This week I am working a show that is entirely devoted to sailing. It’s pretty cool.
There is a whole section on green boating.
I am there talking about Great Lakes conservation.
Working shows makes me tired.
Sooooo, don’t expect much updating in the next little bit as I currently like sleep more than I like you.
Those of you who are longtime readers may remember my post No meat, or at least a little bit less…
Just in case you didn’t believe me then, I would direct you here.
This is a great article discussing meat and the food industry in general and its effects on our environment.
Personally, I haven’t done the best job of making food choices that are better for the environment. I do try to limit my meat intake, but for the most part I don’t typically worry about buying organic or local food. If the options present themselves I take them, but in general I don’t put too much stress on it. I don’t really have an excuse for this except to say that so far in my life I have only done about 5 months of buying my very own groceries with my very own money, and at that time I was on a very limited budget and eating mostly boca burgers and carrots.
But enough about me sucking with food choices. Read the article and learn about how eating less meat and buying food with intent can help you lessen your impact on the environment.
Also, in and effort to make myself a little less of a drain on the planet with my eating habits I am planning to sign up for Fresh Picks fairly soon. These guys do organic and local food delivery to homes in the chicago-land area. You can sign up for a fresh picks box and they send you the things that are in season and some recipes to whip it all up into deliciousness. You can also just order from them occasionally. Basically like a peapod but with mostly local and organic tastiness 
When I get all signed up and ready to go I will tell you what I think, but I encourage you to go ahead and get started on it today. Those of you with a steadier income who have actually established your permenent home might do better than I in getting this done right away
Note: If you don’t live in the Chicago-land area, or are just intersted in finding other sources feel free to check out www.localharvest.org. This is a great resource where you can find local farms and CSAs to be a part of, its good for your karma!
and if you had a funny accent they would sound exactly the same.
I have recently secured permission from my new roommate and dearest boyfriend to make forays into the realm of vermiculture. I plan to be making my first purchases for my new worm composting system this weekend. It should be all sorts of exciting to share my adventures in indoor apartment composting with all of you.
What’s that I hear? YOU want to do your own worm composting at home? Well then here, this is the guide I will be using. Let’s do it together and compare notes
So, interesting fact, solar cells are reflective. This means that a decent portion of the sunlight that hits a solar cell is reflected off and not absorbed. Another interesting fact, solar cells don’t absorb sun evenly from all angels. Both of these facts are true, until now.
This article talks about how Shawn-yu Lin created a series of anti-reflective coatings that vastly increase the absorbtion rate by reducing both of the above facts. I find this to be fascinating and cool, and also… another “how come no one ever thought of this before” moment. But its good someone thought of it now right.
http://www.ewg.org/greenlightbulbs
So turns out that there are plenty of CFL lightbulbs that actually fail the 2008 standards for their class. There are also better CFL choices among the several thousand brands out there. This article from Environmental Working Group lays out all of the facts for you and gives you the info on the best performing CFLs with the smallest amount of mercury. Plus a lot of other really good info on CFLs and other bulb choices.
Remember, CFLs do contain mercury (anywhere from just under one mg to around 4 mg). When buying CFLs make sure to look for those with less mercury. The rankings in the above article should prove useful
To tell the truth I don’t know, but the new White House energy page seems to be pretty optimistic about our future.
There is also a lot of buzz today about how the Obama Administration is starting out strong with direction for the EPA to re-examine decisions made about auto industry emission standards in California and other states.
Also, in interesting and good news for the day, read this report about how 2007 was a great year for alternative energy sources. In fact, alternative energy power plants neatly outstripped coal-fired power plants in terms of new megawatts added to the grid. If you read the whole thing you will actually see that coal-fired power plants LOST just over 200 megawatts of total energy production from 2006. All of this means that less of our energy is coming from coal and more is coming from alternative sources (mainly wind at this point).
So, while I don’t honestly know what the changing of the guard will mean for the US Energy Policy, I can say that we are primed for the government to take the lead. News like the numbers for 2007 tell us that there is a slow, almost imperceptible changing of the tides going on. Public opinion is for alternative energy and a decent portion of industry is moving towards support for alternative energy. If we truly have a president who is serious about making our energy independence and our environment a priority I think the future is looking very bright indeed.
It’s no secret that the Great Lakes region is awash with harmful invasive species, over 180 distinct species of invasive plants and animals to be exact. Many of these species have caused irreversible changes to our local ecology, changes that will take years to be naturally corrected.
One invasive species that had not yet made its way into the Great Lakes is the asian carp. These guys are rather large fish, measuring anywhere from 40-100 pounds at their full growth. They were brought to the United States, with permission, to be used as filter feeders in southern fish farms. The asian carp is a capable of eating 40% of its body weight in plankton each day. This makes them great fish to have cleaning out your fish farm.
Unfortunately, they have not stayed in fish farms. These guys have escaped and swam up the Mississippi River and now have made a very comfy home in the Illinois River. The Illinois River is connected to Lake Michigan by two canals and the Chicago River. In studies done on the Illinois River last summer it was discovered that asain carp now account for 80% of the biomass in the section of the river they inhabit. The thought of what they might do to the ecology of Lake Michigan were they to make their way further north is absolutely terrifying.
Luckily, the powers that be have known of this threat for some time and have prepared an attack plan. An electronic barrier. Currently, a temporary barrier is in use in the Illinois River and there is a permanent barrier being tested. The permanent barrier has been being tested for over 2 and a half years now. Luckily, it seems that there may be an end in sight to all these tests, and a solution to our carp problem (at least for now).
The barrier may be fully enacted this year!
Read about that here.
If you are further interested in the asian carp I could go on about it for hours. I just figured that at this point I’d given you your lesson on invasive species for the day
Here is another really good one: Climate Challenge
It can take awhile, but it is nice to play. Now granted it totally simplifies the issues, but it does make you think about where it might make sense to actually increase your carbon output to achieve your longterm goals.
Set aside a half hour and try it. It’s fun!
So I’m sure you’ve heard of EnergyStar ratings. All the EnergyStar products get lots of press and lots of hype talking about how they can save you energy and money. I fully support energy efficiency in all its forms and love the EnergyStar ratings even though I have yet to do much purchasing of any appliances for myself, ever…
It is less known that the EPA puts out a water rating system as well, WaterSense. You can check out the website dedicated to WaterSense here. You can use the website to look up faucets, showerheads and other water stuff that wins EPA approval for water conservation.
Also, for you fun-loving kids out there there is a game. I had great fun playing it. Find that here. I won’t tell you the score I got, cause I don’t want to gloat, but I probably beat you. But then again, I have an advantage
Read it here
I think this is a fantastic thing and something we should push for more of. The idea of just never building the dirty coal power plants that we have here in developing countries is a wonderful one. Apparently Kenya currently gets the bulk of its energy from hydroelectic and geothermal anyways, but still this is pretty awesome. Just pointing out, on the renewable energy front it looks Africa might just kick our butts, and it makes me happy.
