Green Options

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I found Smelly Chick’s Online Soapmaking Resource the other day, because they had blogged about my seed packet tutorial. Interestingly enough, the site includes “tutorials, soap porn, industry news, and more”.

Now, the term “yarn porn” is often thrown around in the craft world. In fact, you are reading a blog post by the proud owner of knittingwhorehouse.com (I collect domain names with the loftiest of intentions). But… “Soap Porn”? Smelly Chicks, you asked for it, and I’m going to goat’s milk this for all it’s worth. Ahem…

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].

A new project sponsored by the Better World Foundation called On Day One is designed to help you do just that. Recently, I was able to ask Mark Leon Goldberg and Travis Moore a few questions about this exciting new project, as well as the Better World Foundation’s UN-themed blog called UN Dispatch.

Tim Hurst: What is the Better World Foundation and how did you get involved with the organization?

Mark Leon Goldberg: I should say at the outset that I am not a spokesperson for the Better World Campaign (BWC). I am a consultant to the BWC, which is a sister organization to the United Nations Foundation. But a good description of UNF can be found here. And BWC here.

I am well qualified to speak about how I got involved with them. From 2004 to 2006 I was a writer for the American Prospect magazine, a political monthly here in DC. At the prospect, I wrote about international affairs, specifically the United Nations and other institutions like the International Criminal Court. I’ve been fascinated with these subjects and have followed these issues closely for a long time. As my stint at the prospect was coming to a close, the United Nations Foundation contacted me and asked if I would help them write UN Dispatch, their new blog about the United Nations and international affairs. I readily accepted.

TH: Perhaps you could explain more about what your mission is at On Day One and the UN Dispatch blog. Who is your target audience?

The target audiences of UN Dispatch and On Day One are slightly different, though there is probably much overlap. UN Dispatch was started to fill what was a void in commentary about the United Nations. In general, when blogs mentioned the UN, the commentary tended to be fairly misinformed. UN Dispatch was founded to try and correct some of the misinformation out there about the UN. Our audience tends to be drawn from the advocacy, think tank, international organization and philanthropic communities.

We are very much part of the on-going foreign policy debate that is forever raging in the political blogosphere. We tend to be slightly wonky, but strive to be accessible to a wider audience. We also aggregate global news in a daily round-up we call “Morning Coffee.”

On Day One is slightly different. For a good description of On Day One’s history, goals and audience I will turn this over to On Day One’s leader, Travis Moore of the Better World Campaign.

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 [...]

It is gardening season across the Northern Hemisphere. My children’s interests wax and wane in the garden, but they’ve enjoyed the recent abundance of asparagus and seed planting. My daughter likes to harvest the asparagus, probably because we let her use a knife under close supervision, and my son loves to plant the seeds and dig holes. We are all anxiously awaiting the arrival of the strawberries!

Over the years of organic gardening with children, I have learned to relinquish some control to perfect rows, perfect spacing, etc. Now, I have added seed and plant selection to the list of gardening enjoyments I now share with my children. It all started when the seed catalogs started arriving at the end of winter. Both of my children took an active interest in the pictures, so I suggested they start circling varieties they wanted to grow. Now that we are planting, they have a vested interest in our efforts, and I believe this will carry over to trying new foods and healthy eating from our organic garden.

In case you didn’t see it, Eco Child’s Play was featured in this weekend’s New York Times. In a piece called “Blogging Against Barbie“, Dan Mitchell wrote:

When greenwashing is aimed at adults, environmentalists generally find it annoying and sometimes — if it is sufficiently transparent — amusing. But when children are the targets, the environmentalists find it infuriating. So when Mattel recently issued a news release promoting

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When we launched the Green Options Media blog network back in November, we knew that we wouldn’t be alone for long: both green blogs and sites, and more focused blog networks, are popping up on a very regular basis. As a company, we were sure we could hold our own in terms of competition; as environmentalists, we were excited about the potential of blog networks to further communicate green ideas to a mainstream audience. So, we [...]

Editor’s note: This is the third of a weekly guest spot by children’s media consultant Ashley. Ashley is a television and online producer and Executive Editor of Children’s Media Consultant.com. She holds a B.A. from Columbia University and a M.A. concentrating in children’s educational media and preschool ecology from New York University. She resides with her family in downtown New York City. You can visit her blog at childrensmediaconsultant.com.

Little did I realize that when I wrote “Why Isn’t Kid’s TV More Eco-Friendly?” (which I have been researching for the better part the last three years) that it would circulate around the web with such positive feedback. Although I’ve served as a children’s television consultant for multiple programs to determine how to effectively incorporate ecology content into their preschool curricula, this is the first time I’ve been able to initiate a dialog online about the content that’s already out there (or lack thereof).

How do the media professionals and parents weigh in?

Many parents are concerned about the presence of Bisphenol-A (BPA) in plastic baby bottles and sippy cups. Previously, we have written several posts on the subject, as the potential negative effects of this endocrine-disrupting hormone found in many plastics is alarming . Finally, there is one site parents can go to for a complete picture of BPA and children’s beverage containers: Z Recommends.

Bloggers Jeremiah and Jennifer McNichols have completed the most thorough and comprehensive directory of BPA in baby bottles and sippy cups. Consisting of 25 individual posts, the Z Report recommends “Top Picks”, “Promising Entrants”, “Proceed with Caution”, and “Brands to Avoid.” There are individual posts for each company, as well. As Jeremiah explains, “The chart assesses the companies overall - for example, we are recommending avoiding companies that DO have a few BPA-free items, because their policies are inconsistent, they are strongly pro-polycarbonate, or they do not offer a non-polycarbonate bottle (even though they may have non-BPA sippys). We tried to give a broad picture of which companies are worth doing business with based on their BPA stance, and then have the company-specific pages to provide per-product information. All Top Pick companies make only BPA-free products.” Z Recs’ goal is to have all companies disclose on their labels exactly what kinds of plastics are used on products that come into contact with children’s mouths. This sure would help consumers make wise decisions in the store, but for now, visiting The Z Report: A Directory of Bisphenol-A In Baby Bottles and Sippy Cups will help parents make sense of BPA in children’s products.

By: Anthony J. Gerst:

What do we know today, if anything? As my father is fond of saying, ‘I know nothing, I can prove it, ask me anything.’ Recently it has been reported that at CO2 atmospheric concentration levels of 500 ppm, the oceans will stop calcification. It has been well documented that the planet’s southern ocean is no longer acting as a carbon sink. And of course, one million acres of ice disappeared from the Arctic and we discovered that Greenland melted at a rate of 25 percent over estimations during this past season.

For the Cro-Magnon in our mist, be they from the trailer parks or the intelligent design pews of humanistic debauchery, to the ten-thousand dollar suited board and CEO members who still can grunt out the response: “huh, I don’t care.” People fail to comprehend the baseline conceptions of what this foretells. People lament my forecast of an impending ecological disaster. They scream, I kid you not, ‘you can’t tell the future.’ I don’t have to tell the future, all I have to do is deduce the information presented yearly. ‘But, but the scientists say we have at least 100 years.’

In the first place, taking that attitude without committing to changing anything is dooming future generations. The deduction here is simply enough, you are not humane, you are narcissist, more animal than man, striving only to serve self. Do you know what humanity calls a completely self-indulged individual? One who justifies every action they do, a psychopath. Have you as an individual questioned your humane meter lately? If you still possess the ability to glance within the looking glass, you may be very surprised at what you find.

Enough of the free psychoanalysis, what does the above information tell a mind that is capable of independent thought? By now most people in the civilized world should know that the Arctic ice cap reflects the sunlight from the earth, helping to stabilize our optimum temperature. Further we know that the ice melting from Greenland affects the oceans circulatory system. This in effect, when slowed or stopped adds to the problem of the oceans acting as a carbon sink, under the currently defined harmonic balance for our species.

Ever year scientists make predications, at first things dropped by ten fold, than by fifty, than by 25 percent. One thing that is obvious is that the time to severe ramifications is knocking at the planet’s door. You know that little thing called Rapid Climate Change, that so many fail to acknowledge. Let us say that the annual growth rate of CO2 is 2 parts per million instead of the current 1.93. We are now at 381 ppm in the atmosphere. This means we have 119 parts per million to go before the now forecasted point of doom. At current growth rates we are looking at 60 years tops, to get everything under control.

The Dream of Today’s Youth, Faith in Obama:

By: Anthony J. Gerst. In the timeless words spoken by men everywhere and throughout time, I say to the reading audience “oops.” The Grand Opening for the new Obama office in Iowa was at Keokuk, not Fort Madison. A little background information on this, Iowa has 99 counties, currently there are 45 offices in [...]