Green Options

When we order a new piece of furniture or new piece of technology for our home, it comes delivered in a box large enough for kids to build a fort in (what I did in an old refrigerator box once). There’s so much packaging that you have to call your trash service and request a special “large load” pick-up. I am ashamed to bring home a plastic bag from the grocery store

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I must admit, I’ve never been much of a fashionista. In fact, if Garanimals came in adult sizes, I’d probably check them out. OK, that’s an exaggeration, but you get my point.

However, I do find the innovations in green clothing fascinating, and for that reason I plan on attending EcoNouveau this Saturday. Billed as LA’s definitive EcoLifestyle experience, the event is a precursor to LA Fashion Week, which begins October 14th.

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The city of the future is not going to be a Jetson-esque collection of bubbles in the air, or towers connected by monorails, or any other radical vision. The city of the future will be more like that in Blade Runner, mostly recognizably familiar older buildings. Most of the city of the future has already been built and is standing. Certainly new buildings will

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Welcome to the first official entry of a multi-part series documenting the green business, building, marketing, branding, and festival-izing conferences that are ramping up as the summer comes to a close (including Opportrunity Green). I’ve previously provided a first-hand account from WINDPOWER 2007 and Green Festival Chicago, and missed countless others.

I recognize all the benefits of green building, but, as I’ve never owned any kind of

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You know those gnarly Christmas lights you have stashed away in the basement, closet or attic? Well, here’s 3 reasons to leave them there this year and replace them with LED string lighting:

1. LED Christmas lights are 80-99% more efficient than standard incandescent lights.

2. LED holiday lights are safer than incandescent lights. They operate at 1 degree above ambient room temperature and draw so little energy that risk of circuit overload.

This November 7-9, Chicago will host the largest GreenBuild Expo in history. Put on by the USGBC (United States Green Building Council), this year over 18,000 attendees will gather to learn about the trends in green construction and get inspired about future projects. In a city aiming to be the greenest, this is a monumental event. On top of it all, GreenBuild will be held in one of

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Radiant heating is a popular option in green buildings. Many green buildings feature it because it is a more efficient, and more comfortable, method of heating. If a building doesn’t require air conditioning, it may be possible to eliminate ductwork altogether, or at least use a much smaller system that is sized for air conditioning. And even in buildings where air handling is still necessary, the systems that push the air around can be

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When Amy wrote about green magazines, she mentioned GOOD as being one of her favorites. I, too, a self-described magazine junkie, am a big fan of GOOD since it’s inception last year. With all the depressing news out there on any given day, GOOD always reaffirms my faith in humanity. Its focus is, like its name implies, good stuff: those things that are

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While most of the focus in sustainable building is on energy efficiency, water conservation, and the efficient use of appropriate materials, preserving dark skies is a feature that may not immediately come to mind. But the LEED rating system includes a credit (Sustainable Sites: Light Pollution Reduction) for minimizing light pollution. So why are dark skies an element of green building?

Perhaps the most vocal advocates for dark skies are astronomers, both

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For all you suburban dwellers, alternative energy is finally finding its place in or on your home! Most commonly when we think of wind power, we think of industrial wind farms in the country. Well, wind power is again retreating in size, making it available for the most modest home.

Mariah Power of Reno, Nevada has developed a new efficient and attractive wind harvesting station called the Windspire that has a quite attractive profile

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We noted a few weeks ago that Instructables, in conjunction with TreeHugger, was holding a Go Green! Design contest. We wanted to feature some of the DIY projects here on Green Options as well. We won’t necessarily be featuring the winners, nor will we be spelling out the steps of the projects (after all, that’s what the Instructables site is for). But we want to spotlight some of these

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