and community engagement measures, as well as by delivering on social and environmental targets.” Again, we’re all connected, and it all comes back to us.

Lastly, this will be the final entry here in the TreeHugger blog at the Sundance Channel website. It’s been a great year here, blogging about all things green, and we’ve really enjoyed it. TreeHugger will march on, as ever, endeavoring to bring sustainability further mainstream and reporting on the latest and greatest in green; we hope that if you’ve enjoyed what you’ve seen here, that you’ll visit us at TreeHugger and continue to learn about the green world. As we sign off, we’d like to repeat something from the very first entry, way back in March, “Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for more of the best in green!”

Today, we’ll move away from the stuff that surrounds our lives every day and open up the aperture a bit, to look at how our green future interacts with natural habitats and wildlife, and culture and heritage. Again, it might not seem like there’s a huge connection here, but there really is. And it’s terribly important that we consider them both.

Considering biodiversity [www.sundancechannel.com] and natural habitat is another great study in the interconnectedness of everything. One Planet says the challenge stems from, “Loss of biodiversity and habitats due to development in natural areas and overexploitation of natural resources,” and it certainly does, but as we encroach further into natural habitat, we cut down more trees (and trees absorb carbon dioxide as they grow), which leads to less water retention in the soil (which leads to less groundwater that we can access with wells) and less stable topsoil [www.sundancechannel.com] (which leads to more mudslides). What to do? “Regenerate degraded environments and halt biodiversity loss, and protect or regenerate existing natural environments and the habitats they provide to fauna and flora; create new habitats,” says One Planet. This one is interesting because it requires nothing but our due diligence; we don’t need any fancy technology for this (though it helps); we just have to care enough to make a difference. Judging by the groundswell of interesting environmental issues over the past year, we certainly do.

Culture and heritage might make less sense as a way for a greener future; in order to give this one proper treatment, we have to look to the past. The problem, defined by One Planet as, “Local cultural heritage lost throughout the world due to globalization, resulting in a loss of local identity and wisdom,” is equally about what we’ve done in the past and what we do today. Think about it this way: in Italy, there’s a cultural history surrounding food and wine (something like pasta and Chianti, very generally) that dictates how things are done, and where they come from. Italians don’t prefer cheese from Parma and tomatoes from Roma because it’s greener; they prefer them because they’re distinctly Italian, and because it helps define their culture and heritage. In America, we have no such connection to a given cultural history; as a melting pot, we have the benefit of deriving culture from many different sources, but it leaves us without a specific tradition on which we can hang our hats. So, we tend to care less about where our stuff comes from, and that goes for everything from food and water to materials and even energy.

Though this sounds like a bit of a bummer, it’s a great opportunity for us to rebuild a culture of sustainability, and it’s already happening: with farmer’s markets and local food; with green energy we harvest ourselves; with water and resources we’re able to save through increased efficiency. Being green is becoming cultural iconography of it’s own, and it’s only the tip of the iceberg. Don’t wait to get on the bandwagon!

We take a step closer to our everyday lives today with something we all need, every day (and several times, at that): food and water. We can’t make this more plain: what you choose to eat and drink every day makes a huge, huge difference, so making the sustainable [www.sundancechannel.com] choice has huge potential to make a greener [www.sundancechannel.com] future. Let’s take a closer look.

First of all, One Planet Living defines the difficulties of food production very succinctly, so we’ll just go with it, “Industrial agriculture produces food of uncertain quality and harms local ecosystems [www.sundancechannel.com], while consumption of non-local food [www.sundancechannel.com]
imposes high transport impacts.” Moving forward, eating green [www.sundancechannel.com] can take on many forms, but there’s a fairly specific progression that can apply to just about everybody: local organic [www.sundancechannel.com], local, organic, conventional. The 100 Mile Diet [www.sundancechannel.com] has exploded in popularity of late, making it easier than ever to find local food [www.sundancechannel.com]. Farmer’s markets are enjoying a renaissance, as people care more and more about where their food comes from, and how it’s produced. Eating more veggies [www.sundancechannel.com] (and less meat) is another big step with even bigger results; remember, it takes almost 2000 gallons of water to produce one pound of beef — that’s a perfect segue into the next topic: water.

Sustainable water [www.sundancechannel.com] seems to be one of the great ironies of our time: over 2/3 of our planet is covered in the stuff, and yet, we can’t seem to keep enough of it clean and available for drinking and consumption. One Planet decrees that we must, “Achieve a positive impact on local water resources and supply. Implement water use efficiency measures, re-use and recycling; minimize water extraction and pollution [www.sundancechannel.com]; foster sustainable water and sewage management in the landscape; restore natural [www.sundancechannel.com]
water cycles.” Sounds easier said than done, but it’s really quite straightforward: stop drinking bottled water, put a low-flow showerhead in your shower and aerators on all your sinks, a low-flow, dual-flush toilet in your bathroom and don’t leave the water running when you don’t need it. Taken separately, each of these seems simple and small, but they can add up to literally thousands of gallons of water each year. Not tossing it down the drain, and not polluting it with fertilizers in your yard helps, but the big payoff here comes back to food (remember that full circle thing we mentioned before? Here it is again…) and what you choose to eat. Think of it this way: upgrading all the systems in your home is great, but it’ll never add up to the difference not eating meat will make.

Gazing in to the crystal ball, next we see that natural wildlife and habitats and culture and heritage are next; stay tuned!

We started our peek into our bright green [www.sundancechannel.com]
future by looking at two very big, very large scale hurdles to clear: zero carbon and zero waste. Today, we’ll focus on more tangible ideas that are easier to put in to everyday context, since they’re things we use every day: sustainable transport [www.sundancechannel.com] and local/sustainable [www.sundancechannel.com] materials.

We have a huge opportunity to make both our day-to-day and longer-term (like holiday airplane travel) transportation more sustainable. You already know the story with cars: internal combustion engines pollute [www.sundancechannel.com], bottom line, so for all the talk about hybrids and plug-in hybrids [www.sundancechannel.com] and flex-fuel and biofuel [www.sundancechannel.com], we have to get beyond using fossil fuels in our engines, and, ultimately, get beyond internal combustion to use things like batteries [www.sundancechannel.com] and hydrogen fuel cells [www.sundancechannel.com], where emissions will not only be reduced, but can be absolutely zero. Of course, these options already exist (in prototype form, at least) with Tesla’s sexy roadster [www.sundancechannel.com] and the Hypercar [www.sundancechannel.com] (here’s part two [www.sundancechannel.com] of that series).

Flying is a bit more of a trick, because few viable options exist for replacing fossil fuel-derived jet fuel just yet; with careful travel management (and careful carbon offset purchasing [www.sundancechannel.com]) we can help first reduce our air miles and second make our flying carbon neutral.

As with much of this list, the benefits (and need for) local, sustainable materials are intertwined with other facets of the top 10. The impetus for sustainable materials comes from the destructive patterns of resource exploitation and use of non-local materials in construction and manufacture that increases environmental harm and reduces gains to the local economy; that means that not only do non-sustainable resources deplete resources, but shipping them from across the globe increases carbon footprints and, in some cases, can exploit labor and human capital. What do we do about it? Well, the green future will include more sustainable labeling schemes [www.sundancechannel.com] for materials — like the Forest Stewardship Council for wood — and more sustainable materials in general — like bamboo [www.sundancechannel.com]. Where possible, we’ll look to use local, reclaimed, renewable and recycled materials in construction and products, which minimizes transport emissions, spurs investment in local nature [www.sundancechannel.com] stocks and boosts the local economy. We’ll be revisiting the local theme again, several times, so stay tuned for more on that.

Up next: local and sustainable food and sustainable water.

We generate 25 percent more trash during the holidays, and a large part of that can be attributed to the gifts we buy and ostentatiously wrap up before giving them away. Once given, you know how it usually goes: there’s the “Oh, what could it be?” stage followed by a moment of admiration and then the paper is shredded and the gift uncovered, the pretty paper that adorned the gift now a mangled afterthought, to be (hopefully) recycled or (probably) thrown away. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Going with non-disposable wrapping is the greenest way to go. By cutting wrapping paper out of the equation all together, you don’t have to worry about whether or not it’s recycled, or recyclable, because the answer is automatically (and emphatically) “Yes!” For example, if it’s a small kitchen gift, wrap it up in a kitchen towel that your giftee can use every day for years to come; for a larger gift, a reusable canvas bag, for groceries and the like, is a great way to wrap with function in mind. And, with people like Anya Hindmarch [www.anyahindmarch.com] creating designer bags that equally consider fashion and the environment, it’s a social statement instead of an ugly afterthought.

If reusable items and bags are not an option, using recycled paper (like the Sunday comics, even), or a tree-friendly paper alternative like hemp and flax [paporganics.com], is a good way to go. If it’s recycled, it’s already been through a produce lifecycle and the waste stream once, making its footprint much lighter than it would be if virgin materials were at the top of the list. In many cases, these recycled papers are also further recyclable, once you’re done with them; lots of wrapping paper, though made from paper, is sadly not recyclable. Generally, if it’s shiny or sparkly, it can’t be recycled — all that glitters is not gold, you know — so stay away from the really eye-catching stuff if you want your wrapping to be green.

Every year, 2.65 billion holiday cards are sold in the United States. If you’re buying, choose cards made from recycled paper and avoid the shiny non-recyclable kind. Sending e-cards is a good alternative, if you aren’t absolutely wedded to tradition, and be sure to recycle those non-shiny cards you get.

For more on this, check in with this designer option [www.fishlipspaperdesigns.com], peruse the many offerings of Pap Organics [www.paporganics.com] and find any color in the rainbow [www.buygiftpaper.com] if you still need some. The Green Guide [www.thegreenguide.com] has a thorough treatment of the subject as well. Happy wrapping!

With the year winding to a close, many of us take time to reflect on the months gone by and to gaze into our own personal crystal ball to see what the next year might hold. The future is green, from TreeHugger’s point of view, and there are more new ways to insure this is true every day. It’s quite exciting, really, to think about all the ways, all the technologies, all the services and all the ideas that are out there, supporting a green future. To close out 2007, we’ll be looking at 10 things that’ll insure our future is indeed green; the big list is courtesy of One Planet Living [www.oneplanetliving.org], and first on the list are zero carbon and zero waste.

Zero carbon addresses the hugely important (and, likewise, hugely difficult) problem of global warming. A brief overview: Human generated carbon dioxide has built up to dangerously high levels in the atmosphere; combined with other gases like methane and nitrous oxide, they cause global warming. Carbon dioxide comes from the burning of fossil fuels: coal in our power planets; gasoline in our cars; jet fuel when we fly in airplanes, and more (dig deeper into your carbon footprint here [www.sundancechannel.com].

The solution? It sounds easy — implement energy efficiency in buildings and infrastructure; supply energy from on-site renewable sources, topped up by new off-site renewable supply where necessary — but is unfortunately easier said than done. Still, we have everything we need right at our fingertips: Energy Star and LEED for buildings and homes [www.sundancechannel.com]; electric batteries [www.sundancechannel.com] and biofuels [www.sundancechannel.com] for our cars; solar, wind and other renewables for our local energy production; and landfill gas (LFG), hydro and other large-scale renewable energies. To go zero carbon, the future is a diverse portfolio of renewable technologies and energy efficiency upgrades, customized to emphasize specific regional strengths, with local options for energy and transportation.

Zero waste also addresses a huge problem that’s getting bigger by the day. Landfills are choked with discarded products and packaging, and our convenience-obsessed, disposable culture is adding more to the pile each day, using up both natural and renewable resources (like trees) and finite resources (like oil). And we’re throwing it away much faster than any of it can biodegrade, especially considering it takes 150 years for a single plastic bag to break down. All of this means we’re drown in a sea of waste, sinking as quickly as we’re using up resources to replace them.

The solution here? Big picture to small, it goes like this: Eliminate waste flows to landfill and for incineration, and reduce waste generation through improved design; encourage re-use, recycling and composting; generate energy from waste cleanly; eliminate the concept of waste as part of a resource-efficient society. It’s Cradle-to-Cradle design [www.sundancechannel.com]; it’s encouraging more reuse [www.sundancechannel.com], better, easier recycling [www.sundancechannel.com] and more composting [www.sundancechannel.com] and less e-waste [www.sundancechannel.com]. It’s about thinking where our stuff comes from, and where it’ll go when we’re done with it, and being able to go from having stuff = waste to waste = food.

Next on the list: sustainable transport and local and sustainable materials. Stay tuned!

Decorations, especially the holiday variety, are one of those green conundrums: tradition dictates that we light up the interior and exterior of our homes, cut down a tree (though you don’t have to do that [www.sundancechannel.com]) and hang decorations all over the tree and all over the house. The stuff we decorate with only comes out once a year, languishing in a box for 50 weeks a year and taking up space, and the same goes for our public spaces, which tend to be adorned with more plastic garland and icicle lights than you can shake a stick at. All of this adds up to a (potentially) less-than-green experience for everybody, but it’s pretty tough to have festive holidays without some decorating, right?

Not to worry. Check out some of our tips for festive, fun, green holiday decorating and be sure to compost [www.sundancechannel.com] your mistletoe after New Year’s.

For many of us, it all starts with the tree. We’ve posted some other tips for green treens [www.sundancechannel.com], but if you’re willing to eschew tradition a bit more, TreeHugger has some other ideas for some alternatives to the prickly needles and messy cleanup.

1) Have yourself a Merry Flat-packed Christmas [www.treehugger.com] with this tree (pictured above) that substitutes sleek modernity and space-saving reusability for typical (and, let’s face it, less functional, single-use) green branches. You may never have to buy another tree…
2) Take flat-pack to a whole new level with the two-dimensional “tree” [www.treehugger.com] that isn’t as fun to decorate as the real thing, but uses less “tree” than a normal tree would.
3) Half Christmas card, half Christmas tree replacement (with tongue fully in cheek, pictured below), check out the dual-purpose card/tree [www.treehugger.com] (pictured below) that probably won’t replace your real tree, but has definite potential to make your office-mates jealous.

4) When it comes to what goes on the tree, Planet Green, TreeHugger’s sister site, has a hot tip [planetgreen.discovery.com] for maximizing the life of your Christmas lights; plus, remember, if you buy LED [www.sundancechannel.com] lights (pictured below) the first time, you might never have to buy new ones again.
5) For other decorations, tree-related and otherwise, we recommend that you swap shop [www.treehugger.com] and give a previously-loved decoration a second life.
6) If you’re looking for green ideas for outdoor decorations, take some inspiration from London’s Carnaby Street [www.treehugger.com], whose use of festive paper chains are an inventive alternative to energy consuming lights.

TreeHugging mantras like “do more with less” and “waste not, want not” can be difficult to keep up during this holiday season typically marked with excess and extravagance. This is especially true with gift giving; we buy things from exotic locales around the globe and do a lot of shopping online, which adds up to extra shipping, and then wrap them in fancy, glittery paper that just gets tossed when you’re done with it. To help you wade through this conundrum, and give meaningful gifts that don’t all come with huge carbon footprints, TreeHugger has put together a thorough and handy (we think) guide for finding a greener option for everyone on your list.

This year, in addition to a handful of categories, we separated the guide into three “shades” of green — light, medium and dark — to help you decode and decide how green to make your gifts. For the Epicurean [www.treehugger.com] section features gifts for the food lover in your life, from fun cookie cutters, to organic wine and cheese clubs to a handy gadget that helps you recycle at home.

We’ve got ideas for both the pint-sized [www.treehugger.com] and new parents [www.treehugger.com] — two groups that typically go through lots of stuff — that’ll not only make your little ones’ eyes light up, but will lighten their load on the planet. Other industries and lifestyles often associated with disposability — fashion and jet-setting — get green treatment with our picks for the fashionista [www.treehugger.com] and for the jet-setter [www.treehugger.com], and, for those who prefer to stay closer to home and “down to earth,” there’s 15 ideas for the green-thumbed [www.treehugger.com] and for the DIYer [www.treehugger.com]. Animal lovers [www.treehugger.com], yoga fiends [www.treehugger.com], outdoors lovers [www.treehugger.com] and green geeks [www.treehugger.com] are also covered; and, of course, even The Person Who Has Everything [www.treehugger.com] likes to get gifts; we’ve got green goodies galore, from gift certificates, to experiences and donations, for that special someone who doesn’t go for more traditional gifts.

In lieu of (or in addition to) gifts, many people make contributions to charitable causes this time of year, which is something TreeHugger wholeheartedly supports as a meaningful, waste-free way to give this year; we made a list [www.treehugger.com] of worthy green organizations that will put your donation to good use in their efforts to protect biodiversity or land, build (or re-build) sustainable communities, or otherwise save the world.

Once you’ve got your gifts picked out, there are more ways to reduce their impact this holiday season According to the Environmental Protection Agency, Americans, on average, increase their garbage amount by 25% between Thanksgiving and Christmas. That’s an awful lot of garbage, especially considering it’s only a few weeks period of time. With that in mind, we’ve created a list of holiday tips [www.treehugger.com] that includes ideas for wrapping and packaging gifts to sending cards and throwing parties. No matter what you do this holiday season, know that your choices for buying, gifting, traveling and more make a difference, and that it never hurts to make each of them a little greener.

The Christmas tree is the (sometimes) living embodiment of so many things this holiday season, from family togetherness to religious significance and, let’s face it, the giving of gifts (more on that later this week). Amazingly, though many trees (even the fake ones) look nearly the same, there are definitely greener [www.sundancechannel.com]er options out there for those who want their tree to be as green [www.sundancechannel.com] as its color.

New this year, the Coalition of Environmentally-Conscious Growers [www.christmastreeoregon.com] was formed by two of the largest Christmas tree growers in the U.S. — Holiday Tree Farms and Yule Tree Farms — and is a non-profit organization dedicated to environmentally-sound [www.sundancechannel.com] farming practices and consumer education.

Based in Oregon, the nation’s top Christmas tree producer, the Coalition has recently developed hang tags to mark trees that have been certified as having been grown under stringent environmental [www.sundancechannel.com] criteria. The intent of the certification process is to ensure that growers are utilizing sustainable [www.sundancechannel.com] growing practices in the production of Christmas trees. Over 200,000 trees will bear the tag this year.

Because they’re just underway, the tags haven’t spread to the far corners of the country, but, as increasing environmental [www.sundancechannel.com] awareness leads to increased consumer scrutiny and better labeling, expect to see more of this kind of thing in years to come.

If you’re not able to find a tagged tree, don’t fret. If you live in San Francisco [www.fuf.net] or Portland, Ore. [www.livingchristmastrees.org], you can even rent a living Christmas Tree (starting at $75 for a 7-foot Douglas fir) that will be delivered to you, then picked up after New Year’s to be replanted in areas such as parks and school districts. The benefits of this are myriad: fewer falling needles and less mess, not to mention that the tree continues to live through the season, and, hopefully, for years to come. If you’re local to either of these areas, this is the best choice, hands down.

No matter what you do — and we can’t stress this enough — please, don’t buy a plastic Christmas tree. Most of them are made from polyvinyl chloride (PVC), a terribly toxic [www.sundancechannel.com] plastic for both producer and user (get more info on it here [www.besafenet.com]) and shipping on a slow boat from China, leading to a big-time carbon footprint [www.sundancechannel.com]. Sure, they last forever, but that’s the problem: they take a non-renewable resource [www.sundancechannel.com] — petroleum — and tie it up in a toxic [www.sundancechannel.com] form that will ultimately have to be added to the waste stream. Real trees are renewable [www.sundancechannel.com], recyclable, carbon neutral [www.sundancechannel.com] (since they absorb carbon dioxide during their lives and then release it as they are composted or otherwise broken down) and, let’s be honest, more festive. And it gives you something nice everyone wants during the holidays: something to hug.

Like many of the great ones, Welsh designer Ross Lovegrove is something of an enigma. He has a very wide variety of tastes, and an equally wide range of skills when it comes to creating interesting, functional, thought-provoking designs that continue to inspire praise, criticism and even a little head-scratching. He once told Wired [www.wired.com], “How can I go from designing airline interiors to soap to bicycles? I fly three times a week, I use soap every night, and I need a bike, goddammit!” Still, though “sustainable design” — at least using our stock definition of a combination of materials, manufacturing, and the function and lifespan of the design itself — isn’t part of Lovegrove’s everyday milieu, he has still wowed us with some remarkable, sustainable designs.

Check out the Orbit Chair, pictured above, a stackable dining chair made of bent plywood (recall its sustainable attributes here [www.sundancechannel.com]) that’s about as mod as they come. The classic modern design isn’t all about looks, though: the wide top “hugs” your back, and the bend in the spine makes it flexible and comfy. The chair has been certified by Greenguard [www.greenguard.org], which tests and certifies products that have low levels of chemical and particulate emissions.

And now for something completely different: Although it unfortunately has never made it to market, this Ross Lovegrove-designed prototype razor (above) is an eminently sound idea. It uses a ceramic blade, which at the time (the mid-1990’s), was claimed to last 40 times longer carbon steel (remember, longevity [www.sundancechannel.com] is high on TreeHugger’s list). It’s no pipe dream though — today you can buy ceramic razors for industrial use, that last 100 times longer. The problem here, unfortunately, is that razor companies are scared to produce a non-disposable version, since they’re in the business of selling as many as possible…sigh Perhaps someday the world will catch up to Ross on this one.

Lovegrove has also done a bevy of interesting work with solar; most recent was “Solar Tree,” (above) which takes a page from its cellulose brethren, “growing” skyward to maximize solar exposure. The project, for the Museum for Angewandte Kunst (MAK) in Vienna, debuted on October 8; in a designers’ statement, Lovegrove said, “The SOLAR TREES communicate more than light… they communicate the trust of placing beautifully made, complex natural forms outside for the benefit of all of society becoming a museum that if folded inside out, the museum as an incubator of change in society… and with this the promotion of environmental science and the joy of the new aesthetics made possible by the digital process.”

On a smaller, more individually-applicable scale, there’s Solar Bud [www.surrounding.com] (below), a handy garden lamp that needs no wires. Stuck in the ground in a place that gets some sun, the lamp uses sensors to detect when darkness falls, and automatically switches on three high power red LEDs. Entirely solar powered, the Solar Bud saves both on energy and installation: no need for electricity, no need for wiring. Smart.

Not everything that Lovegrove touches turns to gold — witness this concept car [www.treehugger.com] that he designed to run exclusively on solar power, as an example — but it’s his attitude about this that is really noteworthy. He says, “This is a world where nature and technology fuse with man’s ambition to achieve ultimate performance levels,” adding that he has an “innate ability” to anticipate the future and lives by the motto “it is only the future if it can’t be made.” With Lovegrove’s and his ideas around, the good news is that the future might never really get here.