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1. Riverwired.com: Don't Be a Girly Man — Be an EcoDriver
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2. Riverwired.com: Beyond Climate Change 101
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3. Riverwired.com: Great Eco-friendly Backpack – for Back-to-School Kids or (Sigh) Back-to-Work Adults
Riverwired.com: Don't Be a Girly Man — Be an EcoDriver
khallgeisler - Bikes & Cars
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has teamed up with Governor Bill Ritter of Colorado to unveil the ecoDriving campaign. [WARNING: When you click on that link, the Governator immediately starts talking to you, with nary a stop or mute button in sight.] Auto manufacturers and dealers, along with industry leaders and politicians, have aimed the campaign at drivers who want to increase the fuel efficiency and reduce the emissions of the car they already drive.
The site offers tips like keeping tires properly inflated and “riding the green wave” — maintaining a steady speed to hit all the green lights on a long street. I have an uncle who is the king of this maneuver; I thought he was anal, but it turns out he’s a natural-born ecoDriver. The site also recommends keeping the gas cap tight to reduce evaporation.
There’s a clever ecoCalculator to tell you, based on your yearly mileage, mpg, and driving habits, how many pounds of CO2 you could be saving by adopting a couple new habits. If I kept the tires on my little red truck inflated, for instance, I’d save $68 a year on gas and keep 76 more pounds of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.
The site has games, resources, and will help you send a message to your governor asking him or her to sign on to the ecoDriving campaign. In a related measure, the National Automobile Dealers Association is recommending that its members give free green checkups in the month of September, along with child safety seat inspections.
Riverwired.com: Beyond Climate Change 101
ProgressiveKid - Sustainable Ideas
by Julie Hall at ProgressiveKid
As with all meaningful change, there is no simple fix for our climate change crisis. There is no pill, band aid, 12-step formula, or "expert's" advice to heal Earth or its life forms. There is no "clean" nuclear power that will preserve our current luxuries without risking even more environmental disaster, no green product that will redeem generations of overconsumption, no fluorescent light bulb that will reverse the excess of our industrialized systems, no recycling process that can restore forests, no zoo or seed bank that can preserve our world's biodiversity, no replacement planet we can relocate to. For worse and for better we are stuck here with our mess and our weakness, our solutions and our strength.
Not that you shouldn't install those fluorescents if you haven't already. Yes of course cut out the plastic, switch to reusable bottles and bags, recycle and reuse, buy less, eat less meat, trade your grass for trees and plants, conserve water, ride your bike, buy locally and organically. Each step toward sustainability counts. But these are merely first steps, and we can't stop here. As we take the next steps to restructure our local communities toward more sustainable self-sufficiency (as they once were), commute less, conserve more, transition to renewable energy sources, and regreen our environment, there are deeper changes we face.
Our climate problem isn't merely an overdose of CO2. Global warming is fundamentally connected to overpopulation, pollution, industrial manufacturing, industrial farming, capitalist media manipulation, exploitation of natural resources, poverty, corporate abuse, and governmental abuse. We've had evidence for a long time now that these are unsustainable situations around the globe. Climate change is merely one more, albeit the most radical, reality check in a long series of warnings that have gone largely unheeded.
So as the weather around us turns strange, as drought, fire, floods, and storms reach unprecedented proportions, let's hope we ask ourselves the right questions: What matters? How should I live? What should I teach my kids? What do I actually need? How can I take less and give more? What can I contribute to heal the damage around me? How can I help other living species?
There are more specific questions that may follow. How does the food I eat make me feel? How does television affect my thoughts and emotions? How do my specific choices and actions affect the world around me? How am I using my time? Am I connected with my family and friends? Are my kids receiving positive messages about themselves and their world? Are my kids confident, humble, connected, empathetic, resilient, capable of joy, and awake to the world around them? Am I?
These are not easy questions to ask or answer, which is why they must be addressed. As Rilke reminds us, "Most people have (with the help of conventions) turned their solutions toward what is easy and toward the easiest side of the easy; but it is clear that we must trust in what is difficult; everything alive trusts in it. . . . That something is difficult must be one more reason for us to do it." The power of difficult challenges in our lives is why millions of us around the world are watching the Olympics right now. We admire the athletes for achieving something profoundly difficult. Although the media would have us ignore the athletes who do not win medals, we are impressed nonetheless with their accomplishment of making it there and trying. And this is why we are disappointed when athletes take the easy route with drugs.
Most of us know intuitively that when it comes to taking care of our extraordinary home planet there is much more we need to do. We know that there is no easy fix to solve climate change and no easy fix to solve the related environmental problems we have wrought. Although we may have lost sight of it, we know in our wisest hearts that life is to be honored, not exploited, squandered, or taken for granted; that one by one we must each take responsibility and not look to others for answers; and that in the process of saving ourselves we might just recover our own dignity and sense of purpose along the way.
Julie Hall is the author of A Hot Planet Needs Cool Kids: Understanding Climate Change and What You Can Do About It, a poet, and cofounder of the green online store ProgressiveKid.
Image by David Goehring, 2006, Creative Commons license.
©2008 ProgressiveKid
Riverwired.com: Great Eco-friendly Backpack – for Back-to-School...
susan - Sustainable Ideas
By Susan Seliger
Time to get the kids — and yourself — ready for Fall. Tired of that heavy old backpack? Here’s one from Progressive Kid – a web store with some of the best eco-friendly stuff for your favorite small fries — that will work for you, too.
It's Good: It's smaller than the average pack (1300 cubic inches/22 liters capacity; 1 pound 9 ounces/.71 kilograms weight). Plus it's got these features:
- Single zip front panel access with mesh and fabric utility pockets
- Pass-through access to internal pocket
- Two recycled PET mesh side pockets
- Recycled spacer mesh harness and back panel
- Recycled removable web waist strap
- Recycled PET stretch woven cell phone/electronics harness pocket
- Recycled PET main body fabric
- Recycled Regrind buckles
- Internal front panel organization
- Internal laptop sleeve
- Smart key clip that works with electronic keys
It's Green: Made by Osprey, known for their earth-friendly ReSource series from 70 percent recycled materials. Also the color names alone are worth it: Rainforest green or glacier blue.
It's Here: Progressive Kids Store
It's: $59
Photo credit: ProgressiveKid.com
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