Thanks to the NY Times!

One of the greenest cities in the country is making another big change in the name of environmental awareness.

On Monday, the Seattle City Council voted to ban plastic bags from being given out in stores. In their place, retailers can offer paper bags for a 5-cent fee.

The fee is meant to encourage shoppers to bring their own reusable bags. Amendments in the bill exempt food banks and low-income residents from having to charge and pay the extra fee.

The ban is expected to reduce pollution, free up landfill space and improve the environment. Seattle’s residents use 292 million plastic bags and 68 million paper bags a year. About 82 percent of paper bags are recycled, while only 13 percent of plastic bags are recycled.”

Seattle is not the first city to take such steps. Several municipalities in the state of Washington and all around the country have targeted plastic bags.

If the ordinance goes on to become law, it will take effect in July of 2012.

In the next life, you could be a tree.

Actually, you could be a tree in this life, thanks to this urn that turns you into a tree after you die. The urn is made of a coconut shell and has a seed inside. People can even choose what kind of tree they will eventually be a part of. And it’s completely biodegradable!

Don’t worry. Cremation isn’t the eco-friendly way to go out in style. The Return to Sender coffin is also biodegradable and cheap to boot!

Not only can urns and caskets be eco-friendly, so can graveyards! A city near Barcelona, Spain did not have many open places that got a lot of sunlight during the day. One of the few places was a graveyard, which is now completely solar powered.

Thanks to Wikicommons.

Battling rising and falling mercury around Mercury. NASA’s Messenger is first probe to orbit the Sun’s innermost planet.

I’m out of here! Libyan Foreign Minister defects to England while pro-Qaddafi diplomats are kicked out of London.

Read my lips; NO NEW OIL! President Obama seeks to cut US oil consumption by one third.

Thanks to Wikicommons.

New York City has taken HUGE steps to promote biking by creating designated lanes through out the city. Some have touted this as promoting a greener tomorrow.

Others, such as John Cassidy, disagree quite strongly wondering

whether the blanketing of the city with bike lanes—more than two hundred miles in the past three years—meets an objective cost-benefit criterion. Beyond a certain point, given the limited number of bicyclists in the city, the benefits of extra bike lanes must run into diminishing returns, and the costs to motorists (and pedestrians) of implementing the policies must increase.

Felix Salmon knocks this argument down though noting that

If indeed the limited number of bicyclists in the city was a given, then Cassidy might have a point here. But it’s not. Bike lanes attract bikes no less effectively than roads attract cars and the number of cyclists in New York has been growing just as fast as the city can create new lanes for them.

Over at Free Exhange, R.A. promotes even more bike lanes as

if drivers paid for all the costs they impose on others, there would be fewer drivers complaining about bike lanes and more people using them. As things stand, given that cyclists help alleviate some of these externalities (a cyclist takes up dramatically less road space than a car, doesn’t use on-street parking, does not emit ozone, and does not contribute to climate change) it seems quite sensible to allocate a larger share of New York’s roadways to lanes for cyclists.

This got us thinking? Should bike lanes be promoted elsewhere in the country? We usually don’t go out into the sun (and thus have no experience biking) so what are your thoughts?

Thanks to Wikicommons.

A good start. Ukraine has agreed to eliminate its weapons grade Uranium.

Burning trash, a “green” solution? Europe’s modern incinerators could be a new source for energy.

A helping hand for Greece. 30 billion in loans offered by Europe to aid ailing nation.

A Greener Beret? The US military is starting to go green in Afghanistan.

Neighbor to the rescue. Abu Dhabi agrees to help cover Dubai’s debt.

Debt free is the way to be. CITI Group to pay back $20 Billion to US Government.

Courtesy of Google Images

Why the gift of a HUMAN BRAIN is driving scientists simply wild!

The Catholic Church is writing an amendment to the Health Care Reform Bill?!? Why the issue of abortion might be a bigger road block than public option…

Let’s get pumped for Copenhagen and practice BOYCOTT “Going Green” ! Read why one columnist thinks “Going Green” is actually hurting our efforts to save Mother Earth!

A face that could save the economy.

Three cheers! The worst may be over!

Gas going up… Does your wallet hurt yet?

Fight that case of the Mondays… Check out the best of last week’s late night jokes!

Wal-Mart helps the environment (by forcing its suppliers to).