Tuesday ecoblog roundup: Tree-athalon, National Eisteddfod, more

Hippyshopper emeritus Adam at thegreenguy notes that Green Fibres has a super summer special going on, taking off 30% on a variety of organic towels and other good goods.  Plus in September there's a Tree-Athalon in London and one in Brum in October, where you run 5 kilometers and then plant a tree.  All proceeds to, well, plant more trees.  More blog roundup from Organic Jac, Greenthinkers, WorldChanging, Armchair Environmentalist and The Commons after the jump.

Hippyshopper emerita Ella has a great writeup on the National Eisteddfod of Wales, a celebration of Welsh arts, culture and language - which include bespoke jewelry and local food.  The Keep Wales Tidy campaign was giving out keychains made from recycled coffee cups, and the Environment Agency had hemp reusable bags, both of which were highly coveted and entailed plenty of queueing.  The Wales Fair Trade Forum goes on on November 11, 2006.

What shall we do about space junk, Alex Steffen asks at WorldChanging.  Given "polluter pays" on Earth, could we please move toward "launcher pays" in space?  When will we get real space laws?

Plasma screens can use up to 4x as much power as tube televisions, notes Greenthinkers.  That is amazing.  Knowing LCDs use substantially less power than CRT monitors, I'd assumed that plasma screens followed the same trend - that flatter meant skinnier juice draw.  Greenthinkers also links a great little CNet article asking Which Is Greener, Microsoft or Google?.  Armchair Environmentalist also weighs in on the plasma screen issue.

Finally, a brief word from The Commons pointing to a NY Times article on how China is thinking about applying free-market principles to wildlife preservation and, in the process, improving the survival chances of a long-endangered species while giving its economy a boost.  Unfortunately you have to pay a few bucks USD to read the piece as it's gone into the archives, but the words "China", "free market" and "wildlife preservation" being in the same sentence may be worth any number of dollars.  [GT]