If you’re anything like me, you love watching the Oscars every year for the pageantry, the recognition of good movies, and — let’s face it — the fashion. Just once I’d like to swan around on a red carpet in a ridiculously gorgeous dress, hobnobbing with celebrities and thanking all the little people. I’m a girl; that’s how we roll.
Anyway, while most of the attention is placed on what the actresses are wearing, you may have noticed the woman in blue sitting next to James Cameron. That woman is his wife, Suzy Amis Cameron, and she was wearing the most eco-friendly dress of the night. Read more…
Mark your calendars for EarthHour, March 27th!
Take a minute to vote for your favorite Ideas for Change.
Grist says cocaine addicts make a major contribution to global warming.
Fake Plastic Fish talks about plastic and pop culture.
Rob has 4 AMAZING recipes using leftovers.
Tiny Choices needs some gardening advice.
The Daily Green takes a look at an American Express program that pays volunteers $5/hour.
Inhabitat reports on a car that runs on coffee grounds, which is brilliant, but I’m guessing the exhaust fumes would create some mean cravings and further fuel my coffee addiction.
Our good green buddy The Good Human is nominated for a Best of Green award! Vote early and vote often (seriously, you can).
I love discovering places that are committed to selling green products. More and more businesses out there are incorporating green products into their wares — I remember when Allie first professed her love for Ecover detergent I had no idea where to find it. Now I can easily pick up a box from my local Kroger.
But what I love discovering even more is places that are fully committed to green products, like Green Depot. I was in NYC this past week and while walking around town one day, I just happened to walk by Green Depot on Bowery in Manhattan, so I had to stop in for a look. Inside I found every green product you could imagine: cleaning products, paint, candles, baby bedding, flooring, furniture. You name it, if you can make it in a sustainable manner, it was probably there.
I’ve never fully climbed aboard the biofuel bandwagon. There are just far too many hurdles to . If you rely on corn or sugarcane to produce ethanol fuel additives, food prices will skyrocket – we saw a glimpse of that back in 2007. The biggest problem, however, is ramping up production. A 2009 report estimated that biofuels made up just over 2 million tons of oil equivalent for transport in the European Union while conventional fossil fuels made up more than 310 million tons. The more environmentally sensible way of making biofuels is the so called ‘biomass-to-liquid’ approach, which involves using the left over bits of crop plants to make ‘green gasoline’. This type of biofuel made up about 2,000 tons of the 310 million tons of fuel used in the EU in 2009. As wonderful an idea as it is, biomass fuels are not currently a viable alternative.
I’m happy to be a skeptic, but less comfortable as a cynic. Thus, I decided to check in on to see what the biofuel gang was up to, and even from a skeptic’s viewpoint things are getting interesting. James Dumesic, an engineer at the University of Wisconsin, and his colleagues described a technique that can convert a chemical found in beer, coffee and chocolate directly into liquid hydrocarbons that could be used for fuel.
-valerolactone (GVL) is an aromatic organic liquid that has been proposed to be useful as a fuel additive that can be blended with gasoline. It is reported to be as efficient as ethanol as a fuel additive, but that’s not what we’re talking aboit today.
Dumesic’s paper, published in the most recent issue of Science, describes a method of converting GVL efficiently to a state that can be used directly as transportation fuels without blending. Dumesic’s group describes an improved method to create GVL from two acids which are formed when other acids are used to break down cellulose – plentiful in biomass – into sugars. In effect, what Dumesic has made the whole process more efficient. Rather than making a biofuel that can serve as a fuel additive – reducing the amount of gasoline used in your car – they have developed a process of making a biofuel that can replace the gasoline used in your car.
And that’s not all! The carbon dioxide produced as a byproduct of the process is released as a pure, pressurised steam that Dumesic claims “can potentially be captured and then treated or sequestered to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions from the process”. Green and clean.
The problem? Well there are a few, but the biggest is still production. You aren’t going to see Dumesic’s biofuel at the pump any time soon. Virent, Dumesic’s spin-off company, was producing one liter of their previous generation biofuel a day in 2009. Even with the more efficient process, their output isn’t likely to get to significant levels any time soon. Still and all, it is baby steps isn’t it?
photo credit: Ecovillage at Ithaca, ecovillageithaca.org
Often times, my posts here at The Greenists are inspired by a word or phrase I hear in passing and wonder what it means. I then do a little basic research and a little while later, voila — I’ve got myself a post. Of course, this means a lot of my writing here comes off as Green Topics for Dummies, but hey — I’m a dummy about a lot of stuff, and we can all use a little basic knowledge sometimes. Right? We’ll go with that.
Anyway, I don’t remember where I heard a reference to ecovillages (though I can assure you it was NOT the 1996 Pauly Shore gem known as Bio-Dome), but hear it I did, and so set out to find out what they really are.
Essentially, ecovillages are small communities of people who share common spiritual, economic, and ecological values. Often they see the modern lifestyles embraced by much of the world, including factory farming, consumerism and urban sprawl, as a threat to the natural order of life. Ecovillages are an alternative to modern living, and the goal is often to minimize ecological impact as much as possible. Read more…
Inhabitat finds shoes made from recycled TVs.
And Greenopolis finds shoes that come in an envelope, ready to be assembled.
Enviroblog asks if you’ve ever checked your home for chemicals.
Grist ponders the junk food tax.
EarthFirst (who has a great new site design!) wonders if it’s time to free Willy.
One Green Generation has 10 ways cloths can save the planet.
Nature Moms wants to know if your child can identify popular fruits and veggies.
Chiot’s Run gives us a primer on the shelf life of seeds.
Tiny Choices gives the best green tip ever – don’t clean!
If you’re anything like me, you often look at solar panels, tankless water heaters, and other home greenification products with a mix of admiration and sadness. The admiration is obviously in response to the marketplace including more and more earth-friendly items all the time, but the sadness sets in when I realize I can’t afford any of that stuff. Going green is great, but it’s often expensive up front. Of course, solar panels and tankless water heaters pay for themselves over time, but the up-front cost is still prohibitive for many people.
But what if there was a way you could green up your home now and pay for it later? If you live in a community with a Property Assessed Clean Energy, there is. PACE programs allow homeowners to borrow money for efficiency upgrades, then pay it back over a span of up to 20 years. You repay the loan by adding a little extra onto your property tax bill. Read more…
The following is a guest post from Howling Hill. If you’re interested in guest posting on The Greenists, e-mail Courtney at thegreenists dot com for details.
Back when I worked as an EMT in Massachusetts I had this one partner named Gary. He was an awesome partner to have. He was motivated, smart, educated, and funny as hell.
While there may be a fairly large Jamaican population in Lynn (or, at least there was a decade ago. I don’t know if there is one now) there weren’t a lot of places for Jamaicans to shop for Jamaican food nor were there many Jamaican restaurants. There was, however, this one place in Lynn which Gary used to go to regularly, when he was missing home something fierce. At the time I was a vegetarian so I didn’t sample too much of the cuisine because it was mostly meat based. I did try goat though (it wasn’t bad) and ginger beer. I came away from our partnership with a lifelong love of ginger beer.
Ginger beer gave me such a hassle though. Finding it in white suburban Boston wasn’t easy and when I did it, it was expensive — finding it in rural New Hampshire was damned near impossible. Certainly I found Goya but it didn’t fit my criteria to ingest. That is, as I got more ingredient savvy I realized how unhealthy ginger beer could be: lots of sugar and high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). It became a treat I didn’t get very often because of the expense and the HFCS.
Over the last decade I’ve tried to find ginger beer without HFCS and, while I was successful, they tasted awful or, worse, bland. Ginger beer, you see, needs to burn on the way down. It’s the best that way! So the organic ones I found were either to bland or just yucky and the non-organic were filled with HFCS. I was sad.
I was sad until last weekend when Melissa stopped by and brought some ginger beer. It’s good. It burns.* It has no HFCS and, AND it’s local. How could I get any luckier? Maine Root is the name. It’s a microbrew, if you will, that uses organic cane sweetener and bio-diesel to deliver its product. How effing cool is that?
So if you love ginger beer (or root beer, or sarsaparilla, or orange, or lemon lime, or blueberry) give Maine Root your business. If your local place doesn’t carry it ask them to or buy online. You palate won’t be sorry!
*It could burn a smidge more! Just a smidge though.
Howling Hill blogs from central New Hampshire where she dreams of living on a farm raising meat,vegetables, and fruit to feed the community. She had no idea to be progressive she had to become very regressive. She’s becoming adept at knitting, canning, and generally be more greenly self sufficient.
I was working really hard to find a different topic to write about, I really was. Pacing about the apartment, zooming around the internet, looking for ideas. But I just couldn’t shake off the Slate piece I read this morning. Really, don’t even bother reading the rest of what I’ve written here; just go read the source (fantastic title, too.)
For everyone looking for ways to get people, all people to care about environmental issues, look no further. We can now stand up to all those who willfully ignore the facts or decide it just doesn’t matter to them, look them in the eye and say “Dude, your son’s gonna have a small penis.”
We may have more winter ahead of us, but I’m starting to get spring fever. The other day it was actually sunny here for a few minutes (a rarity). The sun illuminated the splatters on the walls from wet dog shaking off, the dust in the corners of the bookcases, and the dirt crammed in the cracks in the floorboards. It may not be spring just yet, but it’s time for me to clean like it is.
