Sustainablog

Want to put solar panels on the house? Start saving… solar power is a great investment, but it is an investment… often a hefty one. If you’d like to get started with something a little less ambitious (but more affordable), you’ll find a number of good sources out there for a whole range of solar DIY projects. Voltaic, best known for its solar backpack, has joined more well-known sites such as Gary Reysa’s Build It Solar and Mother Earth News with its own collection of do-it-yourself projects.

So far, the collection is small… but there are already some really cool projects available:

Read the rest of this entry »

Today’s post is by Lisa Moore, a climate scientist at EDF.

NOAA recently released a terrific scientific report that explains, in plain English, the current and projected effects of climate change on the U.S. The nonpartisan report, prepared by the 13-agency U.S. Global Change Research Program, tells a grim but important story, clearly and with lots of powerful maps and charts. I encourage you to check it out to see how climate change will affect your area of the country.

Here are some of the “business-as-usual” projections that my colleagues and I find most striking and disturbing:

You think August is hot now?

By the end of this century, we could be in for much more severe summers all across the country (see maps that follow).

• If you live in New Hampshire, summer could feel like it does today in North Carolina (p.107).
• If you live in Michigan, brace yourself for summers that feel like today’s summers in Oklahoma (p 117).
• And if you live in Texas, you now experience 10 to 20 days a year over 100 °F. By the last two decades of this century, look for 100 such days - that’s more than three months (p. 90).

Read the rest of this entry »

Talk about a recipe for potential disaster.  Combine a down economy, changing agriculture practices, rising unemployment and the end result looks grim.  But here’s the secret ingredient  revitalizing and greening our countryside:  young people under 35.

Profiled in the new book, Renewing the Countryside: Youth, this new generation is making their mark on rural areas, from starting new farms to putting out their own entrepreneurial shingle in small towns. Renewing the Countryside: Youth showcases fifty case study stories, one from each state in the United States, cooking up a super-size serving of inspiration for what can be done in similar communities throughout rural America.

Renewing the Country (RTC), a Minnesota-based non-profit organization, specializes in championing such stories, telling the story of the small-scale but big impact individuals and organizations that are creatively crafting livelihoods that positively impact their rural communities. While other RTC books focus on stories within specific states such as Wisconsin, this latest book project, published in partnership with the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE), uniquely celebrates rural youth.

In addition to the case study stories themselves, the engaging writing and photography also came from a team young artists across the nation. But beyond the inspiring read, this book serves as a starter blueprint for others looking to either return to or plant new roots in rural America, no matter one’s age.  Looking at these case study stories collectively, five themes emerge that identify why this particular group of young people are succeeding in the countryside: Read the rest of this entry »

For those in America who have yet to read The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Fast Food Nation or even The Jungle, the new docu pic Food, Inc. smoothly stirs the boiling pot of food production controversy while allowing those not familiar with the dark secrets of the food production industry to enjoy a film in bite size nuggets.

With Fast Food Nation author Eric Schlosser a co-producers and Omnivore’s Dilemma writer Michael Pollen one of the consultants (in addition to being on-screen participants) the film offers a solid, well presented structure that offers not only scary, gut wrenching even stomach turning scenes in meatpacking plants, chicken coops and but offers a silver lining into the future of food.

Producer/Director Robert Kenner weaves the film through the various food landscapes from the cramped chicken coops of Maryland to the aerial CAFO vistas to the open grasslands of Polyface Farms. Inside one of the chicken coops live chickens that wallow in their own filth and barely have room to move. Factory farm shots show downer cows being uplifted by forklifts to be transported to the slaughterhouse. The film makes a point of showing people how dangerous and unregulated our food system remains.

Read the rest of this entry »

In just seven years the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival has emerged as the premier music festival in the United States, if not the world. With the biggest names in music from genres across the musical spectrum taking to thirteen stages and providing festival-goers with four days of good music, danceable beats and pleasing melodies, this year’s Bonnaroo, from June 11-14 in Manchester, Tennessee will be no different from the last seven.

But in addition to the mountains of music and non-musical activities, the festival, which last year was named one of eighteen music festivals worldwide to receive the Greener Festival award, added several new green dimensions to its already impressive greening efforts.

Like the much newer Rothbury Festival up in Michigan, festival organizers at Bonnaroo have been hard at work finding new ways to green the festival scene and engage fans in discussions, seminars and educational programs about important sustainability topics and the pressing environmental issues of today. In addition to incorporating an environmental mission statement into every vendor contract, festival organizers have built upon past successful sustainability efforts and mixed in some new ones to give festival attendees a greener music festival experience.

Below are a few of the pre-festival green highlights, but stay tuned to Green Options for green updates, photos, interviews and reports from the ground at this year’s Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival. Read the rest of this entry »

Still have bottled water as a regular item on the grocery list? Or just pick up the occasional bottle when you’re out? It’s so convenient…

As you probably know, that convenience comes at an environmental and social price: documentaries such as FLOW and Thirst, organizations such as the Sierra Club and Environmental Defense Fund, and even a few of us lowly bloggers, have reported on the costs created by water’s transformation from a freely-available resource to a multi-billion dollar commodity. That bottle of water you buy now contributes to the world’s third-largest industry.

Read the rest of this entry »

GreenTalk Radio host Sean Daily talks with green blogger and eco-entrepreneur Shea Gunther, previously of EarthFirst.com and now with MNN.

[Courtesy of our friends at GreenLivingIdeas.com]

Click Play Below,or

Jiangqiao Bamboo and Wood hails from China’s Jiangxi province, where bamboo resources are plentiful. Though the company began as a flooring company, they are now diversifying their production to include the latest in green design: bamboo keyboards.

In recent years, bamboo - a rapidly regenerating material - has gained popularity as a sturdy, sustainable alternative to wood flooring. Currently, China produces 200,000 cubic meters annually of bamboo plywood.

However, the history of bamboo’s use as an interior and even exterior material goes back way before sustainable buildings became trendy. Native to much of South and Southwest China, bamboo was first used to make paper, calligraphy brushes, and musical instruments thousands of years ago. For well over a century, it has been crafted into a range of household articles including chairs, baskets, mats, cutlery, and cabinets.

Bamboo - which is actually a grass - can be harvested after only four to six years of growth, much shorter than the 30-60 years required for comparable wood species. Replanting is not necessary, as bamboo regenerates on its own; and the speed at which it does so means it offers excellent erosion control.

Jiangqiao, which began manufacturing the green keyboards last October, has already received orders for 40,000 finished units, and is China’s sole producer of bamboo keyboards.

Read the rest of this entry »

Earth Day provides us with an opportunity to both reflect and act on our desire to use the planet’s resources in a sustainable manner. As we’ve noted in numerous posts, water may be the one resource we should focus on more, individually and collectively. No doubt, many of you have water-saving activities planned; a few of you may already be at work installing low-flow shower heads, faucet aerators, or even rain barrels.

Rain water harvesting makes a lot of sense: the initial investment can be quite low (especially if you do it yourself), and your plants love rain water.  Unfortunately, as Rachelle Carson Begley once noted, an awful lot of commercially-available rain barrels are, well, ugly.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve gotten a little leery about product posts lately (”seen on TV” products notwithstanding). Ultimately, with the number of new “green” products out there, such posts could easily become the sole focus of our work here… and I don’t think that’s the kind of content sustainablog readers want or expect. But, I do make exceptions, and was happy to do just that when Ecopreneurist’s Paul Smith approached me about writing a post on Ode magazine.

Why make an exception for Ode? It’s quickly become my favorite magazine… the first (and, so far, only) one I’ve subscribed to on Zinio. Ode’s not only focused on issues that matter to me — social, environmental, and economic change — but also on stories about people making a difference in these areas.

In short, there’s a lot of good news in Ode… and, more and more, we need that.

Read the rest of this entry »