Green Daily

We talk a lot here at Green Daily about what you can do to help the planet. Over at Zen Habits, there is a great post reminding us all that really what we need is less.

Just like many money-saving things are also good for the environment doing less has it's own set of benefits.

• Drive less. Walk or bike instead. Good for the planet and good for you.
• Want less. Instead of always wanting more, more, more, stop and appreciate what you do have. Then enjoy it.
  
• Talk less. Spend more time listening to those around you. It will improve your relationships.
  
• Buy less cheap stuff. Sometimes, spending a bit more can give you something that will last much longer. Think about investing in a good, cast iron pan versus the latest Teflon coated skillet. Sure, the cast iron takes a bit of time to season and it's a bit more work but, well cared for it will literally last you forever.
  
• Rush less. If you slow down and are more mindful of the things around you, you will make better choices. Instead of grabbing the first thing you see, you will have time to think and consider.
  
• Less stuff. We all know we have too much stuff. Work hard to really use what you have and find creative reuses for things instead of adding to the stuff.

When the dust finally settles and it's time to wrap all those great deals you snapped up in the Black Friday frenzy, consider the Japanese art of furoshiki. There are lots of suggestions to use fabric as a wrapping for gifts but, how exactly do you keep the gift in the fabric?

Japan's Ministry of the Environment made it quite simple to figure out. To encourage people to return to the traditional usage of furoshiki to carry items and reduce the dependence on plastic shopping bags, the Ministry created a handy guide with directions on using furoshiki to hold various objects.

If you don't get enough ideas there, DIY Life has a pretty comprehensive post on the many uses of furoshiki with links to video demonstrations and additional resources. It might not be a great solution for say, a bicycle, but it would be great for books and other easy to wrap items.

Today is Buy Nothing Day 2008, otherwise known as Black Friday. I don't get the whole Black Friday thing myself anyway. What is the appeal of getting up at 4 A.M. to go shopping, or even less appealing, staying up all night? No thanks.

In honor of Buy Nothing Day and thanks to Tracy at EcoStreet, see the video below from Bonfire of the Brands. It's all about how companies try to get us to buy more and more, and how guilty the fashion industry is in all of this. It's kind of a creepy video, but very well done. I especially enjoyed how it attacks the practice of calling people "consumers,'" one of my long-time pet peeves.

Poland has made Greenpeace's "naughty" list this year. The environmental group made its feelings clear by dumping four tons of coal in front of a Sheraton Hotel in Warsaw. Economic ministers from 20 different countries are attending a conference there and many of them are major polluters.

Greenpeace UK performed a similar stunt by dumping coal at the doorstep of Tony Blair's environment department last year.

Greenpeace believes that a new Climate Package adopted by the European Union will only worsen coal's effects on the environment. Ninety percent of Poland's energy currently comes from coal and the country is currently threatening to veto the agreement.

Poland is not the only country griping about decreasing carbon emissions. Many countries are looking at the current financial crisis and are concerned about losing jobs for their citizens. It looks like there will be plenty to be discussed at UN's climate change conference next week in Poznan, Poland.

These days with the options for local, organic, sustainable, fair trade, grass fed, free range and whole grain foods popping up at most grocery stores anyone who is trying to eat green turns into a foodie of sorts really quickly. What can you give for Christmas besides a share in a CSA or homemade delicacies?

How about heirloom seeds for the garden, GreenPans or a gift to Heifer International. Eat. Drink. Better. has a list of the Top Ten Sustainable Culinary gifts. You can also consider gifts that can be redeemed later in the year if you live in one of the many places that fresh, local produce is not available for Christmas. Some ideas for Christmas and beyond:

• Gift certificate for a u-pick farm or farmers market.
  
• A cooking class for someone who is less experienced.
• Canning supplies for the home canner.
• An energy-efficient freezer.
  
• A gift certificate to a locavore restaurant.
• A vegetarian cookbook.
  
• Home-canned and preserved foods.
  
• Local beef, pork, chicken, etc. for the freezer.
  
• A bread machine for a busy cook.
  
• Ingredients and recipes for a local/organic/vegetarian recipe.
• Nice bulk storage bins for the pantry.

The possibilities are quite endless. Consider everything too. Someone who loves to cook but is on a tight budget might be dying to try cooking with a pricier organic ingredient but hasn't been able to afford it. What about a basket of spices, organic flours and mixes and just fun stuff from the grocery store.

Those of you that cook a lot, what are you hoping for under the tree this year?

When it comes to bolting on a costly solar array up on your roof, you come across a laundry list of common concerns. For example, some people say they look ugly. Well, innovative solar companies like Solarcentury are listening, and they're making great progress in overcoming a few of the aesthetic complaints. They've created a set of solar roof tiles that actually sit flush with your slate or tiled roof, helping your solar project blend in from ground level.

Being integrated into you actual roof tiles, Solarcentury's tiles also solve the problem of water pooling around your panels and causing leaks. Plus, they've got to be more difficult to steal. The "UK's fastest growing energy company" has put together this helpful video to answer all of the typical questions asked by those interested in investing in a solar array: What's the installation like? Does it really save you any money? What about your home's resale value? If they can make electricity meters run backwards in chronically gloomy London, they must be doing something right.

[via Treehugger]

Kristen Johnston is the latest celebrity to succumb to the clothes-taking-off wiles of PETA.

(Side note: What do those vegetarians put in the (filtered, never bottled) water around there? And why don't they ever get famous guys to strip? Where's Clooney? Or if they want to keep it all carrot munchers, fine, get a guy from one of their fifty zillion "Hottest Vegetarians" lists. I'm just saying, it wouldn't hurt to show us some famous pecs once in a while.)

Anyway, back to Kristen. Probably best known for her work on "Third Rock From The Sun" with the very brilliant John Lithgow, Kristen is posed, naked, with an extremely fake looking long blond wig (no animals harmed, just our artificial hair sensibilities) on top of a fake horse to protest horse-drawn carriages in New York City.

Aside from rolling my eyes at the mind-crushing, rom-com banality of a caleche ride around Central Park, like most people I hadn't given much thought to the horses when they're not on duty.

Suffice it to say, they live badly, and watch the video here of Kristen talking about her journey of animal cruelty discovery, if you are so inclined.

It's good to see Kristen doing anything. She's had some health problems recently, and seems to be doing better now. One thing's for sure, her next film definitely won't include a scene where the heroine gets a marriage proposal in a horse-drawn carriage!

This is shaping up to be the year where "budget Christmas" and "we're cutting back" is heard all over. If you're trying to figure out how to find some good green options and still stick to the budget, here are some places to look.

Greenopia has a list of seven green gifts under $30. There's a cute little tank top, some wine, a hand crank emergency radio/flashlight/cell phone charger and even a dog ball.

You can certainly find fair trade, organic coffee and chocolate for under $30. What about some coffee beans and a nice reusable cup for the coffee lover on your list? Organic food ingredients for a favorite recipe for the cook you need to buy for?

Reusable water bottles, stylish lunch boxes, cute shopping tote bags, a gift certificate to the used book store, or a pretty set of cloth napkins could all be found for less than $30. With some thought and planning, it can be done. But, you need to get started now!

[Via Eco Child's Play]

Wow, I knew that Tesla's trade secrets were supposedly the subject of much espionage, but who would have thought that their Roadster was so far ahead of other high performance EV projects that companies like Porsche would still be taking notes. According to the rumormill, the Roadster -- which has been cruising up and down US roadways since February -- is on Porsche's Christmas wish list. And I doubt they just want to take it for a spin.

Porsche has a tire-squealing EV of their own named the E-RUF 911 -- but for the most part, Porsche has kept a low profile regarding their green speed racer. Does that mean that there is something wrong with it? Have the developers in Stuttgart have hit a wall? Our friends over at Autoblog are speculating that the fact that Porsche is on the waiting list for a Tesla means that are looking to rip into it and see exactly how a electric roadster is supposed to be built. Hmm, considering how protective Tesla is with its designs, this might not be the last we hear about this.

[via Autoblog]

This is definitely in the realm of hypothetical computer modeling, but a pair of researchers at the University Maryland have determined that a really, really big wind farm could have a "butterfly effect" on air currents, and change the course of storms.

Right now the U.S. gets about 1% of our total electricity from windmills. The Department of Energy has a goal of increasing that to 20% by 2020, which means a couple of things:

a) someone needs to build a whole bunch of wind farms, and
b) now might be a good time to invest in turbine blades, windmill engines, and breezy hilltop properties

The Terrapin scientists were interested in whether or not the planned increased in the number of wind turbines would change wind patterns. They found that wind speeds do decrease in the immediate vicinity of the turbines, and observed a "ripple" in air currents that alter a storm course by a couple hundred miles.

Before anyone panics, in order to see any effect they had to multiple the number of hypothetical turbines to some astronomical number much larger than what anyone one has planned -- basically the scenario was the equivalent of every wind turbine in North America being bunched up on one farm in Texas.

We all know California will never let that happen!

Still, it's a good reminder that humans alter the environment with all of our acts, even when our intent is to reduce our impact!

In many families, as soon as the turkey and stuffing are packed away, the Christmas decorations come out. Is it better to buy a real tree or use a fake one? A real tree is better if you follow some guidelines. If you already have a fake tree, keep using it as long as possible.

You are most likely familiar with items that are difficult to recycle; polystyrene, plastic film, broken glass and smoke detectors to name a few. But surely there are things out there that should never ever be recycled. The thought of some personal items -- no matter how well desanitized -- transformed into notebooks or rubber bands makes me a bit queasy. But there are bigger travesties out there. Here are six things that should never be recycled -- EVER.

Slowly but surely, electronic companies are putting out eco-conscious products that have a smaller impact on the planet both in life and in death. That includes some of the more eco-conscious sex toy retailers out there like LoveHoney in Bath, England. Last year, they launched a program entitled "Rabbit Amnesty," encouraging customers to recycle their "outdated or over-loved toys." In exchange, LoveHoney would recycle the toy, donate a £1 to a green charity and send customers could get a new rabbit for half price.

Sounds like a pretty sweet deal, right? Apparently not to everyone. Everything had been going great with Rabbit Amnesty (5 tonnes of recycled toys to date) until thieves broke into LoveHoney's vibration collection container and stole $1,140 worth of used rabbits. Eww. The local police have been made aware of the missing toys, but chances are that identifying the devices will be a bit touchy. From LoveHoney's blog:

"if someone sidles up to you in a pub and offers you a cheap rabbit, tell 'em where to get off."

[via Jezebel]

Traces of melamine have been detected in U.S. infant formula, according to an AP report, but the FDA insists that the products are safe. Melamine is the chemical that caused the infant formula disaster in China, and it was found that companies were adulterating the protein to make it appear to have a higher protein content. The FDA and other experts said that the melamine contamination in the U.S.-made formula came from the manufacturing process and was not intentionally added.

Melamine is used in some food packaging and can be found in some cleaning solutions used to clean food processing equipment. Melamine is apparently everywhere in industrialized societies, so where this contamination came from, in my opinion, is anyone's guess at this point.

Here's what's not so reassuring. Back in early October, the FDA said that is is "currently unable to establish any level of melamine and melamine-related compounds in infant formula that does not raise public health concerns." But now that it has been melamine has been found in formula? The positive test results "so far are in the trace range, and from a public health or infant health perspective, we consider those to be perfectly fine."

The melamine concentrations in the affected products range from 0.1 to about 0.2 parts per million, about 10,000 times smaller than the concentrations that caused such agony for Chinese families. The limit for melamine in formula is 2.5 parts per million.

The Turkey is tucked into the oven, you've done your prep work and that organic wine you bought is breathing on the counter. As you take this moment to catch your own breath before friends and family come bursting through the door, here's a list of things you might have missed:

1. Clearly mark your recycle bins. The last thing you want to do is spend the evening picking bits of turkey and dressing out of your recyclables.
2. Close the door! Your refrigerator will no doubt be getting a workout today. Arrange the items that you will be using today so that they are front and center. This will allow you to grab what you need without leaving the door open for long periods of time.
3. Set out your cloth napkins. Save on paper towel waste by making sure that cloth napkins and hand towels are visible and available for guests to grab.
4. Watch the thermostat. With a houseful of people and every appliance running in the kitchen, you might get away with shaving off a few degrees to save some energy.
5. Dish duty. Refrain from running only partial loads of dishes -- by waiting until the dishwasher is full, you will be using less water and detergent.

Now you can sit back and have a happy Thanksgiving!