In addition to discussing green building, let us also take this opportunity to remind you of all the other Green Options blogs in the network and invite you to take a minute to look at some of the other writers and their Earth Day thoughts:

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Yes, this is a reader poll, and it is not a statistical representation of the public attitude of any country in particular. But it is striking that the 133 readers who did vote, were all doing so from a blog network called Green Options. Get it? Simply put, the public attitude towards nuclear power has undergone a seismic shift in recent years. This evidence indicates that this is not the same environmental movement that emerged in the early 1970’s.

But as consumed as I am with energy issues and the politics that surround them, I remain somewhat agnostic about nuclear power. Why is that? There’s no simple answer. Part of it is not wanting to reconcile the tensions between nuclear power as a low-carbon alternative with the ecological dangers of mining uranium and the big issue of transporting and storing nuclear waste. [If you want to know more about the specific dangers and problems facing nuclear power, Judith Lewis has written an excellent article in the most recent issue of Mother Jones addressing these issues in great depth.]

I would also argue that the reason I (and many other greens my age) are not particularly averse to nuclear power is because the pressing environmental issues that were building blocks to my own environmentalism were generally not related to nukes.

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In terms of the political component, and without belaboring the obvious, we are in the midst of a presidential campaign that has gotten people excited about politics again. Record numbers of people (especially young people) have already turned out to vote in their state’s primaries and caucuses. And after Hillary Clinton took Ohio and Texas this week, it looks like the Dems will have to wait a few more months before they can coronate their candidate, while the GOP has already settled on John McCain as their presidential candidate. We are also involved in a war that is raising the hackles of people across the political spectrum. One thing Democrats and Republicans both seem to want is resolution to this drawn-out war/occupation. We are all tired of seeing our troops being taken out by IEDs and suicide bombs, only to be sent home to underfunded VA hospitals, or even worse, to be sent home in a flag-draped coffin. Finally, the economy has slowed its pace of growth, and this too has gotten people more interested in politics. We are certainly living in interesting times, and as a direct result of that, politics are re-emerging into the popular consciousness.

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The Green Options Media Network that Green Building Elements belongs to started out as a group blog called Green Options a year ago today. I was one of the green building writers on board when it started. In the course of that first year, and all the changes we’ve gone through, Green Options has become a network of related blogs, and I’ve moved to now be the lead writer for an entire blog devoted to green building and sustainable design. (It’s perhaps also appropriate that Green Building Elements got its new look just in time for this anniversary.) It’s a big enough field and there’s enough interest that we have four people (so far) writing about green building.

Writing about green building gives me a chance to explore and find out about new developments and new products. When I went to the Greenbuild 2007 Conference, I walked through the exhibition hall and saw numerous manufacturers whose products I had already written about and who I was familiar with. In some cases, I got to ask more detailed questions, or to see products in person that I had only read about on websites up until then. There were a number of instances, though, when I could tell the rep in the product booth, “I’ve written about your product.” Nothing else has given me as strong a sense of being in the forefront of something much larger.

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My background is in energy policy, so what I’ve learned over these past 12 months is not so much a broader understanding of energy solutions but a better understanding of what people around the world think about solutions. Almost everyone wants a new, cleaner, more efficient energy system. And while we may differ as to whether that will include more wind power, less nuclear power, or research into ocean energy, I believe the agreement and willingness for change is there. This has translated into my posts in which - for the post part - I haven’t been as intent on getting out my opinion as trying to foster a conversation about the best routes to take and the larger questions about reaching that ultimate point.

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In the early days of our little startup, it was sometimes hard to tell exactly where we were going. We knew that Treehugger had built a successful content model by catering to the significant number of people who self-identify with that term. We wondered if it was possible to do the same, but with a brand and content focus that would help draw ordinary people towards a more conscious mindset, by meeting them where they are.

With that in mind and no funding secured, I attended the 2006 SF Green Festival as just another festival-goer, passing out user surveys to help nail down our demographics. Without a booth, I was quickly asked to stop or leave, but I vowed to be back next year, with both a booth and a greater sense of purpose.

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To mark this occasion, we asked two of its founders, Publisher David Anderson and Senior Editor Jeff McIntire-Strasburg, to talk about the genesis, growth and plans for Green Options.

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We laughed, and then got the site up about two minutes later. Three executives and ten writers had started a journey to empower a mainstream audience with green news, guidance and community. The rest of the day went swimmingly… we even managed to get all of those first posts on the front page of Hugg (ok, not a huge accomplishment at the time, but we felt great about it!).

In the year since, we’ve had a number of moments like that first one: I’d imagine all startups have their share of stories illustrating efforts that didn’t go quite as smoothly as planned. Despite those hiccups, I’m feeling a lot of pride and gratitude as we reflect on our first year online.

It’s tempting to go into details about our development over the year, or to even a brag a bit about our accomplishments, but I’m most interested at this point in saying “thank you” to the many people who’ve contributed to Green Options, and the Green Options Media blog network.

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The seeds of change were planted last week when Midwest governors signed an accord designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, increase energy conservation, utilize more renewable energy, and slow climate change. The specifics of the plan will be determined over the next 12 months.

The intention is to have a cap and trade system for businesses on greenhouse gas emissions, with a focus on a handful of sectors. This would expand the Midwest’s carbon trading market currently in place by voluntary means.

The pact also calls for reducing energy consumption by 2% by 2015, with 2% annual reductions thereafter. It also requires offering ethanol-based gas E-85 at 15% of gas stations and generating 10% of the region’s electricity from renewable sources by 2015.

The agreement was signed by governors of Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, and the Premier of Manitoba, with Indiana, Ohio, and South Dakota considered observers. They will have the option to participate in the future if they choose.

The Midwest is ideally suited in some ways to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and profit economically from renewable energy production.

North Dakota, Minnesota, Indiana, and Ohio all contain some of the nation’s most polluting coal power plants. Although there are economic implications to shutting these plants or significantly reducing their emissions, it does provide low hanging fruit for dramatically reducing greenhouse gas emissions, while benefiting public health.

With a cool climate and ample sunshine, the Midwest is ideally suited for solar thermal technology to provide space heat and hot water. The region also has wind energy potential due to moderate amounts of wind energy, large quantities of open landscape and some of the region has an excellent transmission grid.

With large quantities of rich agricultural land, farmers can benefit from increasing prices and demand for corn used in ethanol. Switchgrass can also be used for producing ethanol and can be grown on marginal soils, with minimal need for fertilizer, pesticides, and irrigation. It even provides wildlife habitat and is native to North America.

It is encouraging to see the Midwest taking action to slow climate change and joining both coasts, who already have regional climate change agreements. The Midwest certainly can impact the global climate, considering it accounts for 27% of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States.

Members should’ve received an email noting that their user names may have changed slightly. Specifically, any spaces or non-alphabetical or numerical characters have been removed, and capital letters are now lower case. So, “Great-Green-God” would now be “greatgreengod.” Your password should be the same.

We appreciate your patience as we work out the kinks here. Feel free to make note of any problems you’re having in the comments of this post, and know that we’re working to identify and fix all of them.

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!

We’ve been working hard lately to reach out through some of the web’s most popular social media sites, but, until now, we were MIA from 800 lb. gorrilla in this space: Myspace. We’ve fixed that, though, and are pleased to unveil the GO Myspace page.

If you’re a member at Myspace, please add us as a friend, and ask your other friends to do so. We’ll be highlighting chosen content there, as well as keeping users in the loop about devlopments at GO.

As always, let us know if you have suggestions. We’ll see you there!

“It’s too expensive” is often the cry of the politician, who seems to think that just because he’ll be dead, he doesn’t really mind if his children will have to be living in a mud-shack when all goes to hell and back and we’re left without electricity. And while my doomsday prediction might be a little, well, doomsy, it’s not too far off the truth. We’re burning up our coal and oil reserves faster than we can deal with, and with the future seemingly a battle between Nuclear and Renewable, something is going to have to hit the fans soon.

Over the past several months, there have been several moves towards this better future, despite the warnings of skeptics. In San Francisco PG&E are beginning surveys in to using the tidal forces of their bay to generate electricity, and New York City hopes to use the East River as well.

Off the coast of the Netherlands a floating wind-farm opened earlier this year, with enough power to provide light to 100,000 homes.

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For details on what Shea will be doing with his time in the near future, you can read his farewell note on PlanetSave. We’re sure that he’ll bring energy, enthusiasm and insight to all of these projects. And we look forward to reading his contributions to TH.

Join us in wishing Shea farewell and good luck — GO won’t be the same without him.

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.

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Twitter is a free service, and it’s easy to sign up. Let your friends now what you’re doing right now… and be among the first to know what’s new at GO.

• Life Before Air Conditioning

• Canada is our biggest trade partner, not China

• Man Exchanges Missile Launcher for Shoes

• Alaskan hunters experience global warming first hand

• NH farmers savor bumper harvest

• Can a Fractional Be Green?

• AboutMyPlanet.com luanches “GROW” User News Service

• The $40 hidden inside a 12V battery

• US Transportation Secretary: “Bikes Not Transportation”

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Ladies and gentleman, boys and girls… come right in for another edition of the Greenest Show on the Web: the Carnival of the Green! Fresh off of a stellar performance at Ms. Malaprop, the Carnival’s here at Green Options this week to amaze and delight you. But don’t wait around — the show has a limited engagement here, and then it’s moving on for a stint with our friends at Greener Magazine.

What’s the Carnival of the Green (or COTG, as we green bloggers like to call it)? It’s a roundup of some of the best posts on green blogs from the past week. Always moving, the COTG stops for a visit on a green blog every Monday. The Carnival was the brainchild of Al Tepper, publisher extraordinaire at City Hippy, and Nick Aster, the man behind (and often in front) of the curtain at Triplepundit. These days, our friends at Treehugger play tour manager for the Carnival.

Now that we’ve got the formalities out of the way, let’s get on with the show. And if you’re suffering from a case of the Mondays, here’s a little music to put you in that carnival mood…. wherever you are.

The Hall of Science

Come on in, and take a gander at the latest technological wonders. Won’t cost you a dime…

We’ve got a double-header from EcoGeek this week. Want some help adjusting your driving to save fuel? Hank and co. take a look at the Fuel Mizer, which can monitor your stops and starts for you. And if you’re a walker (which we hope you are!), two students at MIT are just won a prize to harvest the energy from your footsteps (yep, we covered that one, too).

The Naib, over at The Sietch, investigates the Watercone, a device that uses solar energy to desalinate water. This piece of simple technology could do a lot of good for people without easy access to fresh water.

For the Dedicated Followers of Fashion…

We’ve got some Fall previews, and some new looks.

The Natural Collection is predicting an ethical Autumn as they roll out their Fall fashions online. Keep an eye on their site, as they promise "some fantastic giveaways, competitions and freebies" are on the way.

Nature Mom Tiffany Washko takes a look at some furnishings (particularly beds) that are both green and stylish.

Inhabitat shows us how designer Stephan Boltz gives a second life (and new sense of style) to airplane trolleys.

And speaking of reuse, our own Victoria E. shows us how the Broken Plate Pendant Co. turns "useless" china into unique pieces of jewelry (on her own blog).

The Carnival’s Trade Show

Catch the latest trends in green business and finance.

Sox First has a podcast interview with Erik Mather, managing director of Regnan, on the growing pressure for companies "…to come clean on their contingent liabilities that include environmental, sustainability and governance risks."

Great Green Gadgets expresses some skepticism about carbon offsets, particularly those involving tree planting. Doesn’t mean they’re against planting trees, though… even guerrilla style!

And the Savvy Vegetarian shares a post from market gardener Jocelyn Engman on the importance of supporting local farmers.

Time for a Break… and a Beer

All this carnivaling can make you thirsty…

GO’s Gavin Hudson shares some tips on making your own eco-friendly brew: cheers!

And the Green Cougar points to that inevitable post-college dilemma for green grads: aluminum cans or glass bottles?

The Medicine Show

Health and safety stories with a green tint.

Allie’s Answers takes note of some of the potential dangers presented by manufactured nanoparticles in sunscreens.

The Environmental Working Group’s Enviroblog presents a video on the danger that still exist from arsenic-treated lumber used for decks and playsets.

Finally, at sustainablog (my other blog), I took a look at an editorial in the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star-Tribune claiming that greener development of transportation infrastructure could create less wear and tear on roads and bridges (so they’re less likely collapse!).

Get a Glimpse of Far-Away Lands…

A couple of our participants in the Carnival this week share some travel information and experiences.

Intelligent Travel spotlights several green hotels you might want to consider on your next getaway.

Sally Kneidel of Veggie Revolution recounts her visit (complete with some great photos) to the South African village of Welverdiend

The Souvenir Stand

If you must buy, make sure it’s sustainable.

The Millionaire Mommy Next Door claims that "Memories are made of the things we do, not the things we buy." We couldn’t agree more!

La Marguerite reminices on times past when we didn’t throw away so much stuff.

And Green LA Girl takes a look at some eco-friendly claims made by some companies about their products, and shows that a little digging often chips the green gilding off of these fairly ordinary items.

Finally, Take a Stroll Down the Midway…

You never know what you may find.

INNside Innkeeping in Montana highlights efforts by Xanterra Parks and Resorts, the owner of hotels and restaurants inside a number of state and national parks, to green up their own operations. That’s right… Yellowstone is going green…

Maria Energia, the blog of our own Maria Surma Manka, considers the implications of recently-announced renewable energy deals by BP.

Jetson Green takes a look at an ancient case of urban sprawl, and wonders if it provides some insight into more recent calamities such as post-Katrina flooding in New Orleans, and the bridge collapse in Minnesota.

In another post, Intelligent Travel offers its congratulations to Java Green, a D.C.-area cafe’ that recently won the title of "Best Vegetarian Restaurant" in a contest held by VegDC.

Flower-Garden-Bulbs.com provides some tips for getting flower bulbs started right… the organic way.

The Good Human muses upon the messages sent by environmentalists concerning climate change, and claims that the planet itself will survive this crisis; the human species, on the other hand, may not be so fortunate.

And, finally, our good friends at Lighter Footstep help spread the word on the October 15th Blog Action Day, when a diverse array of bloggers, ranging from Lifehacker to ProBlogger, will be writing about, and raising funds for, environmental issues.

That’s a wrap, folks — thank you for coming by and enjoying the Carnival. We’ll see you next week at Greener Magazine!

Image sources: Treehugger (COTG banner) and Wikimedia Commons (here, here, and here)

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….

The GO Facebook group is open to all members of the GO community. Join us, and add your comments to our wall, or your ideas to our discussion board. We’ll get photos and such up as we get them…

The GO MakeMeSustainable group is also open to all members of the community. We’ve set a goal of reducing our carbon emissions by 30% (though we’re already well beyond that), so add your cuts in CO2 to our effort.

At GO’s Squidoo space, you can keep a close eye on some of your favorite GO series, including:

• Green Myth-Busting
• Green Style Spotlight
• Red, Green & Blue
• Weekly DIY
• Weekend Grub
• Weekend Review

Remember: anytime you click on an ad on a GO Squidoo page, the money we earn goes directly to Dos Margaritas.

We’re just getting started with making our move into various social networking spaces… stay tuned!