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Is MTV Being Hypocritical?
Tweet Share on Facebook September 16, 2008 Comment (3)Green bloggers everywhere are raving about the network's latest ad in the Switch campaign, where a funny little monster points out the hypocrisy of corporations that paint their products green and call them ecofriendly. But is MTV one of them?
I'm happy to praise the video for bringing the issue of green-washing to the forefront in a memorable and humorous way. It's great to point out that we don't have to be green to be green, especially in a confusing market awash with supposedly ecofriendly choices.
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Palin Changes Position on Climate Change
Tweet Share on Facebook September 12, 2008 Comment (38)Sarah Palin's remarks on climate change to Charles Gibson in last night's interview conflicted with her previous position. Palin told Gibson, "I believe that man's activities certainly can be contributing to the issue of global warming, climate change." You can see the clip here:
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Good Guide Helps With Green Shopping
Tweet Share on Facebook September 11, 2008 CommentWithout carbon labeling, it's hard for consumers to know which products make the eco-friendly grade and which don't (and some would argue it's difficult even with the labels). A new website, Good Guide aims to help shoppers make decisions based on a company's sustainability, health effects, and corporate social responsibility, ranking a product on a scale of 1 to 10 in each category. Scientists and researchers have dug up dirt on major companies' practices, rating everything from the impact of the product's environmental emissions to cancer effects to global labor practices.
The site could become a powerful tool for combating greenwashing in an age where companies capitalize on the trendiness of environmentalism in everything from cosmetics to cars. For now, it rates only personal care items and cleaning products, but food, electronics, toys, and clothing will be added in coming months.
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Would You Read an E-Newspaper?
Tweet Share on Facebook September 10, 2008 Comment (33)Newspapers have long been going the way of the woolly mammoths, and there have been several last-ditch efforts to save this sinking ship—among them, the invention of a lightweight, portable E-newspaper. This week, Plastic Logic unveiled the latest design for a portable reader with a screen the size of a piece of copier paper, which makes it the largest portable reader screen on the market. It goes on sale early next year. The device follows the E-book reader from Amazon, the Kindle, which offers newspaper subscriptions for less than $15 a month but has a smaller screen.
The production and delivery of newspapers consume paper and energy, and if the struggling media could eliminate these costs (up to 65 percent of a newspaper's expenses), it could save papers a lot of money—and perhaps save the industry. Eliminating these steps would also, of course, conserve trees, gas, and other forms of energy, though no one has said whether the savings would be enough to offset the resources needed to produce digital readers.
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Americans More Optimistic About Brangelina Relationship Than About Gas Prices 'Normalizing'
Tweet Share on Facebook September 9, 2008 Comment (3)According to a study by the Drum Major Institute, a think tank, Americans are more confident that they will see Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie celebrate their 25th anniversary than that they will see gas return to $3 a gallon. Despite the frequency of Hollywood breakups, 56 percent of respondents in the nationwide poll said they expected the couple to make it to their silver anniversary as gas prices continued to climb, while only 19 percent found gas prices more likely to "normalize." Eighteen percent expected neither option to come to bear. The survey question was part of a study on the widespread pessimism of middle-class families regarding the economy and politics.
So what does this say about America? That we can muster up more optimism for things we feel we intimately understand—like the tabloid-dissected Brangelina relationship—than the things we do not, like the intricacies of the global oil market, even though both are beyond our control?
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Drill, Baby, Drill: Breaking Down Sarah Palin's VP Speech
Tweet Share on Facebook September 4, 2008 Comment (53)Introducing herself to a nation that has mostly been preoccupied by her family drama, Sarah Palin talked energy in last night's speech, and many environmentalists were not comforted by what they heard.
From her prepared remarks:
To confront the threat that Iran might seek to cut off nearly a fifth of world energy supplies...or that terrorists might strike again at the Abqaiq facility in Saudi Arabia...or that Venezuela might shut off its oil deliveries...we Americans need to produce more of our own oil and gas.
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5 Tips for Greener School (or Work) Lunches
Tweet Share on Facebook September 3, 2008 Comment (2)Lunchtime at the average school, according to the EPA, creates an average of 67 pounds per day. This means the average middle school produces 40,000 pounds of trash a year just from discarded juice boxes, cookie wrappers, brown paper bags, and tiny bags of chips. That's not to mention offices, where the Lean Cuisine trays pile up in the trash alongside Styrofoam cups. It's obvious that packing a lunch saves money, but packing a waste-free lunch actually saves you more money—the cost of those baggies adds up, and individually packaged foods are not much of a bargain. Here are some ways to brown-bag it, sans brown bag.
1. Make every container in the lunch reusable. Reusable bags or retro metal lunch boxes should replace the brown bag. Instead of juice boxes or sugary cans of soda, get a reusable water bottle. Small Tupperware or other plastic containers can replace the plastic sandwich baggie. You don't have to go out and buy anything special—even just washing out the clear plastic tubs that once contained takeout and grocery items can provide containers of a variety of sizes. Start saving any plastic containers and you'll see how quickly you amass them. You'll save money by not having to buy plastic baggies or brown bags, and you'll keep plastic out of landfills and oceans.
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P. Diddy Eliminates Private Jet, Cuts Carbon Footprint, Complains
Tweet Share on Facebook September 2, 2008 Comment (67)Life is hard for hip-hop mogul P. Diddy, also known as Sean Combs. Turns out, even the superrich are affected by rising gas prices. Diddy explained in a recent video blog that he had to give up his private jet and—gasp!—fly commercial because of fuel costs. In the video (which can be seen here, but be warned: It contains some colorful language), a very unhappy Diddy walks around an airport, ranting that gas prices are too high for him to sustain his bicoastal lifestyle without deigning to fly on American Airlines.
"Give a shout-out to all my Saudi Arabia brothers and sisters and all the brothers and sisters in all the countries that have oil—if you could please send me some oil for my jet, I would truly appreciate it," he says, also appealing to our future commander in chief, "Tell whoever the next president is, we need to bring gas prices down....I can't believe I'm flying commercial."
The wealthy have some of the largest carbon footprints in the world, and Diddy is no exception, but green bloggers are rejoicing at his decision to take one more gas-guzzling aircraft out of commission. Just another example of how recession shopping makes us unintentionally greener.
