Green Options

Sun Microsystems (the people behind the popular program language JAVA) have launched a new community-based website where companies and organizations can calculate, compare, and reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. OpenEco.org is free and open to all organizations. The only cost of admission is sharing data, transparently or anonymously, with other community participants.

It is an interesting idea. It will allow companies to calculate how much GHG they are producing [...]

The entire idea of the "commute" would seem ridiculous in an earlier time. People didn’t live 100 miles from where they worked. With the introduction of a large nationwide highway system and the availability of cheaper cars, the commute was born. People flush with money from the GI bill and savings from the hard times of WW2 moved en masse to new "suburbs." Planned cities where everyone got a small [...]

The Problem With Cars

We all know that driving around a couple thousand pounds of steel, glass, and plastic, by burning gasoline just to go down the street to drop off a library book, or pick up lunch, is an inherently silly endeavor. If you think about the power of your car, 0-60 in such and such, this or that horsepower, 300+ miles per tank, it becomes clear that cars are highly powerful [...]

The Arctic ice caps are melting at a rapid pace, massive hurricanes are regularly destroying large swaths of this country, rivers are drying out, species are being wiped out by pollution, oceans are becoming more acidic, wars are raging, crime is rampant, pit bulls are eating children…*click*

This is what we are faced with every time we turn on the television, listen to the radio, or pick up a newspaper. It would seem that [...]

In a recent Wall Street Journal article entitled ‘Wind Jammers," the Journal manages to take both sides of the Cape Wind issue, without really taking either, while at the same time firmly sticking their foot into their mouths. If you are not familiar with Cape Wind (or I should say the war over Cape Wind), here is a brief update. A company wants to install a [...]

If I told you that I was going to give you a magic device that would save you money, save the planet, and, oh yeah, firm up that flab you have been carrying around with you for the last couple of year (all for three easy payments of $19.95!), what would you say? Most people would be pretty stoked, but when I tell people that this magic device is a bicycle, the thrill [...]

So how will you deal with global warming? The Global Warming Survival Handbook gives us 77 essential skills to stop global warming, or live through it. Written by David De Rothschild, self-described adventurer and the founder of Adventure Ecology, the book lays out 67 ways to stop global warming and 10 ways to live through it if we can’t.

I wasn’t exactly sure how I [...]

I used to work for a renewable energy contractor. We would get calls from people all the time who wanted to install solar panels, solar thermal panels, wind turbines, and even geothermal systems. The very first questions we asked were "What is your current lighting system?" "Your current heating system?" "The amount of insulation in the home?" It was around this point that they would interrupt us and ask what any of [...]

You recycle, you drive a fuel efficient car, you buy organic food, you turn the thermostat down at night: in short, you are trying your best to make this world a better place. Your parents however still use incandescent light bulbs, still don’t recycle, and still look at you like an alien every time you suggest they trade in their giant land tank for something more sensible. If this sounds like your [...]

So often we are bombarded with messages relating to our purchasing choices. Billions of dollars are spent each year trying to get us to buy the latest this, and the newest that. Lately a new and promising trend has emerged. Driven by customer demand, big companies are now promoting green and sustainable products. We hear a lot about organic, free range, hormone free, etc. So much of what we [...]