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It's Getting Hot in Here: Energy-Saving Air Conditioner Tips
Tweet Share on Facebook July 21, 2008 Comment (16)Today is scorching hot. It's oppressively humid. It's a day to spend all of my nonworking hours in a swimming pool. It's a day to give in and crank up the AC. But air conditioning, as we learned years ago, fuels global warming. Here are a few eco-friendly ways to beat the heat and keep your energy bills low.
- Turn the air conditioner off when you're at work if you don't have any pets. See if your company offers time-of-use pricing, where you pay only for the hours you're in the house with the AC on, for even more savings.
- If you're buying an air conditioner, make sure it's Energy Star rated.
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The Recycling Bin: A Roundup of Green News, Al Gore Edition
Tweet Share on Facebook July 18, 2008 Comment (102)What are ecobloggers talking about as we ease into the weekend? Our president of global warming, Al Gore.
- After yesterday's Gore speech, conservative bloggers like the team at Americans for Prosperity are gleefully pointing out that Gore arrived at the event in a car, despite asking supporters to take bikes or public transportation.
- Wired Magazine says of Gore's 10-year plan: "Absent a huge run-up in coal prices, a fusion power breakthrough, or some unforeseen technology, it seems impossible."
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Notes From Al Gore's Climate Speech
Tweet Share on Facebook July 17, 2008 Comment (19)Al Gore's climate change speech for the We Campaign today challenged the United States to produce 100 percent of its electricity from renewable energy and carbon-free sources within a decade. Gore paralleled his charge to the nation with President Kennedy's 1961 challenge to put a man on the moon within 10 years.
"Once again, we have an opportunity to take a giant leap for humankind," he said, after describing his experience watching Apollo 11 take off in person.
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America's Best Hospitals, Green Edition
Tweet Share on Facebook July 16, 2008 Comment (4)Updated on 07/16/08
When U.S. News released its annual ranking of America's Best Hospitals, we ranked healthcare facilities in many categories, but "greenest" wasn't one of them. The greening of hospitals is a topic making the rounds at medical conferences, with an increasing number of healthcare facilities looking to minimize their environmental footprint. According to noharm.org:
- Healthcare facilities expend about twice as much energy per square foot as a commercial building
- Hospitals generate more than 2 million tons of solid waste per year—15 pounds of waste per patient every day
- Hospitals are the fourth-largest source of mercury discharge into the environment.
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Fiji Water Chimes In on Bottled Versus Tap
Tweet Share on Facebook July 15, 2008 Comment (13)I've been writing about water for the past few days, mainly because there are so many deeply felt opinions on it. But when I mentioned Fiji Green in the first part of this impromptu three-part series, I wondered how the company would respond to a study that concluded the environmental impact of bottled water can be 1,000 times that of tap water. Thomas Mooney, senior vice president for sustainable growth at Fiji Green, gave me a call today, and we talked about his company's efforts to make its green practices known, and about the bottled water industry's bad reputation. Excerpts:
So, what do you think about the study?
I understand why a Swiss utility would commission the study. People think that tap water and bottled water are the competitive set. That is not, in fact, how it plays out. People choose to buy a packaged beverage, and then they choose whatever they want. What is so frustrating about this debate is when you look at it through that lens, bottled water represents the healthiest choice, and by far the lowest environmental impact.... The Swiss study made me think, "Riding a bicycle is better than a Prius, so a Prius is bad." A Prius replaces an SUV, just as bottled water replaces soda. People are drinking more bottled water, but there has been a decrease in carbonated soft drink consumption. If your tap water tastes great and you like it, drink it. Bottled water is the better choice if you're reaching into a cooler. -
Poland Spring, Vintage 2008
Tweet Share on Facebook July 14, 2008 Comment (6)My previous post on bottled water inspired comments from both sides of the debate. Reader Joel pointed out that bottled water can cost more per ounce than beer, while Stand Back and Look at the Big Picture said that he or she prefers bottled water because it's better for us than soda—and besides, our landfills will just get clogged up with other stuff. But even those who chug their bottled water each day may roll their eyes at this one: gourmet bottled water, paired specially with food and wine, and served up by a water sommelier as if it were a glass of Bordeaux.
While some restaurants (such as Alice Waters's famous Chez Panisse in Berkeley) have eliminated bottled water from their menus, others are encouraging people to shell out cash for bottled water found farther afield than Fiji—some comes from Tasmanian rain water or Hawaiian volcanic springs.
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Bottled Water: as Terrible as We Suspected
Tweet Share on Facebook July 11, 2008 Comment (15)File this news under "obviously." A comparison of the environmental effects of tap water versus bottled water by the Swiss Gas and Water Association, as reported by Treehugger today, states what we've long suspected: The environmental impact of bottledwater is up to 1,000 times as bad as that of tap water. Not to mention the effect on your wallet: Cases of bottled water add up, while the cost of clean, safe tap water (where your bottled water often comes from) is negligible, when you consider that most of what the water utility companies bill us for goes down a sink, washing machine, or shower drain.
But I won't tell you yet another thing that you already know. Instead, let's look at the ways that the bottled water industry is trying to revamp its image. The most prominent example is Fiji Green, whose ads I see each morning as I walk to work. The company, mindful of the bad rep of its product, announced its decision to go green months ago, and has put out literature and a website touting itself as "carbon negative," despite shipping water in plastic bottles halfway across the Earth. But wouldn't the most eco-friendly solution be for Fiji Water...not to exist? I'm obviously not the first or only person to raise the point. And other brands have followed suit. One wonders how, or if, the Fiji spin team will react to the Swiss study—or if they'll ever be called out for greenwashing, as Fiat and EasyJet were in their recent scolding by Britain's Advertising Standards Authority.
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Real Girls Eat (Organic, Grass-Fed) Meat
Tweet Share on Facebook July 10, 2008 Comment (6)What's the best way to get someone to give up meat? Insults and scare tactics aren't among the methods with the highest success rates. Yet the name-calling between wanton carnivores and devout vegetarians persists—and escalated this week with Pamela Anderson's disproportionate response to Jessica Simpson's "Real Girls Eat Meat" shirt.
PETA responded with some name-calling of its own, while other bloggers leapt to Simpson's defense. Though it's a silly fight between silly celebrities, it's representative of the heated arguments that occur over the dinner table between noncelebrities all the time. So since it's obvious that name-calling will not turn Simpson (or anyone else, for that matter) away from a delicious burger, Chris Baskind of Lighter Footstep offers some tips for going veg, gradually. After you make the switch, you can get a T-shirt of your own.
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Will Shortages Unplug Flat-Screen Industry?
Tweet Share on Facebook July 9, 2008 Comment (4)We do everything we can to save the pandas: They're cute. But cute is not a word we'd use to describe the latest additions to the endangered list: the elements gallium, indium, hafnium, zinc, and copper. According to Peak Oil News (via Asimov's), the decline of these elements will be due to their use in flat-screen TVs, computer chips, and monitors. Time is running out quickly: Armin Reller of Germany's University of Augsberg says that gallium, which we extract from zinc and aluminum, will be gone by 2017. Zinc has more time but not by much—Reller estimates it will be extinct by 2037.
But extinct may not be the most accurate term. A commenter on Andrew Sullivan's blog points out that once we've mined the last of each element, they'll still exist, but just in products like your TV. The trick will be developing a cost-efficient recycling method.
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Should All Public Art Be Green?
Tweet Share on Facebook July 7, 2008 Comment (1)A quick jaunt to New York City this weekend brought me to the Brooklyn Bridge to check out the city's latest public art project, the "New York City Waterfalls" by Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson. The piece features four waterfalls suspended only by steel scaffolding and a system of pumps, which suck up water from the East River and send it tumbling down from heights of 90 to 120 feet, almost as tall as the Statue of Liberty. The falls put a little piece of upstate in Manhattan and, according to Eliasson, are intended to get New Yorkers to slow down and notice things around them, natural or otherwise. "I am not trying to bring nature to the city," Eliasson told the New Yorker. "It's a kind of counter-numbness project."
The project, funded by the Public Art Fund and the City of New York, is quite green. Its electricity is 100 percent offset by renewable energy sources, it uses energy-saving LED lights, and it has special filters in place to ensure that fish and river life can't get caught in the pumps.
