Let’s say you want to have a party. Whether it is a beer and nachos blow-out to watch the Duke v. Carolina game, a classy wine & cheese soiree to celebrate your friends’ anniversary, or a mad hatter themed tea party for your 6 yr old niece and her friends, the first thing you’ll need is the perfect invite.

And for that, my friends, you need to Pingg.

Pingg.com is an event management site offering customers services like customized invitations, RSVP and guest list management, reminder notices, last-minute changes, and thank-you notes. Since its creation in February of 2008, over 2.5 million electronic invitations have been sent by Pingg.

Just to be clear here, Pingg offers party planners a foolproof way to send beautifully designed, eco-friendly (i.e. paperless, inkless, transportation-less), and super affordable invitations to guests and then track them. Unlike other online invitation services I have tried that are hella confusing, Pingg invitations are so easy to figure out that even a monkey could do it.

Back in late October, the simplicity and class of Pingg caught the attention of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Inc (MSLO) who decided to invest and and enter a commercial agreement with Pingg. Besides being an unwavering entertaining authority for the longest, MSLO also owns Martha Stewart Radio on Sirius 112, which the Lazy E has hosted a handful of times. That in itself means Martha and her people know a good thing when they see it.

President of Media and Co-CEO of MSLO Wenda Harris Millard says, “Pingg illustrates our commitment to our digital business and our focus on growing our core franchises in new and exciting ways by providing tools and resources that enable our customers to carry out the inspiring ideas they expect from Martha Stewart.”

Strawberries & Cream from Strawberry Earth on Vimeo.

The lure of Cheers, the bar in the 1982-1992 “Cheers” the TV show, was that everybody knew your name. And they were always glad you came. But what if Norm had told Woody, “look the brewskis aren’t enough. I think you ought to trick out this bar so it’s eco-friendly.” Most likely Woody would have been confused. Perhaps a more likely scenario, would have been Frasier Crane (remember he was in that show) telling Sam, “Look man, I think a more sustainable but upscale aesthetic is needed to attract more business.” Sam also might have been a little confused, considering it was the 90s, however in a green savvy 2008 this is actually happening.

Putting customer purchasing power to work, a new Amsterdam based eco magazine Strawberry Earth challenged a few of their favorite local bar owners to see what percent of a night’s revenue they’d spend on environmental improvements on their premises. The bars loved the idea, competed in the challenge (even though admittedly, the challenge name Strawberries & Cream doesn’t sound like a bar-challenge at all) and the first winner is the Bar Waldorf. On December 7th, Bar Waldorf has promised 60% of the night’s revenue will go to greening the bar.

Strawberry Earth, a self described, “magazine with lots of good stuff about the environment” features international stories including a regular NYC column by Lazy E team member Margaret.

As the holiday gifting season approaches, the Lazy E appreciates presents that are easy-to-find, easy to use, and require little to no assembly. If that gift happens to be inspiring like Sebastian Copeland’s “Antarctica: A Call To Action”, well that’s just an added bonus.

Copeland has made a name for himself as a documentary-maker and photographer capturing beautiful images ranging from nudes and nature, to celebrities. Copeland says, “Something like the Burning Man Festival celebrates humanity in a natural environment, and the photos I have taken reflect that. Antarctica on the other hand thrives outside the reach of humans, yet is an ecosystem most effected by them. It is like a Ground Zero of Climate change.”

If someone on your list loves breathtakingly beautiful photos, this book is a great choice for them. Or, for another type of coffee table photo book of super-cute babies strategically positioned in flowers and watering cans, there is always Anne Geddes.

In this video, Sebastian talks about the mission of the book, some of his favorite photos, and man-handling penguins to get the good shots.

If you’ve ever bought bling bling, then you know that the karats cost! Furthermore, buying jewelry goes beyond impacting your wallet. The gold industry extracts 2,5000 tons of gold per year from the earth, using a gnarly process that is harmful to the environment.

Fortunately, there is enough old and unused jewelry above ground stored in vaults and home safety boxes to satisfy gold demand for 50 years. GreenKarat is an industry leader jewelry using recycled precious metals to make beautiful rings, necklaces, earrings, etc.

And now they have taken their A-game to another level with an easy, consumer driven jewelry recycling program myKarat. Just look around your house and find old gold jewelry (white, rose, or yellow) that you don’t wear anymore. Send it into MyKarat and you will receive store credit, which you then use to you to buy new jewelry. It’s just easy. This program is similar to another Lazy E favorite, Patagonia’s Common Threads Program in which consumers recycle their old Polartec® fleece clothing (from any maker) that Patagonia then transforms into new clothing. But unlike Patagonia, myKarat actually pays you off in jewelry, in exchange for recycling. In fact, I’m sending in my gold grillz, right now.

It’s sweet to be back on Sirius Satellite Radio for a few days. You can catch me this week at 10am EST on Martha Stewart Living Radio (Sirius 112/XM 157) as the guest host for Whole Living. We had a fun chat today with Dr. Cheryl Dellasega, author of Forced to be Family: A Guide for Living with Sinister Sisters, Drama Mamas, and Infuriating In-Laws (awesome subtitle!). We talked about how to cope with going home for the holidays, an occasion that we want to be filled with family cheer but can deteriorate into backstabbing bitterness and petty jibes that leave us filling less than fulfilled by our time spent with so many ‘loved ones.’ I enjoyed the conversation because it hit home on some levels for me like I think it probably does for most of us. It’s also fun to to chat about topics that are about how we relate to and treat each other since my radio conversations almost always focus on how we relate to and treat the earth.

But we hit upon that topic with our second guest, Jeff Barrie, filmmaker of the documentary Kilowatt Ours: A Plan to Re-Energize America. I watched Jeff’s documentary last night. He does a fantastic job of first providing a national and global perspective about our energy and environmental crisis, next personalizing it through the stories of those who directly suffer as a result, and then rapidly shifting focus to solutions we can implement on the individual and societal level. He also hits upon one of my favorite topics; the eco-innovation underway at school districts across the U.S. to reign in energy costs and create high-performance educational facilities that enable students to maximize their education and thus their economic opportunities. It’s exactly the type of environmental framing needed to shift the dialogue from problems to solutions and paint a vision of a future that’s better for all Americans precisely because it’s green.

This whole sustainability thing is in need of a major branding overhaul. When you let scientists and policymakers control the sustainability conversation you get definitions of sustainability such as “meeting present needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.” Talk about boring. Talk about uninspiring. Want to know who rallies around that definition? Activists. But activists aren’t the ones who have to be sold on the importance of sustainability. They’re already sold which means they’re rarely the ones driving around in SUVs and kicking it in McMansions. We need leaders who understand that creating an inspiring environmental vision and appealing to enlightened self-interested are the most effective tools for getting those SUV driving, McMansion aspiring mainstream Americans excited about joining the green movement.

And let’s be clear: sustainability is a movement, a human-centric movement designed to enable humans to live on this planet for a long time. But a movement that only promotes the goal of being able to live here for a long time hardly seems much worth joining let alone fighting for. How about living in abundance? How about fostering a vibrant, dynamic society that furthers the human journey? How about living as well as we possibly can?

To that end, I propose a new definition of sustainability: To live as well as we possibly can while bringing our lifestyles into balance with nature.

Same goal. Only reframed in such a way that it might just generate some excitement outside the traditional strongholds of green living like Boulder, Berkeley, and Burlington. It might resonate with folks who would be interested to join a movement that’s going to make things better, not just prevent them from getting worse. And make things better not based on what environmental activists value but on what most Americans value – good jobs, a more secure country, high-performance schools and workplaces, healthy homes, lower utility bills, cool cars, etc.

This might all sound like semantics but it’s hugely important. Unless the environmental movement examines its communication strategies, it will never attract the type of widespread acceptance necessary to be effective on the scale required to solve the enormous environmental challenges we face. Moral imperative environmentalism is whiny. Carbon counting environmentalism is obscure. And Polar Bear saving environmentalism is trite. It’s all too niche. It holds no sway over the great majority of Americans who (despite the media hype and market research reports) are not yet living green in any meaningful way.

It’s time to recognize that there is an overwhelming opportunity to frame green choices in terms of personal self-interest. The new green value proposition should be: it’s better for you AND for the planet.

There’s hundreds of examples that prove the point but none more so than the Arabia Mountain High School being built outside of Atlanta, Georgia. Yes it’s a LEED certified green public school built to some of the highest environmental standards set by the U.S. Green Building Council. Yes, that means using recycled materials and recycling construction waste. Yes, that means incredible gains in energy efficiency leading to very low emissions of greenhouse gases. More importantly, it means that high school kids who learn in that building will see their performance improve on average by 20% which is the equivalent of going from a solid C to an A-. Now if I’m a parent in that community where do I want my kid to go to school? He or she damn sure better be in the “eco” school because that’s where he or she will stand the best chance of getting into the best college. Is that high school a better choice for the planet? Of course. Does anyone in the community care about that? Maybe a handful of concerned citizens do. But does every parent care about the performance benefits of that “eco” school? You bet your college savings fund they do.

So let’s start framing green in terms of “it’s better for you” because it is better for you based on whatever it is “you” value. Green improves the quality of our lives. The sooner we start evangelizing that message the sooner Americans will get on the green train (spurred on by incentives like free Wi-Fi as in cities like Boston) and the sooner we’ll make some real progress.

This whole sustainability thing is in need of a major branding overhaul. When you let scientists and policymakers control the sustainability conversation you get definitions of sustainability such as “meeting present needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.” Talk about boring. Talk about uninspiring. Want to know who rallies around that definition? Activists. But activists aren’t the ones who have to be sold on the importance of sustainability. They’re already sold which means they’re rarely the ones driving around in SUVs and kicking it in McMansions. We need leaders who understand that creating an inspiring environmental vision and appealing to enlightened self-interested are the most effective tools for getting those SUV driving, McMansion aspiring mainstream Americans excited about joining the green movement.

And let’s be clear: sustainability is a movement, a human-centric movement designed to enable humans to live on this planet for a long time. But a movement that only promotes the goal of being able to live here for a long time hardly seems much worth joining let alone fighting for. How about living in abundance? How about fostering a vibrant, dynamic society that furthers the human journey? How about living as well as we possibly can?

To that end, I propose a new definition of sustainability: To live as well as we possibly can while bringing our lifestyles into balance with nature.

Same goal. Only reframed in such a way that it might just generate some excitement outside the traditional strongholds of green living like Boulder, Berkeley, and Burlington. It might resonate with folks who would be interested to join a movement that’s going to make things better, not just prevent them from getting worse. And make things better not based on what environmental activists value but on what most Americans value – good jobs, a more secure country, high-performance schools and workplaces, healthy homes, lower utility bills, cool cars, etc.

This might all sound like semantics but it’s hugely important. Unless the environmental movement examines its communication strategies, it will never attract the type of widespread acceptance necessary to be effective on the scale required to solve the enormous environmental challenges we face. Moral imperative environmentalism is whiny. Carbon counting environmentalism is obscure. And Polar Bear saving environmentalism is trite. It’s all too niche. It holds no sway over the great majority of Americans who (despite the media hype and market research reports) are not yet living green in any meaningful way.

It’s time to recognize that there is an overwhelming opportunity to frame green choices in terms of personal self-interest. The new green value proposition should be: it’s better for you AND for the planet.

There’s hundreds of examples that prove the point but none more so than the Arabia Mountain High School being built outside of Atlanta, Georgia. Yes it’s a LEED certified green public school built to some of the highest environmental standards set by the U.S. Green Building Council. Yes, that means using recycled materials and recycling construction waste. Yes, that means incredible gains in energy efficiency leading to very low emissions of greenhouse gases. More importantly, it means that high school kids who learn in that building will see their performance improve on average by 20% which is the equivalent of going from a solid C to an A-. Now if I’m a parent in that community where do I want my kid to go to school? He or she damn sure better be in the “eco” school because that’s where he or she will stand the best chance of getting into the best college. Is that high school a better choice for the planet? Of course. Does anyone in the community care about that? Maybe a handful of concerned citizens do. But does every parent care about the performance benefits of that “eco” school? You bet your college savings fund they do.

So let’s start framing green in terms of “it’s better for you” because it is better for you based on whatever it is “you” value. Green improves the quality of our lives. The sooner we start evangelizing that message the sooner Americans will get on the green train (spurred on by incentives like free Wi-Fi as in cities like Boston) and the sooner we’ll make some real progress.

Over the last year or so, our athletically inclined Lazy E team has been excitedly watching the cool green progress over at Nike like the Browerman Track program building running tracks from recycled shoes and the first eco-friendly Air Jordan XX3. And we consider that some good green progress. Now CONSIDER this:

CONSIDERED is the company’s sustainable athletic line with an undeniably Nike (read funky awesome) design aesthetic. The track jackets, shorts, and pants are made from 100% recycled polyester yet still feature the Nike Dri-FIT technology with wick away action to draw sweat off the athlete. The shoes in the line are made cork and Nike’s proprietary recycled material Regrind (literally ground up old Nike shoes) and the tees are done in 100% organic cotton.

I’m fancying the Takos Women’s Trail Shoe because they are just so urban hiking sophisticate! Josh, the Lazy E, is looking to snag these Livestrong track shorts because they help him ride like Lance and 100% of the profits from LIVESTRONG Collection are donated to Lance Armstrong Foundation to help fight cancer.

Also, we hear from a fav sneaker-head blog that Adidas will be launching their own sustainable line SLVR in February 2009 during New York Fashion Week.

The Lazy E loves fast cars. Sleek sexy gas-less cars. That’s why electric cars get us so charged; hello Tesla, Th!nk, Aptera. But, if you are like us and still waiting in line for one of those mean muscle mobiles, consider converting your current car engine over to electric power by consulting the new book Build Your Own Electric Vehicle. In this exclusive interview, the author, Seth Leitman, gives us the clean details about electric engine conversions.

MARGARET: The first edition of ‘Build Your Own Electric Car’ was written by Bob Brant in 1994. What are the major differences between the two books?

SETH: The first and most glaring difference is that when I submitted the manuscript for the book oil had reached over 0 a barrel (when Bob Brant’s estimates for change were at 0).

Oil prices, climate change, “Who Killed The Electric Car?,” economic crisis and “Pimp My Ride.” MTV’s “Pimp My Ride” was a successful TV show about converting cars and good mechanical jobs. This lead me to the question could a car shop “pimp” and “e” my ride at the same time.

The American Spirit is partially based on our automobile. It is part of our essence and our freedom of expression and that is what makes the electric car conversion so cool and green at the same time. Take, for instance, an old 1957 Chevy or a Porsche 911 as your second car. Get a mechanic to trick out the inside interior and make it all electric. Good for your pocket and the environment at the same time.

The other great part about electric cars is all the job possibility: the industry needs more mechanics! Local mechanics could be getting more work to create electric cars; thereby creating a whole diverse economic platform for mechanics. Not to mention most of the better motors and controllers are made right here in the USA.

With predominantly US companies leading the way, we are only further propelling an economic opportunity to reduce energy costs, provide a sustainable car for th environment and still enjoy driving. We have had the technology needed revolutionize the electric vehicle industry. Only now, we really need it! Like the old adage goes, Crisis Creates Change.

A few weeks ago I was in Los Angeles to wrap up the Lazy E tv pilot and spent an afternoon in Venice down on Abbot Kinney Boulevard, one of the few streets in Los Angeles where walking is actually encouraged and pedestrians aren’t likely to get flipped off or run over for being without a car. This time around I was lucky to stumble into Topo Ranch’s super sweet retail boutique which offers rocking rockabilly-inspired organic cotton clothing for men and women. The styles are very updated urban cowboy. Even cooler, the brushed organic cotton tops are some of the softest cotton I’ve ever touched and are absolutely fantastic to wear. Topo Ranch also has a retail store in Boulder, Co and the line is carried by other retailers around the country.

While there are increasingly excellent eco-friendly clothing options for women and more on the way (see Summer Rayne Oakes for Payless), men who want to show off their eco-fashion sense are still faced with limited choice. Topo Ranch is therefore all the more impressive for offering an extensive men’s organic cotton line at reasonable prices. You can also find products for sale on the Topo Ranch website.

Opportunity Green is just a few days away. I really believe that if you choose just one event to attend to understand what’s happening in the green economy and where business opportunities lie for entrepreneurs and corporations this is the one.

Lazy Environmentalist readers can save 20% off the price of admission for the two-day event by entering the code LazyEog2 when registering.

See you in L.A.

LG Display has introduced a new LCD panel that can be illuminated by sunlight when outdoors instead of the backlight. The LCD is 14.1 inches and will be installed in select notebook PCs.

The LCD panel uses "backlight data signal switching technology," which means the backlight panels can be switched between reflective mode in sunlight to transmissive mode indoors, by hitting a button. When the outdoor mode is in use, energy consumption falls by 75% compared to the indoor mode, significantly extending the life of a computer battery.

The company claims that the visibility is excellent in the outdoor setting with a contrast ratio of 9:1.

I can’t say that I find myself using my laptop outside very often (and I can’t think of anyone I know who does), so users would have to make a point of taking advantage of the power saving technology. Maybe you could use the outdoor setting while sitting near a window? It’s still a neat upgrade for LCD panels, but increasing indoor efficiency seems to be of more pressing concern.

LG Display is debuting the panel at the Consumer Electronics Show 2009. There’s no word yet of which PCs will take advantage of the new technology.

via LG Display

For a while there, I was getting worried. While 90% of me hoped that the world would immediately switch over to compact fluorescent light bulbs, there was 10% that was getting very worried that recycling them would never be easy, so they would end up breaking in landfills, and increasing the amount of elemental mercury loose in the world.

It seemed that some companies would launch pilot projects, and then I’d never hear of it again. The only "nation-wide" effort that existed was IKEA. Unfortunately, the nearest IKEA to my house is about 11 hours away. I feared that the expense of recycling CFLs would forever keep it inconvenient. Then ACE Hardware launched their recycling program, which seemed a little too good to be true.

Free recycling of all CFLs and most fluorescent tubes at all stores in America. It seemed too good to be true, so I grabbed a couple of CFLs before I went to ACE to get a couple of screws I needed. I didn’t see any bins, or signs advertising the effort, which is a little discouraging, but when I asked an employee, he simply opened his palms, and I passed off the bulbs.

The recycling bin is backstage, apparently for safety reasons (I guess you don’t want to have a bunch of fragile glass bulbs of mercury hanging around where someone could drop a pant can on them.)

A simple process, yes, but I wish it were more widely publicized and well known. The fact that there were no messages advertising the program in the store was a little discouraging, but I salute ACE, as a coast-to-coast retailer who is the first to provide CFL recycling in a town near you. There are over 4,300 ACE stores, if you want to see if there’s one near you, check out this handy utility.

Last Friday, Panasonic announced that it was buying Sanyo for billion, a deal that Panasonic hopes will launch the company’s solar and battery businesses. Sanyo will become a part of the Panasonic group and bring with it their large solar PV business.

As an example of Sanyo’s commitment to solar energy, the company plans to build a 70MW solar manufacturing facility in Oregon this coming year. Panasonic hopes to capitalize on projects like these, as well as expand into crystalline silicon solar cells and to develop next-generation solar cells.

Along with a large expansion into the solar business, Panasonic will be making "active investments" in lithium-ion batteries for hybrid and electric vehicles. Panasonic hopes the collaboration with Sanyo will bring lucrative contracts with large automakers.

This is a smart move on Panasonic’s part. The tide is turning in the electronics sector and businesses need to start moving in a greener direction and expanding their offerings. Consumers have made it known that they want more eco-friendly products and eco-saving innovation. This is clearly the path to long-term success for electronics companies.

via Earth2Tech

The holy grail of all renewable is to reach grid parity – the point at which buying green power is no more expensive (or even cheaper) than buying power from, say, a coal burning plant. And it seems that one solar power plant in a desert in Nevada – built by First Solar – has reached that momentous mark. At least according to one analyst named Mark Bachman.

What do I mean, “according to one analyst”? Well it all boils down to how you do your math and how you define “grid parity”. Traditionally, people (by which I mean investors) have defined it in terms of cost per watt, and it was also generally thought that if solar power plants could be built at a cost of per watt or less, they would achieve grid parity. Thus, if First Solar had been able to build a 10 megawatt plant for 10 megadollars (that’s 10 million for any of you non-geeks out there), they would have achieved grid parity a la traditional definition.

The aforementioned analyst, however, chose to define grid parity as cost per kilowatt hour. Unlike a watt, which is a unit of power (energy per unit time), a kilowatt hour is a unit of energy itself. The question, then, is how much does it cost First Solar to deliver a kilowatt hour of electricity to a customer, and how much does it cost a coal plant to deliver that same kilowatt hour? The answer, said the analyst, is 7.5 cents/kwh for solar and 9 cents/kwh for coal.

Grid parity!

However, there are some important considerations to keep in mind.

A few companies have sprung up recently that map an area’s potential for renewable energy, but engineering company CH2M Hill is the first to map on a very detailed scale. Homeowners can use the software to find out the solar potential of their actual rooftop, not just their neighborhood.

The website, sf.solarmap.org, showcases the company’s first mapped location, San Francisco. The website uses Google Earth to map the city and residents can look up their own homes, commercial or government sites. When a user types in an address, the map zooms in on a satellite image of that rooftop and displays information on the size and solar potential of the roof, estimated electricity that could be produced and electric bill savings, and the CO2 that would be avoided if that roof generated solar energy.

San Francisco has benefited greatly from this project since the city generally wasn’t considered to have a wealth of solar opportunities. The website has revealed solar hot spots and the mayor now has a goal of generating 31MW of solar energy by 2012.

As the company adds more cities to it’s mapping database, we could see a dramatic increase in the production of solar energy around the country. This type of software is greatly needed now when most people are ready to get on board with renewables, but they need more information to get the best results.

via Time Magazine

We stopped reporting on solar battery chargers a while back. It just seemed to me like a sub-optimal use of solar technology. I mean, for the most part, the panel sits around doing nothing. And it’s not like battery charging uses a really significant amount of the world’s energy (though it’s certainly growing.)

But for those of you who have your hearts set on charging your batteries with the sun, the big guns have just joined the game. Energizer, who employs a bunny that is, apparently, fusion powered, is debuting a solar battery charger at CES in January.

The device will power charge AA or AAA batteries, and has a USB port for charging cellphones and iPods and the like. The weather-proof design hints at it’s true use, charging up while beyond the reach of civilization.

Because, really, what’s the use of back country hiking if you can’t watch youtube videos on your iPhone while you’re out there.

Via GoodCleanTech

The ACCCE, a coalition of coal and energy companies that have been paying for a deluge of advertising discussing the merits of clean coal technology made a LOT of money last year. That was last year.

Since the very first dollar was spent on carbon sequestration technology, that "clean coal" coalition has spent about 6% of that money acftually doing research on carbon storage. And the VAST majority of that comes from two projects, one from Duke Energy and the other from Mississippi Power.

The scary and true thing about coal companies is that they have never spent money on research unless they were required to. The only significant research undertakings of the coal industry were spurred by the clean air act.

Carbon storage is one of the most important aspects of our clean energy future, but the companies that have the ability to research and implement it have no reason to do so. So we’re stuck with renewables (likely a more expensive option) being researched and developed far more quickly. Just one more reason why old industries die hard.

There is really no surprise here. Energy companies will not spend money cleaning up their act unless they are forced to. And while the M they’ve spent on advertising (and 5M they’ve spent on lobbying congress) is a pretty strong force for the status quo, I’d like to think that true progress, and clean technology will win the day.

Information for this article comes from a report (PDF) published by the Center for American Progress.

It’s been a grim month for Nuclear Power, always a contentious issue for greens, power from the atom has taken two steps back as South African utility Eskom announce plans to cancel their tendering process for new nuclear plant in South Africa. It comes a week after revelations from the French economic publication Les Echos reveal that French campaign group "Sortir du nucléaire" have accused EdF of lying during a public consultation exercise which was the prelude to the decision to build a new nuclear plant at Flamanville in France.

Originally, it was announced that power from the Flamanville plant was costed at €43 / MWh, however, delays and added construction costs (a feature of every nuclear plant that has gone before Flamanville) have added to the costs and so the price of nuclear electricity from the plant is now estimated to be €55 / MWh – Les Echos stated that EdF were expected to announce this at their next meeting. The only other nuclear plant under construction is that at Olikuoto in Finland. It is of the same EPR (European Pressurised Reactor) design that is being constructed at Flamanville. The Finnsh reactor has also been plagued with problems and at one point in the construction, French contractor Bouygues were accused of using unqualified welders… quite worrying considering the specialised nature of nuclear engineering!

In an economy where finance is hard to come buy, and the governments of the world are already propping up their economies with massive debt, will massive projects which carry potentially massive liabilities such as nuclear power begin to look even less attractive, whilst smaller unit-cost renewables, with a demonstrable payback within their own life time

The recent furore surrounding biofuels and the food vs. fuel arguments, has highlighted to the world how important industrialised agriculture is to maintaining a steady food supply, and how precious our bio-productive land is. When we start diverting land to producing stuff other than food there are serious issues to be considered in terms of equity and social and environmental sustainability. When looking at the "Energy Return vs. Energy Invested" of biofuels, another serious flaw was highlighted – the carbon intensity of our industrialised agriculture systems.

In short, with ever more dire predictions about how much longer oil is going to last, there are some seriously big elephants in the room, when it comes to working out how long we can continue to feed the world’s growing population for when our agriculture is so dependent on oil to produce food.

Up until now, no one has given any really serious consideration to post-carbon agriculture, we’ve seen a few bits of ag-machinery powered by biofuels – big deal, it doesn’t take a radical leap in technology to make that work; but now we’re seeing something radically different, and really exciting.

New Holland, in partnership with Iveco, look set to debut a Fuel Cell tractor in early 2009. Dubbed the NH2, the fossil fuel dependent Diesel engine, has been replaced by a Fuel Cell, which has the potential to ween farms off their addiction to oil – soon you might be seeing ‘zero-carbon’ foodstuffs, alongside your Organics and Fairtrade.

The idea of producing Fuel Cell tractors has been kicking around for a bit, Allis Chalmers produced a Fuel Cell powered tractor back in 1959, however, after the demo of ploughing a field of Alfalfa, it ended up in the Smithsonian. What’s exciting, is that as a big noise in the tractor business, New Holland has the potential to transform agriculture completely by decarbonising one element of the food supply chain.

Via: Farmers Guardian

Four years ago, the City of New York held an internationl competition to design the next generation of streetlights for the city. The winner? A lighting design firm from none other than the Big Apple itself – a company called the Office for Visual Interaction. If their prototype makes it through the testing stage, it will become the standard streetlight across the whole city.

It looks nothing like ordinary streetlights. Because its head contains 100 (relatively) small LED bulbs, rather than one giant bulb, the designers had much greater flexibility in choosing a shape. They settled on something long and thin, which makes the streetlight look graceful and light, rather than bulky and 20th century.

The LEDs, of course, will save energy – about 30% compared to sodium. But the bulbs and lenses in each light also offer the ability to be arranged into customized configurations to deliver different “footprints” of light. So, depending on where they are located, the light can be directed to illuminate exactly what is most useful (see the schematic above).

Via WIRED

by: Jacquelyn Thornton

There are numerous products sitting around every household that are super heroes of the natural cleaning world. Most people just don’t realize that they don’t need to go out and buy so many cleaning products, because their kitchen pantry is filled with natural alternatives.

Natural cleaning has several benefits, it is better for the environment, it cuts down on harmful chemicals in the air we breathe and it keeps more packaging products (plastic bottles…) out of our landfills. It’s also cheaper, why spend money on a separate cleaning product for every task. The benefits go on and on, grab a good book about natural cleaning and find out more of its benefits at your local library.

Here are a few of my favorite natural cleaning recipes and tips:

Baking Soda:

• Mix a small amount of baking soda with liquid castile soap to get countertops, sinks and tubs sparkling like new.

• Sprinkle the carpet with baking soda before you vacuum to release pet odors.

• Take one cup of baking soda and four cups of water and let it dissolve then put in a spray bottle and spray on stubborn stains. (Make a thick paste to rub on with your hands for tougher stains.)

• Clean your toilet by pouring one part baking soda to four parts vinegar into the toilet. Let it sit 15-30 minutes (deending on the degree of the stains) before scrubbing.

Lemon Juice:

• Clean copper with lemon juice. Cut a lemon in half. Dip it in salt, and rub gently in a circular motion to clean spots from your copper.

• Countertop stains can be zapped away by applying lemon juice to sit on to the stain for a few minutes (not too long, it can damage certain surfaces). Follow up by scrubbing the stain with baking soda.

• Lemon juice is a natures bleach. Apply lemon juice to white linens and clothing and lay them in the sun to dry. Stains will be bleached away.

Hydrogen Peroxide:

• To treat mold in the bathroom, fill a spray bottle with 1/2 cup hydrogen peroxide and 1 cup water. Spray onto moldy areas, let sit for an hour, then rinse off.

• Keep a spray bottle of hydrogen peroxide and another of white vinegar (don’t mix the two in one bottle). For a disinfecting spray, for vegetables and surfaces, spritz with one, then the other, then wipe clean.

Olive Oil:

• Polish your furniture by mixing together equal parts olive oil and white vinegar.

• To brighten brass surfaces, rub with a cloth dampened with olive oil after cleaning. This will keep the brass from tarnishing.

• Keep stainless steel surfaces free of streaks and finger prints by rubbing olive oil onto stainless steel surfaces.

• Mix 1/4 cup olive oil with a few drops of lemon juice for a natural shoe polish. Buff the mixture on and then buff away.

If you’re one of those people (like me) that loves a fresh smell after cleaning try adding a few drops of essential oils like lavender, jasmine or eucalyptus to any of the mixtures. The oils can add cleaning power to the mixtures too!