Sustainable forests are one of the key buzz words currently floating around in the business industry, particularly when it comes to furniture. However, not all products marketed as using ‘sustainable’ wood are particularly eco-friendly and some sustainable woods are more sustainable than others.

Here at GreenUpAndGo.com we have put together a list of points you should consider when buying a sustainable wood product.

What does Sustainable Wood actually mean?
Usually, sustainable wood comes from forests that are carefully managed so that they don’t become clear cut. Sustainable wood can also mean wood that has been recycled from unwanted buildings or furniture. There are a number of different programs which state how sustainable forests should have the trees cut down and their timber used.

New research has concluded that the Sun’s output is not the cause of current climate change. The study has shown that the Sun’s output has decreased over the past 20 years with temperatures on Earth rising over the same time period.

In the past, temperatures have also been blamed by the Sun’s effect on cosmic rays. The study states that although climate may have been affected by cosmic rays in the past, they have not had an affect on current day climate.

It’s one of the more bizarre theories we’ve seen - apparently, if internet pages with white backgrounds are changed to black, a lot of energy would be saved each year. Suppsedly, an all white web page uses about 74W to display the page; an all black web page uses just 59W in comparison.

It was only a matter of time before someone applied this theory to search engines whose pages are predominantly white in colour. Enter Blackle, a black version of Google. It’s look takes a bit of getting used to an certainly won’t appeal to everyone but if what they say is true, you’ll be wishing you thought of it first!

When upgrading your PC, there are several things you can look at in a bid to own a more environmentally friendly PC.

Processor
If you are on the lookout for an environmentally friendly processor, go for one with a low thermal design power (sometimes known as thermal dissipation power). The TDP is the meximum amount of power that a processor will consume and therefore dissipate as heat - this means that a processor with a low thermal design power will use up less electricity than one with a high design thermal design power.

Hi-Tech Wealth, a Chinese telecommunication products supplier, has claimed it has developed a mobile phone that uses solar energy to recharge itself and can provide 40 minutes of talk-time for every hour of sunlight it receives. The company also claims that it’s not just sunlight which can be used - the phone is also capable of recharging from other light sources such as candles.

Hi-Tech Wealth says that it is the most advanced solar powered technology to date and it owns eight patents relating to the product, with many patents pending. Many other companies are also trying to develop solar powered mobile phones however they are still in the experimental stage.

The British Government is urging households to personally fight climate change by working our their carbon footprint. By inputting their transport and home energy use, the ‘Act on CO2′ calculator will work out the household carbon footprint.

Environment Secretary David Miliband launched the online calculator at an eco-friendly cafe in central London. “There is a lot of confusion about what people can do and how effective those changes actually are,” Miliband explained. “We want to cut through that and this carbon calculator is one of the way they can do this and be sure it will make a difference.

Flamboyant TV personality and interior designer Lawrence Llewelyn-Bowen has come up with a novel way to encourage recycling - by using his old drinks cans to build a unique chair. Llewelyn-Bowen was commission by Can Couture to make his chair and all cans used were ones used by his family.

“I really enjoy working with new material,” Llewelyn-Bowen explained. “So the idea of using recycled drinks cans to produce an elegant yet flamboyant chair was a huge challenge for me. Recycling is hugely importnat in this day and age and drinks cans are one of the most environmentally friendly tyres of packaging as each one is 100% recyclable.

A Chinese farmer in Quqiao village has constructed his own solar power water heater - out of beer bottles and hosepipes. He built the solar panel to help heat up water in his home. “I invented this for my mother,” Ma Yanjun explained. “I wanted her to shower comfortably.”

The solar panel is constructed from 66 beer bottles attached to a board. Each bottle is interconnected so that the water flows through the bottle network. As the water flows through the bottles, the sun heats it up. At the end of the network, the water is piped into the bathroom where it emerges as hot water.

Want to be green but when you tried a compost heap only you gave up because of the smell it gives off? Fed up of having animals going through your rubbish to find the food scraps in there? The organic waste system is an easy, effective way of recycling food waste so your rubbish no longer gets raided, and no smell linger around either your rubbish bin or your waste system. You can put one together in a couple of hours, so it is a quick and easy way to kick-start your recycling habit.

Qatar is leading the push into research for cleaner jet fuel. Four Qatar based businesses have partnered with Airbus, Rolls-Royce and Shell to look into making synthetic, cleaner jet fuel for use in commercial airliners. The research focuses on powering jetlines with gas-to-liquid (GTL) synthetic jet fuels.

GTL is produced by converting natural gas into kerosene. The beauty of GTL kerosene is that is has properties that are remarkably similar to jet fuel meaning that it could replace current jet fuel without the need for engine or airport modifications. GTL kerosene is also more environmentally friendly than current jet fuel as it creates less emissions.