Green Options

Like this post? Subscribe to our RSS feed and stay up to date.

It’s been going on since 1922, seven western states staking their claims on Colorado River Water. For years, a sometimes divisive battle has raged as Colorado, Utah, California, Arizona, Wyoming, Nevada and New Mexico all said they weren’t getting their share of the precious liquid.

It came to an end in Las Vegas, when representatives of the seven states inked their signatures to a 20 year water-use agreement that now supersedes the 1922 pact.

The plan resolves several legal issues among water agencies and formalized rules fostering cooperation during drought conditions now ongoing in the region. The states are promising consultation and negotiation before litigation on Colorado River water issues. What a concept.

Three lower-basin states, Arizona, California and Nevada will use the Lake Mead reservoir behind Hoover Dam to store water they won’t use or need right now. Thirty million people depend on water in that region, especially in Southern California, where 26 cities and water districts serve about 18 million customers.

Just when you think you’ve heard it all, along comes a new study that finds yet one more way in which we humans can screw up the environment: get divorced.

Actually, as weird as it might sound at first, the discovery — published in this week’s online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences – makes perfect sense once you consider the typical result of divorce: two people and, possibly, [...]

There’s good news for the future of green-collar employment, but it comes with a caveat: maximizing job growth in green industries will require the right public policy support. That means law-makers need to approve measures such as a renewable portfolio standard, incentives for renewable energy, public education programs and adequate funding for research and development.

If such measures are put in place, the U.S. could see as many as one out of every four [...]

Can better energy efficiency help us reduce our consumption of fossil fuels and curb our greenhouse gas emissions? Maybe not as much as some hope.

While some people tout better and more energy-efficient technology as one solution to our current fuel and climate challenges, their expectations might be overblown. A new study from the UK Energy Research Centre, for example, finds that improved efficiency sometimes creates a tendency to use more energy, or [...]

Consumer Consequences, an interactive online game/environmental footprint calculator launched by American Public Media this week, strives for more detail than other footprint calculators have offered — which proves to be both a positive and a negative.

A positive because, by asking detailed questions about, say, your eating and drinking habits as well as all the more typical queries — What’s your monthly electric bill? What’s your car’s

[...]

Remember the logic word puzzle from middle school: “Which is heavier, a ton of feathers, or a ton of lead?” Some of us answered with the obvious response: they are of the same mass. Others of us got stuck on the materials under reference. For those of you who relate to the latter, I’m here to tell you it’s ok, and there is help.

Many factoids that we hear throughout the

[...]

In the design world, often times young architecture/design firms and even individual designers will apply to competitions during the young part of their career to get public recognition, build credentials, and experience the social circuits around design.

As a young aspiring designer myself, I have made a keen observation of the design industry this year. Many of the call-for-entries and competitions this year have been for solutions related to sustainable development, energy,

[...]

Editor's note: This week, Chris Baskind from Lighter Footstep takes a look at overpackaged goods — and what you can do about them. This post was originally published on May 15, 2007.

Maybe this has happened to you. A desk pen set which comes in shoebox-sized packaging. One aspirin, shrink-wrapped on a six-by-six inch card. A small electronic part that arrives wrapped in more plastic than the device itself.

What a

[...]

Proving that marketing is ever opportunistic in the face of growing environmentalism, Honda unveiled a Formula One racing car devoid of sponsorship logos and covered with an image of planet Earth. The campaign comes as Honda wishes to draw more attention to the environment and encourage people to donate to relevant charities.

Energy conservation is an easy solution, especially when it doesn't affect your day-to-day life. Often we waste electricity, but we don't even benefit from that usage. A perfect example of this is leaving the lights on when you leave the room.