Green Living, Activism, and Clean Energy Stories of the Day

Some of the top green living, activism, and clean energy stories from the past day or so:

Activism

Greenpeace Gives Facebook “Unfriend Coal” Deadline

Greenpeace has been pushing Facebook to “unfriend coal” and go the route of clean energy for awhile. Facebook, for the most part, hasn’t listened. Greenpeace is now telling Facebook it should make the change by Earth Day 2011 and there’s a bit of hope the huge internet company might.

Flower Mound, Texas Residents Trying Not to Be Guinea Pigs

Hydraulic fracturing (aka fracking) is known to be an environmentally damaging process that harms human health. But it has exploded in popularity in the last couple years and the industry doesn’t want to stop it. “Flower Mound, Texas is one of five communities EPA has chosen as ground zero sites for a study on how ‘fracking’—a dangerous and controversial natural gas drilling method—is contaminating water supplies around the country,” Jess Leber of Change.org writes. But the residents don’t want to be chosen, of course. Read more via the link above and help the residents out by signing the petition below:

Stop Yellow Page Parade

Sick of receiving huge, useless updates of the Yellow Pages? Want to eliminate the totally wasteful practice of shipping these without request to every citizen in the country? San Francisco may be the first city to cut back on this complete waste of money and environmental resources. Help support the passing of landmark legislation in San Francisco here:

Simple Changes in Fishing Gear Could Save Tens of Thousands of Endangered Marine Sea Turtles

That’s what a new WWF analysis shows. “All it takes is a simple change in fishing gear to help reduce marine turtle bycatch while upholding more efficient and responsible fishing practices,” says Keith Symington, WWF Coral Triangle Bycatch Strategy Leader. The WWF is pushing for policy changes to make this happen.

Clean Energy

Green Jobs

Lisbeth Kaufman of the Energy Policy Team at American Progress covered a workshop at the Good Jobs Green Jobs Conference titled “Investing in Our Future: A Sustainable Economy, a Secure Retirement, and Good Jobs” yesterday. Worth a read.

Clean Air Act Creates Jobs

In addition to the fact that we need the Clean Air Act for our own health and safety, the Clean Air Act is good for the economy (counter to what most Republicans and even some Democrats claim). A new study by CERES finds that the new Clean Air Act (which includes regulating CO2 and other global warming pollution) would create nearly 1.5 million jobs. Good news. Of course, only if Republicans and fossil-fuel-funded Democrats don’t take it down for no good reason (and really no reason at all except that it would hurt the dirty energy companies that bought them).

Wind Energy

Wind energy experts are arguing that unnecessary regulations are slowing wind energy development in the U.S. Bloomberg News goes into some of the specifics.

Wind energy giant Vestas announced that it will unveil the design of its upcoming 6-MW offshore wind turbine (that’s huge) next month in London. I’m excited.

Solar Energy

CalFinder Solar details 5 things you should look into before hiring a solar contractor. Good tips from people in the know.

Green Living

7 Green Valentine’s Gift Ideas for the Ladies

Still need to get a green Valentine’s gift for a special lady? Check out my list of 7 good green options. I also wrote up 7 options for guys and 5 green Valentine’s date options as well. Make your Valentine’s Day Green.

Plastic-Free Challenge

Heather Carr of Eat Drink Better gives more details in her efforts to go plastic-free for a week.

Photo Credit: Truthout.org via flick