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Shirley Siluk Gregory

Shirley Siluk Gregory, a transplanted Chicagoan now living in Northwest Florida, represents the progressive half of Green Options' Red, Green and Blue segment. She holds a bachelor's degree in Geological Sciences from Northwestern University but graduated in 1984, just when the market for geologists was flatter than the Florida landscape. Just as well, though: she had little interest in spending her life either in a laboratory or, heaven forbid, an oil field. So, of course, she went into journalism.

After extremely low-paying but fun and educational stints at several suburban Chicago weeklies and dailies, Shirley and her then-boyfriend/now-husband Scott found themselves displaced by a media buyout and spending the next several years working as freelancers. Among their credits: The Chicago Tribune, a publication for the manufactured-housing industry, and Web Hosting Magazine, a now-defunct publication that came and went with the dotcom era.

Shirley's always been concerned about nature and conservation (and an avid pack-rat, as her family can attest to), but became even more rabidly interested in the environment primarily due to two factors: the growing signs that global warming was real and threatening, and the birth of her son, Noah, in 2003. Suddenly, the prospect of a world that might not be quite as habitable in 40 or 50 years took on a whole new, and personal, meaning.

Living where she lives now also helped light the fire of Shirley's environmental awareness: her hometown was severely damaged by Hurricane Ivan in 2004, and beaten up again by Hurricane Dennis in 2005. That, and the fact that she and her family were vacationing in New Orleans until the day before Katrina -- and spent 12 hours driving home for a trip that normally takes 3 -- has made Shirley deeply appreciate how fragile our lifestyles are, and how dependent they are on sound management of natural resources and sustainable living practices. That's why she's become a passionate reader and writer about all things green and sustainable.

Planetsave

Let’s Talk About the ‘C’ Word

Of all the solutions to climate change, dwindling resources and a degraded natural environment, one consistently seems to have all the appeal of a dirty word.

It’s the “c” word. As in “conservation.”

Now, I appreciate all the diligent researchers and inventors working so hard to create the ultimate “green” bullet, whether it’s a never-exhausting source of clean energy, cheap and printable solar panels you can put anywhere, energy from garbage or carbon-dioxide-based plastics. But unless one of these near-magic solutions can enter the mass market in the next couple of years, we’re not going to make an appreciable dent in our resource and energy demands before the proverbial dirty word starts hitting the fan.

EcoLocalizer

Solar Energy Could Power U.S. Many Times Over

If the U.S. moved aggressively to start harnessing the solar power it receives daily, it could generate enough clean energy to meet the country’s needs many times over, according to a new report from Environment Florida.

The report, “On the Rise; Solar Thermal Power and the Fight Against Global Warming,” touts the multiple benefits of solar thermal power that the U.S. has barely begun to tap. One, it’s a clean source of energy that could replace other power sources that generate greenhouse gases and worsen climate change. Two, by storing thermal energy, it can generate electricity even when the sun isn’t shining. And ,three, it’s wildly abundant in the U.S., offering way more clean energy than we currently use on a daily basis.

EcoLocalizer

Green Your Home With DIY Projects

Oakland, California-based architect Michelle Kaufmann has made a career of promoting green homes and green communities through her company, Michelle Kaufmann Designs. But if you’re not in the market for a new house, she still has some pretty cool tips for greening your home on the cheap.

On her blog, Kaufmann features do-it-yourself videos for a neat variety of eco-projects that let you reduce energy costs, recycle objects into useful items and add elements of clean, green living to your home.

EcoLocalizer

The Looming Internet Energy Crisis

If you think the virtual, online world helps reduce energy consumption in the real world (a topic we’ve touched on before here at Green Options Media), think again: a new study by management consulting firm McKinsey & Company provides scary insights into how Internet computing is devouring more and more power and spewing out more and more greenhouse gases.

Based on data from the Uptime Institute, a technology consulting company based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, the McKinsey report finds that, between 2000 and 2006, the amount of energy needed to power data centers doubled, and that consumption is likely to double again by 2012. In the U.S. alone, we would need to build 10 new power plants by 2010 just to meet the growing energy needs of this country’s data centers.

EcoLocalizer

Unintended Consequences and the Ethanol Deathwatch

The U.S.’s rush to grow corn for fuel has already been blamed for rising food costs that are pricing the world’s poor into hunger and malnutrition. But the high cost of corn is having another unintended consequence: a plunge in biofuel plants’ profit margins.

About one-fourth of all corn grown in the U.S. is now cultivated for fuel rather than for food. Meanwhile, the growing demand for both food and fuel is driving commodity prices for crops like corn to record highs. That means, even with the federal government’s generous subsidies for ethanol production, today’s biofuel profits aren’t what they used to be.

EcoLocalizer

Sean Penn Gets Dirty in New Orleans

Actor-activist Sean Penn, who became a celebrity rescue-worker helping to pull people off their rooftops after Katrina and the New Orleans flooding, returned to the Big Easy this past week as part of a new mission: The Dirty Hands Caravan.

Penn launched the effort at last week’s Coachella Festival in Indio, California, urging festival-goers to join a three-biodiesel-bus trip across the country to volunteer their services in communities that need help.

EcoLocalizer

Monsanto 1, Common Sense 0 … For Now

Hats off to Derry Brownfield, a Missouri radio broadcaster who spoke truth to Monsanto’s power and, as a result, lost his access to the broadcast studio in a company he co-founded.

The Corporate Crime Reporter tells the story in great detail, but here’s the tale in a nutshell:

Thirty-five years ago, Brownfield and Clyde Lear established Learfield Communications, now one of the top college sports radio broadcasters in the U.S. Lear bought out Brownfield in 1985, but Brownfield continued to broadcast for the company from its studios, eventually hosting a daily show called The Common Sense Coalition. On that show, he recently started assailing Monsanto, the multinational king of genetically modified crops and a company known for going after farmers who knowingly or unknowingly grow Monsanto-patented crops.

Ecoscraps

Alberta’s Oilsands: Now a Murderer

If you haven’t yet read the heartbreaking news or seen the tragic images, here’s another reason to oppose Canada’s oilsands development: On Monday, some 500 migrating ducks landed in a waste pond at a Syncrude site in Alberta … and only a handful survived long enough to be rescued and, with luck, restored to […]

EcoLocalizer

All the News That’s Fit to Download

The always-progressive Capital Times of Madison, Wisconsin, has once again offered a worthy — and green — lesson to its print media counterparts across the U.S.

That’s because, as of this week, the daily newspaper is being distributed exclusively online. The Capital Times’ last daily print edition went out on Saturday, April 26.

A Monday article in The Washington Post notes the Madison newspaper, like almost every traditional print paper across the country, has seen a steep drop in circulation over past decades. The switch to an exclusively online edition (outside of a free weekly insert in The Wisconsin State Journal)  also comes with a deep cut in employees  — from about 60 to 40, but the paper promises to continue delivering local and breaking news seven days a week.
 

EcoLocalizer

How to Save Gas with ‘Real’ Affordable Housing

When is a housing bargain not a bargain? When you add in the costs of getting from home to work, school, the stores and elsewhere.

Seems logical, right? But knowing how your transportation costs can affect your decision on where to live isn’t easy. Fortunately, along comes a new online tool that makes it considerably easier.

The Housing + Transportation Affordability Index lets you see which parts of the U.S. are truly affordable when you factor in both housing and transportation costs. The index lets you zoom in and explore 52 metropolitan areas across the country and, to be honest, it’s both fascinating and a little addictive.

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Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco 2008

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