Seems like, every time I turn around, someone else has written about the virtues of auctioning carbon permits:  not just auctioning some of them, but auctioning all of them.  Kevin Drum of The Washington Monthly has the latest examples.

This is an officially snarky and sarcastic comment-free post. This piece from CBC is a great read, especially if you’re looking to get yourself up to speed on the current rice shortage situation that has recently touched our shores as well. What lies behind this ‘silent tsunami’? Click.

Ecolution has been manufacturing eco-focused hemp products in Transylvania (Romania, this has nothing to do with vampires) since 1990. They actually developed their own factory from the ground-up. And one product coming out of that sweatshop-free facility is the Organic Hemp Vegan Dog Leash, made from 100% organic, vegan, hemp twine braid.

Does your dog like hacky-sack? Then check out this cool leash.

The new Greenscape Designer Screen Shades from Hunter Douglas are perfectly functional in offering visibility of the outdoors while protecting your home’s contents from UV rays. Offered in both Roman shade and Roller shade styles, the Greenscape fabric is PVC-free and recyclable with no off-gassing. Talk about a stylish and sensible solution.

In a recent study commissioned by the National Geographic Society, consumers were scored on their environmentally friendly consumption patterns. 1000 people from each of the 14 countries sampled completed an online survey about their consumption patterns, including questions about housing, transportation and food.

The so-called Greendex results, which were released Wednesday, saw Brazilians and Indian consumers ranked the most environmentally friendly. Americans were last with Canadians nipping at their heels.

And the pendulum swings the other way. Mail & Guardian is now writing that palm oil, once hailed as a green wonder-fuel and as a driver of South-East Asia’s economic prosperity, is now not so much the favourite.

Palm oil is getting hit from all sides of late. We’re talking deforestation, and some pretty angry orangutans.

At long last, it's official: Washington gets a new wilderness area, the Wild Sky. It's 100,000 acres of  streams, forests, lakes, and mountains on the west side of the Cascades.

Big congratulations are in order to the hundreds of people who worked to win this designation. The Wild Sky political process was an epic. First proposed in 2002, the nascent wilderness area was an exercise in tenacity. Last week, when the bill finally passed out of Congress, Seattle P-I columnist Joel Connelly had a nice article on the context and history. (Also good coverage last week from Seattle Times reporter Warren Cornwall, here.)

New wilderness designation in the Northwest has been tough to come by lately. But 2008 looks to be a promising year. As High Country News reports, the Wild Sky may be the first of several in the West: these include more than 500,000 acres in the Owyhee country of southwestern Idaho (the first wilderness in 30 years in that state); plus 264,000 acres in Utah (some of which is already in Zion National Park); and if we're lucky, a small but important new wilderness on the Oregon Coast that would protect nearly 14,000 acres in an area dubbed the Copper Salmon.