EarthFirst.com Welcomes Cartoonist Jerry King to the Team, Let the Snarky Cartoony Madness Begin!

I’m really excited to welcome award winning cartoonist Jerry King on board with EarthFirst.com. Jerry has drawn toons in all sorts of well known mags and has thousands of greeting cards under his belt. He’ll be skewing his focus green for us here at EarthFirst.com and I’ll be bouncing ideas over to him when cartoonish things pop up in the news cycle.

We’ll carry Jerry’s green cartoon once a week in addition to a weekly caption contest.

Here’s EarthFirst.com’s Comix #1. Print this sucker out, it’ll be worth a few million bucks in 50 years (which will be worth about $.22 by then).

Thanks to my pal Yan over at Geeks Are Sexy for passing on Jerry’s contact info.

NYC Waterfall Installations Might be Killing Trees

So, those NYC waterfall installations might not be so great after all. Four waterfall installations located around the NYC metropolitan area were installed in June and lauded for their efforts to green it up by reusing the materials in construction projects after the installations come down. They also took pains to avoid harming aquatic life. Too bad they didn’t think about how all that salt water would affect trees downwind of one of the waterfalls.

Gothamist has it:

Artist Olafur Eliasson may soon have tree blood on his hands – the Brooklyn Bridge waterfall installation is kicking up such a salty spray that downwind trees are turning brown and “looking as if it’s November,” the Post reports. The saltwater is interfering with their photosynthesis, and the owner of the River Café, which has gardens just south of the bridge, is worried that the trees he planted over three decades ago are suffering too much for public art. The Parks Department agrees they’re “showing signs of stress,” and the Public Art Fund, which is producing the NYC Waterfalls, has hired a tree service to try and save them.

Oops. Hopefully they’ll be able to save the trees. That would certainly be a waste. Waterfalls are cool and all, but they’re just for human enjoyment and it would be a shame if they messed up the local ecosystem.

Link [Gothamist]

Awesomely Creepy Trees: From Frightening Faces to Gnarled Branches

As an environmentalist, it may be a bit cliché (or just really obvious) that I like trees.  They’re just cool – how old they can live to be, how many different shapes and sizes they come in, and the way they can evoke so many different moods depending on their texture, leaves, the way their branches curve or how they’re lit at different times of the day.  I’m also a big fan of old school classic (I’m talking 1965 and earlier) horror movies, and the uniquely eccentric vision of Tim Burton, so naturally I love creepy trees.  There’s just something about them.  Here are some of the coolest creepy tree pictures you’ll ever see.

Check out the rest at Environmental Graffiti.

Link [Environmental Graffiti]

Timber Companies Finding Profit in Leaving Trees Uncut

Timber companies are facing a reality check right now: the public’s desire for timber products is waning, which means the companies are making less money. This fact has forced timber companies to come up with new and fresh ways to turn a profit. Ironically, this may mean a dramatic change within their industry: leaving trees alone instead of cutting them down.

From Reuters:

Because uncut trees are stores of carbon, forest owners may be able to extract value from them by just leaving them alone, particularly as a U.S. market for trading carbon emissions develops, experts told a conference in San Francisco.

Also, timberland owners and investors can sell easements that protect resources or wildlife, or provide sustainable fuel for burning in biomass power plants.

“Conservation and biomass are new return drivers,” said Andrew Kelsen, director of alternative investments at investment consulting firm Gray and Co.

Doesn’t it just warm your heart to know that timber companies are being such do-gooders? Oh yeah, they’re just doing it to make money. Regardless, we’re glad to hear they’re tackling these issues. It’s huge that companies are realizing that they can ‘go green’ and still make a profit, and in some cases, make even more money than before.

Link [Reuters]

Trees Eating Bicycles, Cars & Benches

I’m about to sound like a real patchouli-scented Birkenstock-wearing treehugger, but here goes: trees are really pretty amazing, when you think about it. Some of them are astoundingly old. Without them, we simply couldn’t survive on this planet, yet we as a species have made life on Earth pretty difficult for them. That’s why I love to see things like this: trees taking back the world! Check out these photos of trees growing around objects that were left nearby for too long.

See the rest of the photos at The Contaminated.

Link [The Contaminated]

Ali G In The Tree, Ali G In The Tree

OK, these are oldies but goodies- Ali G does Green.

Greenwashing in A Photo: Keeping The Borders Green, Clearcut the Rest

There are few things I love more than a nice Sunday drive through the forest.

Photo credit: George Steinmetz

Seattle Moves to Tear Down the Squirrelman’s Beautiful Waterfront Treehouse

A down-on-his-luck guy built a pretty amazing treehouse in Seattle and the city is moving ahead with plans to evict him and tear down his structure.

The Seattle PI has it:

Over time, he raised his platform and expanded it to approximately 300 square feet. With the block and tackle, he raised a wood stove, chairs and shelves. On the platform rests his tent, three chairs and shelves. A counter cradles an unplumbed sink. The platform stretches across the branches of three trees and is, he said, “solid as a rock.” For a time he had electricity, temporarily donated by neighbors — even a TV, heater and stereo.

From scraps, it has a million-dollar view of the lake and Queen Anne Hill.

“I was happy as hell,” he said.

This story has a happy ending- David’s neighbors chipped in and bought him an RV- an RV that only cost them a penny when the couple coming to sell it heard what was going on and dropped their selling price to $.01.

Link [Seattle PI]

Payback is a Bitch: Treekilling Aussies Get Punked with Huge View-Blocking Box

So you know how your mom used to pull mean shit like washing your mouth out with soap if you used a dirty word or making you do push-ups till you cried when you tried on your sister’s dresses? Well, your mom is a bitch. And so is payback. An awesome, powerful, vengeful bitch- much like the bad ass Mother(earth)lovers of the Port Stephens Council.

A bunch of yuppie tree-murderers in Australia learned that lesson the hard way after the recent disappearance of 20 trees off the coast of Boat Harbor, Australia. The Daily Telegraph reported that after 20 Banksia trees were mysteriously chopped down to create a clearer waterfront view for the surrounding houses, the Council retaliated by slapping down two huge, green cargo carriers right where the trees were. The Council had already warned that chopping down trees was very naughty (and illegal), and they weren’t going to say it twice.

It was time for those bad little residents to pull down their pants and take their municipal spankings. Of course now the residents are whining that they were being treated like children. What do they expect? Break the rules in Port Stephens and you get your ass handed to you. Way to kick ass and take names Port Stephens.

Link [Daily Telegraph]

Getting High: Climbing the Tallest Red Wood Tree in the World

Jim Spickler climbs tall trees. Very very tall trees. His office is found hundreds of feet up in the canopies of Red Wood trees. Check out this video showing him hunting down what he thinks is the worlds tallest Red Wood and climbing it. The first branches don’t even start for the first few hundred feet! Pure crazy.

Amazing Video: The Art of Cutting Down Lots of Trees

Excuse my French, but holy shit! I had no idea just how fast and efficient technology has come in the art of cutting down trees. Watch this video.

We keep on biggering, and biggering, and biggering, and biggering…

Via Walyou

Question: How Many Bullets to Cut Down a Tree? Answer: 2,250 From a M-134 Minigun

Mythbusters wins the Un-Green Lumberjack Award for their test of how long it would take a M-134 Minigun to cut down a tree. To their credit they did choose a long dead tree with no branches. Not so Green but oh so very awesome.

EarthFirst Links-O-Rama: Wolverine Goes Green, Planktos Buried at Sea, and Maybe Crazy Solar Shields Aren’t So Crazy

Here are a few good links and stories I’ve come across this week. Enjoy! • Producers of ‘Wolverine’ Partner with Green Firm to Audit and Reduce Impact While Shooting Movies • WorldChanging: Planktos, Geo-Engineering, and Politics • Porsche Motors Fighting London on Gaz Guzzler Tax • Kentucky Cracks Down on Tree Thieves • Russia Tower, Third Largest Building in the World, Will Have Natural Ventilation • Save Time with Robertson Screws • Suburban Family Gives Up Oil Based Products for One Year • Catalytic Converters Getting Boosted as Platinum Price Rise • Treehugger: Crazy Solar Shields Not 100% Crazy • New materials Can selectively capture CO2 Links Photo taken by Flickr user Stringberd.