The exact

Image Source: Frank Farm Dear Pablo: As I begin the annual ritual of wrapping Christmas presents I can't help but contemplate the massive amount of paper that is wasted each year. What is the impact of all the wasted holiday wrapping paper? The exact amount of wrapping paper used in the US over the holidays is up for debate and a wide range of estimates can be found online. According to the Clean Air Council, "In the U.S., an additional 5 million tons of waste is generated during the holidays. Four million tons of this is wrapping paper and shopping bags." If we assume that half of the four million is wrapping paper then we have an estimated two million tons of wrapping paper used over the holidays each year in the US alone. Assuming 15 trees per ton of wrapping paper, this amounts to 30 million trees cut down just to wrap our gifts!... Read the full story on TreeHugger

I have been holding on to this question for a while but I recently had the

The Author at Ski Dubai Dear Pablo: How bad is indoor skiing is for the environment? I have heard of places in the Middle East where you can ski indoors, even during the summer. I have been holding on to this question for a while but I recently had the opportunity to visit Ski Dubai at the Mall of the Emirates on a recent business trip to the Middle East. In a land of countless "world's largest" titles it is surprising that Ski Dubai is not the biggest indoor skiing area in the world, but it does have the distinction of featuring the first indoor black diamond (> 40%/21.8° slope) ski run. My initial decision to go to Ski Dubai were greeted with declarations of hypocrisy by my sustainability-minded friends but I decided to keep an open mind. An indoor, refrigerated ski slope in the middle of a desert country that reaches 50° C in the summers sounds like the definition wasted energy, but is it really?... Read the full story on TreeHugger

In 2000, at the United Nations' Millennium Summit a set of development goals were created with an aim to improve some of the most critical social, economic, and environmental issues in the developing world by 2015. The eight goals are: Goal 1: