Over here at the Greenists I tend to cover the school angle. For me, the challenge of making things greener at the middle school where I work usually involves using technology to reduce the amount of paper we waste. Over the last five years I have campaigned for all of the faculty and staff to stop ripping through case after case of that white gold of schools: copy paper. When I tell you I see people on a DAILY BASIS making hundreds of copies, realizing there was a mistake on the original and then throwing away every single copy I am really not even kidding.

It gets kind of depressing.

If you would like your school district to stop wasting paper as well, here are a few ideas to suggest to your administration:

• Have the administrative assistants email attendance reports every morning rather than printing them out.
• Instead of having students print out papers they can save them to a shared folder on the school network.  That way, you can view and grade their work without having hard copies.
• If this is not possible, teach kids about the importance of Print Preview rather than printing five copies of a paper before they get it right.
• Project your directions on your white board or smart board rather than printing out individual sheets of directions for students.
• Encourage your administration to limit the amount of paper they put in the copy room on a daily basis.

My principal has commented that just by implementing these simple tips we’ve saved over $4,000 yearly on printer and copy paper. I was tempted to ask him when I’d be seeing that in a bonus check, but I managed to stop myself in time.

One more tip: principals do not like when you tease them about money.

You’re welcome.

Sometimes caring about the world makes me feel like a real jerk. Sure, my self-righteous fervor usually overcomes that with ease, but occasionally my convictions make me feel a bit uncomfortable. The best example of this I can think of is when I use the little folding card I keep in my wallet that tells me what seafood is okay to chow down on and what should be avoided, either due to overfishing of a particular species, personal health risks associated with high levels of mercury, or both. Read more…

If you’re interested in learning more about Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma, here he is on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, which aired Jan. 4. Enjoy!

Happy belated New Year, Greenists readers! Once the streamers have been put away and the New Year’s Day hangover has lifted, an inevitable part of every new year is the buying of calendars. Whether your taste drifts towards cute kittens or extreme ironing (both of which really exist in calendar form), there are ways to be green about your organizational aids.

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It’s New Year’s Eve, so it must be time for some sort of year-in-review, this-is-who-we-were post, or maybe a series of mailing-it-in top ten lists. If I were smarter, I would have done both of those, and ahead of time, but that’s not my style. No, sitting here at the keyboard on the eve of the Eve, I’ve decided not to look back on the year most recent, but I’ll be looking backwards nonetheless.

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You’ve heard of Cash for Clunkers, but now the government is taking it one step further with Cash for Appliances. The name doesn’t quite have the same ring, but it’s a similar program designed to get people to replace their old, energy-guzzling home appliances with new, energy-efficient ones while stimulating the economy at the same time.

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Image credit: en.cop15.dk

The long-awaited U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change started up this week in Copenhagen, with 193 world leaders, along with representatives from businesses and environmental organizations, gathered to discuss emissions restrictions and other measures that would help curb global warming. President Obama is among them, as is UNFCCC Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Kimoon, and Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Jiang Yu, who are expected to be major players in negotiations.

Here’s what’s gone on at the conference so far: Read more…

Point Reyes, sliding off into the sea

This past October, my lady friend and I were road tripping on the west coast, driving north from San Francisco to Point Reyes on Route 1, amazed at the complete lack of gas stations for an area so near a major metropolis in the most populous state in the nation. We were running on fumes and beginning to worry. Because I like to keep the lady on her toes, I broke with male tradition by pulling a u-turn to ask a couple walking beside the road where we could get some gas.

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Image credit: dvdverdict.com

Last night I watched the movie Away We Go, starring John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph. It’s a lovely movie, and I really enjoyed it, but it wasn’t just the story that impressed me — I learned via the special features that the crew who worked on this movie made sure to make the shoot as green as possible. Read more…

I joked to a friend recently that I have really strong opinions about mostly pointless things. It came up in the context of a small diatribe about proper concert etiquette, which, if you ask me, is far from pointless; basic consideration for others when in a public place is one of the few things that separate us from the animals, after all. Still, I may get a bit worked up when most people would least expect it, and I could perhaps stand to save my energy for the greater, more noble battles in life.

One killjoy-esque battle I do think is justified is the one against these ridiculous monstrosities:

Image courtesy Franco Folini

I haven’t been much of a regular barfly for several years now, but I still see one of these gas guzzling beasts ferrying a drunken troupe of bachelors or bachelorettes around nearly every time I head out for a night downtown. Every time I spot one, I cringe and have to resist the urge to chastise the riders with a likely ill-received “What would Al Gore say about this?!?” Surely there are more fun, more environmentally sound modes of transport for a night on the town than the likes of the Hummer limo, no?

Yes! Enter the PedalPub:

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