Green Daily

This was a pretty exciting week for me. I got a "personalized" email from Alpha Green Al Gore, asking me to support Repower America's efforts to convince Congress to pass aggressive climate legislation. I think he's the greatest! (And I hope/believe he's secretly doing something to get Laura Ling and Euna Lee released from that North Korean labor camp.)

You may remember Al's awesome speech to the Daughters of the American Revolution, when he challenged America to get 100% of our power from clean energy sources within 10 years. Repower America is the organization that grew in response to that challenge, with over 2 million members across the country.

The video above is the latest ad from Repower America, and it's just plain-talking awesomeness. The totally crusty, hardworking, traditional-seeming gentleman who stars in it hits all of the high points -- like how we're "held hostage by foreign oil" and "borrowing money to buy oil from dictators who don't like us" and "burning it in ways that kill God's green earth" -- using language that makes these ideas accessible and palatable to non-bleeding heart liberals. You know, like the majority of the country.

There are many ways to respond to the overwhelming concept of climate change -- often I find a nice organic wine to be quite soothing and medicinal when I start to hyperventilate while calculating the new coastlines that will result from melting polar caps.

The Canary Project has a more productive, or at least more creative response. They use "visual media, events, and artwork that builds public understanding of human-induced climate change and energize commitment to solutions." Using the power of images, they educate and motivate the public, with the goal of addressing climate change while we still have some options. One way they do this is through Green Patriot Posters, founded by Ed Morris, who also founded The Canary Project.

Green Patriot Posters makes modern, updated versions of those "We Can Do It!" style posters from World War II. They want to galvanize people to build a sustainable economy, and to adopt sustainable practices in their everyday lives, and they design cool posters to get the message out.

(Photo by Thames & Hudson)

For many of us, climate change means water shortage. Regions all over the world are experiencing drought, with corresponding restrictions on when and how you can use water. Gardeners feel these restrictions in a particularly sharp way. After all, the traditional, lush garden requires copious and regular irrigation, a practice that is becoming increasingly difficult -- even impossible -- to maintain.

The Dry Gardening Handbook - Plants and Practices for a Changing Climate is a new book by Oliver Filippi that offers an alternative perspective on the role of water in a planned garden. It provides options and techniques for a "dry garden" that leverages the natural traits of plants that thrive in "mediterrean" environments, like those found in Chile, California, South Africa, Australia and the Mediterrean region.

Although it's a relatively technical book -- there's lots of talk about dormancy and root development -- there are also hundreds of beautiful photos by the author who, with his wife, has dedicated 20 years to the study and cultivation of plants that thrive in dry conditions. You will gain a whole new appreciation for what defines a "beautiful garden."

The thing that makes this book a must have for gardeners who live in dry (or drying) climates is the A-Z index of plants that thrive without much water. The detailed entries -- over 400 of them, with illustrations -- make this intriguing book a valuable handbook and resource.

Even if you're a novice gardener, or don't have any green fingers at all, it's an educational read, as well as a fun one that communicates the Filippis' love of plants, and passion for this approach. Plus it's refreshing to read something that treats climate change as a condition we can react to, deal with and even learn from!

(Photo by 7th Generation)

I wish I could say that I'm clueless about why The Recycled Toilet Paper Debate keeps coming up, but let's face it -- we've had the "Eco-sandpaper Experience." Butts are tender and recycled paper can be rough!

Compounding the difficulty of finding a recycled TP solution is the challenge of finding a brand that meets the whole family's demands for softness, absorbency and cost, while being made with an environmentally-correct amount of post-consumer waste.

So why bother? There are plenty of compelling reasons for using recycled bathroom tissue. As the Natural Resources Defense Council says:

"If every household in the United States replaced just one roll of virgin fiber toilet paper (500 sheets) with 100% recycled ones, we could save 423,900 trees."

Just to do the math for you, when we cut down trees, we end up with more CO2 in the air, which equals climate change and melting polar caps and general mayhem. We need all the trees we can get.

At last it seems like technology is catching up with need. Recycled product choices have multiplied, and there are many recycled offerings that are both quilted and soft. Of course, the proof is in the wiping, so if you want to do your own comparison, take a look at:

• Seventh Generation -- 100% recycled, 80% post-consumer, quilted and surprisingly soft
• Trader Joe's -- 100% recycled, 80% post-consumer, and love that jumbo pack!
• Marcal Small Steps -- 100% recycled, minimum 60% post-consumer, 50 years of experience making recycled paper
• Scott Naturals -- 40% virgin fiber isn't great, but is better than 100% virgin fiber and you gotta start somewhere!
  

Got a bathroom favorite not on the list? Share in the comments!

Even though HRH Prince Charles has been an environmental crusader for many years, lately he's been catching a lot of flack for all of the CO2 he emits while crusading against climate change.

(People! He's a prince! Royalty! He's never going to fly economy class from London to Rome. Never! If for no other reason than it's a huge security hazard for the other passengers!)

The Prince's preference for private jets aside, he is a very smart man who has spent years studying -- and crusading for -- ways to conserve the wild places in the world. In advance of the big climate summit in Copenhagen, he is kicking off a new campaign to save rainforests, with help from celebrities like Daniel Craig, the Dalai Lama, Joss Stone, Harrison Ford, and of course, Kermit the Frog.

I say "of course" because Kermit is always sticking his cold green area-that-would-be-a-nose, if he had one, into environmental causes. And also because the star of the campaign is another frog, a surprisingly lifelike animated frog that appears alongside the stars and "ribbits' at humorous moments.

The campaign is part of "The Prince's Rainforest Project" which has two goals:

• to raise awareness of the damaging effects for everyone of deforestation
• to identify appropriate incentives that will encourage rainforest nations to stop burning down vast areas of valuable trees.

My favorite part of this video is when Prince Charles points out that one way to save the rainforests to make the trees as valuable when they are alive and "breathing" as when they are chopped down for timber and to clear farm land. See? The Prince is a smart guy! And surprisingly practical for someone who mostly lives in castles with tons of servants, and who refers to himself in the plural.

Most importantly, he's a guy who is using his position to help save the world. It's almost enough to make me forgive him for the whole Princess Diana thing. In fact, if he can stop climate change, I'm willing to call it even.

Things have been sort of quiet on the "Leonardo DiCaprio save the Earth" front lately, so it's good to hear that he won the Kids' Choice Green Award.

Surprisingly, this is the first time Nickelodeon has given out an environmentally-related award, which DiCaprio received from his old buddy and fellow eco-celebrity Cameron Diaz.

It's good to see the media outlets that target kids continue to get more engaged in the "green movement". After all, it's the kids that are going to have to deal with this mess in a hundred years, not us.

Also, as we saw with the Obama campaign, when you get the kids involved and motivated, participation from everyone increases. DiCarprio made a direct plea to the young audience, encouraging them to do their part to solve global warming.

So you hear that you younguns out there? Listen to Uncle Leo - It's up to you!

Donny and Marie are turning off the lights in Vegas!

We've been talking about it for ages, and at last, the day has arrived: Earth Hour!

Around the world, cities and major landmarks are turning off the power for one hour tonight, 8:30 pm, local time.

We've told you about the celebrities (why, Hello there Ed Norton!) who are involved, we warned you about the dangers of candles, even shared a parody concept (no, Josh wasn't serious about Energy Wasting Day, he's either very brave or very foolish to taunt our passionate, occasionally humor-challenged, green readers in this way).

You've been informed, now the rest is up to you. Gather the kids and loved ones, make a fire, or sit on your deck and watch the stars with your feet up.

And remember, even using battery power on your laptop is totally cheating. Shut down!

There are only four days left to prepare for one of the most well-lit, smoggiest, most anticipated days of the year: Energy Wasting Day. After reports that last year's EWD might have been a factor in making a sizable dent in the icecaps, polar bear habitat, and snow pack, Dan Power is once again calling on your to make a difference this April 1st.

If you haven't already made plans for how to maximize your energy consumption/greenhouse gas emissions here are a couple of ideas:

• Burn those leftover candles from Earth Hour inside your freezer with the door open.
• Drive a Hummer to the local supermarket and buy up all of the reusable shopping bags, then use them to construct a sail to maximize wind drag.
• Run your A/C and heater at the same time and have them duke it out to keep you home at a comfortable 75°F

Use your imagination ... the possibilities are endless.

[via Treehugger]

While the act of turning out the lights for Earth Hour is largely considered to be symbolic, if you happen to be someone who's really hoping to cut down on your greenhouse gas emissions, you might want to reconsider your lighting options. According to EcoGeek, living by candlelight for an hour might not be so eco-friendly after all.

In order to equal the light provided by one 40 Watt incandescent bulb, you would need to burn 40 candles -- which releases 10 times more CO2 emissions. Of course, most people participating in Earth Hour won't be burning 40 candles in their home, but there's a lesson here somewhere. Perhaps, the lesson is: don't examine well-intended traditions too closely if you want to really enjoy them. Or maybe its just that technology, while it may be destructive in some ways, is still pretty amazing and under appreciated by most.

I'm not sure if this defies the spirit of Earth Hour or not, but it seems like an LED head lamp would be a pretty energy-efficient -- yet still useful -- compromise.

[via Treehugger]

This should not be a news item, but it has been popping up on green news sites and pages all over in the last couple of days.

The EPA has said that greenhouse gases are dangerous to our health. They've said it before. But this time, it appears the White House is listening. This means that we can officially start regulating greenhouse gases, which has not always been a priority of the nation's leadership.

Some lawmakers have already been working on carbon cap-and-trade CO2 program, which would require polluters to buy permits according to the amount of pollution they release into the atmosphere.

The move is already producing warnings from some legislators, who are worried about the massive amount of regulations on businesses that could result. This is explained further over at Bloomberg. Either way, we're going to be hearing a lot more about greenhouse gases in the coming days and months.

Looking for a slightly underachieving, yet effective and inexpensive way to make a difference for Earth Day? Then Disney's got a deal for you. They've offered up a bribe to all nature documentary addicts and/or lovers of the planet to get them to pack into theaters for the opening weekend of Disneynautre's ode to the planet: Earth. If you'll plant your butt in a seat, Disney will plant a tree in your honor.

Pretty cool eh? The trees will be planted in Brazil's Atlantic Forest, a place that Disney's conservationists have identified as a global conservation hot spot, since only 7% of the forest remains in tact. Disney's savvy box office bribe might help moviegoers that are on the fence decide to brave the opening weekend crowd and catch what Disneynature's Dick Cook calls "an entertaining and unprecedented view of our planet, with some of the most astonishing imagery and exciting natural drama ever presented on the big screen."

Will Disneynature's Earth rival other monumental planet documentaries like Planet Earth? Find out when it opens on Earth Day, April 22nd.

[via Ecorazzi]

Some say that if the oceans rise three feet, 20 percent of Bangladesh would be swallowed up. Were this a science fiction movie this might be the thrilling moment that either results in bad guys being killed, or good scientists reversing the calamity.

Unfortunately, this is just science. No morality or magic involved, and Bangladesh has a problem, but it also has a solution that appears to working. Low spots in the land in Bangladesh are called soup bowls, and while these spots are typically the most vulnerable to erosion and submersion, silt is actually making them more sollid.

Silt flows downriver into the Bay of Bengal and into the ocean. But it also builds up on the banks and sometimes in these soup bowls. The silt is marshy and, if the water is still trapped within it, useless. But locals have found a way to release that water, and the build up of silt has increased the land mass and elevation. That has made those areas actually safer and less prone to submersion.

In the U.S. levees along the Mississippi River prevent silt from building up in marshes and other places that feed on the nutrient rich soil, but the accidental success here may have some impact on how the River is allowed to flow in the future.

That said, just as quickly as the river giveth, it can take all of that silt away in a torrent. And the accumulation of that silt is a slow process. Perhaps, some say, too slow for today's rising oceans.

[NY Times]

Will the green glow of America's carbon-conscious energy future be tinted with a radioactive overtones? The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission is currently sitting on requests to build 26 new reactors, and they expects to receive applications for seven more by the year's end. With public sentiment for nuclear energy in relatively positive territory, you and a nuclear reactor could soon be neighbors.

According to a recent survey, 73% of Americans say that it would be "acceptable to build a new reactor within 100 miles of their home." Of course, build it closer, and support erodes rather quickly. Still, with a pro-nuke Energy Secretary, and a growing realization that renewable energy is going to struggle in today's energy market. "Aspirations for lower-carbon, or zero-carbon electricity, are unattainable without nuclear in the mix," says global generation expert Daniel Kruger. Right now, there are 104 nuclear power plants in the US, which pump out about 20% of the nation's electricity. Obviously, adding another 33 could make huge gains in terms of greenhouse emissions, but are we really ready to confront the disposal of radioactive waste?

Why does Val Kilmer keep taking B-movie roles as fanatical scientists, hellbent on proving to an uncaring world that global warming is in fact real and threatening life as we know it. I don't know. Maybe he's having trouble finding work, being typecast, or he's on some kind of weird, poorly publicized crusade to raise climate change awareness. Whatever the reason, his latest starring role in The Steam Experiment marks the second feature length in under a year with global warming overtones. The other being The Thaw.

In The Steam Experiment, Kilmer plays a scientist who holds six people hostage in a steam room rigged to get incrementally hotter until fatal -- a pretty straight forward metaphor. His request is simple, he wants a headline in "big bold letters" declaring his global warming hypothesis in the official paper of record, The Grand Rapids Press (yeah, I don't get it either). If not, the six hostages will experience the supposed realities of global warming: de-evolution, chaos, anarchy and all that good stuff. My so-bad-it's-good meter is off the charts. Check out the trailer after the fold.

[via Ecorazzi]

Scientists at the NASA-sponsored Advanced Global Atmospheric Gases Experiment recently discovered a miracle gas that has approximately 4,800 times the planet warming potential of CO2. Argh! I know what you might be thinking ... but this new climate killing greenhouse gas isn't emitted by the manufacture of Crocs. Quite unsurprisingly, this miracle substance comes from the pest control industry. They really have a knack for creating incredibly destructive chemicals don't they?

Sulfuryl Fluoride, originally developed by the Dow Chemical Company to keep those dirty little insects off crops like grains, fruits, and nuts, is produced by three manufacturers and sold under the brand names: Vikane, ProFume, Zythor, and Master Fume. Because that the gas' effects have been discovered at a pretty early stage in the adoption process, phasing out the pesticide isn't expected to be a huge problem. The trick is to find a suitable alternative that doesn't threat existence as we know it. The kinda ironic part of this story is that Sulfuryl Fluoride was developed to replace Methyl Bromide -- which had been identified as a harmful greenhouse and phased out in 2005.

[via Treehugger]