Eco Links to Green Your Weekend

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Amongst President-Elect Barack Obama‘s most striking campaign promises: “We will set the goal of ending all deaths from Malaria by 2015. The United States will lead.” Mark Leon Goldberg assesses his chances, over at UN Dispatch.

Number 4 on Gretchen Rubin’s Ten Tips For Being Happier is very close to my heart – “realize that anything worth doing is worth doing badly”. In other words, embrace the things you aren’t so good at – because variety and challenge is where all the fun is. Bravo!

Our resident fashionistas have their fingers on the pulse of what’s hot this year and what’s so last year – but if you’re completely up to date with their latest posts, Fashion Evolved should keep you busy.

Word of the week – and indeed Word of the Year, according to the Oxford American Dictionary – is Hypermiling. Think you’re thrifty with your gas? Hypermilers take it to a whole new level, managing fuel economy up to a staggering 112 miles per gallon.

And speaking of dictionaries, one word we hope to see the back of in the next century is “junk“, perhaps to be replaced with “upcycleables”. Because as PointClickHome shows, with a bit of imagination and hard work, the unlikeliest things can be put back into use.

What happens when the oil runs out? The simple answer is that despite doom and gloom I Am Legend style fears, the world keeps turning – just in a different way. Take urban design: we’ll still need functioning cities to live in, but we’ll be calling on a wholly new set of resources to keep them ticking over. Have a read of WorldChanging’s series on Urban Design After The Age Of Oil to get ahead of the game.

It’s time to put a myth to rest. Air travel is not always quicker. When you factor in standing in queues, checking in your luggage and buying endless cups of coffee to stave off boredom, travelling by air is a long-winded business. The French have had a much better alternative for years now, called the TGV – a 300-mph service that zips around the country in record time. Step on, step off – it’s a breeze. The rest of Europe has taken note and started to develop its own fleet – and now California is getting in on the act as well…

The world’s going crazy for upcycling! The world’s sensible to do so. Check out another example – InventorSpot’s 20 Trash to Treasure gifts. (The recycled bottletop candleholders are particularly fabulous).

As Fall moves to Winter, it’s time to shift the tones of your decor towards the cooler, more muted part of the spectrum. You’ll find a riot of ideas here at the photo-heavy site of the Deco Detective – such as the almost-too-fun hand embroidered cushions of Bridget Davies.

Biofuels. Sustainable fuel or famine-inducing economic blight? What a pickle it’s all becoming. And as the Wall Street Journal reports, the situation is even more complicated than previously thought. (What’s the answer, we wonder?)

Have a good weekend, everyone.

Image: J. Rosario

Mike Sowden

Mike Sowden is a freelance writer based in the north of England, obsessed with travel, storytelling and terrifyingly strong coffee. He has written for online & offline publications including Mashable, Matador Network and the San Francisco Chronicle, and his work has been linked to by Lonely Planet, World Hum and Lifehacker. If all the world is a stage, he keeps tripping over scenery & getting tangled in the curtain - but he's just fine with that.