Green MSN

On October 30, MSN launched a new green channel: GreenMSN.

GreenMSN is a "one-stop online resource for the latest environmental news, exploring the issues and taking action."

RSS! News! Video! All with the credibility MSN inspires!
*swoon*

Use Less Stuff

Use Less Stuff - pretty self-explanatory! - uses quantitative data to help people reduce their waste.

Produce in Season

As it is wintertime, and the idea that we can eat raspberries all year round is a bit silly, this tool from the government in Victoria, Australia seems like a pretty cool idea. You see a list of produce available in the area, click on it, and then recipes come up.

Here is a pretty guide to seasonal produce from the Food Network.

And here is a Southern California harvest chart.

Proud to be an American..?

Did you know that the U.S. accounts for 1/4 the world's carbon emissions?

Jesus.

Green Consumer Reports!

A dream come true! Bust those greenwashers with Green Consumer Reports.


The guide tells you what you should bother buying organic, including baby food, meat, eggs, milk, apples, bell peppers, celery, cherries, imported grapes, nectarines, peaches, pears, potatoes, red raspberries, spinach, and strawberries. It also says not to bother buying organic seafood or cosmetics.

It tells you how many dollars per year you'll save by shutting off the accent lighting (up to $28.65), or unplugging cell phone chargers when not in use (as much as $5.73).

I also tells you what chemicals to avoid when purchasing personal care products.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

Okay, so I usually try to keep this blog up-beat, do-able and exciting. Certain parts of environmentalism make good financial and health sense, and I try to focus on those. I don't usually go in for convincing people to be environmentally friendly with fear, doomsday predictions, and fire and brimstone admonishments. But OH MY GOD there is a continent-sized patch of garbage floating around in the middle of the ocean! With all the oil spills happening in the last weeks, one hitting too close to home, it's impossible not to notice a giant, whirling mass of garbage that is "too big to be cleaned up." Greenpeace explains the phenomenon, as does the San Francisco Chronicle.

The good news is, smart people in Kenya are using similar washed-up flotsam to make cool stuff.

Shower Timer

Well ring a bell and make me drool. I thought I was the stubbornest of the untrainable. Even four months of minimal showering in Morocco was not enough to break my junior-high-instilled habit of showering daily. Usually a 10-to-15 minute user, I never thought I could be trained to take a shower in five minutes.


Little did I know.

This amazing little shower timer (stolen from my co-worker's desk.. hi Laura!) has me whipped into shape! The first day felt rushed, but a week later I was squeaky clean with time to spare. And I have more time to read the Chron in the morning!

Green Apartments in Berkeley

UC Berkeley started a cool thing called The Green Apartment, designed to show how ordinary college students can make their lives more sustainable without investing a lot of effort or money.


"We wanted to give the room a holistic concept, connecting the dots between the things students learn in the classroom and the choices they make in their everyday lives, said Desirae Early, a junior majoring in environmental economics and policy, a Green Campus Program coordinator and a Green Room Committee member.

Also see the Berkeley article and the Chronicle aricle.

This is my favorite quote from the article:
[Jonathan Hu, a sophomore and poli sci major living in the Green Apartments] added that women seem to find environmentally sensitive guys appealing. "I know that whenever I mention I'm part of the Green Apartment, it's always the females who are asking follow-up questions," said Hu.


Also in Berkeley is the beautiful, urban-infill, DOT-decorated Dwight Way.

Sonoma Mountain Village

Today, we held a meeting at a very cool place. Sonoma Mountain Village is a recycled Agilent campus in Rohnert Park, CA.

During the technology boom, 3000 people used to work and relax at this Agilent facility. During the technology bust, those thousands of people were downsized and vacated the campus. The very rich real estate-owning Codding family bought up the plant and brought in focus groups of young and old people. "What would you want if you lived here?" They answered: "A car-free center that has a movie theater, unique houses, and shopping." They are hoping that SMV will become Rohnert Park's downtown city center - which it currently lacks, despite being home to Sonoma State University (part of the Cal-State system).

But enough of the boring history. This place is going to be sweet. It has the second largest solar array in the world (beat only by Google). Codding Steel plans to make pre-fab houses from recycled cars - even better, they make them to each resident's specs, so you don't get the cookie cutter effect where all the houses in a planned neighborhood look the same. The Agilent campus is meticulously designed and people friendly, so it's got good bones for future development. The meeting room (nee Agilent's cafeteria) is bright and airy. "The first model homes should be available for viewing by mid-2008." Squee!

Read about it in the San Francisco Chronicle, or check out the satellite image of the site.

CFL Recycling

"You're tryin' to make me go to THE-trash, I said
NO NO NO"


So, you are using those quirky, squiggly CFL bulbs to save energy, eh? Good! Like batteries, don't throw them away! It's illegal in California, Maine, Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota, Ohio and Indiana because the bulbs contain small amounts of mercury - safe for you even if the bulb breaks, but when tiny amounts of mercury end up collecting in the landfill, nobody is happy.

The good news is, Ikea takes them back. For more information, check out your state here.

Planet Green Blog

My beloved TreeHugger has been bought out, now to be included as a complement to Discovery's new Planet Green channel set to launch early in 2008.


Tips from them include:

The Closet Trick
Turn all the hangers in your closet around so they point towards you. When you take something out and wear it, turn it back around so the hanger points away from you. In six months, go through and re-think everything still on a hanger pointing towards you.

myGreen Spark
Fundraising coupon books for green businesses in SoCal or nationally.

(Note: Sorry November's been a patchy posting month! It's been a patchy internet month. I'll go back and in-fill the dates so you still get your regular dose of green. Apologies for the delay!)

Green Wine

No, it doesn't come from green grapes. Green wine is what happens when you buy wine locally (even in Michigan, Ohio, and Pennyslvania).


And.. did you know that east coasters pollute less by consuming French wine instead of Californian wine?
Shocking! Shipping can be more eco-friendly than flying, and the United States are big.
This line comes from a study done by Dr. Vino (Dr. Tyler Colman, a wine blogger) and Pablo Paster (metrics specialist). Read more on TreeHugger.

Most People Greener Than You Think

Four out of five people worldwide say they would be willing to change their lifestyle in order to address climate change. Even in the U.S. and China. The BBC says so.

America Recycles Day: Nov. 15!

Are you ready? America Recycles Day is coming Nov. 15!

Hourly Rent-A-Car

Want to get somewhere efficiently, but don't want to deal with the insurance/maintenance/registration/smog check/gasoline/parking costs of owning your own? Now you can! With both mainstream rental companies and newer innovations starting to offer hourly rentals, you'll most likely be able to find something in your own neighborhood.


If you are in the Twin Cities, check out Hour Car.
ZipCar and FlexCar just merged, one in Cambridge, Mass. and one in the Pacific Northwest.

This is a good thing. Cars are huge chunks of metal and electronics, and it's a lot of waste for each person to have their own.

Green Your Apartment

So winter is just around the corner, and most "Green Winter" resources are for homeowners who need to seal their basements up. But what if you want to green up your apartment?


1. Consider composting.
(from Low Impact Living's Green Apartments)
2. Buy bulk food to cut down on packaging.
(from Humboldt State University's "12 Ways to Green Up Your Apartment")
3. Bake, dry hair, cook, and iron in the early morning or late at night when you need the extra heat produced from these activities the most.
(from Apartment Living Think Green)
4. Use your dishwasher, but use it efficiently. It is actually greener than hand washing - it uses 35-37% less energy.
(from Apartment Therapy)
5. Donate your clothes hangers to your local dry cleaner to re-use.
(from Jeff Swett's Ezine Article Tips for Going Green in Your Apartment)
6. Collect grease, even olive oil, and dispose of it in the trash - not in the sink.
(from CHOW's Counter Measures: Ten Ways to Green Your Kitchen)
7. Buy your apartment cat a piece of tree.
(okay, this one from Apartment Therapy is silly)
8. Rent a steam cleaner to remove toxins tracked in from the bottoms of your shoes.
(from LA Green Living)
9. Open your windows to ventilate the toxins out.
(from GreenHomeGuide)
10. Get houseplants! They suck up carbon and filter dust and dirt. Amazing.
(from Cookiemag's Urban Green)

Discardia and Green Gifts

I would like to submit an agenda item to the County Board of Supervisors declaring Discardia a government holiday. Dinah Sanders, who is the brainparent of Discardia, says, "Discardia is a new holiday. Why do we need a new holiday? Well, not exactly need, not as such, but this is a very good holiday." The next one happens Dec 21-Jan 8.


Discardia is the celebration of stuff-purging. It is the seasonal remedy for Affluenza. It involves:
1. Giving away the stuff you don't like or use.
2. Thinking about ways to buy less in the future.
3. Thinking about ways to give and ask for better gifts. This is especially timely for all you Christmas celebrators and New Years resolution makers out there, as Discardia coincides with Christmas and New Years this year.

The Heifer Project is pretty cool. You can give honeybees and knitting kits and goats.

You can also make stuff, including mix CDs and cookies, or a coupon book for fun things you will do with that person in the future. Check out the other post on Green Holidays for other green gift ideas, or look here at EcoArtware for inspiration!