Green Options

It sounds like a war effort or some great new candy bar, but it has been ten years in the making. Yes, the Academy of Sciences museum finally opens in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. We’re totally jazzed to have this Green building icon finally opening up, with some of the old exhibits, the completely updated planetarium and the sustainably based dining options by Charles Phan and Loretta [...]

This past weekend most of the swarms listened to rock and roll, rap, hip hop, and pop at the Outside Lands festival in San Francisco’s great Golden Gate Park, but we took time from the audio overload to explore the some of the green aspects of the festival.

It actually didn’t take long as a set of solar panels sat just outside the main entrance. After that, we hit the Eco Lands. The PG&E sponsored area offered up booths (organic farmer’s market), tents, exhibits (like solar education classes) that one doesn’t normally see in a rock ‘n’ roll venue. We grabbed an Eco Lands Passport, an inspiration from Jack Johnson’s All At Once Community, where green minded rockers could obtain “stamps” for doing certain activities such as recycling a cell phones, use the bike valet (we did), calculate your carbon footprint, or donate to a non-profit.

We found ourselves super impressed with the Panhandle Stage not only because we saw the politically and socially charged K’Naan here but the stage actually ran on solar. That’s right, all the amps, mikes, lights, everything off the grid. The stage utilized a 4-kilowatt solar system, and by using solar power rather than a diesel generator or grid power, they avoided emitting approximately 3,000 lbs per day (1.5 metric tons) of CO2 into the atmosphere.