Wind and solar charger for my iPod

I want a K3 Charger!

Utilize the FREE power of the sun and wind now within your reach!

Bud Light?

Brewers hope Obama taps local ale

Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. told the Globe earlier this week that he prefers Red Stripe, which is brewed in Jamaica, or the German beer Beck’s.


Blue Moon, a Belgian-style beer brewed by Coors, seems to be the choice for Cambridge Police Sergeant James Crowley. That’s what he was seen sipping at Tommy Doyle’s Irish Pub in Kendall Square on Friday when Obama called to invite him to Washington, according to the New York Daily News.


But the White House, which has long been known to favor domestic beer at functions, has hinted that Obama likes Budweiser, which bills itself as “The Great American Lager” (despite its 2008 purchase by Belgian-Brazilian brewer InBev).

Bud? Even worse - Bud Light! Couldn't you pop open a Magic Hat? An organic brew like Wolavers? A Rouge? A microbrew?

Strides made but far more needs to be done...

It is now all the rage in the Age of Al Gore and Obama, but can you remember when everyone in America was not “Going Green”? Visually stunning, vastly entertaining and awe-inspiring, Earth Days looks back to the dawn and development of the modern environmental movement—from its post-war rustlings in the 1950s and the 1962 publication of Rachel Carson’s incendiary bestseller Silent Spring, to the first wildly successful 1970 Earth Day celebration and the subsequent firestorm of political action.


Earth Days’ secret weapon is a one-two punch of personal testimony and rare archival media. The extraordinary stories of the era’s pioneers—among them Former Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall; biologist/Population Bomb author Paul Ehrlich; Whole Earth Catalog founder Stewart Brand; Apollo Nine astronaut Rusty Schweickart; and renewable energy pioneer Hunter Lovins—are beautifully illustrated with an incredible array of footage from candy-colored Eisenhower-era tableaux to classic tear-jerking 1970s anti-litterbug PSAs.

Earth Days - Seeds of a Revolution

A dose of reality

G-8 Failure Reflects U.S. Failure on Climate Change

For all its "green" aura, Waxman-Markey locks in fossil fuel business-as-usual and garlands it with a Ponzi-like "cap-and-trade" scheme. Here are a few of the bill's egregious flaws:

It guts the Clean Air Act, removing EPA's ability to regulate CO2 emissions from power plants.
It sets meager targets -- 2020 emissions are to be a paltry 13% less than this year's level -- and sabotages even these by permitting fictitious "offsets," by which other nations are paid to preserve forests - while logging and food production will simply move elsewhere to meet market demand.


Its cap-and-trade system, reports former U.S. Undersecretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs Robert Shapiro, "has no provisions to prevent insider trading by utilities and energy companies or a financial meltdown from speculators trading frantically in the permits and their derivatives."


It fails to set predictable prices for carbon, without which, Shapiro notes, "businesses and households won't be able to calculate whether developing and using less carbon-intensive energy and technologies makes economic sense," thus ensuring that millions of carbon-critical decisions fall short.

There is an alternative, of course, and that is a carbon fee, applied at the source (mine or port of entry) that rises continually. I prefer the "fee-and-dividend" version of this approach in which all revenues are returned to the public on an equal, per capita basis, so those with below-average carbon footprints come out ahead.

With the Senate debate over climate now beginning, there is still time to turn back from cap-and-trade and toward fee-and-dividend. We need to start now. Without political leadership creating a truly viable policy like a carbon fee, not only won't we get meaningful climate legislation through the Senate, we won't be able to create the concerted approach we need globally to prevent catastrophic climate change.

Still relying on the status quo is not a winning proposition. Gutting the Clean Air Act doesn't make sense. Looks like it is time to push the debate forward for the good of all.

Wishing I lived in Canada...

I want a David Suzuki Garden Gnome.

Do you have an organic garden? Want to put a David Suzuki Garden Gnome in it? We're looking for you! You don't have to be an expert gardener, simply gardening organically gives you a chance to win.

The Good Life

Watch New York Times bestselling author Mark Albion's 3-minute animated movie Based on Mark's book, More Than Money.


"The Good Life" takes you to a chance meeting between an MBA and a fisherman on a small island. As the MBA tries to teach the fisherman about business, the fisherman teaches him about life.

Thanks to Little Homestead in the City for making us aware of this great clip.

Suck on a lump of coal

Rep. Nick Rahall Jumps Out Of A Plane For The Coal Lobby

If all went as planned, House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.) jumped out of a plane on Saturday to show his support for the coal industry. In third-person fashion, he described the upcoming event last week as "a Nick Rahall affirmation of the importance of coal and an opportunity to pay tribute to those who extraordinarily serve and make personal sacrifices each day for the citizens of West Virginia and our Nation as a whole."

Nicky. How does jumping out of a plane affirm coals importance? Coal fired airplane? Nicky, if it is so safe and important, go into the mine, breathe the coal dust, take a bite .... Show us some "clean" coal.

Jumping out of a plane with a chute affirms the importance of the parachute. It also affirms the fact that you will take any opportunity to have fun as long as a lobbyist or taxpayer pays for it.

The Fall Garden

Grow Your Best Fall Garden: What, When and How

Right now, before you forget, put a rubber band around your wrist to remind you of one gardening task that cannot be postponed: Planting seeds for your fall garden. As summer draws to a close, gardens everywhere can morph into a tapestry of delicious greens, from tender lettuce to frost-proof spinach, with a sprinkling of red mustard added for spice. In North America’s southern half, as long as seeds germinate in late July or early August, fall gardens can grow the best cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower you’ve ever tasted. In colder climates it’s prime time to sow carrots, rutabagas and turnips to harvest in the fall. Filling space vacated by spring crops with summer-sown vegetables will keep your garden productive well into fall, and even winter.

Good article.

Sure it just started getting warm. It seems like summer just started. But my turnips, rutabagas and parsnips have already sprouted and looking great for a late September/October harvest. Because of the weather the lettuce was growing great and never bolted. Today was the last harvest - digging out this weekend, followed by seed planting so I can enjoy a fresh green salad in September.

Live with nature or control it?

Fighting hurricanes by manipulating the sea

If you thought domination of the world's software market was cool, get a load of Bill Gates' next technological vision: giant ocean-going tubs that fight hurricanes by draining warm water from the surface to the depths, through a long tube.


A second tube could simultaneously suck cool water from the depths to the surface.


Microsoft founder Gates and a dozen other scientists and engineers have a patent pending for deploying such vessels, which they say would collect water through waves breaking over the walls of the tub. Some variations have the water moving through turbines on their way down, which would in turn generate electricity to suck up the cooler water.

Hurricanes can devestate. Weather can destroy. Nature can be fierce. But do we really have to control everything we see? Do we have to take the Bible (Genesis 1) literally when it talks about

...dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth

Bill stick with battling Google and leave the weather and nature to itself.

Frugal and Green

Free Up Your Disposable Income

It's no secret that many of the people reading this are doing a lot of green stuff for two main reasons: 1) To reduce their burden on the Earth's ecosystems, and 2) to save some dough. That's perfectly fine, nothing to be ashamed about, especially in these tough economic times.


But some people are hard to convince. "Why should I turn turn down my air conditioner and drink tap water," they say. "After all, I'm making $50,000 a year, so those savings are insignificant."


Well, is that true? Say that you could save a few hundreds of dollars by cutting down on your energy use, by consuming less, and following some of the other tips on Planet Green and our sister site TreeHugger. How big a difference would it make to your budget?


The real answer can be found by looking not at your gross income, but rather at your disposable income.


That's a very important point, and needs to be repeated: Disposable income is what matters.

If you make $50,000 a year (random number) but $47,000 of those dollars are going to: pay taxes, pay the rent/mortgage, car payments, utility bills, groceries, education, putting money aside for retirement, etc... Not much disposable income is left (it's a whole other discussion, but I hate the term "disposable income"—it makes it sound as if you had no other choice by to mindlessly consume stuff to get rid of it).


So those few hundred dollars of savings are actually quite big compared to the $3000 (for example) you have left at the end of the year. That's what frugal green living is about, making a noticeable difference, both for you and the planet, and our world definitely needs a good dose of green personal finance education the way people are spending their ways into financial and ecological holes.

Simplify. It will save you green and be green as well.

A Green Exxon?

Exxon to Invest Millions to Make Fuel From Algae

The oil giant Exxon Mobil, whose chief executive once mocked alternative energy by referring to ethanol as “moonshine,” is about to venture into biofuels.

On Tuesday, Exxon plans to announce an investment of $600 million in producing liquid transportation fuels from algae — organisms in water that range from pond scum to seaweed. The biofuel effort involves a partnership with Synthetic Genomics, a biotechnology company founded by the genomics pioneer J. Craig Venter.

It may work. It may lead to great things. But the idea of Exxon being green just sounds strange.

The green brothel

Berlin brothel offers discounts for cyclists

A Berlin brothel has come up with a novel way to negate the impact of the global economic crisis and target a new group of customers at the same time -- offering a discount to patrons who arrive on bicycles.

Customers who arrive on bicycle or who can prove they took public transportation get a 5-euro (4 pounds) discount from the usual 70-euro ($100) fee for 45 minute sessions, Goetz told Reuters. He said the environmentally friendly offer was working.


"We have around 3-5 new customers coming in daily to take advantage of the discount," he said, adding the green rebate has helped alleviate traffic and parking congestion in the neighbourhood.

It seems like all businesses are trying to paint themselves green these days.

Start with ourselves

Self-Care = Earth Care

What's good for our bodies is good for the planet -- and what's bad for the earth is bad for our health. The idea that caring for the earth must include attending to our own wellness is worth exploring. These are ways to take better care of yourself and the environment.

The ways:

1. Mind your mind
2. Watch what you eat
3. Choose organic
4. Cut out the plastic

Read the article to see how the other suggests we achieve the above.
An easy way to say the same in two words is :LIVE SIMPLY.

Can we lead the fight?

Greenpeace video of the banner being unfurled on Mt. Rushmore calling for Obama and the US to lead the fight against global warming.
Can we really lead if we still thrive on "buy, buy, buy?" Can we really set an example when we continue to want to own the latest, newest, greatest, biggest...?

How clean is your salad?

Environmental Working Group lists 47 fruits and vegetables and their "pesticide load." Peppers are way up there.

The solution? Buy organic - or even better - grow your own.

Wishing my Hops were growing

Grow Yourself a Six-Pack

WHEN Ben Granger, an owner of a Brooklyn specialty-food shop called Bierkraft that sells more than 1,000 different beers, began making his own home brew, he planted some hop vines.

It smelled green, like grass, with a hint of pine.


A half-dozen vines had already wound themselves about 20 feet up the sturdy cords Mr. Granger had attached to the top of a metal ladder that was strung with a clothesline and pulley, for reeling laundry in and out of the second-story window.


“I just use it for my vines,” Mr. Granger said. “Once it gets real hot and humid, they’ll grow 6 to 10 inches a day.”


The deeply lobed leaves arch out from rugged vines that look as if they could eat Brooklyn if given half a chance. But Mr. Granger cuts his to the ground in late August or early September, to harvest the hops.

Hop vines thrive in full sun to partial shade, and in fertile, well-draining soil. Other than that, they don’t require much care.

My rhizome - never took. Next year!

Michael Jackson the environmentalist

What have we done to the world

Look what we've done

So much is being made of his life - pop icon, questions of how he died, his looks, accusations, lifestyle. Maybe we should remember him as someone concerned with the world.

Green Taco Bell

Taco Bell's New Green Menu Takes No Ingredients From Nature

Okay, I know it's from Onion, but it points out the insanity of so many companies going green.

Can Shell oil be green?