Green Daily

Sierra Club has created a very COOL top 10 list, of the greenest -- and thus coolest -- schools across the country.

Criteria included green buildings, solar panels, CFL bulbs, student activism, dining services' offerings, recycling efforts and more. In the top 10 there's Oberlin College -- with its very cool LEED certified buildings and first ever green commencement last year among other innovations; Warren Wilson College -- with its farm and ethos of sustainability; and Tufts University -- putting solar panels on its newest residence hall. It's inspiring to read about what different campuses are doing.

Students at nearly 600 schools have signed onto the Campus Climate Challenge. Undergrads are definitely leading the way toward a greener future.

The list includes big schools and small schools. Send it on to your favorite high school junior or senior with some encouragement to think of green as a possible school color.

Radiohead recently released their new album "In Rainbows," in digital form only. Adding an extra twist, they made the download available for whatever price people were willing to pay, even zero.

So far, according to Hank Green at EcoGeek, the average price paid has been around $8, far more than the average band gets per traditional album sold. Even though you can download the album for free, obviously, they have many fans willing to pay.

Green sums it up perfectly, "More money for Radiohead, less money for us, and less physical crap existing in the world. That's good news for everyone, right? Oh...except the record companies....it's not good news for them."

Posing a series of almost rhetorical questions, the Los Angeles Times published an editorial that has made its way to many other papers in California and across the country.

There are questions that have to do with the nuts and bolts of disaster: why did some opt to stay at home rather than evacuate? Why do firefighters take such risks on behalf of perfect strangers? But there are also the questions that probably nag residents and onlookers alike: are we venturing too close to wilderness when we choose to site houses in glorious -- and previously unspoiled -- spots?

As the editorial points out, trying to live with this uneasy balance between where we settle and the wilderness, between the potential of natural disasters and the pleasures of daily life is not new to Southern California. But the particulars of that area really do raise larger issues. How do we -- collectively -- decide whether there are places we must leave as is, as nature dictated, simply because not leaving them alone threatens our coming too close to the elements? No individual blame, no individual judgment to that query; rather, it's the type of soul searching that disasters like these compel us to do.

Loss of habitat due to global warming isn't the only threat to animals species in the world. The Congo, for example, is a war zone and innocent silverback mountain gorillas, of which only 700 remain in the world, are getting caught in the crossfire.

Of the 700 gorillas in existence about half live in the eastern Congo in Virunga National Park, and although living in a protected habitat may sound like a good thing sadly it's not: fighting recently took over the last protected area in the park. Hundreds of gorillas have been killed and some are missing, all guilty of simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

What a horrible and sad situation.

Research by the Climate Group in the UK, shows that people fall into six groups based on their concern for the environment:

• Over one-quarter of those surveyed fall into the Campaigners group; they are deeply committed yet unsure that we can actually make a difference. These people need to be convinced that the solutions are really going to make a change.

• The Optimists (17%) are committed and upbeat about making a difference.

• The Confused (19%) are confused on both the issues and the solutions.

• The Followers (9%) are less sure on the issues, but willing to join in.

• Nearly a third of those surveyed don't plan on changing anything about their behavior, falling into the Unwilling group (those who accept the issue but don't plan on changing their behavior) and the outright Rejectors group (those who are confident in their rejection of the issue and feel well-informed in their decision.)

Which one would you say you are?

(Via Keetsa)

Just in case you missed it, here's some highlights from the week gone by:

Monday: Beer is more expensive (thanks to climate change), and next time you're at the grocery store, use these tips to make it a more eco-friendly experience.

Tuesday: Looking to recycle old gadgets? Here's how. Check out this sexy thermal underwear to combat colder temps, and here's a shocker: regular soap is actually better for your than the "anti-bacterial" kind.

Wednesday: Go green for the World Series, or face the wrath of Jamie Lee Curtis (because those California fires are your fault!). And for parents, make sure your baby's bottle is safe.

Thursday: Is your air freshener poisonous? Be prepared for an expensive winter if you live in these cities (but never fear, we included some tips on how you can lower the bill). Of course, if you really want to get eco-conscious, you could live in an Earthship.

Friday: Should you wash dishes during a drought? If you like free-range eggs, you're not alone. But if you power your laptop with cow power, you're probably on your own. Well, except for these guys.

Earthsaver hangers are made from a bioplastic sourced from 100% corn. They are 100% compostable and are made in the USA. According to Sustainable Is Good, Wal-Mart is carrying the hangers for $3.50 for a set of five, considerably more than your average pack of plastic hangers, which you can often see for a dollar or so. However, their design is supposed to be "heavy shirt" friendly, so the added eco-friendliness is not the only benefit.

There is some doubt about the ability of these hangers to be recycled, according to Gary Barker of Greenheart Global via Apartment Therapy. Also, if they do end up in a landfill, according to Baker, they will last just as long as a conventional plastic, over 1,000 years before degrading.

As we all try to sort out the pros and cons of bioplastics, maybe the most important thing to do right now is to buy hangers of high quality that you will use for as long as possible, regardless of their material source.

Looking for the perfect holiday gift for a nature lover? Here's an idea: adopt them their very own olive tree. Nudo is an olive grove in Italy that farms in earth friendly sustainable ways (not in the soil-eroding highly mechanised methods used by many large farms) and you can have your own little tree in their grove. For £65 you get a one year adoption which includes: an adoption certificate and booklet about your tree, a Spring Package of all the extra virgin olive oil your tree produced, and an Autumn package of lemon olive oil and handmade soaps.

You can even pick out your exact tree if you want, and they encourage people to come visit the grove to see how it works and give their tree a hug.

For those of you who take pride in having hundreds (or thousands, or millions) of connections on Facebook, MySpace, or wherever, but wish your "friends" spent more time tackling the tough issues, this is your lucky day. The new social networking site Zelixy is based on a similar model to it's popular predecessors, except in addition to making friends, users are focused on the environment.

With a mantra of "1. Change yourself. 2. Change others. 3. Change our world," the site is hoping to interest your greener side with news, contests, education, and lots of user-submitted video content ala YouTube, or the new Current.com.

Navigation is a little clunky, and it's not the most atheistically pleasing site I've ever stumbled across, but, assuming it takes off, the site might be a cool way to keep in touch with fellow greenies from around the globe. Check out my new profile here.

[via Plenty]

Bioplastics, plastics made from corn, sugar cane, potatoes and other plants, are an alternative to conventional petroleum-based plastics, but environmentalists are cautious in their support, according to a recent AP article by Mark Jewell.

The manufacturing process of bioplastics produces carbon dioxide and their source materials require water and land to grow. Bioplastics are also about three times more expensive than conventional plastics. Bioplastics' benefits include being biodegradable, lacking toxins like polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and reducing the whopping amount of petroleum that currently goes into manufacturing traditional plastics.

As complex as this issue is, consumers are not really digging into the details, according to the article. However, companies are trying to use bioplastics to appeal to the environmentally-conscious consumer. For example, Target and Sam's Club are offering gift cards made from bioplastics this year. Metabolix, a bioplastics manufacturer, is counting on the consumer "that is willing to pay to basically feel better about using plastics."

One thing I'm not is crafty. I do like a canvas or cloth tote though, for my grocery shopping, carting my son's lunch bag and sweet snugly panda bear (who goes by the name Stillwater) to preschool, and pretty much all else. We're getting pretty good about saying no to paper and plastic giveaways (not perfect, but pretty darn good).

If I were to get a little crafty, could I make my own totes?

Apparently it's easy. Go here for instructions on making canvas bags, and here to make cloth. Kind of like paper or plastic -- only different!

Stephanie Ernst, on her blog, Vida de Palabras, talks about her switch to handkerchiefs in an effort to reduce her paper consumption. Ernst had already replaced her paper towels and napkins with cloth versions and had switched her toilet paper to recycled toilet paper.

Upon her switch to handkerchiefs, an unexpected bonus was in store; she found that using them was actually more comfortable than disposable tissues.

Ernst recommends Hankettes organic cotton handkerchiefs from Kidbean.com. A three pack costs around ten dollars and comes with its own little travel sack. Kidbean also offers a pack of eight Hankettes, that come in a pretty box that looks just like a conventional tissue box. You can refill the box with washed handkerchiefs. The box of eight costs $28. With regular use, Hankettes should last up to four years.

Ernst finishes up with reassuring her guests that she will stock regular tissues (from recycled sources) for when they visit.

Living in a relatively small town (30,000 or thereabouts), when a special person dies, the news goes on the front page of the local paper -- as absolutely should be the case with 85 year-old Edward Cotton, whose efforts to save trees in Western Massachusetts are legendary.

Cotton worked for 56 years to preserve trees. He did so because it was his passion, giving countless unpaid hours to the cause and donating money toward saving Dutch Elms in town. Joined in recent years by a group of concerned citizens -- Tree Stewards of Northampton -- he would give tree tours to anyone who asked.

Here's something Cotton wrote in 2004: "We've lost three species of trees in my lifetime: the American chestnut, the American elm, and now we're losing the Canadian hemlock. In my opinion, that's a catastrophic situation. Millions of American elm trees that used to grace our streets are gone now. One year we took 400 diseased elm trees down in Northampton."

Fellow tree stewards in Northampton pledged to make Cotton's legacy of championing trees continue. Maybe the story stretches farther if others are inspired by Cotton in this way: to realize that every town needs a tree steward.

Perplexed in Georgia asks Umbra, of Grist, what is better when hosting a large party at your home in terms of the environment, washing dishes or using disposables. "Perplexed" is further perplexed because her county is currently enduring a water shortage, like the one Sarah wrote about here.

About 5% of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide comes from cement factories. Logic would dictate that you could make a serious dent in global warming by reducing those emissions.

But the New York Times reports that there's a problem with this logic: it's hard to reduce the demand for cement. And when you use green technology to reduce the CO2 emissions from cement factories, you might actually wind up increasing the amount of cement productions -- which means even more CO2 will be generated.

That's because the European Union is providing subsidies for companies that retrofit older plants in developing nations. But when you provide the latest technology, you also tend to make it easier to ramp up production at those plants.

One solution might lie in carbon offsets. Cement plants could be required by regulators to purchase emissions credits from other, cleaner industrial plants which theoretically helps bring down overall global CO2 emissions. Or maybe we just need to start lining roads with recycled paper instead of cement. Yeah, that probably won't work.