Sean Daily, Green Living Ideas‘ Editor-In-Chief, discusses the use of intelligent irrigation technologies to save water and green your landscaping with Chris Spain, CEO of Hydropoint.

Click Play Below,or

This post contains additional media. Click here to view the full post.

If you missed Green iPhone Apps Reviewed Part 1: Free Apps, you can see it here. After my first batch of reviews on the free green iPhone apps, I have gotten some great suggestions on green apps. If you have any you you would like to see reviewed, you can comment here, head over to my website www.danielhohler.com, or twitter me @danielhohler. I am not a hard man to find. I have already gotten a whole new batch that people would like to hear about, so it looks like by popular demand there will be green iPhone apps part 3, so stay tuned here on planetsave.com.

iPhone apps are sweeping the nation. For those of us who own iPhones, we know just how useful a good app can be. The problem is that there are so many apps floating around, finding a really good app is like finding the proverbial needle in the haystack. However, don’t fret. I am here to pick up all of those straws of hay and tell you if indeed they are hay, or maybe just maybe, a needle. Or with less metaphor, I’ll try them and tell you if they are any good.

Read more of this story »

The NAACP has joined with environmental groups to oppose the construction of three power plants because of concerns that burning the feces will expose poor people to arsenic and other contaminants.

“Everyone wants jobs, but you have to be against a job that on the back end may bring disease,” said William Barber II, president of the state NAACP. “I guarantee you if they attempted to put it in a suburban community or a higher-income area, it would be an all-out fight against it.”

Read more of this story »

While you grade papers, or wash the dishes, or eat your lunch, or walk home from school at night, you can listen to craft news (the CPSIA, although delayed, is still a big deal), craft opinion (which type of knitting needles are the best?) and interviews with other crafty people (Alicia Paulson has a lot of interesting things to say about the process of writing a craft how-to book).

I heart podcasts.

Read more of this story »

Sure, you can contact radio stations and podcast creators and make a case for being invited on. But for the most part, it’s on their terms. But what if you could just go and make an appointment to be on a show, shape the content, and be interviewed by someone who gets it, is interested in what you’re up to, and will engage you in a conversation rather then just be a dry question asker?

You can.

Read more of this story »

There are a lot of environmental podcasts out there. Grist has one. Treehugger has one. NPR has one. Even the EPA put out a few podcasts around Earth Day (don’t bother). And while these more prominent ones can give a lot of good information, sometimes they leave me feeling flat. When I’m listening, I prefer a podcast with personality.

If you’re like me, and demand to be entertained as well as informed before you’ll download a podcast, try one of these green, fun options.

More Hip Than Hippie - This is my all time favorite podcast. The hosts, Val and Dori, have a blast while they discuss the environment, beer, chocolate and how to determine your porn star name. This is not your run of the mill green podcast. They make every green action they discuss sound appealing. A few weeks ago, they interviewed a guest about canning, and now I’m looking forward to planting even more tomatoes next summer because I’m excited about canning. And did I mention the beer and chocolate?

The Little Green People Show - This podcast is hosted by Laurene von Klan and Jill Riddell and is dubbed “sound advice on green living in the big city.” Their big city is Chicago, and they answer listener questions and give lively commentary about environmental issues in their city and beyond. They tackle a variety of issues from foraging for food to solar cookers to green fashion. Good stuff.

Read more of this story »

LS Power Group wants to build a 750-megawatt (MW) plant near Waterloo, and Alliant Energy wants a 630 MW coal plant near Marshalltown. A new MidAmerican Energy coal plant just began operation near Council Bluffs on June 1.

Local and regional supporters of clean and efficient energy will fight the plants. Besides the economic drain of having to import coal from Wyoming, supporters argue that powering the Iowa’s ethanol plants with coal power does not make environmental sense or economic sense. Cleaner methods of production – like using a biomass gasification system to produce ethanol – is a smarter choice, noted Carrie LaSeur of the Iowa law firm Plains Justice: “Biofuels are supposed to make us less dependent on fossil fuels and reduce CO2. Using coal to power a biofuels plant has the opposite effect…Coal is a thing of the past. Why keep falling back on this old technology, when clean alternatives are out there?”

The Iowa Utilities Board still has to approve construction of both plants, but this situation is duplicated across the U.S., where 150 new coal plants are proposed. Worries about imminent carbon regulation seem to have mixed results: while plans for about two dozen coal plants have been scrapped since 2006, other companies are rushing to build before new regulations take effect, with the assumption that their plants would be grandfathered in under any new emissions requirements.

While more than half of U.S. states have renewable energy standards that require a certain percentage of power to come from renewables, the construction of a coal plant or two can quickly unravel all the good intentions. The left hand has to pay attention to what the right hand is doing here, and we can’t have it both ways if we’re serious about creating a rich, clean energy economy while slowing global warming.

Associated Press, via Quad Cities Online
Iowa Environmental Council