Green Options

Worldwide there has been a growing solidarity with the people of Iran, and their brave local activism protesting against their increasingly repressive government. This photographic tribute to the Iranian people is accompanied by a partly Farsi cover of the Ben E. King classic “Stand by Me“; it was recorded by

In this 24 second animated short Elizabeth Press, one of the clever folks at Streetfilms, explains the beauty and simplicity of traffic calming by the utilization of chicanes, a series of constructed curves that slow car traffic, and make our streets safer and more livable.

This week Bill Maher’s “new rules” for America cover everything from the mysterious disappearance of bees, greed and health care, to climate change, war profiteering and Ronald Reagan.

Actor and activist Matthew Modine recently posted a very inspiring essay celebrating his love for the bicycle on the Huffington Post website. He explains that:

Just as tobacco has killed millions with different forms of cancer, the automobile industry and the pollution that has spewed from exhaust pipes ever since Henry Ford’s Model ‘A’ rolled off the assembly line, must be looked upon as a carton of cigarettes and a cancer to civilization. The automobile industry should not be bailed out so it can continue to manufacture the same product. The automobile industry should be transformed into an industry that builds non-combustion engines. They should be given contracts to build new light rail trains that can carry passengers comfortably and safely. And the light rail cars should have bike racks so passengers can get home from commutes too long to be made by bicycle. Imagine how many jobs could be created if the US supported light and heavy rail systems. The car is a mode of transportation that cannot propel itself or our country into the future. The burning of fossil fuels and the internal combustion engine is dead. Raise your glass to self-propulsion! Long live the bicycle.

The US Federal Aviation Administration released a document as a companion to their
online wildlife strike database. The numbers for both the research document and the database could be off by 80%, as the website states only about 20% of wildlife strikes are reported. So the number of bird strikes and animal strikes could be much higher. (The data has been entered only up to Dec. 2008 perhaps due to collection difficulties).

The Showtime series Weeds brings us this abbreviated animated history of marijuana. It wanders from China to Turkey to Queen Victoria, and also states that cannabis is the number one cash crop in the United States, raking in nearly $36 billion untaxed dollars every year.

Kudos to the six women who this week won the National Audubon Society’s Rachel Carson Awards.

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.

When you’re out and about, how do you find businesses near you that mesh with your values? How do you let others on the go know about your green business? Just pull up the new 3rdWhale Mobile app on your iPhone!

The Meatrix is a clever animated short that explains how incredibly cruel, destructive and dangerous factory farming truly is. Even the recent over-hyped outbreak of swine flu has been linked to poorly managed factory farms in Mexico, that are actually owned by US Agribusiness giant Smithfield Foods, the world’s largest industrial pork producer. “Industrial farms are super-incubators for viruses,” said Bob Martin, former executive director of the Pew Commission on Industrial Animal Farm Production, and a vocal critic of “contained animal feeding operations.”

Last Wednesday, as I was riding my bicycle down Third Street to the UCSF Mission Bay Farmer’s Market, my thoughts turned to the economist Jospeh Schumpeter and his seminal book “Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy”. Streams of loud cars and trucks barreled past me on the road, some of the vehicles nearly grazing me as oblivious drivers chattered on cell phones. As I continued pedaling down the street, images of organic daikon and Schumpeter’s theory of “Creative Destruction” swirled around [...]

More people than ever are now using mass transit in the United States. Ridership on trains, buses, ferries and subways is at record levels, according to a survey just released by the American Public Transportation Association. Their study reports that, “despite falling gas prices and an economic recession, increasing numbers of Americans took 10.7 billion trips on public transportation in 2008, the highest level of ridership in 52 years and a modern ridership record”, and a 4% increase from [...]