Green Options

Last year, 300 folks across North America turned in their car keys for a month as part of the 2008 Zipcar Low-Car Diet. And, in addition to cutting congestion, they also walked 85% more, biked 136% more and decreased their miles driven by 71%. Pretty impressive, eh? Starting July 15, a new crop of participants from all Zipcar cities worldwide* will begin the 2009 Low-Car Diet: one full month of living [...]

Last week, I got my hair done and have never felt better about it!

 

Clove, a brand new salon in midtown Atlanta, strives to have more than the best products and service in town. Owner Tomeca Kanu and manager Carla Kootsillas are dedicated to giving back to the community and running the greenest business they possibly can!

Tomeca bought the salon while in the middle of what turned out to be sort of a rough year. A car accident meant she had to be on bed rest just as the business was getting going. She wasn’t able to take care of the day-to-day operations for a while, which is when Carla came on board to help out.

After Tomeca’s recovery, Carla says the two of them, “took a hard look at the business and what [they] could do with it.” They wanted it to be more than your run-of-the-mill salon. They wanted to “do something [they] felt good about.” The result is a beautiful salon with great service, a mellow atmosphere, and, the best part, a conscience.

I met Brooke Bennett of So She Sews at the Indie Craft Experience last weekend and fell instantly in love with her designs.

Like a lot of crafters, Brooke grew up in a handmade household. Her mom even ran a crafty business in the 80’s selling handmade “hair poofs.” Mom’s craftiness didn’t stop there! She also made a lot of Brooke’s clothes, including “this crazy pair of poofy overalls” out of old curtains.

Now, Brooke makes clothes, accessories and housewares constructed out of repurposed materials, like vintage fabric and linens, for her own crafty business. She sees vintage and found materials as a way to avoid “contributing to the raw textile industries which aren’t always fair to their workers overseas.”

I’m also totally digging her clutches and pouches made from fused plastic bags that would have been headed for the trash bin. I couldn’t even tell that it was plastic at first glance!

Brooke says she draws her inspiration mainly from the materials she finds and her “love of indie style.” She takes some of her cues from “international street fashion blogs like hel-looks.com.” Put it all together and you get beautiful, unique pieces like this teal and black dress that I’m coveting:

It’s slightly short notice, I know, but this Friday is Ride MARTA Day here in Atlanta!

A group of local activists is working to help raise awareness about MARTA and speak out against the threatened service cuts. They hope folks will pull together this Friday to boost ridership, introduce new riders to the system, and get folks thinking about the MARTA crisis. Check out more details and what you can do to help after the jump!

Regional officials are talking about using $25 million in bailout money to help MARTA cover its operating costs.

The Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC) recommended last week that funds earmarked for transit improvements go towards keeping MARTA afloat. The transit system is unable to cover its budget shortfall and operating costs, due to strict regulations on how it spends its revenue. MARTA gets the bulk of its funding from sales tax revenue, and it’s required to spend 50% on operating costs and 50% on capital expenses. This $25 million dollars would be a band aid fix, but it certainly beats cutting a day of service, like the MARTA board was proposing.

Not everyone is thrilled about this idea.

Governor Sonny Perdue is refusing MARTA officials’ request for a special session to address the crisis affecting Atlanta transit.

According to this story from the AJC, the Governor says that, “Special sessions are something we shy away from.” He said that his transportation staff met with MARTA officials, but he will not hold a special session to help the transit system address its financial woes. As a commenter on the AJC article pointed out, Perdue was happy to call a special session in 2006 when a judge struck down Georgia’s gay marriage ban. Maybe Perdue meant he tries to avoid special sessions when the issue at hand isn’t one that matters to him?

I gave Governor Perdue a piece of my mind, and you can get heard too! Here’s the letter I sent to his office and contact info so you can send one of your own.

Strict restrictions on how MARTA spends its revenue mean the system can’t afford to pay for its operating costs.

[Waiting for the Train. Creative Commons photo by Wesley Fryer]

The General Assembly voted down Senate Bill 120, which would have allowed MARTA to tap into $65 million in capital reserve funds. Since the system receives absolutely no state funding, it relies heavily on sales tax revenue to stay afloat. It’s a state restriction that is tying up the much needed money: MARTA is required to spend 50% of its revenue on operating costs and 50% on capital expenses. The really infuriating part of this vote is that the bill failed for reasons that had nothing to do with Atlanta’s transit system.

It’s been stormy here in Atlanta. We’ve had a wet winter and rainy early spring. In a drought-stricken region like this, you tend to hear variations on the same joke every time it rains: “Well, I guess that pesky drought is over!”

With all the rain this week, some folks have once again been saying we’re out of the drought. Only this time, it was no joke.

Georgia’s state climatologist, David Stooksbury, declared the drought over this week. All of the good rain we’ve had lately has apparently pulled North Georgia out of its water shortage with the exception of Lake Lanier and Lake Hartwell basins. So as long as you don’t count the two lakes where we get a large part of the region’s water, the drought is over!

Wait, what?

I have to admit that I’m a little embarrased. Yesterday, I gushed about Atlanta’s great green future, and then today, The Atlanta Jounral Constitution published this:

Without new revenue sources from the state or region…MARTA will be forced to dramatically reduce service levels, eliminating bus routes, cutting rail service (either certain days or times, or entire lines altogether), and potentially seriously impacting the overall economic well-being of this region and state.

This is from a memo that MARTA sent to state lawmakers. Atlanta’s transit system has been dealing with a $60 million budget shortfall since December. That, combined with a dramatic decrease in predicted sales tax revenue for the coming year have put the system into crisis. For a transit system funded entirely by sales tax revenue, it’s not surprising that MARTA is having trouble making ends meet. MARTA is one of the few, if not the only, transit systems in the nation that does not receive a penny of state funding.

Yesterday, the City of Atlanta announced its municipal carbon footprint and plans to reduce that impact by 7% over the next three years.

[Creative Commons photo by Steve Hardy]

That might not sound like a huge reduction, and I know that 7% (or 37,800 metric tons of greenhouse gases) isn’t going to save the world, but it’s a good first step! It’s the equivalent of 179 rail cars’ worth of coal or protecting 239 acres of from deforestation.

The City of Atlanta released a Sustainability Report outlining where they’re at and where they plan to go in terms of lowering the city’s carbon footprint.

Atlanta’s Brown Middle School teamed up with Trees Atlanta and Atlanta Audubon to launch a pilot environmental education partnership.

[Creative Commons photo by Jesse Budlong]

Together Green, the folks behind Pennies for the Planet are at it again! They’ve issued a grant that’s allowing Trees Atlanta to work with local schools on plantings and education. The program kicked off on Thursday with a student-only tree planting at Brown Middle that’s focused on giving Atlanta’s West End neighborhood along the BeltLine bird-friendly, native trees and shrubs.