Planetsave

Utah’s Book Cliffs exist as one of the largest expanses of land in the lower 48 states without a paved highway.  The BLM, however, is considering a project that would change that. Uintah County’s Seep Ridge Road Paving Project proposes paving over an existing road, which would allow greater recreational (and other, including hunting and oil and gas exploration) access.  The proposal states that:

“the road is currently composed of dirt or native material and several segments of the existing road do not meet current federal and state road design standards for public safety. All projections indicate a continued substantial increase in light and heavy vehicle traffic on the road, primarily associated with energy development in the Book Cliffs area.” (UT-080-08-0238 section 1.2)

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This quick and painless 15 question quiz will shine an LED light on your environmental personality. Do you think you are a Planetsaver? Find out below.

1. Cycle:
a.motor b.bi c.water

2. Take:
a.more b.a seat c.action

3. Vehicle:
a.SUV b.C-A-R c.B-U-S

4. Media:
a.TV b.radio c.book/mags

5. Bikes:
a.for kids b.for exercise c.for most trips
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This holiday season, you can save a cloud forest, adopt a tiger and remove 1 ton of CO2.  Although none of it will fit in a box or under the tree, Changing the Present makes all these things possible by giving consumers access to a variety of charitable initiatives so that they can give the gift of hope, health and happiness for a world in need.

Some perks include not having to go near a crowded mall, finding something for everyone on your list, and no lines, returns or exchanges.  Best of all, you’ll be making a tangible difference in the world with the cause of your choice, and it’s something that will last long after the latest retail trends fizzle out.

Changing the Present features more than 1,500 meaningful charitable gifts that users can browse by cause or nonprofit to find the perfect gift for friends or their own charitable giving.

Building on a commitment to changing the social norm when it comes to gift giving, and seeking to spark positive change in the world, Robert Tolmach, CEO of WellGood LLC, spearheaded the team that implemented this important effort, and was kind enough to share more details about the program with me in a one-on-one chat about the future of giving.

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If you’re one of the millions of California voters who helped pass Proposition 2 on November 4, chances are pretty good that your Thanksgiving meal will include some sort of free-range, hormone-free dead bird—or, if you fall into the veg camp, maybe a more benign Tofurky or Field Roast. But for illegal poachers like Peter Ciraula of Gilroy, California, odds are good that the celebratory meal will include breast of snow goose, leg of endangered sandhill crane, or perhaps a pot-pie of protected swan.

“[Ciraula] said he was going to eat some of them,” said Department of Fish and Game warden Patrick Foy, ”But when we asked him why he had so many, he never really never offered up a very valid explanation.”

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The mission of Amazon Watch is: “to work with indigenous and environmental organizations in the Amazon Basin to defend the environment and advance indigenous peoples’ rights in the face of large-scale industrial development-oil and gas pipelines, power lines, roads, and other mega-projects.”

If you work in San Francisco and want to take an inspirational lunch break tomorrow, pounce on over to the Amazon Watch Celebration Luncheon from 12 noon - 1:30 pm at the Green Room, War Memorial Veterans Building, 401 Van Ness Avenue, Second Floor. Entry is complimentary, but just to be sure call and reserve a spot: 415-487-9600. The hour and a half lunch will celebrate recent victories in the Amazon and protecting the wildlife and indigenous peoples inhabit it. Luis Yanza (the Goldman Environmental Prize winner from Ecuador) will be speaking. Read the rest of this entry »

I got an e-mail today from an unknown author that is worth passing on.  Parts of it are copied here, alongside my own personal thoughts.

I don’t know how much you know about the Law of Attraction or if you’ve ever heard of it. But surely you’ve heard of the phrase, ‘What you resist, persists.’ The more we don’t want something, the more it finds us. For example - the more we resist forming relationships with a certain type of person in our lives, the more we attract that same kind of relationship over and over again.  The more we resisted President Bush, the more he stayed in office.  I truly believe that the reason he won two terms as President is because everyone from all sides was so intently focused on him– Democrats with negative energy and Republicans with positive energy. Read the rest of this entry »

FedEx’s New Solar System Is Enough To Power 370 homes

FedEx Express, a subsidiary of FedEx Corp, broke ground on its first - and largest - international solar energy facility on Monday. The facility near the Cologne, Germany airport will house over 16,000 square meters of solar panels.

The new solar panel installation is slated for completion by 2010; a 1.4-megawatt (MW) solar power system that will generate 1.3 GWhs of electricity/year. That is equivalent to the annual consumption of 370 homes! Read the rest of this entry »

Dr. Ravi Gupta thinks hospitals need to become a lot more environmentally friendly.

Hospitals and outpatient practices use a lot of energy and waste a lot of materials.  Doctors tend to be focused on patient care rather than caring for the environment.  Hopefully, that is starting to change.

Dr. Gupta, a physician practicing hospital medicine in Virginia, had been so bothered by the lack of an environmental policy at the his job that he did something: he developed and a plan to make the hospital system where he works greener and he helped implement it.

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One in six people on the planet do not have access to safe, clean drinking water.

Your tap water is fine.

Worried it isn’t? Get it tested.
If it turns out that it isn’t get a tap water filter, and join a “stream team” (google it to find one in your state).
Need to take it with you? Get a re-usable bottle that will last long and not leach harmful chemicals into the water you are drinking.

There. Your water problems are solved, and I never once suggested purchasing bottled water.

Water is free (kind of) it falls from the sky. If it were Coke that came out of your taps and fell from the sky—I can’t imagine ANYONE purchasing it in a bottle for an incredible mark up. Afterall, it’s free (sort of)! So why buy water of a similar quality to that which flows from your tap, in bottles made from some of the most environmentally damaging chemicals on the planet? And why pay one, two, or three dollars?

…Why not pay twenty?

Seriously.

The only good bottle of water available for purchase is being sold by Scott Harrison and it costs $20!

“Why would ANYONE pay $20 for a normal-sized bottle of water?”, you ask.

Because this special bottle of water has the unique ability to drill wells!
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If you are reading this blog, it is likely that you consider yourself “green,” or, at least, you are trying to do your part to be more environmentally minded, environmentally sensitive and environmentally responsible. Whether you are aware of it or not, you are a part of the green movement. And each part makes the green movement what it is — the entity it is — (on the global scale, the national scale, the regional scale, the local scale, and the personal scale).

Throughout the course of our life and our efforts, we have to step back and look at how effective we are at achieving our goals, how far our good intentions are actually taking us, how “green” our lifestyles are. We have to look at how much our green actions are doing to really protect and conserve the environment. At the same time, if we are trying to be a part of this green movement (which is growing in name, in respect, and, to some degree, in overall influence), we have to step back and evaluate the trajectory of the green movement, how effective the overall movement is in making our dreams of a safe, secure, sustainable, lively, and vibrant environment a true reality.

To be honest, I have been involved in the green movement since childhood and am fairly “extreme,” sincere, or devoted in my efforts to be green and to do my part. Nonetheless, I just moved to Poland from the U.S. and I have found that I have habits and ways of thinking that are greatly less sustainable, less environmentally sensitive, than the normal, average Pole who does not have any special care or concern for the environment and may just have the vaguest sense of what the “green movement” or “green living” is.

Why the great disparity in our actions and ways of life, despite the fact that I am the “green”?
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