On October 30, MSN launched a new green channel: GreenMSN.
GreenMSN is a “one-stop online resource for the latest environmental news, exploring the issues and taking action.”
RSS! News! Video! All with the credibility MSN inspires!
*swoon*
Archive for November, 2007
Green MSN
Use Less Stuff
Use Less Stuff – pretty self-explanatory! – uses quantitative data to help people reduce their waste.
Produce in Season
As it is wintertime, and the idea that we can eat raspberries all year round is a bit silly, this tool from the government in Victoria, Australia seems like a pretty cool idea. You see a list of produce available in the area, click on it, and then recipes come up.
Here is a pretty guide to seasonal produce from the Food Network.
And here is a Southern California harvest chart.
Proud to be an American..?
Did you know that the U.S. accounts for 1/4 the world’s carbon emissions?
Jesus.
Green Consumer Reports!
A dream come true! Bust those greenwashers with Green Consumer Reports.
The guide tells you what you should bother buying organic, including baby food, meat, eggs, milk, apples, bell peppers, celery, cherries, imported grapes, nectarines, peaches, pears, potatoes, red raspberries, spinach, and strawberries. It also says not to bother buying organic seafood or cosmetics.
It tells you how many dollars per year you’ll save by shutting off the accent lighting (up to $28.65), or unplugging cell phone chargers when not in use (as much as $5.73).
I also tells you what chemicals to avoid when purchasing personal care products.
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch
Okay, so I usually try to keep this blog up-beat, do-able and exciting. Certain parts of environmentalism make good financial and health sense, and I try to focus on those. I don’t usually go in for convincing people to be environmentally friendly with fear, doomsday predictions, and fire and brimstone admonishments. But OH MY GOD there is a continent-sized patch of garbage floating around in the middle of the ocean! With all the oil spills happening in the last weeks, one hitting too close to home, it’s impossible not to notice a giant, whirling mass of garbage that is “too big to be cleaned up.” Greenpeace explains the phenomenon, as does the San Francisco Chronicle.
The good news is, smart people in Kenya are using similar washed-up flotsam to make cool stuff.
Shower Timer
Well ring a bell and make me drool. I thought I was the stubbornest of the untrainable. Even four months of minimal showering in Morocco was not enough to break my junior-high-instilled habit of showering daily. Usually a 10-to-15 minute user, I never thought I could be trained to take a shower in five minutes.
Little did I know.
This amazing little shower timer (stolen from my co-worker’s desk.. hi Laura!) has me whipped into shape! The first day felt rushed, but a week later I was squeaky clean with time to spare. And I have more time to read the Chron in the morning!
Green Apartments in Berkeley
UC Berkeley started a cool thing called The Green Apartment, designed to show how ordinary college students can make their lives more sustainable without investing a lot of effort or money. 
“We wanted to give the room a holistic concept, connecting the dots between the things students learn in the classroom and the choices they make in their everyday lives, said Desirae Early, a junior majoring in environmental economics and policy, a Green Campus Program coordinator and a Green Room Committee member.
Also see the Berkeley article and the Chronicle aricle.
This is my favorite quote from the article:
[Jonathan Hu, a sophomore and poli sci major living in the Green Apartments] added that women seem to find environmentally sensitive guys appealing. “I know that whenever I mention I’m part of the Green Apartment, it’s always the females who are asking follow-up questions,” said Hu.
Also in Berkeley is the beautiful, urban-infill, DOT-decorated Dwight Way.
Sonoma Mountain Village
Today, we held a meeting at a very cool place. Sonoma Mountain Village is a recycled Agilent campus in Rohnert Park, CA.
During the technology boom, 3000 people used to work and relax at this Agilent facility. During the technology bust, those thousands of people were downsized and vacated the campus. The very rich real estate-owning Codding family bought up the plant and brought in focus groups of young and old people. “What would you want if you lived here?” They answered: “A car-free center that has a movie theater, unique houses, and shopping.” They are hoping that SMV will become Rohnert Park’s downtown city center – which it currently lacks, despite being home to Sonoma State University (part of the Cal-State system).
But enough of the boring history. This place is going to be sweet. It has the second largest solar array in the world (beat only by Google). Codding Steel plans to make pre-fab houses from recycled cars – even better, they make them to each resident’s specs, so you don’t get the cookie cutter effect where all the houses in a planned neighborhood look the same. The Agilent campus is meticulously designed and people friendly, so it’s got good bones for future development. The meeting room (nee Agilent’s cafeteria) is bright and airy. “The first model homes should be available for viewing by mid-2008.” Squee!
Read about it in the San Francisco Chronicle, or check out the satellite image of the site.
CFL Recycling
“You’re tryin’ to make me go to THE-trash, I said
NO NO NO”
So, you are using those quirky, squiggly CFL bulbs to save energy, eh? Good! Like batteries, don’t throw them away! It’s illegal in California, Maine, Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota, Ohio and Indiana because the bulbs contain small amounts of mercury – safe for you even if the bulb breaks, but when tiny amounts of mercury end up collecting in the landfill, nobody is happy.
The good news is, Ikea takes them back. For more information, check out your state here.
