Green Holidays List: 10 tips for a green holiday
December 5, 2007
Aside from the Christmas tree sitting in the livingroom, there is little about the season of giving that is green. Then again, depending on how the tree was grown and the amount of pesticides used, the only thing green about the Christmas tree might be the color of the tree needles.
To promote a mindfulness towards the consumerism of Christmas, the environmental organization ForestEthics offers ten simple and practical tips to greening the holiday season. The Green Holidays List offers alternative suggestions to toxic toys, plastic trees, store bought wrapping paper, disposable plates and cups, all things plastic and Christmas tree lights that are not powered by low-energy LED lights are among the list.
The number one tip on the Green Holidays List for a greener holiday season is asking Sears to stop sending the 1,083-page Sears Wish Book Christmas catalog. According to ForestEthics, in Canada the Sears Christmas catalog is printed using clearcut forest that threatens the caribou habitat in Ontario and the amount of energy needed to produce the print catalog could power 3,300 homes for a year.
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Invention Nation: Grassroots green inventors
December 3, 2007
On the premiere episode of Discovery’s Science Channel Invention Nation, show hosts Chris, Nobu and Micah converted a bus fueled by diesel to pure vegetable oil. Viewers learned how to make biodiesel as well as being introduced to hybrid vehicle technologies.
Invention Nation is a continuing series chronicling the three inventors adventures and discoveries as they travel the country in search of grassroots green inventors and earth friendly inventions.
Future episodes of Invention Nation will highlight a human-powered car, how to make a solar panel from used CDs, build a bike from bamboo, solar ovens, floating wetland made from recycled bottles, how to turn food waste into methane gas, how to utilize straw as natural home insulation, and building a homemade windmill. As they drive across country, the three gone green will show their enterprising nature as they fuel their bus with the used cooking grease from roadside diners.
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Brad Pitt: Make It Right NOLA green houses
December 3, 2007
Make It Right is a fitting name for a new project to build 150 green homes in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans by next summer. The ultimate goal is to build more than 150 new green homes.
Brad Pitt is attempting to restore one of the neighborhoods most devastated by Hurricane Katrina — infamous as one of the five deadliest hurricanes in the history of the US — with the launch of the Make It Right campaign.
In Louisiana, New Orleans residents of the Lower Ninth Ward suffered unthinkable loss of life and property. 5,000 homes were destroyed. Two years later, many families are still displaced and the rebuilding has been very slow going. That is not right. Making it right is long overdue.
This morning, NBC’s Today Show host Ann Curry interviewed Pitt regarding the Make It Right foundation. Pitt has assembled 13 architects to design the new environmentally-friendly homes, donated $5 million dollars of his money, with another $5 million dollar donation from billionaire Steve Bing, and is now reaching out to the American people to help rebuild the Lower Ninth Ward.
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Hoh Rain Forest: One square inch of silence
December 3, 2007
Deep in the Pacific Northwest’s Hoh Rain Forest at Olympic National Park, among ancient trees and ferns, sits a small red stone of great significance. Once a gift given to Gordon Hempton by former Cultural Elder of the Quileute Tribe David Four Lines, Hempton used the stone to mark the location of the spot now called the One Square Inch of Silence.
Hempton was listening for silence as he walked into the Hoh Rain Forest. When he came to the place where no outside noise could be detected, he distinguished the rare place he had discovered with his red stone. The One Square Inch of Silence is an independent project based on soundscape management, a concept formulated on the hypothesis that if a loud noise, such as the passing of an aircraft, can impact many square miles, then a natural place of silence can have the same impact in an equal amount of space.
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Benefit of trees for the urban landscape
December 2, 2007
In our concrete and asphalt urban landscape, we need more trees.
According to the Arbor Day Foundation, “Trees counteract global warming in multiple ways. A single tree can remove more than a ton of CO2 over its lifetime. Also, shade provided by trees reduces summer air conditioning needs.”
The benefit of a tree is amazing. One tree offers the same cooling as ten room size air conditioners operating 20 hours a day. The US Forest Service estimates 50 million well placed shade trees have the potential of eliminating the need for seven 100-megawatt power plants.
Earlier this year, in celebration of Arbor Day 2007, the Home Depot Foundation partnered with the National Arbor Day Foundation in an educational campaign to raise awareness about the benefits of trees for the community combined with the goal of planting 1,000 trees in different cities across the nation.
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Shopocalypse: What Would Jesus Buy? movie trailer
November 24, 2007
“Reverend Billy is seriously hilarious.” — Variety
Last year, Americans shoppers spent $455 billion dollars during the holidays. Consumer credit debt is now $2.4 trillion dollars. 26 million Americans are addicted to shopping.
In What Would Jesus Buy?, Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping Gospel Choir travel the country preaching the coming Shopocalypse resulting from the escalating commercialization of Christmas, gluttonous levels of consumption and the fires of eternal debt. During the journey to save shoppers from the clutches of retail giants, there are corporate exorcisms and retail interventions and a reminder that some might appear to be losing their way in the true meaning of Christmas.
Buy Handmade Pledge: Christmas craft revolution
November 24, 2007
Did you notice stores were stocking shelves with Christmas merchandise weeks before Thanksgiving? Did you refuse to think about Christmas shopping until the day after Thanksgiving, and when you did think about Christmas shopping, did you stay home on Black Friday and avoid the stampede to get through the mall doors first? Are you in the group of people who long for a simple, stress free, less commercial, more thoughtful, more meaningful Christmas?
Buy Handmade has launched a campaign for those who would like to make a pledge to buy handmade gifts from independent artists and artisans this Christmas shopping holiday season and those making the pledge ask others to give handmade gifts in return. To date, almost 7,300 people have taken the handmade pledge. Buy Handmade lists several reasons why buying handmade goods make better presents.
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Etsy: Handmade gifts
November 24, 2007
Homemade. Handmade. Made in America. Are you a crafter? When you create something, do your friends and family members ask if you can make one for them? Or have you wistfully contemplated the idea of turning a hobby into a money-making venture?
Are you a shopper who has tired of boring and potentially dangerous mass-produced products? Looking for the original and unique item, either for yourself or as a gift? This Christmas season there is a renewed interest in American-made products and one-of-a-kind handmade gifts crafted by individual artists and artisans.
Etsy, an online marketplace of handmade items, might just be the perfect place for crafters looking to sell their products and shoppers interested in one-of-a-kind merchandise.
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Tesla Roadster: Electric sports car a sweet ride
November 12, 2007
For the sake of all things green in keeping the environment clean, and for the sake of weaning this country away from a dependency on fossil fuels that keep us globally entwined in political and economic crisis, alternative means of fueling our lifestyle is not a choice but a necessity.
As the old saying goes, necessity is the mother of invention.
One of the environmentally friendly and low fuel cost alternative energy sources to powering a car is electric. However, up until now, the limitation to an electric car has been the frequent recharging required and the lack of speed.
Tesla Motors appears to have solved any limitations to the electric car with the development of the Tesla Roadster.
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Compost: Simple green idea
November 10, 2007
November 15 is America Recycles Day. One simple way to get involved in recycling is to start your very own compost pile.
Yard trimmings and food waste account for 24 percent of the solid waste in the Unites States. Making a compost pile will cut down on the amount of waste you send to the landfills.
Compost piles are great ways to recycle and to improve the quality of your yard. You can take almost any organic waste like yard trimmings, fruits, vegetables, eggshells, tea bags, coffee grounds, sawdust, or houseplants and put them into a compost pile to break down into a soil-enriching humus that can be spread onto your lawn and garden.
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