One of the most misused words in the language is recycling. Reiner Pilz described what was really going on in 1994: “I call it downcycling. They smash bricks, they smash everything. What we need is upcycling- where old products are given more value, not less.” Bill McDonough picked up the term and has even just written a new book, the Upcycle.

In Nyborg, Denmark, Lendager Architects has built what they call the Upcycle House, “with the ambitious goal of being the first house build only from upcycled and environmentally sustainable materials.” I don’t think it is the first, and I don’t think they actually do it, but it gets awfully close.

Lendager defines upcycling:

Upcycling is a step beyond recycling, the materials are not just reused, but reused in a way where value and quality is added.
The architects write:

Lendager Architects sees upcycling as the natural next step after the growing focus on the energy consumption of buildings in the operation phase. Attention is beginning to be directed towards energy and resource use in all stages of the building process: The production and transportation of materials, the building and construction phase, and when the building or parts of it have served their time. Upcycling can be the answer to how it is done, in Upcycle House we have already seen an amazing 75% decrease in CO2 consumption in the production phase compared to traditional building.

There are a lot of interesting ideas going on here. Shipping containers are used for the basic structural cores, enclosing small spaces like secondary bedrooms and bathrooms, so there is no need to take out huge sections of wall.

The building sits on what are perhaps the greenest foundations, helical piles that require no excavation to install and can be screwed out of the ground if the house is removed.

Instead of plastic foams, they use Technopor, a rigid insulation made from recycled glass bottles.

Windows, bricks, battens and lath are all reused and the roof is made from flattened aluminum cans.

But is it the first, and is it all upcycled?

There are lots of houses that have been built from old windows, tires, shipping containers and recycled lumber. TreeHugger has shown houses built a century ago from beer cans and bottles that weren’t even smashed and downcycled but actually repurposed. Lynn Knowton claims every bit of this wonderful tree house is recycled or repurposed. I think it is a real stretch to call this the first upcycled house.

I also wonder about are the use of UPM Profi as flooring; this is a European version of plastic lumber, made from polypropylene waste and wood fibre. I question whether it actually is, as the architects claim, “representing a higher value than even before the waste became waste.” Plastic lumber is almost the definition of downcycling.

They also use Richlite as an exterior cladding. Richlite is now made with recycled paper, but it is essentially a sheet of phenolic resin made with formaldehyde, phenol and methanol. I don’t think anyone defines that as environmentally sustainable and it certainly isn’t upcycling; by far the biggest component of the stuff is new and fossil fuel based.

UPDATE: The distributor or Richlite disagrees. See information below.

But the architects also write:

The goal for Upcycle House is to demonstrate that it is possible with limited funds to build a strong CO2 reducing and publicly appealing one family house that is not meant to be a unique specimen but an alternative to regular prefab houses.

They have certainly accomplished that, and that is more than enough for anyone to be proud of.

Re Richlite: Scott Campbell of the distributor for Richlite in Europe, CF Anderson, explains in greater detail how Richlite is made:

The composition of Richlite is predominantly paper by weight and is manufactured using WE technology (Waste-to-Energy). The resin is specifically designed so that the waste gasses (which is why it is Methanol based instead of water based) can be utilised as a fuel source for the production process instead of using natural gas. Our Co2 emissions would be over 5 times more if we were to use a water based resin instead. We are proud of the fact that we use sustainable manufacturing techniques and we are not just ‘green’ at first glance. (See Richlite and Sustainability on their website)

Due to the fact our resin does not have a lot of ingredients we only need a very small amount of binder which is phenol formaldehyde not Urea Formaldehyde. Most of this is incinerated during the saturating process and the little that does remain is inert once pressed. This has enabled us to continually produce sheets that conforms to the highest possible Green Guard rating of Gold (formerly Children & Schools) and is tested for more than 360 different VOC’s.

This weeks review is a little different to the normal ones as I’m mixing a mini review with a styling post. The reason for this is because I was planning on reviewing these jeans properly, but upon receiving them, I’m too short for them to fit me correctly, so I didn’t think it would be a very accurate review.
As these are a type of cropped jean, they are designed to fit ladies with taller legs. The way they fit me full length is tight down to the knees, but once they hit the knees they become really baggy and loose in the calves and stop at my ankles, which is why I wanted to do a styling post as well, to show how sometimes you can make jeans that are not suited to your shape, work like they are.

Thick black and white stripes are so popular at the moment, they are a trend that every denim brand is jumping on and creating. It reminds me a lot of one of the outfits that Beetle Juice wore in the movie, but without the blazer to match. I really love the print on these, it’s very flattering, especially on the butt as it’s slightly curved so it works with your butt to make it look rounded rather than straight down. That’s my favourite part about these jeans! The stripes down the front actually tilt inwards to the knee as well, so they aren’t completely vertical. They sort of go with the shape of your legs.

The material of these is a lot like a really thick twill and it’s coated, so they are quite shiny. The black is not very dark, it’s faded quite a lot and the white is very pearly, so they aren’t the average black and white striped jean. The sheen they have makes them very different. I found them to be more like a trouser than a jean actually, with the way they fit. They aren’t like denim at all and I can’t compare them very well to another 7 For All Mankind jean, they don’t fit like any of the others I have tried like the Gwenevere or The Skinny etc, they have a different fit. These are also quite tight in the waist for 7 For All Mankind, but I put that down to being a more trouser fit. I did take a 26 in these which is my Gummy denim sizing, so you might want to keep that in mind for comparison.

You can see just above my boots that the jeans start to get loose at the knees and a bit wrinkly/baggy. I was really hoping they would be tight all the way down like a Gummy legging of theirs, but they really are a slim cropped jean. They are skinny, but not super skinny and the calf area is cut quite loose. They get baggy when they hit just above my knee because I have shorter thighs than the figure these are designed for. If I had longer legs, my thighs would be longer and the jeans would sit in the right place, so if you are shorter and have shorter legs, these will be quite loose from just above the knee downwards.

Now for the styling, I chose to wear boots with these so that it covers the looseness. I think this was the best option and I kept everything black and white, to keep with the theme. I only added a pop of red with my bag and lipstick to liven things up a little. Pinstripes have always been popular, but the idea of really thick stripes is something that I think is really bold and daring. You don’t always have to choose black and white to go with the look, you could definitely pair these with a bright and bold sweater or shirt and coloured pumps, I think the styling is almost endless. Due to the fact these are the basic shades of black and white, both of which go with almost anything, you are in luck with the styling. I would just recommend keeping other prints to a minimum so they don’t clash. I wouldn’t say my outfit here is my favourite one, but I think based on the fact they don’t fit me, it works well for the look.

So if you are taller and have long legs or if you are shorter and love wearing boots, I would say these are really nice. I love the stripe pattern all over and the way it contours the body, the back pockets are as flattering as their usual 7 For All Mankind jeans and they are coated so you get two trends in one! But if you are shorter and looking for a full length jean, I wouldn’t suggest opting for these ones as they are a unique fit for longer legs unfortunately. Buy these jeans online at 7 For All Mankind for £225.

WASHINGTON — Climate change could lead to the widespread loss of common plants and animals around the world, according to a new study released Sunday in the journal Nature Climate Change.

The study’s authors looked at 50,000 common species. They found that more than half the plants and about a third of the animals could lose about 50% of their range by 2080 if the world continues its current course of rising greenhouse gas emissions.

Climate change affects the availability of nutrition and water for animals and plants. The narrowing of the geographic range of different common species means that plants and animals readily found in a given area could diminish markedly in those areas over the next seven decades.

“This study … tells us that the average plant and animal will experience significant range loss under climate change,” said the study’s lead author, Rachel Warren, of the Tyndall Centre at University of East Anglia, United Kingdom.

Warren said that until now, much climate change research had focused on the plight of rare species rather than common animals and plants. The study’s conclusions are “entirely consistent with what others are finding around the world,” said Peter B. Reich, professor of forest ecology at the University of Minnesota in St. Paul, who read the report.

The new study predicted that plants, reptiles and particularly amphibians would face the greatest risks from climate change. It also concluded that sub-Saharan Africa, Central America, the Amazon region and Australia would likely lose the most species of plants and animals. It projected “a major loss of plant species” in North Africa, Central Asia and South America.

A map of a species’ habitat can be thought of as a paint-by-numbers picture, Reich explained. If the species now occupies a certain number of spaces painted red, there will be fewer red spaces — less habitable terrain — 70 years from now, he said.

According to Jeff Price, a coauthor of the study and visiting fellow at the Tyndall Centre, “coffee, chocolate, teak, sugar maple, pineapple and cotton (at least some of the major types) all show large contractions in their climatic ranges under the baseline climate change scenario.”

The climactic range is the habitat where species not only exist but can thrive in numbers amid competitors.

Reich said that in Minnesota, it appears very likely that spruce, fir and aspen forests will retreat north into Canada over the next several decades as the state warms.

While the study looked at the effects of climate change on species’ geographic range, it made conservative estimates about how global warming could stoke diseases, pests or natural disasters that would affect species, Warren said.

Warren said, “Animals in particular may decline more as our predictions will be compounded by a loss of food from plants.”

The study concludes that such widespread losses could be avoided if the global community moved swiftly to reduce emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases that cause climate change.

Immediate, substantial steps could reduce species losses by 60 per cent and give plants and animals another 40 years to adapt, the study predicted. Slowing or cutting greenhouse gas emissions would help the Earth avoid the higher temperatures and subsequent habitat changes that could drive species loss, the study said.

Chances for averting higher temperatures, however, appear remote. On Friday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported that the ratio of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has surpassed 400 parts per million in an average daily reading at Hawaii’s Mauna Loa Observatory, the highest concentration of the greenhouse gas in human history.

Climate scientists have calculated that the world needs to keep carbon dioxide emissions from crossing the 400 parts per million threshold in order to avoid a rise of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees F) above the average global temperature of pre-industrial times and profound changes to nearly every aspect of life, including species loss.

Offshore wind farms and tidal energy facilities harness the power of the wind and the ocean – but why should we have separate turbines for each task? Offshore technology company Mitsui is developing a hybrid wind-current power generating system that combines a floating vertical-axis wind turbine with an underwater turbine that generates power from ocean currents. The clever apparatus would cut down on material waste, and it could produce twice as much energy as a conventional wind turbine.

Renewable energy developers strive for improved efficiency in the solar, wind and hydro power industries – and the hybrid wind-current system effectively doubles the efficiency of a typical wind or ocean current turbine. Mitsui Ocean Development & Engineering Company says the system will provide cost-effective power generation while having very little impact on the environment.

The turbines will be large in scale; according to NHK News, the wind turbine will be 47 meters (154 feet), and the underwater portion will have a diameter of 15 meters (49 feet). The turbines will be tested off the coast of Japan later this year. If they work as well as advertised, each turbine could generate enough energy to power 300 households.

The sun really seems to be ramping up its activity. At 9:45 EDT on Tuesday night, it unleashed its fourth flare in as many days. You can see it toward the left side of the sun in the image above from the Earth-orbiting Solar Dynamics Observatory spacecraft.

The false coloring in this picture is due to the wavelengths of light that the instrument on SDO viewed the sun with. These wavelengths are particularly good at revealing flaring activity.

Characterized as an X1.2 flare, it was not nearly as powerful as the one late Monday night. Nonetheless, X-class flares are the strongest, unleashing the energy of millions of hydrogen bombs almost all at once.

For more details about solar flares, including information about Monday’s big one, see my previous post here.

This flare, like the previous ones, was associated with a coronal mass ejection, or CME — a huge blow-out into space of billions of tons of matter. NASA’s SOHO spacecraft captured these images showing the evolution of the CME over the course of about 25 minutes:

The sun is surely not done yet. It is heading toward the peak of its 11 year cycle.

Atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide surpassed a notable milestone this week.

They reached a daily average above 400 parts per million, reported NOAA, for the first time in human history.

The milestone, hit on May 9, may be symbolic, notes Climate Central, but manmade CO2 emissions from the burning of fossil fuels continue to rise, bringing greater atmospheric warming and exacerbating the effects of climate change.

Scientists argue we’ve loaded the “climate dice” in favor of more weather anomalies and extreme heat waves.

Research also shows that continued emissions of long-lived greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide will mean “largely irreversible” climate change for 1,000 years even after we curtail emissions.

“The last time we’re confident that CO2 was sustained at these levels is more than 10 million years ago, during the middle of the Miocene period,” climate scientist Michael Mann told The Huffington Post in an email. “This was a time when global temperatures were substantially warmer than today, and there was very little ice around anywhere on the planet.”

Readings are taken at the NOAA-operated Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii and form part of the Keeling Curve — a continuous record of CO2 measurements dating back to 1958. Bubbles found inside Antarctic ice core samples provide a longer record of CO2 in the air for the past 800,000 years.

CO2 measurements surpassed 400 ppm in the Arctic last summer, but the readings from Hawaii mark the first time prolonged levels above 400 ppm have been observed at more moderate latitudes.

Global carbon dioxide levels fluctuate over the course of the year, reaching an annual peak in May. LiveScience explains that the cycle reveals how trees and vegetation remove more CO2 from the air during the summer, until the annual minimum is reached in October.

“Take this day and the milestone it represents to reflect on the fragility of our civilization and and the planetary ecosystem on which it depends,” Al Gore urged on Friday. “We must take immediate action to solve this crisis. Not tomorrow, not next week, not next year. Now.”

350.org founder Bill McKibben said in a statement emailed to HuffPost, “The only question now is whether the relentless rise in carbon can be matched by a relentless rise in the activism necessary to stop it.”

The JF-Kit House takes a little extra work to live in, but it will be worth it when you hit the beach this summer.

A home gym is considered a luxury. But when your home is a gym, powered through exercise, what was once a luxury is transformed into necessity.

The JF-Kit House by the Spanish design firm Elii is an experiment in “domestic fitness,” rendering “the image of a possible future where citizens produce part of their domestic energy requirements with their own physical activities.” Each room features a fancifully named exercise station that would, theoretically, help create energy to power the home, including an “arm workout bureau,” a “spinning kitchen,” and a “triceps greenhouse.” A video shows the home’s imagined inhabitant lifting weights, cycling, and doing calisthenics as part of his house’s everyday upkeep and daily chores like cooking.

According to the artist’s statement, “the house offers an ironical model of citizenship for future sustainable societies: the ‘Jane Fonda model of citizenship’” (the fitness celebrity whose initials the home bears) “which defines the ideal citizen as an individual who can satisfy all her domestic energy needs through her own bodily exercise.”

The architects describe the structure as “parasitic” since it could be affixed onto existing rooftops or walls to provide power. (Last year, it was installed on the roof terrace of the architecture center CIVA in Brussels.) But more than anything, it’s a showpiece meant to engage people thinking about issues about sustainability, design, and health in a new, more integrated way.
The artists pose the following questions with the project: “What kinds of bodies are imagined to fulfill the promises of these sustainable futures? What kind of domestic infrastructures are required to produce those bodies? What are the new domestic rituals, practices and habits that will have to be inscribed and enacted by those bodies? And more importantly: Which bodies are excluded from participating in those sustainable futures and their promises?”

If you happen to know of any female fish of the Mangarahara cichlid variety, the London Zoo would very much like to introduce her to a couple of extremely eligible bachelors.

The zoo’s aquarium is home to two of the three remaining Mangarahara cichlids known to exist — the only problem is, they’re all males. So now, in a last-ditch bid to preserve the species from impending extinction, the zoo has issued a personal ad of sorts to find them a mate, titled ‘Male Seeking Female: Must Want Kids’.

Although an air of desperation is usually unbecoming of a potential suitor, as Brian Zimmerman of the London Zoo notes, in this case it’s warranted:

“It might be too late for their wild counterparts, but if we can find a female, it’s not too late for the species. Here at ZSL London Zoo we have two healthy males, as well as the facilities and expertise to make a real difference.

“We are urgently appealing to anyone who owns or knows someone who may own these critically endangered fish, which are silver in colour with an orange-tipped tail, so that we can start a breeding programme here at the Zoo to bring them back from the brink of extinction.”

After the fish’s native river habitat in Madagascar was destroyed by damming operations, Mangarahara cichlids ceased to exist outside of those in captivity. Zoo officials were unable to find females in any other zoo, and are appealing to fish collectors or private aquariums that might hold the key to producing a new generation of the dwindling species.

What girl doesn’t love a gorgeous pair of shoes, a waist-accenting belt, or the must-have perfect seasonal outfit or purse? It’s not easy finding fashion items you love, let alone those that fit your ethical standards. But there’s been good news in the fashion world for vegan fashionistas as of late.

Gorgeous designs from Vaute Couture were featured in New York’s Fashion Week earlier this year as the first-ever all-vegan runway collection. Scores of shoe companies now cater to vegans with incredibly stylish designs, high quality/low-impact manufacturing, and notably ethical standards. And more and more high-end designers are getting in on the eco fabrics, that are good for the environment as well as feel great on the body.

Now, iconic fashion store Urban Outfitters is getting in on the game. The struggling retailer has added the Della fashion line to its offerings. Della works directly with women seamstresses in Ghana to make the handcrafted clothes and accessories.

Based in Los Angeles, Della’s proceeds go to support the community in Hohoe, Ghana. All products are 100 percent vegan, handcrafted and says founder Tina Tangalakis, “Della is actually the name of the first person I met in Ghana, he was the driver for the volunteer organization I traveled with and he greeted me when I arrived at the Accra airport with a warm, happy smile. The welcoming, caring person that Della is acts as a reflection of what I want the business Della to be.”

Hilary Duff chats with friends while out in New York City. Hilary is in New York promoting her appearance on Two and a Half Men, on which she plays Ashton Kutcher’s love interest.

I always like seeing how a celebrity’s style changes when they’re on either coast. I think this is an edgier outfit than how Hilary normally dresses. She wore her Rag & Bone Skinny jeans in Destroyed with a leather jacket and Isabel Marant Caleen boots. You can buy Rag & Bone online from SSENSE.