EarthFirst Blog Week in Review March 17 - 21

Well we are just shooting up faster than Bio-tech corn here at EarthFirst! We’ve added a bunch of hot new writers (Professor Scott Herring and token Swede Anders Porter) and features (Mr. Cranky Green!) and are getting more hits than Tony Soprano during tax season. We’ve covered Green Fire Works, a terrifying robotic pack mule, and celebrated World Water Day like eco-rockstars! We also have two EarthFirst birthdays coming up under the Aries symbol; our wide-eyed editorial intern and writer Caroline turns 23 on the 28th and our fearless leader Jordan will rock out on the 27th when he turns…old. Yippee-Ki-Yay!

• Q&A With Mr. Cranky Green: Send Us Your Questions!!!!!
• Five Killer Bug Swarms to Avoid If You Can
• Uh…What’s That Green Shit… On Your…Head?
• No More Eco-Guilt on July 4th- Chemists Developing Green Fireworks
• Watch Five Hours of Cable News, Get One Minute of Environmental or Science Coverage
• This Day in Green History: March 18th, 1974- Arab Nations End Oil Embargo
• The March of Incompetence: Climate Change Denier James Inhofe Also Hates the Troops
• If We Can Build BigDog, We Can Engineer a Green Society
• Hulu Opens to the Public with Three Green Video Shows
• New See-Saw Technology Harnesses The Power of Children
• The Eco Drop Shower Invites Pain Into Your Daily Routine
• Weeds Season Three Coming Out in Green (Legal) DVD Packaging
• Hospitals Are Saving Millions and Reducing Their Landfill Load By Reusing Single Use Medical Devices
• Heidi Fleiss is Opening The Greenest Little Man-Whorehouse in Vegas
• Solar-Powered Boat Does Not Come With Sexy Mannequins
• Getting High: Climbing the Tallest Red Wood Tree in the World
• Green Extreme Sports: Paddling Across the Atlantic in a 23 Foot Coffin (Kayak)
• BBC Puts Reality TV Show Stars Out With the Trash- Literally
• The Green Bohemian Grove- Richard Branson Hosts Meeting of Green Gurus on His Private Tropical Island
• The Oracle of Omaha Loves Him Some Railroad Stocks
• Guy Kawasaki Wants to Invent 500 MPG Car But Fears Valleywag and TechCrunch Won’t Like It
• Inventor of Virtual Water Honored by Stockholm International Water Institute, Wins 150 Large

No More Eco-Guilt on July 4th- Chemists Developing Green Fireworks

This is spectacular news- scientists are developing green fireworks. I love a big night of fireworks as much as the next guy, but the fact that the smoke produced by the show was chock full of toxic chemicals and gases always bothered me. Conventional fireworks leave behind a cloud of lead, barium, chromium, chlorates, dioxins, CO2, nitrogen, sulphur oxides, as well as smoke and particular matter.

Inventors Spot has it:

Conventional fireworks draw their energy from the oxidation of carbon. Clean fireworks, on the other hand, would get energy from the high temperatures that occur with the formation of nitrogen-rich compounds. Some possible compounds could be tetrazoles and tetrazines, which are made of four nitrogen atoms and either one or two carbon atoms, respectively.

To produce different colors, chemists could use aminotetrazole salts with specific non-toxic metals. For example, lithium, sodium, potassium, rubidium and cesium result in red, orange, violet, purple, and pink flames, respectively.

Somewhat ironically, the most difficult color to produce with “green” fireworks is green. The researchers are looking into green-burning salts based on copper compounds.

Link [Inventor"s Spot]

Photo credit: Flickr user Michelle Jones UK