Gas, and filling up the car with petroleum is, at least for the present time, a necessary evil.
Electric cars are really finally starting to make their way into the mainstream (and we’l see hydrogen be commercially viable for mainstream America in the next 5-10 years) but for now, the vast majority of people are driving vehicles which guzzle petroleum.
Carrie and I were filling up the other day (haven’t converted my car to electric yet, but we plan to sell it May/June 2009), and we found the gas station with the least expensive gas that was close to where we were shopping.
This meant that it happened to be a Safeway gas station.
What was great about this gas station (aside form the fact that we could get the gas even cheaper just because we had our little discount card) was the message they had on their screen at the pump.
Are you one of the people who actually thinks you drink bottled water because it tastes better?
In 1998-2000, lots of information came out (primarily in studies commissioned by large soda manufacturers) which basically said that tap water was bad for you, while bottled water was good for you.
While there is some truth to the fact that unfiltered tap water may cause birth defects (depending on where you live), there are no guarantees that bottled water is any better for you, since there are really no regulations about what can be used in bottled water.
(Coca-Cola even admitted that Dasani was purified tap water. BBC Article)
But, if you still think that you drink bottled water because it’s inherently somehow “better”, you might be surprised at what some companies have spent (some of them millions) to plant into your brain both subliminally and overtly that you should be drinking bottled water.
Which is why this parody is so appropriate.
A member of the GreenJoyment community, Paul from Scotland, sent us an email with this suggestion. We liked it, so we’re sharing it here.
Hi Carrie and Jonathan,
Here’s an idea for wind power.
You know I live in Scotland, and as you may know my particular country has the potential to be right at the forefront of wind power. But it causes me dismay when I hear people complain that the wind generators are ugly and will destroy the highland communities.
"What if the wind generators weren’t boring white pillars as they seem to be.
Wouldn’t it be cool if they were integrated into sculptures or just made to be more interesting in general?"
(I thought that happened years ago with the highland clearances).
Anyway, an idea I had (being that I’m into art and stuff). What If the wind generators weren’t boring white pillars as they seem to be. Wouldn’t it be cool if they were integrated into sculptures or just made to be more interesting in general? What would be so wrong with having small but plentiful ones on every house, on every street, in every city and town?
All could be fed into a grid system and whoever needed extra power could buy it back.
Walking by the monstrous warehouse supermarket that has plonked itself right in the middle of my town recently,(Like some alien craft out of V.)
The FDA has announced that beginning today, spinach and lettuce sold across the United States may now be secretly irradiated before it reaches grocery store shelves.
What’s “secret” about it? The FDA previously decided that irradiation warning stickers would not be required on any food items because it would be “too confusing to consumers.” (The word IRRADIATION apparently has too many letters to be understood to food buyers.)
Thus, irradiated foods will NOT be labeled as such, and consumers are going to be left in the dark about all this.
(Except of course for those who actually eat the irradiated food. They get to find out when they start glowing in the dark).
Radiation, of course, destroys delicate phytochemicals in plants – the very phytochemicals protecting consumers against cancer, heart disease, high cholesterol, inflammation and other diseases. Microwaving broccoli, for example, has been shown to destroy up to 98% of its anti-cancer nutrients. (The FDA has not yet acknowledged this.)
In a similar way, irradiating food can destroys much of its nutritional content, including vitamins, carotenoids, anthocyanins and other delicate protective nutrients.
What you can do right now to attempt to get this changed?
Cordell Bowman, a chemistry teacher here in the United States, emailed us at GreenJoyment to talk about his own experiences of going green. We asked him if he would write his story about becoming interested in going green, and what it means to him to teach his chemistry students how to go green.
So, this is his story, and what he does to share green ideas and concepts with the people whom he teaches every day.
Many folks from my generation, like myself, grew up “green” on the farm. In those days, being “green” meant you did not know much. In my early years on the farm we farmed with horses, milked cows by hand. The only electricity we had was a kerosene generator in our basement that we used sparingly. Our house was heated by the wood we cut and stored for winter. It was wartime and everybody saved everything including gum wrappers (aluminum). All soda bottles (that rare treat with dad at the country store) were recycled, 2 cents each. The soda cost 3 cents so returning the bottles meant “free” soda!
Many people walked everywhere. My dad was a school teacher and worked seven miles from home so we had a vehicle. But if someone was walking along the road we picked them up even if it was the skunkskinner (whew!! the car was a bit smelly for some days). That was how people cared for each other.
My mother canned everything. Our basement was full of canned garden and orchard produce, canned wild blackberries.
“If someone was walking along the road we picked them up, even if it was the skunkskinner (whew!! the car was a bit smelly for some days).
That was how people cared for each other."
We harvested huge quantities of wild black walnuts, hazelnuts, chinkapins . All the neighbors knew the same places so we would try to be there first, also ahead of the squirrels, but if the neighbors got there first, it was their patch or tree for the day.
The feed company sold dairy feed in printed sacking that could be made into shirts and dresses for growing boys and girls. Our mom was good at that too. The cups in the sacks for dipping feed could serve as cups for drinking when the sack was empty.
We rarely wore shoes in summer and even in school when it was warm we went barefoot. That would not work in chemistry classes today.
When I joined the Peace Corps after college I learned a lot about how other people reduce waste. I am sure Jonathan and Carrie know all about that.
I taught school in a town in Ecuador whose main industry was leatherworking. The school was a Technical high school which meant the students learned how to make things out of wood or metal, or how to cook and sew. The local artisans knew how to get the most out of a piece of leather by using off cuts from a suitcase to make a purse or wallet. Indigeneous Indians who lived in a small village adjacent collected all the dung in the streets to fertilize their garden plots. Lots of lessons to be learned about conserving.
This we found very interesting.
The branch of Google responsible for doing good in the world (that really is their mission statement) has recently invested $10.25 million into Geothermal research.
But it’s not traditional geothermal that Google is looking into… rather, they’re setting up ways for people to take advantage of enhanced geothermal systems (EGS).
“EGS expands the potential of geothermal energy by orders of magnitude,” explains an official release. “The traditional geothermal approach relies on finding naturally occurring pockets of steam and hot water. The EGS process, by comparison, replicates these conditions by fracturing hot rock, circulating water through the system, and using the resulting steam to produce electricity in a conventional turbine.”
Pretty cool, even though there are concerns that it could cause some seismic activity.
But, the seismic activity pales in comparison when placed side-by-side with the seismic activity that is created by pumping millions of gallons of crude oil out of the ground every year.
Originally from The Canadian Press
Some of the products that freshen your rooms and perfume your laundry may not be so great for your health.
A U.S. study of top-selling laundry products and air fresheners found the products gave off dozens of chemicals.
All of the products tested emitted at least one chemical regulated as hazardous under U.S. federal laws.
But none of the chemicals were listed on the product labels.