And that’s the case with today’s post, in which we point out reports that a string of Burger King restaurants in Memphis have been spotted with storefront signs reading, “Global warming is baloney.”

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Nope. This “Wild Girl,” as she calls herself, is in the middle of a week-long adventure in which she’s eating only food she can forage or catch on the wild streets of Portland. She’s blogging about her experience at Culture Change.

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Well, maybe not everyone’s doing it. But at least one resident of Alabama is, and he’s trying to spread the word about his innovation.

Wayne Keith of Springville, Alabama, who’s a cattle rancher and a partner in Renewable Energy Systems LLC, was inspired to develop his Bio-Truck back in 2003, when gas prices reached $2 a gallon. Looking for a better way to fuel his 1984 Ford truck, which he uses extensively on his ranch, he started building a gasifier that produces syngas from the partial combustion of wood.

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For a $10 entry fee, anyone with a great do-it-yourself project can submit his or her idea to the site, where visitors can vote for the ideas they like best. Yahoo! will also put on display some of the top product ideas during next week’s Maker Faire in San Mateo, California.

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A resident of Salt Lake City since 2006, Apa, 49, has now climbed Everest a record 19 times since 1990 — including twice in 1992. His most recent ascent was part of a WWF Nepal campaign to raise awareness of how climate change is impacting the Himalayas.

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The awards — named after the author of “Silent Spring,” the 1962 book widely credited with sparking the environmental movement — recognize women who “demonstrate great leadership and commitment to conservation.”

This year’s Rachel Carson Award winners include an oceanographer, an owner of an outdoor apparel business, a student conservation leader and three television executives who launched a green initiative for their channel.

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That’s what a group of students, faculty and staff did last week when they put down their laptops and picked up some caulking guns.

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Launched by doctoral candidates Amy Mueller and Matt Orosz, the MIT project aims to bring cheap and eco-friendly energy to parts of the world that are now off the grid. The focus of their efforts: Lesotho, in southern Africa, where many people now get their energy from highly polluting diesel generators.

The students’ alternative comes in the form of solar energy. Not the expensive, photovoltaic-dependent kind, but the affordable and easy-to-harness concentrating solar kind. Their energy generator uses a parabolic trough to concentrate the sun’s energy to heat water to provide steam energy as well as hot water.

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As an article in The Irish Times describes it, eco-bling is well-intended and expensive green technology that, once you crunch the numbers, doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. You know, like a costly solar-panel system that will pay for itself in 50 years but is likely to last only 20.

Liddell’s proposed antidote to eco-bling is a simple one: focus on efficiency rather than on bling. Insulate homes better. Seal leaky doors and windows. You know, plain and un-sexy conservation.

He’s got a good word for that, too: he calls it “Nega Watts.”

The Pennsylvania-based creators of myYearbook have gone beyond mere social networking to cause-based social networking. Their site’s Causes section encourages teens in the 10-million-member-and-counting network to turn their lunch money into real money for charity.

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You can check out the fascinating and entertaining video here.

Image credit: Kronn at Wikimedia Commons under a GNU Free Documentation License.

In my last feature — “Going Green? Learn from these Pros” — some of the stars were folks like Mike Turner, who retrofitted an old Honda Civic for a super imrovement in mileage, and Elizabeth Rogers, creator of a new Website (Shift Your Habit) that demonstrates the money-saving power of eco-friendly habits. This time, I’ve got some new green success stories to share:

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• Making its debut at the TED (”Technology, Entertainment, Design”) conference in California this week: the Mission One all-electric, super-sporty and zero-emissions motorcycle that can go up to 150 miles per hour;

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With that in mind, let’s look at some of the recent eco-stars across the U.S. whom I’ve discovered in my daily wanderings across the Web:

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Image credit: Inna Alesina’s Website.

(Did you know, by the way, that President Barack Obama’s pick for head of the Environmental Protection Agency — Linda Jackson — grew up in the lower Ninth Ward?)

So what’s new and green in the Crescent City? Check out some of these developments:

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  ]]> http://ecolocalizer.com/2009/01/27/green-new-orleans-updates-good-news-in-the-big-easy/feed/ http://ecolocalizer.com/2009/01/26/stimulus-bike-offers-two-wheeled-solution-to-economic-troubles/ http://ecolocalizer.com/2009/01/26/stimulus-bike-offers-two-wheeled-solution-to-economic-troubles/#comments Mon, 26 Jan 2009 19:33:30 +0000 Shirley Siluk Gregory http://ecolocalizer.com/2009/01/26/stimulus-bike-offers-two-wheeled-solution-to-economic-troubles/ Here’s an idea that’s good for the planet and so much more: it’s a new blog I’ve just discovered called Stimulus Bike. Its mission? To “Improve the health of our economy, ourselves, our environment, and our wallets!”

  Stimulus Bike says it wants to see economic stimulus funds work to promote cycling, something that could save us money over the long term (less gas money, fewer car repairs, etc.) and promote a healthier, more sustainable way of getting from here to there.

  Now, under President Barack Obama’s currently proposed American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the average citizen isn’t expecting to see a check in the mail a la last year’s economic boost effort (which didn’t work anyway). However, it’s possible you could benefit from reduced tax withholding in your paycheck. Stimulus Bike would like to see you invest those dollars in a two-wheeler of some kind:

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  ]]> http://ecolocalizer.com/2009/01/26/stimulus-bike-offers-two-wheeled-solution-to-economic-troubles/feed/ http://ecolocalizer.com/2009/01/22/michigan-food-bank-grows-its-own-fresh-produce/ http://ecolocalizer.com/2009/01/22/michigan-food-bank-grows-its-own-fresh-produce/#comments Thu, 22 Jan 2009 19:16:06 +0000 Shirley Siluk Gregory http://ecolocalizer.com/2009/01/22/michigan-food-bank-grows-its-own-fresh-produce/ How do two trends — the rise of backyard vegetable gardening and the downward spiral of the economy — come together? The Family Care Network in Manton, Michigan, knows how.

  The non-profit organization, which just won a $1,000 nutritional grant from the Consumer Wellness Center, will use the funds to buy the seeds and supplies it needs to plant three organic garden plots. When the harvest comes in, it will go straight to the network’s food bank for distribution to needy area seniors and families … giving them, as the Consumer Wellness Center says, “fresh produce instead of the typical canned and processed foods donated to food banks.”

  But, wait, there’s more:

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  ]]> http://ecolocalizer.com/2009/01/22/michigan-food-bank-grows-its-own-fresh-produce/feed/ http://ecolocalizer.com/2009/01/13/add-your-name-to-those-asking-for-a-real-and-green-new-deal/ http://ecolocalizer.com/2009/01/13/add-your-name-to-those-asking-for-a-real-and-green-new-deal/#comments Tue, 13 Jan 2009 19:46:59 +0000 Shirley Siluk Gregory http://ecolocalizer.com/2009/01/13/add-your-name-to-those-asking-for-a-real-and-green-new-deal/ Want to add your two cents’ worth to the incoming Obama administration’s call for New Deal-type investments in the US? You can help ensure a better future — and a greener one at that — by endorsing the Post Carbon Institute’s new proposal: “The Real New Deal: Energy Scarcity and the Path to Energy, Economic and Environmental Recovery.”

  Written by Post Carbon Instituters Richard Heinberg, Asher Miller, Daniel Lerch and Andrew Calvo, “The Real New Deal” calls on President-elect Barack Obama to completely redesign our economy and society to wean it from its dependence on cheap (and soon-to-be not-so-cheap) fossil fuels.

  “Our 21st century nation’s dependence on 20th century fossil fuels is the root of the economic and environmental threats we face,” the report’s executive summary states. “A coordinated, comprehensive transition to an economy that is no longer dependent on hydrocarbon fuels and no longer emits climate-changing levels of carbon — a Real New Deal for a post-carbon world — will be the Obama Administration’s greatest opportunity to lead the nation on a path toward economic, energy and environmental recovery.”

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  ]]> http://ecolocalizer.com/2009/01/13/add-your-name-to-those-asking-for-a-real-and-green-new-deal/feed/ http://ecolocalizer.com/2009/01/12/miss-america-contestant-opts-for-eco-friendly-evening-wear/ http://ecolocalizer.com/2009/01/12/miss-america-contestant-opts-for-eco-friendly-evening-wear/#comments Mon, 12 Jan 2009 19:08:59 +0000 Shirley Siluk Gregory http://ecolocalizer.com/2009/01/12/miss-america-contestant-opts-for-eco-friendly-evening-wear/ Are there many things more anachronistic in the 21st Century U.S. than the Miss America Pageant? (Come on, even the term “Miss” sounds dated when applied to human females older than, say, 11.) Still, if the storied annual beauty pageant must continue, it might as well do so in a way that’s a bit more up to date.

  And so it shall, at least for one contestant: Ashley Ruth Wheeler, aka Miss Vermont, is taking the pageant into modernity by choosing to wear a green — as in eco-friendly — gown. Her dress will not only be locally designed, but made with hemp, organic cotton, organic silk and recycled beads and lace.

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