These could work. But for Kansas City’s World of Spirits, the answer is committing revenue to greening the store… really.

Yep, the Carrotmob has come to town… remember them? Started in San Francisco, Carrotmob is an activist organization dedicated to greening business.  Rather than using traditional, “stick” tactics (protesting, street theater, etc.), Carrotmob offers a “carrot” to businesses that commit to greening themselves: as they put it, “Carrotmob organizes consumers to make purchases that give financial rewards to those businesses who agree to make socially beneficial choices.” Though the organization is new, they’ve already been quite successful: their first event resulted in about five times the normal revenue for K&D Market on 16th St. in San Francisco.

In Kansas City’s choice, this involved approaching fifteen Midtown businesses with a proposal: “We’ll bring a mob of paying customers, if you commit the highest percentage of revenue to going green.” A bidding war broke out, and World of Spirits won by committing 24% of the revenue from its “mob event” towards making the business more energy efficient. Take a look:

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Writing in Greenversations, the EPA’s blog, Jeffery Robichaud writes about his travels through the Midwest in a Winnebago to audit regional air-quality monitors in areas around Kansas City and St. Louis. The typically breezy nature of the region inspired one of the EPA audit team members to supplement the Winnebago’s gas-powered generator with wind energy.

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First up was Simran Sethi of Sundance’s The Green, who’s become a passionate advocate for Greensburg’s resurgence. In introducing the first five episodes of The Good Fight (which all focus on Greensburg), she not only lauded the people who she’s come to know in making the “webisodes,” but also noted that the town is hardly a hotbed of radical environmentalism: Greensburg was a town of 1400 people when the tornado struck, and, like many mid-American small communities, had been in decline for several decades. The population had shrunk, the per capita income was below the Kansas average, and young Greensburgians were generally looking for a way out. She heard plenty of disdainful comments about “treehuggers,” and several people had told her that they just didn’t believe global warming is a reality.

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Simran Sethi, host of the Sundance Channel’s The Green will moderate a panel on the green redesign of tornado devastated Greensburg, KS. The green salon will feature BNIM Architects’ urban planner, Stephen Hardy and Greentown director, Daniel Wallach. The Sundance Channel will screen segments from The Good Fight Series.

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The owner has decided that the best way of dealing with this problem is to burn the books. So he loaded up a cauldron in front of his store and burned a pile of books in what he saw as a protest against what he sees as, "society's diminishing support for the printed word." But this isn't necessary at all, there are a number of online services that facilitate the exchange of books (as well as a range of other things). One of these, Paperback Swap, has begun an online petition to save the books and is offering to collect all the books from the store's warehouse, and then distribute them to people for free on a road trip from Kansas City to the company's hometown of Atlanta. This seems to be a much greener way of dealing with the glut.

There are a number of services on the web that connect people who want to exchange books. In addition to Paperback Swap, there are also sites like BookMooch and BookCrossing. There are also services like LaLa and SwapaCD (a sister site to Paperback Swap) that allow for the exchange of CDs.

And, of course, there are local level exchanges for all manner of things, such as Freecycle (and other local variants) and Craigslist which help find new homes for furniture, computers, childrens' toys, and all kinds of other things. Rebecca wrote an earlier Tip-o'the-Day about local swap events.

Personally, I've been using LaLa and Bookmooch for several months, and I'm generally happy with both. I've also recently joined Paperback Swap and SwapaCD. I've been glad to find other people who have wanted to get things that I've had cluttering the house and even happier to get some things that I've wanted. I still have a copy of Hunt for Red October that may stay sitting on my shelf for some time. But I've been able to exchange over 100 books (sent and received) so far. And that's far better than burning them.