Green Options » Blogging

Open Thread: Blog Day 2008 - Your Favorite Environmental Politics Blogs

Timothy B. Hurst — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 21:43:52 +0000

Blog Day was created with the belief that bloggers should have one day dedicated to getting to know other bloggers from other countries and areas of interest. The idea is that on August 31 (today), participating blogs will “post a recommendation of 5 new blogs; preferably blogs that are different from their own culture, point of view and attitude.” I had completely forgotten about it until our friends at Max Gladwell reminded us.

In the spirit of collaborative politics, I’d like to make this a collaborative project. Here’s what I’m thinking; in stead of me popping off the five most important, most-visited, or my otherwise favorite environmental politics blogs (which I did an iteration of already), I’ll just start us off with a couple of good ones and why I like them. Then we want you to tell us what you all are reading and why you are reading them for your environmental politics fix.

The universe of environmental politics blogs is ever-expanding, so keeping track of all the growth can be a dizzying enterprise. This project is all about spreading the word about good blogs, and in particular, about blogs that might fly under the radar of the “mainstream” green blogs. Obscure, international, and highly specialized blogs are encouraged and welcomed. This can even be an exercise in self-promotion. If you think your blog is a valuable source of information or analysis on the major themes found in environmental politics. Alright, let’s have at it!

Open Thread: Environmental Politics Blogs:

Hill Heat: Edited and published by “The Cunctator,” located in Washington, D.C., Hill Heat provides informative commentary and analysis of covering global warming developments on Capitol Hill. What I find particularly helpful is the complete listing of global-warming related congressional hearings and other events in and around D.C.

DeSmogBlog: With a tag-line like, “We’re here to clear the PR pollution that clouds the science of climate change,” what’s not to love? DeSmogBlog is loaded with well-written, timely, and insightful content. I particularly enjoy how they focus on covering the coverage and watching the watchers.

The Sietch Blog: Although I don’t visit as often as I used to (the same can be said for virtually all of the blogs I visit), the Sietch Blog always has something good in store for its dedicated cadre of readers. The blog focus is not only on environmental politics, but on clean tech, renewable energy, and the larger “green” movement. On any given day, you can find some good writing mixed with a smattering of video content and even a little humor thrown in for good measure.

I could keep going, but now it’s your turn…

The Art of Self-Reliance: Bloggers Document Urban Homesteading Movement

Kelli Best-Oliver — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 15:32:18 +0000

The idea of a little farm in a big city sounds daunting to some, impossible to others, but to bloggers who are reclaiming their bit of city green space and saying no to Big Farm, self-reliance is not only possible, but the preferred way to live a rich and rewarding life. A small movement of people are eschewing the outsourcing of their everyday needs and are choosing, instead, to produce as much of what they need at home, transforming tiny plots of land into thriving gardens, raising chickens and goats for eggs and milk, canning, preserving, cheesemaking, soapmaking, and any other project on which Mother Earth News has advice. And, in true 21st century form, they’re blogging about it.

Read more of this story »

(Live)Blogging “Energy’s Future is in Technology” (Part III - Consumer Behavior)

Timothy B. Hurst — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 05:29:55 +0000

Rising prices at the pump, big jumps in home electricity bills, certain increases in global energy demand and, of course, the mounting global climate challenge, have people wondering if technology is the answer. Technophiliacs will argue until silicon wafers start spewing from their major orifices that technology is indeed the answer, and that all we need is more investment in R&D to help us find that silver bullet, or to borrow a term from Stanford economist Jim Sweeney, “silver birdshot.”However, while I do see technological advances as part of the solution, I am concerned that an over-reliance on technology will make us complacent about seriously addressing the politics of our major energy and environmental concerns.

Last week’s Newsweek/American Petroleum Institute panel at Stanford that I was invited to helped shed light on the very technology v. behavior problem I addressed above.** The panel moderator, Newsweek Senior Editor of Business and Technology, David Jefferson kicked off the event by admitting that, while he is certainly cognizant of the pressing environmental issues we are currently facing, he could be doing be more. He candidly admitted that he drives a Mustang convertible, that he has installed compact fluorescent lightbulbs in his outside lights, but not his indoor ones, and that he does not shy away from using his home’s thermostat, although he is also not afraid of throwing on a sweater if it is a little chilly.

Kennedy set the event off on an interesting note by taking an editorial position that struck me. Kennedy said something like, “it is not about changing consumer behavior,” and this is where Kennedy and I have a theoretical and philosophical divergence.

[Note: I included the photo above as evidence of the rapidly changing world of media. Five to ten years ago, who would have guessed that oil executives would ever sit down with green bloggers to talk about energy policy? Certainly, not me. Pictured left to right are Maria Surma Manka of Maria Energia, me (Tim Hurst) of Green Options & EcoPolitology, Paul Siegele of Chevron, and Brian Westenhous of New Energy and Fuel].

Read more of this story »

Liveblogging “Energy’s Future is in Technology” (part I)

Timothy B. Hurst — Thu, 29 May 2008 23:56:08 +0000

[In the spirit of full disclosure, my travel to this event was covered by the American Petroleum Institute. And while some of my readers might consider my sponsors 'the bad guys,' their intention of opening up a serious dialogue about energy issues, particularly with environmental bloggers, should be applauded]

In the wake of yesterdays annual meetings at ExxonMobil and Chevron that saw shareholders vote down several proposals that would have required the two energy giants to give greater consideration to issues of environmental protection and human rights, Chevron and Newsweek are co-hosting a forum called “Energy’s Future is in Technology: Innovation in Energy Supply, Energy Efficiency and Alternative/Renewable Energy” (now that’s a mouthful). The event, hosted at Stanford’s Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California has just commenced and I am blogging in a room of about 150 academics, journalists, energy industry representatives, and opinion leaders (they even gave us our own table to sit at). More to come…

(Part II - Politics and Policy)

(Part III - Consumer Behavior)

Photo courtesy of the API

R, G, & B Named Red Orbit Blog of the Day

Timothy B. Hurst — Sat, 24 May 2008 19:13:30 +0000

We are pleased and humbled to announce that the good folks over at RedOrbit have named Red, Green, and Blue as the ‘Red Hot Blog of the Day‘ for May 23, 2008.

RedOrbit.com provides mountains of wide-ranging content contained covering the vast ideological spectrums of space, science, health, and technology. Launched in in 2003, RedOrbit averages over 5 million unique visitors per month, “with subject matter a bit more intellectually oriented than most” (I love that last part).

Flock Eco-Edition Provides Easy Green Browsing… and Blogging

Jeff McIntire-Strasburg — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 14:23:02 +0000

In the last-minute rush of Earth Day press solicitations yesterday, it was easy to get a bit bogged down, and even let some things slip through the cracks. One email that did catch my eye, however, was web browser Flock’s release of its “Eco-Edition.” I’ve used Flock on and off for over a year now (it was fantastic for uploading a massive collection of stock photos for our writers last year), and was pleased to see that the browser had created a version that allowed for seamless “green” browsing, and tools optimized for green blogging.

I’ve always liked Flock for its focus on integration of social media functions into the browser itself: right now I’ve got one-click access to Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc. The Eco-Edition adds a one-stop shop for green news and blog hounds: the “Green” page that loads when the browser starts features feeds from most of the web’s top destinations for information and opinion on sustainability and environmentalism (including sustainablog — thanks, Flock!). The refresh button even features the ubiquitous recycling symbol — a nice touch! As our friend Michael d’Estries at Ecorazzi noted, this creates a seamless experience: the best of the green web is right at my fingertips. Combined with Flock’s integrated social media and blogging tools, the Eco-Edition provides an efficient interface for all of the steps we green bloggers go through in writing, publishing and promoting our work.

Read more of this story »

Talking Fashion with Wearing the Future Editor and Writer Kyeann Sayer

Victoria Everman — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 09:12:02 +0000

Ever wonder what fashion bloggers are really like? We have! While it would be difficult to try and analyze ourselves, we jump at the chance to chat with other eco-minded online writers to get their perspective on sustainable fashion and its place in the entire green movement.

Launched a month and a half ago as part of the new EcoGeek blogging network, Wearing the Future is all about “straight talk as much as style, so you won’t have to worry about fluffy, PR-soaked, greenwashing nonsense.”

I recently had the pleasure of chatting with the blog’s chief editor and head writer, Kyeann Sayer (pronounced like “cayenne” pepper). As a long-time writer for Treehugger.com, Kyeann has an impressive media resume - she has been featured on CNN, MSN, I.D. Magazine, Domino, Spin, Outside, and Women’s Wear Daily … just to name a few.

In our lively conversation, Kyeann and I talk about the beginning of Wearing the Future, her favorite eco-fashion brands, personal style’s place in the world of green living and more - read on for all the juicy details!

Victoria Everman: How did you get connected with Hank Green of EcoGeek? Did the two of you come up with the idea for Wearing the Future together or was he on the look-out for an editor and writer already?

Read more of this story »

The 3 Commandments of a Top, Green Blogger (and Digg-er)

Olga Orda — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 23:27:29 +0000

A greenprinteronline.com dispatch.

According to The Daily Green featured video clip of top green digger, Andrew Sorcini a.k.a. Mr. BabyMan (he cautions others not to let their girlfriends choose their online nickname), it takes unwavering commitment or, if you like, borderline obsession, to become a top green blogger, or more accurately: a top, green Digger.

Whether or not you agree with his sense of humour, Sorcini is on top.

Read more of this story »

Share a CO2 calculator with your blog readers: 3 ways to increase your green blog’s traffic

Olga Orda — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 05:07:04 +0000

A greenprinteronline.com/blog dispatch - I once asked a city-based TV editor how he chooses the news stories from all the PR “flack” and “noise” he receives on a per hour basis (I counted about 43 emails an hour in his inbox). His response? “When I go home and my son asks, ‘Dad, what happened in the news today’? I take three seconds and usually, the most striking stories of the day come to mind. Today, it’ll be the story of two feet separated at the roadside and a helicopter that saved a 68-year old adrenaline junkie grandmother from hiking the local mountains.”

The point is, blog posts are first and foremost news (and “how-to” guides and lists…). And, with our 0.025 second internet attention span, blog posts need to be even faster and more captivating than print news. Aside from the blogging credibility guide, here are three tips to get you more traffic:

1. Share a CO2 calculator with your blog readers. Here’s hidden gem in the green blogosphere that’ll no doubt get your readers a little giddy if not incredibly interested to “interact” with your blog (that’s want you want).

Share the code of this CO2 blog calculator with your readers (who, I bet, are bloggers too) and win points. I bet you’ll get referrals on Stumbleupon too. By the way, Stumbleupon can be better than Digg for getting you traffic.

Read more of this story »

7 deadly blog sins thou shall not commit on thy eco-blog

Olga Orda — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 04:51:10 +0000

Besides loving chic elk and using eloquent Shakespearean language to speak about the beauty of treeless paper, sustainable printing technologies and paper that’s good to the planet, we devout tree-huggers here at Green Printer love to give you cool ideas to start and skyrocket your own eco-blog.

Read more of this story »

It’s Blog Action Day for the Environment

Jeff McIntire-Strasburg — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 14:28:02 +0000

In August, Lighter Footstep’s Chris Baskind pointed us to Blog Action Day, a single day on which

…participating bloggers will post an article which deals in some way with green issues. A financial blog might address eco-friendly investing. An automotive site could choose to focus on hybrids or plug-in vehicles. It’s all about the Earth — and diversity of opinion.

Well, Blog Action Day is here, and we’re proud to be among the nearly 16,000 blogs taking part in this day of action.

Of course, we do green issues every day at Green Options, so this is hardly a stretch for us. In order to contribute to the event, we’re going to highlight (and link to) posts throughout the day from "non-green" blogs. Here’s the first batch — I’ll update this post throughout the day to give you a glimpse of what’s being said around the blogosphere.

Obviously, with the number of blogs participating, the team and I won’t be able to read (or highlight) them all, so feel free to point to some of you favorites in the comments.

Congratulations to the organizers of Blog Action Day — what a great idea! Consider GO in for any future events…

Blog Action Day Posts

ZenHabits: 5 Ways to Save the World While Getting Fitter, Saving Money, Simplifying and Becoming Happier

Freelance Switch: 29 Simple Ways to Become a More Environmentally Friendly Freelancer (+ Help Us Donate $500 to Charity)

Chris Garrett: Noticing the World Around Us

Pronet Advertising: The Importance of Blog Action Day

Copyblogger: The Butterfly Effect and the Environment: How Tiny Actions Can Save the World

Lifehack.org: You the Consumer

GM.com: 10 years ahead of a scary schedule

Guitar Noize: Are "Green Guitars" Possible?

Successful Blog: Personal Environmental Action

Life, the Universe, and Everything: A Philosophical Satire

Blogging at Green Options: Blog On, Green Bloggers

Jeff McIntire-Strasburg — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 18:20:59 +0000

As Noel pointed out last week, Green Options now provides all registered users with a blog. If starting a green blog has been on your to-do list, now you’re only a mouse-click away from adding your voice to the "green blogosphere."

We’re pleased to see that a number of members have already started using their blogs, and we hope you’ll give it a shot, also. We’ve made sure that GO user blogs are fully functional, so you can:

Add images: It’s easy to add photographs and graphics to your blog posts — we’ve created a video (originally for our writing team) that walks you through the process. Keep in mind that many images may be under copyright, so be careful about using other people’s images — at minimum, you should give credit and a link.

Add links: Linking is also easy to do… see our "Blogging at GO" overview for instructions.

Add tags: Tags allow you to categorize your posts beyond the standard options available through the normal category structure. Your tags are also submitted to blogging megasite Technorati.

Use HTML: If you’re an advanced web author, you can add HTML tags through the by clicking on "disable rich text" below the "Body" text field.

Promote your blog: We’ve added widgets that allow you (or your readers) to easily submit your posts to social bookmarking sites StumbleUpon, Digg and Reddit.

Got questions? Check out our "How To" doc… and then blog away!

The most important news you’ll read this minute: Shea Gunther is leaving Green Options and Planetsave and is converting to Scientology. Praise Xenu.

Noelle dEstries — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 11:08:05 +0000

Big news Planetsavekateers, I’m outta here.

I’m leaving Green Options and Planetsave, though not to join Tom and John in their fight against the thetans.

I would like to say it’s to spend more time with my family, but that just makes me sound like a scandal ridden Bush official.

While I probably will get to spend more time with my family now, I’m leaving the company to work on my green home project and a few other side projects. My tenure at Green Options and Planetsave has been one of the most interesting, exciting, and invigorating times I’ve had. It ranks as one of my favorite startups (out of my current total of four) and I’m walking away with a greatly expanded network of friends and contacts, a ton of great experience in green publishing, and an awesome project to jump to.

What would have been called “The GO Home Project” is coming with me. I am buying the entire project from Green Options and taking it independent. I’m still working on a name for it (send it on if you have a good one) and will be building a site for it once that’s nailed down, but we’ll be starting up right away on sheagunther.org.

The short of it is is that me and my family are moving into two tipis to live for a year before building the coolest greenest house on the planet. We have 52 acres in North Yarmouth, Maine; the leading green architect in the state; a partnership with Smart HomeOwner Magazine, and a whole lot of great energy pushing it forward. Both me and my wife Heather will be blogging about living in the tipis and I will be set up in a smaller third tipi as my office. I’m sure I’ll have many a five minute snowshoe commutes to work this winter. We’re going to do our best to create a guide and recorded history of our life and work so as to inspire others to do choose the same green building path.

It’s been a great past year building Green Options and past few months working on the new Planetsave, but I’m super excited about all the fun stuff I’ll be able to take on now that my time is freed up from GO/PS work.

Here’s a few places you’ll be able to follow along on my adventures…

- SheaGunther.org - This is my home site, where I started blogging before I knew what blogging was (back in 2001) and current home of Musings of an Eco-Entrepreneur, the most kickass in-stasis eco-entrepreneur blog on the web. It’s been dormant since we launched Green Options but I’ll be doing a relaunch with a new theme in the next week or two. We’ll be blogging about living in the tipis and I’ll have a separate page for my links/musings drops . If you grew to like my blogs here on Planetsave, you’ll want to head over there.

- Treehugger- Graham Hill was kind enough to set up me up with a writing spot at Treehugger. I have to work out the exact details with their uber editor Michael but I couldn’t be more excited. I’ve been a huge fan of Treehugger since back in the day (back in the day in the green blogosphere means two+ years ago) and have always wanted to write there. They have such a great group of editors, writers, and an amazing reach- about 25X more daily readers than what Green Options is pulling these days.

- Yet to be named website for the Green Home Project. We’ will be documenting the crap out of our experience building the coolest greenest house on the planet on our yet to be named website. Sheagunther.org is a good place to go to keep up while I figure out what this new thing will be called.

- Stumblegods.com- It’s not really officially launched yet, but my buddy Michael (editor and founder of Groovy Green, founder and publisher of Ecorazzi, chief editor guy at Ecotality Life) and I will be sharing our insights about the power of StumbleUpon at our new site Stumble Gods. Our thumbs move masses baby.

- Ecotality Life- I’ve been working as a consultant with the awesome and talented Brooke Lowry over at Ecotality on the relaunch of their blog. We’ll be getting Ecotality Life up in the next week, in the meantime check out the current site. Ecotality Life will be relaunched with a focus on green gadgets and green business and investing and should be a good read.

- Email: sheagunther@gmail.com, Skype: shea_gunther

It’s been rad, I’ll miss a lot of the people at Green Options and Planetsave. I’ve gotta give it up to my main man Jan, the founder of Planetsave (he sold it to Green Options this Spring and works on both GO and PS stuff) and pimp dad advertising sales guru man. HIC! He’ll be assisted by the talented Noelle d’Estries (Michael’s sister) who will bring her savvy news sense (have you seen the Green Report, that’s all her) and keen wit to the table trying to fill the void that my voluminous ego will leave behind.

Keep up the good fight. Keep on saving the world.

Read more of this story »

BP responds to waves of criticism: Backs off plans to increase chemical discharge into Lake Michigan, will pollute the same amount as they did last year

Noelle dEstries — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 18:27:50 +0000

BP’s been feeling the heat over their plans to increase their dumping of ammonia and industrial sludge into Lake Michigan and have backed away from the plans, for now. Nice work greenies!

Here’s BP’s press release over at Earthtimes, via Earth2Tech

Read more of this story »

Green Stats! Get your green stats here! Three for a dollar! Get your green stats!

Noelle dEstries — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 12:07:15 +0000

EnviroStats! is a great site that pulls different eco-statistics from various points on the web. Every green blogger should have it in their RSS feeds. Here’s a few stats I pulled from it recently…

• 45 billion pairs of wooden chopsticks were tossed in China in 2006, 25 million trees were cut to make ‘em

• 50,000,000,000 square feet of drywall was produced in the US in 2006, creating 51,000,000 tons of greenhouse gas

• The US spent $50,000,000,000 on bottled water in 2006

• American buildings are responsible for 48% of all US greenhouse gas emissions

Swing over to EnviroStats! to grab their feed and read more green stats.

Read more of this story »

Jerkass of the Week: Off Grid Editor Nick Rosen- who reminds us all that the fight to save the world is no place for fun

Noelle dEstries — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 01:02:24 +0000

Get a load of this crap from Off Grid Editor Nick Rosen (the super secksay guy with smoldering good looks and a Miami Vice sense o’ style over there on the right)…

The new Eco-nazis bang the green drum but march to a dark tune. Take Ecorazzi for example - or should that be Econazzi? They go crazy every time a celebrity launches a new eco-lipstick, but forget to report on Hollywood’s poisoning of the planet. The sleazy web site is run by two dorks from Miami with about as much fashion sense as Osama bin Laden.

Rebecca Carter and Michael d’Estries could care less about the environment - they have seen a market gap and now they are busy serving it - green gossip about celebrities, and about as much moral content as a Submarine sandwich. According to locals insiders the pair have their eyes fixed on one thing - and its not the end of golbal warming -its the IPO of Econazi.

What is most sickning about their twee reportage is the implication that anyone who is not putting out some bullshit line of green product is somehow inferiro compared to the dreary parade of hapless celebrities they use to fill their pages. More later.

(Editor’s note: Nick, spell check is your friend. It’s “sickening” and “inferior”)

What a prickstar!

First, to claim that Michael and Rebecca don’t care about the environment is beyond absurd. I am good friends with both of them, hired them to come on board as writers at Green Options, and just had Michael as a guest out here in Maine for a few days. These two are are legit and green as you can get.

Michael works a full time job as an IT guy and has spent most of his free time in the two years I’ve known him working on his mini green publishing empire. He founded the highly esteemed green blog Groovy Green, is a regular and popular contributor to Green Options, is working on the new relaunch of the Ecotality Blog, and yes- happens to also run a fun little site with Rebecca called Ecorazzi that focuses on green celebrities.

Rebecca has equally strong green credentials. She’s been blogging at GreenerMiami for years now, runs green events and whatnot to build and support the local Miami and Florida green scene, and was the lone editor of the Green Tips o’ the Day on Green Options for the first five months of it’s life.

Ecorazzi is just one of their sites, the most poppy and fun. It’s an easy way into green for people who might first come at the site as a fan of celebrity gossip. I also bet it gets ten times as much traffic as Nick’s site. Nick Rosen, in addition to acting like a petulant child, is taking himself WAY too seriously here.

I give Nick credit for the contributions he’s made to the green world. His book “How to Live Off Grid” is a good one and up to now his blog hasn’t been bad. But this is just stupid. He is coming off like a right jerkass, maybe he’s doing it for the link bait? It worked with me, I’m giving him all sorts of links, the big schmomar that he is.

Or maybe he really is offended that anyone is taking a fun approach to green. It’s deadly serious business, this saving the world and all, but Nick- you need to lighten up buddy. Maybe you should spend a few nights ON the grid, a hot shower does wonders for the spirits.

Read more of this story »

ABC’s Amanda Congdon of ABC.com loves Planetsave, and by extension, me

Noelle dEstries — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 14:28:32 +0000

Amanda Congdon, the famed (and hawt) web video diva, just picked up a news item from Planetsave for her videocast for ABCNews. The second item she covers in her quirky vidcast is my story on the guy who turned down five billion dollars (yes, FIVE BILLION!) from a French uranium mining company who wanted to tear up his ancestral homeland.

Is it me, or does Amanda seem to linger, just a bit, when my name is on the screen. She’s obviously researched who I am and wants to know more.

Amanda, I’m sorry to say that I’m married, and while you are quite fetching, you didn’t make it on my “List“, so any kind of Entourage like hookup is out of the question. Please stop calling.

for

Read more of this story »

Reason #42 why Planetsave.com is better than your website: We make Micro-loans to Third World Entrepreneurs

Noelle dEstries — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 11:19:11 +0000

Did you know that we take a portion of our profits every week and make microloans to entrepreneurs in third world countries? We have an account at Kiva.org, a great website that handles everything in between you loaning out and the entrepreneur paying back.

For those unfamiliar with the concept of micro-loans, allow me to give you the quick rundown. Micro-loans is the act of giving small loans to entrepreneurs in the third world. The loans can be small, hence the name micro, as little as $50, and are used by entrepreneurs in places like Nigeria, Mexico, Peru, Indonesia, and East St. Louis (zing!) to start and expand businesses. We’ve made loans to shop owners, building contractors, seamstresses, natural medicines stores, and restaurants. Each fund at Kiva.org is in the $700 - $1,300 range and our average contribution per entrepreneur is $50-75. Each loan is built using funds from multiple lenders and are paid back, interest free, in 6-9 months. We have 24 Entrepreneurs in our Portfolio and we make new loans every week or two, all paid back loans go right back to new entrepreneurs.

Micro-finance has been shown to be an amazingly effective boost to people, families, and communities. It seeds a better quality of living and is truly giving people a helping hand up rather than a stream of ‘aid’ to become dependent on. The whole teach a man to fish thing. Kiva.org has a ridiculously low default rate of .02% on $886,385 in loans, so it’s a rock solidly safe investment.

I’m as die-hard an entrepreneur as you can get, so one of the first things I thought about when the idea of redesigning and retooling Planetsave was to bring micro-loans into the picture. Jan has been saving rain forest with the site since 1999 and he was glad to have the additional resources that are available to grow out the concept to include micro-loans and buying wind credits from Renewable Choice Energy (disclosure: I was a founder of RCE).

You can visit our Lender page on Kiva to see all the amazing people we’ve invested some of our profits into. You can read more and sign up yourself at Kiva.

That’s why Planetsave is better than your website. We just fucking care more.

Planetsave is looking for new writers and pays $4,000/post

Noelle dEstries — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 17:30:07 +0000

It’s been just about a month since we kind of wobbily relaunched Planetsave. For those of you just joining us, let me give you the quick history of this fine website.My friend Jan started it in 1999 as a free email and green news site. He ran it successfully ever since, except for a brief stint in which he sold it and then bought it back for less. I met Jan after I moved to Portland, Maine at the beginning of the year and wanted to hire him on at Green Options. We ended up buying Planetsave as part of the deal and made him a partner and Director of Sales and Business Development. We chose a strong new logo and look (gotta love the fist) and have plans for rolling out more cool green services once we get our launch jitters settled down.

I’ve been blogging all by my lonesome since then and it’s time I got some new writers on board. So, wanna write for us?

Here’s my ideal candidate:

- Experienced blogger: you know how to link, you’ve probably used Wordpress before, you can find and insert photos into posts, and you know what a Trackback is.

- Has a sharp eye for news, people, and development in the world of green. You read a lot of news and blogs, probably have a closet RSS addiction, and you can quickly scan headlines to find the most important items of the moment.

- Wants to save the world and is crazy enough to think that they can do it.

- Not afraid to call out standards, authority figures, and commonly held beliefs. You can say it short, sweet, and to the point.

- Rock solid dependable. You hit deadlines every single time barring family emergencies and robot attacks.

- A sense of humor.

We pay up to $20/post (the figure in the title is a typo, stupid intern), more for longer form and interviews. I’m looking to get 3-5 regular writers on board posting 3-5 times per week each.

To apply, please send the following to me at shea@greenoptions.com

- Your name, email address, home town, short bio, and brief writing history.

- Your blog/s that you write/have written on, direct links to your author’s index or individual posts is appreciated if it’s a big group blog.

- One paragraph on why you want to write for Planetsave.

- One sample post. What would your sixth post on Planetsave be if you made the cut? Give me the headline, body text, and link to the photo that you’d choose.

I’ll kick out $10 via PayPal to the first 10 writers who apply as an incentive and for a little compensation for the time spent on the sample post.

A good pirate joke also goes a long way with me. Arrr….

Green Rants: Hugg 2.0 is an ugly baby throwing up all over your shoes

Noelle dEstries — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 19:15:07 +0000

I didn’t say it, the angry green trolls over at Green Rants did- Hugg 2.0 sucks.

Even an ugly baby is kinda huggable.

But not this one: the new Hugg 2.0. It’s the latest incarnation of the Digg-wannabe from Treehugger, now a proud member of the Discovery’s Planet Green network.

You’d think Treehugger’s new corporate masters would expect a little more polish for something they just laid out $10 million to acquire. Or perhaps they were in such a hurry to dump Hugg’s previous configuration — a buggy, spammy, neglected mess — that the new site’s sterile, Web 1.2 presentation didn’t matter.

Letting the inmates run the asylum

No to speak ill of the dead, but the original Hugg gave new meaning to the term user generated content — as in, set up the site and never touch it again. Its rickety Pligg underpinnings always felt as if they might fly apart at any moment; features (such as reporting problems to the administrator) were broken or yielded cryptic error messages; and its pages were loaded with blog spam touting high-performance automobiles, vacation packages, and pitches for multilevel marketing schemes. It was all wrapped in an eye-searing electric green color scheme that would leave a nasty afterimage if you stared at it too long. Which few people did, judging from its long and obvious decline in participation.

Read more of this story »

Green Options » Blogging

Open Thread: Blog Day 2008 - Your Favorite Environmental Politics Blogs

Open Thread: Environmental Politics Blogs:

The Art of Self-Reliance: Bloggers Document Urban Homesteading Movement

(Live)Blogging “Energy’s Future is in Technology” (Part III - Consumer Behavior)

Liveblogging “Energy’s Future is in Technology” (part I)

R, G, & B Named Red Orbit Blog of the Day

Flock Eco-Edition Provides Easy Green Browsing… and Blogging

Talking Fashion with Wearing the Future Editor and Writer Kyeann Sayer

The 3 Commandments of a Top, Green Blogger (and Digg-er)

Share a CO2 calculator with your blog readers: 3 ways to increase your green blog’s traffic

7 deadly blog sins thou shall not commit on thy eco-blog

It’s Blog Action Day for the Environment

Blog Action Day Posts

More Posts (noonish)

Blogging at Green Options: Blog On, Green Bloggers

The most important news you’ll read this minute: Shea Gunther is leaving Green Options and Planetsave and is converting to Scientology. Praise Xenu.

BP responds to waves of criticism: Backs off plans to increase chemical discharge into Lake Michigan, will pollute the same amount as they did last year

Green Stats! Get your green stats here! Three for a dollar! Get your green stats!

Jerkass of the Week: Off Grid Editor Nick Rosen- who reminds us all that the fight to save the world is no place for fun

ABC’s Amanda Congdon of ABC.com loves Planetsave, and by extension, me

Reason #42 why Planetsave.com is better than your website: We make Micro-loans to Third World Entrepreneurs

Planetsave is looking for new writers and pays $4,000/post

Green Rants: Hugg 2.0 is an ugly baby throwing up all over your shoes