Friday, April 27, 2007

Saturday, April 21, 2007

Some Plaintiffs' Lawyers Will Represent Anyone

...even Don Imus. In my opinion, the Business Week article, "Imus Hires a Legal Heavyweight," depicts the despicable. I wonder who's been injured.

Friday, April 20, 2007

Grassroots Educational Training in DC for Students

Seventh Generation and Greenpeace are teaming up again to provide 200
students with an all-expenses-paid (including travel) week of
grassroots educational training in Washington, D.C. Students may
apply here.

Change It is a great opportunity for students that you work with to
learn the skills and tools they need to become effective leaders.
Students will emerge from the program ready to engage in the efforts
to prevent global warming and address the most critical issues facing
their generation.

Please take a brief moment to let students that you work with know
about this exciting summer training program. All expenses, including
travel, room and board, and the training program itself, will be
covered entirely by the program.

Sustainable Cosmetics


Is there such a thing as Sustainable Cosmetics?
Come find out.

Teens for Safe Cosmetics

Project: Prom


Join Teens for Safe Cosmetics as they rally on Union Square to make an important statement about our right to health and seek a ban on toxic chemicals. All generations are invited to join Teens for Safe Cosmetics to fight for their right to a healthier future.


Tuesday, April 24th • 4-6:30pm
Union Square, San Fransico, CA

Watch the You Tube Video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2B8FDo7rU0


For more info visit:
www.projectprom07.com
http://projectprom.blogspot.com/


To educate about health hazards

To fight for laws that protect us

To ban toxic chemicals and demand safer products


Attire:

Prom attire: to focus attention on Prom, when teens use plenty of products

Combat Boots: the symbol of our battle against toxic chemicals


Teens for Safe Cosmetics is a campaign led by a group of dynamic and passionate young women working to raise awareness about cancer causing chemicals in cosmetics and personal care products. The goals are to educate their peers and community members about the risks associated with the products they use 24/7 and to affect policy change. The teen campaign members played a significant role in the unprecedented passage of the Safe Cosmetics Act of 2005 (SB484) signed by the Governor of California in October 2005.

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Notebooks

You may have noticed the Links on this site to "Notebooks". The Notebooks are works in process that I've begun, using iLeonardo's "Notebookz" product. Notebookz are both easy to use AND can be shared and added to by anyone (preferably persons sharing the same intent on a particular notebook label). In this way, Notebookz fosters community sharing of useful internet research in an easily manageable Notebook. Anyone can register with iLeonardo for free and add their favorite sites to any of the existing Notebooks that I've already linked to and the many more in process. I encourage anyone who is interested in contributing their knowledge to the Notebooks (for all to see and share) to register with iLeonardo and add any useful sites to them. Send me an email and I'll send the notebook URLs for ease of reference on iLeonardo's site.

Monday, April 9, 2007

"Green" Countertops

Check out Eric's 5 countertop material picks here.

Friday, April 6, 2007

Slugs: A Solution To Wear

"Slugs: A Solution To Wear

Fed up of the slimy critters destroying your garden? Well, as we permies like to proclaim, the problem is the solution. After many a torch lit evening collecting bucket after bucket of our slimy friends, I wondered what I could do with them. The solution is gloriously simple. Simply pop them in the oven at Gas Mark 4 for five minutes, not so long that they cook, but just long enough that they adopt the texture of a wine gum. Then simply slip a sharpened knife under the skin, and it peels off beautifully, like peeling a lychee. The resultant ‘pelt’ is waterproof, flexible and tough. After a few weeks drying and peeling, I had a large enough collection to make my first pair of trousers, sewing them together with a tough twine. Now my ‘slugskin strides’ are the talk of permaculture gatherings around the land, and I have started work on a matching jacket."

Rob Hopkins, Ireland (Permaculture Magazine No. 43)

Investing

Business Week published a 4/5/07 article, "Investing Wisely In The Green Rush," that I've put into the Reader and here.

Thursday, April 5, 2007

The Tiptoeing House

designed by Swatt Architects. Here's the story link and here's the slideshow link.

Wednesday, April 4, 2007

Building A Pool?

Consider a natural pool, avoid the chlorine and grow stuff. I put the NYT story in the reader too.

Sustainable Design for the Contemporary Home

HauteGREEN is scheduled for Saturday through Tuesday, May 19-22, 2007, during the International Contemporary Furniture Fair in NYC...and will feature a curated collection from emerging and established designers in New York and around the world. Here's the link.

Documentary Film-maker and Investigative Journalist David Strahan Discusses

dirty growth and his view that it is mathematically impossible that peak oil will solve climate change in the March 29, 2007 edition of BBC NEWS.

research the safety of your personal care product

the ewg || skindeep project allows you to check the safety of your personal care product against their database.

Tuesday, April 3, 2007

Fox News' Garrett And Others Mischaracherized Or Omitted Gore's Response To Inhofe On His Energy Use

thanks to charles for alerting me to a march 22, 2007 article carried by mediamatters that tells a more complete version concerning mr. gore's testimony. here's the article.

SOMETIMES THE MESSENGER'S HYPROCRACY NEEDS TO BE ADDRESSED

This little post has been running around email for some time now - but it's effective. Buying credits is simply appeasement for their own excesses.

LOOK OVER THE DESCRIPTIONS OF THE FOLLOWING TWO HOUSES AND SEE IF YOU CAN TELL WHICH BELONGS TO ENVIRONMENTALIST'S HOUSE

# 1:A 20-room mansion (not including 8 bathrooms) heated by natural gas. Add on a pool (and a pool house) and a separate guest house all heated by gas. In ONE MONTH ALONE this mansion consumes more energy than the average American household in an ENTIRE YEAR. The average bill for electricity and natural gas runs over $2,400.00 per month. In natural gas alone (which last time we checked was a fossil fuel), this property consumes more than 20 times the national average for an American home. This house is not in a northern or Midwestern "snow belt," either. It's in the South.HOUSE

# 2:Designed by an architecture professor at a leading national university, this house incorporates every "green" feature current home construction can provide. The house contains only 4,000 square feet (4 bedrooms) and is nestled on arid high prairie in the American southwest. A central closet in the house holds geothermal heat pumps drawing ground water through pipes sunk 300 feet into the ground. The water (usually 67 degrees F.) heats the house in winter and cools it in summer. The system uses no fossil fuels such as oil or natural gas, and it consumes 25% of the electricity required for a conventional heating/cooling system. Rainwater from the roof is collected and funneled into a 25,000 gallon underground cistern. Waste water from showers, sinks and toilets goes into underground purifying tanks and then into the cistern. The collected water then irrigates the land surrounding the house. Flowers and shrubs native to the area blend the property into the surrounding rural landscape.

HOUSE # 1 (20 room energy guzzling mansion) is outside of Nashville, Tennessee. It is the abode of that renowned environmentalist (and filmmaker) Al Gore.HOUSE

# 2 (model eco-friendly house) is on a ranch near Crawford, Texas. Also known as "the Texas White House," it is the private residence of the President of the United States, George W. Bush.So whose house is gentler on the environment?Yet another story you WON'T hear on CNN, CBS, ABC, NBC, MSNBC or read about in the New York Times or the Washington Post.

Indeed, for Mr. Al Gore, it's truly "AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH!"

do you ever wonder what's in your shampoo

or any other body care or cosmetic product you use? information about the ingredients used could shock you. take a look at the environmental working group || skin deep project web site. top line -- "only 11 percent of the 10,500 ingredients the FDA has documented in products have been assessed for safety by the cosmetic industry's review panel." and, the FDA's position (at least in 1995) has been that it "cannot require companies to do safety testing of their cosmetic products before marketing." ok. the ewg || skin deep project did its own analysis and published its findings. they found that, of the 14,835 products they tested, 99.9% had not been assessed for safety prior to marketing, 44.5% contained reproductive/developmental toxicity, 82.3% contained immune system toxicants, 55.6% contained penetration enhancers, and 33.8% contained ingredients considered to be a cancer hazard. anyway, in late 2005 the FDA rejected ewg's petition to require certain corrective action. the site contains a ton of information, including bad ingredients and top companies and brands of concern. check it out.

race for a green car

the X prize foundation announced a competition to build an environmentally friendly car. 43 kilometers per liter (100 miles per gallon) regardless of the type of fuel used, 125 grams or less of carbon emissions per kilometer, and cheap enough to expect sales of at least 10,000 per year. the prize's value has not yet been announced but will likely be in the neighborhood of $10 million.

Monday, April 2, 2007

organicARCHITECTblog

organicARCHITECTblog contains a treasure of salient, current information on architecture, design and sustainability. thanks eric.

Cleantech Blog

Check out:



Cleantechblog.com, the premier cleantech site for commentary on

technologies, news, and issues relating to next generation energy and

the environment.



Recent Blog Posts:



Crude Impact - A review of a Documentary on Oil Reliance.

White Appliances - The State of Energy Efficient Refridgerators.

Goring Gore - Attacks on Gore following his recent Academy Award.

public opinion must lead climate change investors

planet ark published a story this morning discussing the position that a bigger shift in public opinon would drive investment banks and fund managers to put more money into tackling climate change. i've put the story into the news notebook for anyone who's interested in reading or comment.