Happy Sustainable Holidays!

Family get-togethers, office gift-swaps, and holiday parties are no doubt coming up quickly for those of you partaking in the season's festivities - and for many, that means purchasing presents.

Take advantage of this opportunity to show your environmental commitment! Consider some of the questions below to ensure that your choices are both socially and environmentally responsible:

Where to buy?
Are you supporting the livelihood of a local craftsman, or is your money going to a large corporation where most of the production takes place overseas? Take a walk down mainstreet to visit some of the family-owned shops rather than driving to the nearest Wal-Mart. Although you may pay a bit more, you'll have a better understanding of exactly where your money is going; and feel free to ask the shop owner where their products come from. Better yet, find some artisans (potters, woodworkers, painters) in the community and see the impact of your purchase. Don't be afraid to let the gift's recipient know that their new coffee mug was made by the young couple on Main St. rather than somewhere overseas - they'll undoubtedly appreciate it.

Does your gift have staying power?
True, that plastic, singing reindeer might elicit a few laughs the first couple times you squeeze its paw, but where will it end up in six months? One year? Five years? Cheap electronics inevitibly break and almost always find their way to the landfill rather than the proper recycling center. Short-lived, trendy purchases suffer a similar fate. In fact, over 90% of all produducts purchased in the United States find their way to the garbage within six months, meaning lots of waste! Do your best to look for gifts that will last a lifetime, gifts that will be used daily, or gifts that can be easily recycled/donated.

What is your gift doing to help the environment?
Although it may seem like a ridiculous request, this is a crucial consideration if you mean to make a truly responsible decision. In your head, make a list of pros and cons for an individual gift's potential environmental impact. Often, it will help if you compare your prospective purchase with the alternative: an iTunes giftcard uses less packaging than a CD would, thus (theoretically) helping the environment. A recyclable, stainless-steel Kleen Kanteen will cut down on disposable bottles. Think broadly about packaging, transportation, and inherent energy, and choose products that meet your own criteria

Of course, participating in consumerism isn't absolutely necessary during the holiday season either. Create something from your own hands. Sing your loved one a song. Take time to spend with your parents or children. Build an igloo for your younger cousins, neices, or nephews. These are simple, wholly sustainable ideas that trully illustrate the central tenets of the winter season: emotional well-being, the strengthening of relationships, and the celebration of life and renewal.

Happy Holidays.

Eliminate Holiday Junk Mail

With the holiday season picking up speed, you may have noticed an increase in junk mail recently. Credit card companies, magazines, and catalogs are all using this time as an excuse to clog mailboxes across the country with special offers and advertisements.

Not only can this be an annoying time for the mailman, but it is incredibly annoying to the environment as well (imagine the thousands of tons of junkmail that will end up in the landfill by spring). So, in the spirit of the season, why not give them both the gift of reduced mailings?

Here are a couple of groups that make this process incredibly easy:

catalogchoice.org - select catalogs by name to get rid of those you'd rather not recieve
optoutprescreen.com - stop the infinite flow of credit card offers
dmachoice.org - regulate mailings from any Direct Marketing Association service

Enjoy!

NWF Campus Ecology Report

Recently, the National Wildlife Foundation published their Campus Ecology Climate Action Planning report. This document provides students, staff, and faculty across the nation with "a comprehensive review of the strategies and steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions on campus, with best practices from U.S. colleges and universities."

You can download the .pdf at http://www.nwf.org/campusecology/resources/HTML/climateactionplanning.cfm.

And look who made the cover!

Eco-Stumbling

Arguably the greatest internet-related development since online match-making, the StumbleUpon toolbar for Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox is a somewhat recent revolution in internet browsing.

The basics idea of SU follows:

Complete a profile.
Select your interests.
Click the 'Stumble' button.
Recieve a random webpage related to your interests and profile.
Stumble again!

But what does stumbling have to do with eco-visionaries? In the 'Interests' page of your profile, select such topics as 'Alternative Energy', 'Environment', 'Ecology', 'Politics', etc. Webpages recommended by other users for these categories will pop up at every stumble, resulting in a multitude of random new discoveries that increase awareness and generate curiousity.

Take a look at http://www.stumbleupon.com/.

Green Olympics

Prior to the start of the 2008 Olympic Games, there was much debate regarding Beijing's environmental condition. Air quality, water availability, and resource consumption in particular recieved heavy criticism, and many top athletes chose to stay home in light of the circumstances.

Now that the Games have begun, however, medal-winners, record-breakers, and scandals have taken the majority of the media's attention, and environmental news regarding China's efforts to host a 'Green Olympics' has been taken a back-seat.

Fortunately, the Beijing Olympic Commitee has devoted an entire website to their commitment to tougher environmental standards. Here, fans can read about the Bird's Nest extensive water collection, the Olympic Village's renewable energy sources, and the temporary Beijing regulations that curb emissions and increase air quality.

Take a look! http://en.beijing2008.cn/12/12/greenolympics.shtml

Environmental Fiction Reading List

When speaking of environmental literature, there are many authors that stand out: Rachel Carson, Aldo Leopold, Terry Tempest Williams, Ed Abbey, Sigurd Olson, Gary Snyder, John Muir, Gretel Ehrlich, Annie Dillard…

The following short list of fiction is meant as a compliment to those classics – a step in a different direction for sure, but one that maintains a thematic (although sometimes abstract) connection to the Earth. Humorous, dark, adventurous, suspenseful, or witty, each book is well-written, original, and thought-provoking, and a great addition to any reader’s collection.

Wilbur Smith, Elephant Song
Cormac McCarthy, The Road
Daniel Quinn, Ishmael
Carl Hiaasen, Skinny Dip
Lyn Miller-Lachman, Dirt Cheap
Lydia Millet, How the Dead Dream
Brian Clarke, The Stream

Solar power coming to a home near you...

Just this week, a U.S. scientist at MIT announced an incredible breakthrough in solar technology that has the potential to bring energy from the sun into the mainstream.
Because of its cost, low-availability, and conditional operation (it only works when the sun is shining), solar power has yet to be adopted by the average household, even in places like California where incentives exist to encourage residential adoption of the technology. Despite the dramatic increase in the country's solar capacity, it still accounts for only a tiny fraction of one percent of total U.S. energy use.
Professor of Energy Daniel Nocera wants to change all of that, and in a hurry. His new technology would allow the energy collected from the sun to be stored much more efficiently as hydrogen and oxygen. A fuel cell could then use these elements to generate electricity - even in the middle of the night - removing the primary drawback to solar energy in residential application.
You can read the full story at http://www.enn.com/energy/article/37841.