First Kanye West and Jamie Foxx, now gold diggers have upset environmentalists and economists. It’s been like 1849 online with blogs abuzz over gold prices, prospectors and water use in California.

The precious metal is priced at a record dollar high now, thanks in part to China and India snapping up gold reserves. Panic and pricing like that drives laid-off Californians to go panning and miners to “explore,” sometimes damaging the farthest corners of the Earth to get gold.

Eco- and business-bloggers alike want to know: Is the …

Tags: California , fashion , gold , gold price , gold rush , jewelry , mining , recycled , recycling

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DVDs vaulted into existence in 1997, a box office year dominated by the likes of Titanic, Good Will Hunting and L.A. Confidential. Since then, more than 10 billion of the movie discs and their bulky plastic packages have shipped to North American retailers alone, according to sales data compiled by the Digital Entertainment Group.

Tons of DVDs go unmeasured by the EPA into the solid waste stream each year, even though they can be recycled through entities like Second Spin (which we wrote about in August of this year). …

Tags: DVD , film , Flex disc , Flex DVD , interview , Marina of the Zabbaleen , Ori Dov Gratch , Tim Hobbs , Torch Films

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You gonna eat that? New research says genetically modified crops planted in the wild can change native neighbors’ DNA. So in the future, food activists worry, you might not have a dietary choice. Join the GMO debate.

Tags: agriculture , Automotive High School , crops , environment , farming , food , foodie , GMO , modified , organics , slow food , sustainable

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Is the greening of Apple skin deep, or does it run to the core? The mobile and computing device juggernaut released its fall 2009 Macbook laptop and iMac desktop computer recently, touting “environmental,” among other desirable features in each.

These include: a polycarbonate case, longer life battery and LED-backlit display in the laptop, and the use of mercury-free glass and other “highly recyclable” materials for the desktop.

The flurry of comments that follow every Apple release and product review, web-wide, included questions about how well the computer juggernaut is doing …

Tags: apple , clean tech , EcoMeme , environment , gadgets , tech

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