Celebrate Earth Hour 2011 – March 26th at 8:30 pm local time - all across the globe !

Via:   Earth Hour LINK

Textile Sustainability with bluesign®

bluesign® is an independent standard for the textile inducstry.  It looks at the entire supply chain and seeks to exclude harmful materials at the start of the process … resulting in a safer product for consumers and the environment.,

Many outdoor clothing manufactures are supporting this standard including North Face and REI. 

Check out this YouTube Video for more info …

 

Via:  bluesign  LINK

GreenandSave.com

GREENandSAVE has a Website and Blog with lots of good "green" information.  There are tips to increase your "individual green-ness" and links to many green items in the news including green job training.

Check out the Experts Tip section for lots of ideas you can use to save energy, money and the planet.  Tips I found include ways to save water this summer and ideas for a greener Christmas.

 ... strives to inform the public about eco-conscious living, environmental matters, ... feature daily news, information and blogs  ... mission is to expand readers’ awareness of environmentally conscious efforts ... and encourage participation."


Via:  Green and Save  LINK

GenGreen® for all Your Green Needs

Want to be more green and not really sure where to start?  Making good progress and want to kick it up a notch or two?  Need inspiration or answers to questions ?
" ... goal ... to be the most comprehensive and diverse resource available for people looking to live ... environmentally conscious lifestyle.  .... GenGreenLife.com where we have over 60,000 listings to help you live your green life. "



Via: GenGreen^®  LINK

Bon Appétit Management Company provides food services at colleges and universities at over 400 locations across 29 states.  They are serious about cutting their carbon footprint and are using education and tools like the "Low Carbon Diet Calculator" to help consumers understand the role they play.

" ... beef and cheese are high carbon foods because they come from cows and cows emit methane gas, which is 23 times more potent than carbon dioxide...."

You can check the carbon impact of your food choices with the Low Carbon Diet Calculator.  You can experiment with various options such as a cheeseburger vs. a turkey cheeseburger or an omelet with vegetables vs. an omelet with meet and cheese.  Here is what I found ...

An omelet with meat and cheese has a carbon value of 1573 while one with vegetables has a carbon value of 750.

A cheeseburger has a carbon value of 3609 while a turkey burger has a carbon value of 1480.
Use your new found knowledge to choose wisely to reduce your carbon impact !!


Via:  Bon Appetit  LINK

Truck Stop Electrification

Everyone has seen trucks idling when they seem to be "just waiting" at a truck or rest stop.  Many drivers keep the engine running to allow for heating / cooling and even to run appliances in their sleeper cab

While diesels are efficient they are polluting ... and use fuel at the rate of a gallon / hour at idle.

TSE - Truck Stop Electrification "... helps drivers, their trucks and our planet rest a bit easier. Supported by Carbonfund.org ... reduces tailpipe emissions ... system consists of an in-cab service module ... that heats, cools, and powers the interior of the truck ... without forcing the engine to burn diesel while saving about a gallon of diesel per hour. ... over one hundred locations throughout the United States."

Via: CarbonFund.org Blog LINK

Carbon Capture Report™

The University of Illinois has developed the Carbon Capture Report™ that brings together all information Carbon related.  If you are looking for something carbon related this would be a good place to search!

 ... monitors news services from around the world to offer the latest news on carbon capture, carbon sequestration, and climate change, updated every 24 hours, 7 days a week. ... compiling a list of all articles mentioning these topics, and preparing a series of analytical reports to make it easy to continually keep track of what the world's media is saying about carbon capture."


" ... Daily Map service overlays each day's coverage onto Google Maps and Google Earth, showing what different countries and different parts of those countries are saying about carbon capture. See how coverage has changed over time using the interactive timeline of the Google Earth display."

" ... Daily Summary Newsletter service sends you the latest headlines ... delivered to your inbox at 2AM CST each morning."

" ... is an ongoing, highly experimental research project. All results are generated entirely by machine, so reports may occasionally contain errors and no guarantees of any kind are provided ..."

Via: Carbon Capture Report LINK

No Impact Project - No Impact Week

The No Impact Project " ... is an international, environmental, nonprofit project ... inspired by the No Impact Man book, film, and blog."

" ... empower citizens to make choices which better their lives and lower their environmental impact through lifestyle change, community action, and participation in environmental politics. ... Living low-impact provides a clear entry point into the environmental movement. ..."

Check out the video that gives details to this very interesting story. Learn how you can take steps to reduce / eliminate your impact ...

Via: No Impact Project LINK

Kids Books on the Environment

Here are some interesting books I ran across while checking
my local FreeCycle (Chester County, PA) ... Getting kids involved in "YourGreenQuest" and all things green is a great idea.

Your kids might be interested in these two volumes .... and the experiments.

Young Discoverers Garbage and Recycling: Enviromental Facts and Experiments
by: Rosie Harlow and Sally Morgan

The Enviroment: Saving the Planet (Includes Experiments)
by: Rosie Harlow and Sally Morgan


Via: YourGreenQuest LINK

University of Pennsylvania Green Dining Options

The University of Pennsylvania supports green in the dining plan options and is looking to bring more sustainability to the meal plan with student interns in the dining area.

" ... seeking students to continue the work of previous interns, with sustainability in mind. ... variety of tasks, ranging from promoting special events to updating the Penn Dining Web site. ... position "encourages the knowledge of sustainability" in order to fashion marketing strategies and promote dining's environmentally-friendly initiatives."

Via: University of Pennsylvania LINK

Understand Your Carbon Footprint with mobGAS©

If you can measure it you have the ability to change it. mobGAS© helps you with this ...

" ...mobGAS© ... first mobile application about climate change with wide distribution in Europe and world ... aims to make the connection between daily activities and the emissions of Greenhouse Gases ... suggest changes to improve individual performances."

" ... diary of users’ behaviour ... activities or appliances that are ... used ... converted in individual emissions of GHG that may be compared with the weekly average or with country and world average."

" ... challenge individuals to make small changes to their daily routine in order to achieve significant reductions of greenhouse gas emissions...."

Via: mobGAS© LINK

Ways to Green Your Kids

I found this interesting story about "greening your kids" on TakeApart ... " ... a new cause-related site designed to help you explore today’s issues and get involved ... with the right information and tools for action, individuals can—and will—make a difference. "

"Being green ... can be fun, even for kids ... extend your green lifestyle to include them by using everyday consumer choices as opportunities to educate them and build a sense of responsibility and empowerment..."

Image by liewcf via Flickr

There are 10 ideas on their site - here are 2 ...

Clothing ..." ... smaller companies pledged to human rights and environmental conservation. ... WeWe Clothing ... offers an alternative to clothing mass-produced at environmental cost ... "

Batteries ... "kids go through batteries ... Over 720 tons of household batteries are disposed of each year. Recycling and conservation keeps heavy metals out of landfills and prevents groundwater pollution ... use power adapters and travel chargers whenever possible ... consider rechargeable batteries ..."

Via: TakeApart LINK

Walmart to Provide "eco rating" for its Products

Walmart is looking to provide consumers with eco information about the products offered in stores so they can make informed decisions and shop greener.

" ... will ask its suppliers to provide environmental information on all products carried in its stores ... use that information to label each item with an eco rating, designed to measure its environmental friendliness."

"... change how we make and sell products ... make consumption itself smarter and sustainable."

" ... latest effort by Wal-Mart to create a greener landscape .. already strived to make its own stores environmentally friendly ... an effort to create more sustainable electronics devices to reduce the amount of items dumped into landfills.

Via: cnet news LINK

Zero Impact® - Environmental Awareness

Want to know more about your environmental impact? Want to know your environmental impact and ways to change it or offset it? Check out Zero Impact® 's on-line environmental impact calculator - LINK.

" ... quantifies the environmental impact of activities, companies, products and people, calculating emissions of carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases and helping to reduce and offset CO2 emissions with ... new forests ..."

" ... a company, a family, a person can easily calculate how much CO2 they are emitting into the atmosphere, and decide to offset the emissions, helping to rehabilitate and protect green areas."


Via: Zero Impact® LINK

Ace Hardware - Helpful Earth Choices Program

Ace Hardware's Helpful Earth Choices TM can help you become more sustainable and eco-conscious ... they have easy ways to go green, projects (like how to build a composter) and tips for conservation and lots of earth-friendly products.

At their Helpful Earth Choices web there are facts and tips about being green as well as a Green IQ quiz.

Image via Wikipedia

Take the quiz ... a combination of facts and trivia ... like how much longer a CFL lasts compared to an incandescent bulb and whether it is more energy efficient to stop / start a car then let it idle for 10 seconds at a stoplight.

>>> Did you take the Quiz?
>>> How did you do?



Via: acehardware.com LINK

Patagonia - Footprint Chronicles

Our *** 75th post ***

Long known for its very functional outdoor clothing and its policy of giving 1% of sales to environmental programs, Patagonia is, as you might expect, focused on the environment and environmental awareness.

" ... measure water consumption as well as energy consumption, waste, carbon emissions and distance traveled for chronicled products ... list "Product Footprint" data for a large portion of our products so you can make a more informed purchasing decision..."

" ... Footprint Chronicles examine Patagonia's life and habits as a company. ... give more of our practices some air ... been in business long enough to know that when we can reduce or eliminate a harm, other businesses will be eager to follow suit."

Check out the footprint chronicles ... and see how some of their products travel the globe during production and what is good and possibly not so good about each ... and what Patagonia is looking to do to lessen the environmental impact.


Via: Patagonia LINK

Tips for a GREENER Kitchen

Here are some EASY tips to make your kitchen GREENER ... these and more came from the ReynoldsRecycled website ... link at end of post. Most of these are easy to do ... but you may not have been aware of them.

" ... Save 5,000 to 7,000 gallons of water each year by foregoing the pre-rinse and sticking your dishes straight into the dishwasher. ... never run a dishwasher that isn't full ... Conserve energy by cooking in the right size pots and selecting the air-dry option on your dishwasher. ... Recycle anything you can, including paper, plastic, glass and cans. ... Bring your own reusable bag anytime you go shopping ... Cook in batches and freeze or refrigerate the remaining portions ... less energy, time and effort to reheat the leftovers than to cook new meals."



Via: Reynoldsrecycled.com LINK

abundantforests.org -- Environmental IQ test

Test what you know and what you should know about America's forests. Take the 7 question Quiz to find out your E-IQ (environmental IQ).

Find out the answers to questions like ...

It is better for the environment to have an artificial tree than a cut tree - Y/N
It is better to use plastic than paper bags - Y / N


Via: abundantforests.org LINK

EPA Watersense Quiz - Test your Water Knowledge

How much do you know about the water you use? Be it for drinking, washing, watering the lawn; or whatever? What are the biggest wasters ... where is it easy to save .. which easy choices can you make?

Test you Water IQ by playing the EPA Watersense Quiz (requires Adobe Flash - avail on the Linked web page)

" ... know everything there is to know about water? ... Test Your WaterSense! ... EPA's new interactive online quiz! ... Use the information you've learned ... and test your knowledge of water-using behaviors and common water-saving opportunities.

Some of the questions; paraphrased:
Which uses less water ... shower or bath?
How much water can you save daily turning off the water while brushing your teeth ...
How much of the water used to water lawns is wasted ... 10, 15, 25 or 50%?
How much of the water on the earth is available for people's everyday use ... 50, 28, 12 or 1%

Take the quiz and see just how much you really know ... about water.

Saving water is good for the planet and good for your wallet!



Via: EPA WaterSense Quiz LINK