Fresh Greens
-
The Bailout Failure's Environmental Impacts
Continue reading… 1 CommentAside from sending the markets into a tailspin and lawmakers scrambling for other options on the Hill, the failure of the bailout package on Monday had consequences for environmental legislation and green-thinking consumers. Here's a roundup:
- Upon news of the nonbailout, solar stocks plummeted. Distracted by the financial crisis, the House and the Senate can't reach an agreement on how to extend energy tax credits that are key to making solar panels more mainstream. Congress is unlikely to approve the measures before the session ends.
-
I'm Not a Plastic Bag (but I'm Not Remembering My Reusable One, Either)
Continue reading… 12 CommentsI've written before about the benefits of reusable shopping bags, but the Wall Street Journal brings up an interesting point today: How many of us have reusable bags that just sit at home? Sometimes, it's hard to break old habits. Other times, a run to the grocery store isn't premeditated, and you find yourself being forced to make do with plastic. Until cities ban plastic bags outright or stores cut down on the number of disposable bags they produce (as Wal-Mart recently announced it would), using a plastic bag is consequence free. And if we're still producing mass quantities of plastic bags in addition to reusable bags—well, that's not doing any good at all.
- Any tips for remembering your reusable bags? Let us all know in the comments below.
-
Lisa Simpson, Treehugger
Continue reading… 2 CommentsBecause it's Friday, and the world is preoccupied with economic collapse, here's a bit of levity. In honor of the 20th season The Simpsons will be on the air, Lisa Simpson, the greenest member of one of America's most famous families, recently chatted with National Geographic about the ways that she's encouraging Homer and company to go green. And no, it doesn't involve organic doughnuts.
Some excerpts:
What is your family doing to "go green"?
Well, my Dad said his bald spot is "a solar panel for a love machine." I don't know what that means, but I'm looking into whether we can hook it into the grid and get carbon credits. -
5 Green Consumer Trends That Probably Won't Take Off
Continue reading… 7 CommentsEnvironmentally minded folks will go to great lengths to live sustainable lives. Sometimes, they go too far. Here are five eco-trends that won't be going mainstream anytime soon.
1. City chickens—Buying organic eggs at Whole Foods isn't enough for some city dwellers. To eliminate the carbon emitted during transportation, and the chance that a single feather on their chicken might have been harmed in the production of their eggs, some urbanites have taken to building chicken coops in the backyards of their rowhouses and stocking them with egg-layers. Some city ordinances permit this, while others don't. Though chickens are relatively easy to care for, they don't make for much of a pet. And what would the neighbors think?
-
What the Great Lakes Compact Means for Bottled Water
Continue reading… 5 CommentsCorrected 9/25/08: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that the Public Trust Doctrine was excluded from the compact. The version also incorrectly stated that 1 percent of the lakes’ water became bottled water. The article neglected to mention that states have the ability to regulate bottled water independently.
Yesterday, Congress ratified the Great Lakes Compact, which prevents the diversion of fresh water from the lakes by any state that does not immediately border them. The bill is supposed to protect the largest source of fresh water in the country (90 percent of America's fresh water and 20 percent of the world's) and also to encourage other states to conserve water. President Bush is expected to sign it into law.
-
Red, Blue, Green: Cities That Vote Democratic Are Greener Than Republican Cities
Continue reading… 7 CommentsThis shouldn't surprise anyone: In SustainLane's ranking of the greenest cities in 2008, cities that were green leaned Democratic, while voters in cities that were not so environmentally friendly tended to vote Republican. Same goes for the city's leadership: You'll notice on this graphic that all of the top cities have Democratic mayors (or, in New York's case, an independent). There's also an economic divide; many of the greenest cities were also the most expensive to live in and had higher incomes, while the bottom of the list had cheap housing and poorer citizens. Here are the top and bottom 10:
- Portland, Ore.
- San Francisco
- Seattle
- Chicago
- New York
- Boston
- Minneapolis
- Philadelphia
- Oakland, Calif.
- Baltimore
- Arlington, Texas
- Long Beach, Calif.
- Colorado Springs, Colo.
- Indianapolis
- Virginia Beach, Va.
- Memphis
- Las Vegas
- Tulsa, Okla.
- Oklahoma City
- Mesa, Ariz.
Is your city on the list?
-
Truckers to Protest Gas Prices by Causing Commuters to Waste Expensive Gas
Continue reading… 3 CommentsTo protest gas prices, Truckers and Citizens United will be organizing a convoy of vehicles to make their way through Washington tomorrow, which "could slow traffic in the nation's capital for hours." Their gas protest will cause traffic jams, which will cause cars to idle longer, and will waste the expensive and precious gas that the truckers are protesting. Whose brilliant idea was this?
-
Planning an Ecofriendly Retirement
Continue reading… 1 CommentIt's not enough to just retire to a community that's healthful or a place where the golf courses are abundant. Retirees are now looking for retirement destinations where they can live ecofriendly lifestyles that still include all the amenities of traditional retirement. Are you one of the 40 million green boomers? Consider these tips for a green retirement and use our new Best Places to Retire search to find the city that's right for you.
- Location, Location, Location. If you retire near your friends and family, rather than a far away beach, you'll have to take fewer flights and you'll be closer to loved ones. Consider how the place you retire will affect not only your happiness but also your energy consumption.
-
Artists Destroy Gas-Guzzling El Camino
Continue reading… 3 CommentsNot long ago, I wrote about a man who wanted to destroy his gas guzzler for the environment, soliciting advice on whether he should blow it up, crush it to pieces, or convert it to a hybrid. Unfortunately, Ryan Mickle's devotees are all still waiting with bated breath, as he has not updated his website since August 1. Last weekend, two Washington, D.C., artists beat him in his quest.
The YAY Team, a performance art group presented by the local Meat Market Gallery, sent out the vague invitation: "Please join the YAY Team in saying goodbye to a personal era of waste, materialism and ignorance. In 'Black Out: Retiring a Cloud of Guilt,' they will renew their commitment to healthy living and a healthy future as they remove what would have been a negative impact on all our lives for years to come." The location of the performance was a small parking lot in a gallery-heavy part of Washington, and a crowd started to gather 10 minutes before the show.
-
Everything You Need to Know About the New Chevy Volt
Continue reading… 50 CommentsGM unveiled the production version of the Chevy Volt, the first extended-range electric vehicle, and lit up the Internet with opinions from car lovers and tree-huggers everywhere. Here's a quick guide to everything you need to know about the car of the not-so-distant future.
First, a quick rundown on the car's stats:
- The car will go on sale in 2010.
- No price has been announced yet, but estimates place it in the region of $40,000.
- The car's energy comes from a large T-shaped lithium-ion battery pack running the length of the car.
- The Volt can run for up to 40 miles without gasoline. About 75 percent of Americans drive less than 40 miles a day, according to GM, so they will not need to depend on fuel.
-
Is MTV Being Hypocritical?
Continue reading… 3 CommentsGreen bloggers everywhere are raving about the network's latest ad in the Switch campaign, where a funny little monster points out the hypocrisy of corporations that paint their products green and call them ecofriendly. But is MTV one of them?
I'm happy to praise the video for bringing the issue of green-washing to the forefront in a memorable and humorous way. It's great to point out that we don't have to be green to be green, especially in a confusing market awash with supposedly ecofriendly choices.
-
Palin Changes Position on Climate Change
Continue reading… 38 CommentsSarah Palin's remarks on climate change to Charles Gibson in last night's interview conflicted with her previous position. Palin told Gibson, "I believe that man's activities certainly can be contributing to the issue of global warming, climate change." You can see the clip here:
-
Good Guide Helps With Green Shopping
Continue reading… 0 CommentsWithout carbon labeling, it's hard for consumers to know which products make the eco-friendly grade and which don't (and some would argue it's difficult even with the labels). A new website, Good Guide aims to help shoppers make decisions based on a company's sustainability, health effects, and corporate social responsibility, ranking a product on a scale of 1 to 10 in each category. Scientists and researchers have dug up dirt on major companies' practices, rating everything from the impact of the product's environmental emissions to cancer effects to global labor practices.
The site could become a powerful tool for combating greenwashing in an age where companies capitalize on the trendiness of environmentalism in everything from cosmetics to cars. For now, it rates only personal care items and cleaning products, but food, electronics, toys, and clothing will be added in coming months.
-
Would You Read an E-Newspaper?
Continue reading… 14 CommentsNewspapers have long been going the way of the woolly mammoths, and there have been several last-ditch efforts to save this sinking ship—among them, the invention of a lightweight, portable E-newspaper. This week, Plastic Logic unveiled the latest design for a portable reader with a screen the size of a piece of copier paper, which makes it the largest portable reader screen on the market. It goes on sale early next year. The device follows the E-book reader from Amazon, the Kindle, which offers newspaper subscriptions for less than $15 a month but has a smaller screen.
The production and delivery of newspapers consume paper and energy, and if the struggling media could eliminate these costs (up to 65 percent of a newspaper's expenses), it could save papers a lot of money—and perhaps save the industry. Eliminating these steps would also, of course, conserve trees, gas, and other forms of energy, though no one has said whether the savings would be enough to offset the resources needed to produce digital readers.
-
Americans More Optimistic About Brangelina Relationship Than About Gas Prices 'Normalizing'
Continue reading… 3 CommentsAccording to a study by the Drum Major Institute, a think tank, Americans are more confident that they will see Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie celebrate their 25th anniversary than that they will see gas return to $3 a gallon. Despite the frequency of Hollywood breakups, 56 percent of respondents in the nationwide poll said they expected the couple to make it to their silver anniversary as gas prices continued to climb, while only 19 percent found gas prices more likely to "normalize." Eighteen percent expected neither option to come to bear. The survey question was part of a study on the widespread pessimism of middle-class families regarding the economy and politics.
So what does this say about America? That we can muster up more optimism for things we feel we intimately understand—like the tabloid-dissected Brangelina relationship—than the things we do not, like the intricacies of the global oil market, even though both are beyond our control?
-
Drill, Baby, Drill: Breaking Down Sarah Palin's VP Speech
Continue reading… 38 CommentsIntroducing herself to a nation that has mostly been preoccupied by her family drama, Sarah Palin talked energy in last night's speech, and many environmentalists were not comforted by what they heard.
From her prepared remarks:
To confront the threat that Iran might seek to cut off nearly a fifth of world energy supplies...or that terrorists might strike again at the Abqaiq facility in Saudi Arabia...or that Venezuela might shut off its oil deliveries...we Americans need to produce more of our own oil and gas.
-
5 Tips for Greener School (or Work) Lunches
Continue reading… 2 CommentsLunchtime at the average school, according to the EPA, creates an average of 67 pounds per day. This means the average middle school produces 40,000 pounds of trash a year just from discarded juice boxes, cookie wrappers, brown paper bags, and tiny bags of chips. That's not to mention offices, where the Lean Cuisine trays pile up in the trash alongside Styrofoam cups. It's obvious that packing a lunch saves money, but packing a waste-free lunch actually saves you more money—the cost of those baggies adds up, and individually packaged foods are not much of a bargain. Here are some ways to brown-bag it, sans brown bag.
1. Make every container in the lunch reusable. Reusable bags or retro metal lunch boxes should replace the brown bag. Instead of juice boxes or sugary cans of soda, get a reusable water bottle. Small Tupperware or other plastic containers can replace the plastic sandwich baggie. You don't have to go out and buy anything special—even just washing out the clear plastic tubs that once contained takeout and grocery items can provide containers of a variety of sizes. Start saving any plastic containers and you'll see how quickly you amass them. You'll save money by not having to buy plastic baggies or brown bags, and you'll keep plastic out of landfills and oceans.
-
P. Diddy Eliminates Private Jet, Cuts Carbon Footprint, Complains
Continue reading… 51 CommentsLife is hard for hip-hop mogul P. Diddy, also known as Sean Combs. Turns out, even the superrich are affected by rising gas prices. Diddy explained in a recent video blog that he had to give up his private jet and—gasp!—fly commercial because of fuel costs. In the video (which can be seen here, but be warned: It contains some colorful language), a very unhappy Diddy walks around an airport, ranting that gas prices are too high for him to sustain his bicoastal lifestyle without deigning to fly on American Airlines.
"Give a shout-out to all my Saudi Arabia brothers and sisters and all the brothers and sisters in all the countries that have oil—if you could please send me some oil for my jet, I would truly appreciate it," he says, also appealing to our future commander in chief, "Tell whoever the next president is, we need to bring gas prices down....I can't believe I'm flying commercial."
The wealthy have some of the largest carbon footprints in the world, and Diddy is no exception, but green bloggers are rejoicing at his decision to take one more gas-guzzling aircraft out of commission. Just another example of how recession shopping makes us unintentionally greener.
