Steel is the most common, easily mined and least toxic of the bike materials. While titanium, carbon fiber and aluminum are light (note: Dedaccai steel is just as light), the manufacturing process for these materials require an amalgam of chemicals that can be harmful to the workers and the environment. And because steel lasts so long, it’s a better material pick for a used bike, which is the greenest of the green options. To sum it up, steel is real…good for the planet.

1.  Lower air-conditioning costs.  Development and migration into the sunbelt area have led to enormous stresses on energy generation capacity for fuelling air-conditioners and vehicles.  Simple design changes in buildings, cars and individual's possessions would vastly reduce consumption.

2.  Lower transport costs.  The old model of larger and larger production and distribution mega-centralization was founded on cheap storage and transport.  In addition, enormous amounts of energy is wasted in the stop-go traffic of cities.  Finally, the flight to the suburbs leading to enormous commutes between gated single-family enclaves and downtown offices now has to take into account transport costs as never before in calculating total livng cost.

3.  Minimize unncessary travel.  After the first Gulf War, remote meetings took off for large corporations and made economic sense but the primitive technology at that time made such meeting somewhat stilted and crafted.  Reconfiguring businesses in how they are organized and interact with partners and players would make major sense.   The retrenchment of point-to-point flight routes also point to a rationalizing of business locations.

4.  Right-size vehicles.  Does a single woman need a mobile house on wheels?  With most people being urbanites it makes no economic sense to have pickup trucks and SUV's as everday passenger vehicles.  Detroit is paying the price for its own manipulations of the market to get around the EPA's car efficiency standars -- by making pickups and SUV's, which are classified as trucks, exempt from the requirements set forth in the 1970's.  They have only themselves to blame for such short-sightedness.

5.  Household efficiencies.  These are a list of ideas that anyone can devise.

Let's look at them in detail.

The reality of our situation, as I see it, is that we have been progressively and exponentially squandering--wasting!--the once-given geologic reserves of fossil fuels.  Not only is oil finite and destined to be exhausted by our ever-increasing energy demands; the economic precursors and descendents of that super-industrial fuel--coal and natural gas--are also finite. 

Renewable resources are certainly an option, but solar, wind, and tidal energy cannot begin to replace the vast energy glut we have been increasingly wallowing in during the period of industrial civilization.  Besides that, each of them--with the arguable exception of solar panels--comes with a rather heavy environmental price: farms of windmills pose the threat of slicing up mass numbers of birds, while both tidal and river dams threaten fish and other marine life.

Even if these negative environmental impacts were somehow mitigated or even completely done away with, indications are that we would need hundreds of thousands of square miles of wind and solar farms to create a workable amount of energy for civilization at its current scale--and even then, we would be operating at power levels much lower than we have become accustomed.

Nuclear power is just stupid, because at any level it creates radioactive waste that takes tens to hundreds of thousands of years to decay.  The costs of building nuclear power plants plus creating tombs in which to bury and monitor the waste are astronomical, from what I gather.

So to me it seems clear that we are all in for a rude awakening as we power down from our industrial binge.  What we need is a return to human-scale communities and technologies, and to work towards humanely decreasing population and getting right with the comparatively meager energy income we receive as a bounty from the sun. 

While turning off lights, minimizing computer and teevee usage, biking and walking are all noble steps that we can take as individuals, we need a concerted, concentrated effort from the highest levels of political organization to dismantle corporations and other large-scale energy consumers--which ironically means that we will have to ask governments to scale down their own bureaucratic bulks.  Finally, we should see the "War on Terror" for the corporate lie that it is, divest our resources from the military, and re-invest those resources (really, it's all just debt anyway) into civil programs that will help grow local and regional economies in the best sense of that word--economies based on people, community agriculture, crafts, and necessary services--not the production and marketing of useless plastic crap. 

This is a radical prescription, and we need to seriously think about advocating and implementing strategies like these that people like Heinberg are suggesting, in the very near future.  Already we are in for a shocking, bumpy decline. The sooner we can get started in real, good work, the better off we will all be.

The World Wildlife Fund eco-ad thought up by Saatchi and Saatchi, Copenhagen, Denmark, utilizes the movement of shadows on a billboard to demonstrate how global warming will lead to rising water levels with a cut canopy and the movement of the sun.

I love when someone does something different.

-Cara

Three hundred years from now the earth has suffered catastrophic ecological meltdown and the few people who still survive live in an uncomfortable alliance with the ‘sentient’ forest they now share the planet with. Water has become an incredibly precious commodity guarded by ‘druids’ who are the keepers of the forest, but when young Agito, venturing into a prohibited area, accidentally discovers a cryogenic chamber from before the apocalypse and awakens its occupant – a young girl called Toola – the uneasy truce between man and nature is broken and mankind faces total extinction.

How this situation is resolved is both complex and confusing but the look of the film – a mix of 3D CGI and traditional 2D animation – is gorgeously lush and detailed throughout.       Dee Pilgrim

The last few Sundays have been games, games, and games, so I decided it was quiz time.

It's the Green Quiz straight out of Yale. This one is all about product consumption and disposal, and its impact on the world. The design is clean and done well.

It's fun.

-Cara

We all need a calculator now and again, most of which contain replaceable batteries or are disposable. As I have said before there is no such thing as disposable, so here is my calculator solution, a H2O's Water Powered Business Calculator.

To maintain a constant supply of energy simply refill as the water evaporates, they say typically every 2-3 months. The H20 water-powered battery is eco-friendly and all the components of the calculator are recyclable.

I haven't tried this yet, I will update when I do, to whether it rocks or not

Water powered is fresh.

-Cara

A blind date with one of six eligible bachelors awaits a young female takahe when she is released onto Mana Island today. The seven-month-old bird, named Moa, will be paired with a single male on the island in the hope that they’ll eventually breed.

Moa became sick early last week and was airlifted from her home at the Burwood takahe recovery unit near Te Anau to Massey’s wildlife ward. Lecturer in avian and wildlife health Kerri Morgan says she was near death’s door.

“She arrived exhibiting severe neurological symptoms and was very underweight. Tests showed a high level of the parasite coccidia in her system. We treated her for that and she’s recovered quickly.”

Ms Morgan says takahe don’t usually respond well to hospital treatment.

“They lose weight because they get stressed easily, but we gave Moa the penthouse suite in the ward and brought in native grasses for her to feed on, which she obviously appreciated.”

Department of Conservation staff will take Moa to Mana Island this morning, where she’ll be kept in isolation with her new mate.

The Department’s ranger on the island Sue Caldwell says the scientific reserve, off the coast of Porirua, is short of female takahe.

“It makes sense to bring her here. We’ll try and pair her with one of the six single males on the island. Males who aren’t paired cause trouble in the pre-breeding season that begins in late August, so hopefully we can get a fairytale ending here.”

Massey University - article

This moment verified that the pond is one step closer to ecological balance. Now, I await the villan. When will Bruce, the Great Blue Heron, show up?

You can now download both versions of the film from here.

History of the Eco-Shopping Game (according to their site):

The Eco-Shopping game is a game local to the North Central Texas region and was originally created by TXU Electric and Gas in 1997. The purpose of the game is to help educate the consumer on three aspects of product packaging:

1. recyclability of the package,
2. reducing the amount of packaging waste going into the landfill by buying products with less packaging, and
3. giving preference to a packaging made with recycled content materials.

Click Here to Get to the Game Link

It reminds me of the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, with the talking bull, Longhorn Larry. I found it on timetorecycle.com. There are three different games in one. My favorite is the one where you separate your recyclables from trash before the garbage truck comes. :) I can't get enough of it.

Fun stuff.

-Cara

Enjoy!

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[[http://weehouse.com/flash/SFWA_index.html#/intro/]]

[[http://www.smallhousestyle.com/]]

[[http://www.rosschapin.com/Plans/plans.html]]

[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthship]]

[[http://www.yurts.com/]]

[[http://www.erdhaus.ch/main.php?fla=y〈=en&cont=start]]

[[http://www.thetreehouseguide.com/links-builders.htm]]

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[[http://www.fabprefab.com/]]

[[http://www.m-house.org/]]

[[http://www.resourcesforlife.com/mobile-hermitage]]

[[http://www.atchintan.freeserve.co.uk/]]

[[http://www.daphnescaravans.com/index.htm]]

[[http://www.americanprofile.com/article/20947.html]]

[[http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/multimedia/2008/01/modular_homes]]

[[http://www.domeincorporated.com/]]

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I was talking the other day to my dad about different ways to conserve energy in his house and it reminded me of this switch, called GreenSwitch, which I discovered watching a "Living with Ed" (If you don't know the show, I wrote about it here.) episode. What it does, simply put, is turns off the juice to your outlets, lights, thermostat and whatever other electric entity you wish to control, with just one switch.

If you know my dad, this is the perfect invention for him as he wants to save the planet and money, but can only be guaranteed to do so regularly if it's a simple process.

I cannot personally recommend this product never having tried it; I just think the idea is fantastic. I myself craw behind things and under things to unplug as much as I can remember, but less than I should. When I do build my dream house, this feature will be included.

Turn off, unplug.

-Cara

Babeland is going to think this is some sort of miracle. They sent me some products awhile ago (because of a Valentine's entry I wrote with them in it) that I said I'd review...fast forward a hundred years later to the first of a few reviews I intend to do for them.

One of these products was the soy wax, chocolate hazelnut, massage candle. I love it. The candle wax, when dripped on your skin, has a soft, smoothness to it. It possesses a sweet, warm, nutty smell. The smell reminds me of growing up in Miami, and the fragrance of the women who surrounded me. When done you are softer and smell sweeter, as do your sheets and your lover's hands.

As far as the packaging, I say lose the red and orange box (even though it's cute). Candles already in a glass votive like that don't need a box I would think, just a cover of a biodegradable film of some sort, if anything. Thus you reduce unnecessary packaging and have more of a sustainable product.

I also like the matches they include with the candle. I think they are more romantic than lighting a candle with a lighter. It made me think, I'm not sure which is worse buying a "disposable lighter", matches or fluid for a refillable lighter. I say send the matches and counteract it with planting a tree or two every month for all the paper/wood products the company uses. Just an idea.

To wrap up this review, I think the product itself is great and I'm glad to have been introduced to it.

Thanks Babeland.

-Cara

1. Beets: Think of beets as red spinach, Dr. Bowden said, because they are a rich source of folate as well as natural red pigments that may be cancer fighters.
   How to eat: Fresh, raw and grated to make a salad. Heating decreases the antioxidant power. ..."

Read more >>>

This is a great idea. I think I first saw stapleless staplers at the Whitney Museum. It's fun and important to not waste staples and who doesn't love to staple things?

Good times.

-Cara

2. Rainforests are being cut down at the rate of 100 acres per minute

3. One-third of the water used in most homes is flushed down the toilet

4. A single quart of motor oil, if disposed of improperly, can contaminate up to 2,000,000 gallons of fresh water.

5. Plastic bags and other plastic garbage thrown into the ocean kill as many as 1,000,000 sea creatures every year.

6.A modern glass bottle would take 4000 years or more to decompose -- and even longer if it's in the landfill.

7.recycling one glass bottle saves enough energy to light a 100-watt bulb for four hours

8.Energy-saving lightbulbs last around ten times longer than ordinary lightbulbs- over 10,000 hours.

9. A laptop is more environment friendly than a desktop. It consumes five times less electricity.

10.An aluminum can that is thrown away will still be a can 500 years from now!

11.A single tree will absorb one ton of carbon dioxide over its lifetime. Shade provided by trees can also reduce your air conditioning bill by 10 to 15 per cent.

12. Tissue paper is a major source of waste. It takes 60,00,000 trees to make 1 year's worth of tissues for the world.

13. A ton of recycled paper equals or saves 17 trees in paper production.

14.A plant on your desk acts as a natural filter, absorbing airborne pollutants and computer radiation while replenishing oxygen levels.

15. Lawns only need watering once a week, post rain only after two weeks. Do watering early morning for minimal evaporation and water conservation.

16. Avoiding just 10 miles of driving every week would eliminate about 500 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions a year

17. Turn off the tap when brushing your teeth and soaping your hands. This can save around

16 litres a day. That's 11,000 litre of water per person per year.

18. A dripping tap can waste over 20,000 litres of water every year.

Here is something simple and fun to do. It is an action list that gives you ideas of good, eco, green, funny, energy conservation, recycling, and just being nice ideas. I like it because it tracks the ideas the give you as actions and you can invite Friends. I love stats.

I think I am going to put their tracker on this blog just to see how it looks. [Update - It doesn't work with Wordpress...but I still like it!]

Enjoy.

-Cara

Today's game is World Without Oil. I am beyond excited to come up with a plan of what to do in the first 32 weeks of a global oil crisis. I don't know what medium I will use yet, but I love to think and come up with solutions, especially in a virtual world, so bring it.

According to the WWO site, "World Without Oil concluded on June 1, 2007. [They are] no longer publishing links to in-game stories on the WWO site (unless they're really good). But everyone is welcome to sign up as a Netizen Hero and to participate in "WWO Lives," [their] ongoing blog about all matters WWO."

The cool thing is they say they will link to good in-game stories from the WWO Lives blog. That means only the superstar stories will make it on the site, which is a still a competition, and who doesn't like a little healthy competition.

I'm in.

-Cara