In what is believed to be the first move of this kind taken by a local council, St Albans City and District council have transformed a 1950s semi-detached house into an ecohome and opened it to visitors. The house's impressive range of energy-saving features includes a 1 kw wind turbine, solar thermal roof panels and a 4,700-litre rainwater-recycling tank.

The project has been awarded the Green Apple award for Environmental Best Practise by The Green Organisation. The Green Organisation is an independent company which seeks to recognise and confirm environmentally-aware practices in business and government. They state their aim as being to provide a service which operates not as an 'environmental watchdog' scheme, as so many other organisations do, but rather as a more positively focused, reward scheme system.

The contractor, Borras, also won a Considerate Constructor award for its successful use of so many recycled demolition materials in the creation of the house.

Professor Chris Ripley, new director of the Science Museum, has revealed plans for a £6 million exhibit showing people exactly how global warming has already affected the planet, and what implications it could hold for the future. Ripley is at pains to stress that the purpose of the exhibition is not to promote a particular course of action, but to allow people to "come to their own conclusions" about which policies should be put in place in response to global warming.

The exhibition is not due to open until 2009, but, in the meantime, a small trial run exhibition opens next week in the Science museum's Wellcome wing, focussing in particular on the role of biofuels in cutting levels of carbon emission.

Love film, politics and the environment? Then keep an eye out for the Groovy Movie Picture House. The world’s first solar powered, touring cinema is soon to be famous for bringing cutting edge, environmentally-focused, uncompromising, inspiring and of course creative films to all corners of the UK. This travelling cinema is often found at festivals (of the film and music variety) and is hosting this year’s Green Screen Independent Film Festival.

The Groovy Movie Picture House is powered by eight large solar panels, which turn sunlight into electricity to fuel state of the art projectors, amplifiers and lighting. On the film side of things: Groovy Movie prides itself in showing short and feature films by independent and radical, professional and non-professional film makers.

If you fancy yourself a bit of a film maker, then the guys at Groovy Movie would love to hear from you. Or, if you are more like me and just like to sit and watch, then check out the website for when and where Groovy Movie will be screening near you.

Related: Big Chill to feature pedal powered movies

M&S continues to be one of the greenest places to shop on the high street, as it has been announced that two of its new branches are set to be powered entirely by renewable energy. The two branches will be located in Glasgow and Galashiels, with their energy provided by a wind turbine in Aberdeenshire. Both branches are due to open in October.

In addition to this initiative — which, Marks and Spencer claim, will reduce carbon emissions from the stores by 95% — these stores also hope to adopt a policy of collecting rainwater for use in flushing the stores' toilets. Marks and Spencer say they hope to be a completely carbon neutral company by 2012.

I’m not sure how fair it is that we keep blaming the Americans for global warming, gas guzzling and other naughty eco sins beginning with ‘g’. Have a look at this YouTube video. Mike Tidwell takes us on a 20 minute tour of his eco-home. He powers almost his entire house by renewable sources – solar panels on the roof and a corn burning stove for heating. Corn?! He’s got to be some country redneck living in the middle of Timbuktu? Well, he lives in Maryland in what looks like a built up area, but got a corn farm to set up a 20 tonne silo for free by offering them free advertising. The silo provides a community supply of corn, and his stove is electronically controlled. Also check out his retro electricity metre that runs backwards.

He claims to have made all of these changes for $1 a day using state grants and tax cuts on eco-friendly appliances. It’s a bit of an inspiration and makes us Brits look a little daft and old-fashioned, although I’m sure we could pull off something like this ourselves.

Related stories: Renewable energy boom for UK farmers | Yay or nay: Is nuclear energy the war forward?

Greenhelpline.com is an independent green energy tariff comparison service. I had a go on it this morning - it’s fast and easy to work out the best green energy deal based on CO2 footprint and price. There are plenty of comparison websites for conventional tariffs, but greenhelpline have a resident green energy expert who checks the environmental credentials of every tariff and every supplier before allowing them on the site. So there is less doubt that the tariff is truly green.

Related stories: Renewable energy verses the environment | Wind taken out of wind farms

Engineering consultant Jim Oswald has told BBC Radio 4 that variability in Britain’s wind speeds could lead to major power failures in the future if UK wind farm systems were not redesigned. He said that many turbines were underperforming because wind speeds in Britain were too unreliable.

"The volatility thing is a bit like driving your car and I say to you, 'OK, here's a green car, it uses absolutely no fossil fuel but you can only use it when it's windy," Mr Oswald said.

"It's the power swings that worry us. Over a 20-hour period you can go from almost 100% wind output to 20%."

Related stories: World’s first floating wind farm in North Sea | New waterwheel invention promises cheap electricity

In these 'green times' more and more people are choosing alternative eco-arrangements for their funerals. After all cremation has terrible effects on the environment, including the heavy reliance on fossil fuels and the toxic pollutants which end up in the air. Traditional burials also cause their own problems with some coffins being made from MDF or chipboard which are glued together using adhesives which can leach out harmful chemicals into the soil, not to mention the overcrowding problem in graveyards. For this, and other, reasons people are opting for Ecopods and cardboard coffins, and choosing burial grounds in forests and open fields. Wicker Willow Coffins are part of this ever growing market and offer coffins hand woven from wicker, which is a totally sustainable resource as it can be harvested from the same crown each year for up to 60 years. It's also much less reliant on heavy machinery for harvesting, and will decompose much quicker than traditional hard woods when buried.

A report revealed today by the independent think tank energy analysts, Cambridge Econometrics predicts that the government will not meet its 2010 policy goal for a 20% reduction in carbon emissions, but it will almost achieve its target for 2020. It doesn’t seem likely that the UK will meet the longer-term targets set out in the Climate Change Bill. Their forecast suggests that renewables will account for 5% of total electricity generation by 2010, falling short of the 10% target anticipated by the government.

Housing minister Yvette Cooper is to publish a draft planning policy statement which proposes the abolition of the so-called ‘Merton rule’ which requires any new building to reduce its carbon emissions by 10% through renewables, it was reported in The Guardian. Housebuilders do not want to bear the cost of adding the green options to newbuilds and have been lobbying against the rule. This appears to be a huge U-turn for the government who last year wanted all local authorities to adopt a version of the rule.

The leader of the House Builders Federation claims that different local initiatives are confusing and a national strategy would be more effective, but renewable industries representatives report that the ‘Merton rule’ has been of far more use to them than any previous national government initiatives which are often confusing and run out of money. Projects such as the solar thermal project being installed on the old Arsenal ground, which is the biggest of its kind in the world, would not have been done without the ‘Merton rule’. It remains to be seen what will happen if it is abolished.

The traditional practice of modelling Ganesh statues from clay is being revived by a company called eCoexist in the Indian city of Pune. The biodegradable idols will be made from shaadu (natural clay) and will be painted using natural dyes such as turmeric, geroo and multani mitti. The age-old tradition of making Ganesh statues from clay grew out of favour with the introduction of plaster of Paris, which was cheaper, lighter and more portable, but because it's not a natural product it caused high levels of water pollution and increased the acid levels in the water with heavy metals being released into the water system, from the toxic paints used to decorate the idols.

"By demonstrating that there is a growing market for such idols, we hope to give the sculptors the confidence to make the shift back to using natural clay," said eCoexist proprietor Manisha Gutman.

[via Treehugger]

Birdseye - famous for their fish fingers, have announced that by September they will reduce their cod catch by 4000 tonnes (more than 2 million fish). The frozen food giants plan to replace 18% of their cod with Alaskan pollock fillets, sourced from Marine Stewardship Council certified fisheries, thus reducing their dependency on an ever dwindling supply of fish. UK stocks of cod remain 'below safe levels' according to Tom Pickerell, fisheries policy officer for WWF, who has welcomed the move by Birdseye. "It's a brilliant move and we can only say well done to Birds Eye," he said. "It's taken years for people to realise that fish stocks are renewable forever if they are managed properly, and it seems that message is finally getting through."

With more and more parents choosing not to buy their children toxic plastic toys, companies are starting to come up with 'greener' alternatives. Green Toys they have brought out a basic range of classic toys made from bioplastic, which is a 'plastic' made from 100% renewable resources, like corn. It's production requires no fossil fuels, and it is also fully compostable in commercial facilities within 60-180 days, leaving no chemical residue. The bioplastic is sourced from renewable plastics company Cereplast. Their range includes this cute bucket and spade set, which is perfect for a trip down to the local beach or garden sandpit. They also sell cute dinner sets and gardening kits which look every bit as good as their toxic counterparts. Let's hope that more companies catch on and our children (and the planet) stop being subjected to evil plastics!

[via Treehugger]

We all know how frustrating it can be when a local road is being repaired. You get a whole host of vehicles and workmen blocking the traffic, not to mention the cauldrons of tar, concrete etc that they use. Nu- Phalt Scotland are different. They can do road repairs with only one vehicle and two operators. Not only that, by recycling the existing road materials on site, it means there are no excess lorries travelling back and forth from the site (therefore less carbon emissions) and none of the old road surface is sent to landfill.

The recent earthquake in Japan, which measured 6.8 on the Richter Scale, triggered a leak at a nuclear power plant. The leak from the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa facility was minor and thought not to be harmful.

A spokesman from Tokyo Electric, who run the plant, said: "We have confirmed that water containing a slight amount of radioactive materials leaked out of the facility. But the leakage is believed to be far below the levels that could affect the environment." The quake also triggered a serious fire which took several hours to contain.

[via Energy Daily]

Related story: More on the nuclear power debate