Eco Green Environmental News

I found a cool site that will tell you how to convert your car to run on Gas + Water. It’s a safe solution and I know people who are doing it.

Click Here to Check it Out

The UAE has made ambitious plans to create a 15 billion dollar green city focusing on clean renewable energies. Elevated pods, clean fuel transport, virtually no trash etc. This plan has not estimated time frame, but the UAE are awarding 2.2 million dollars to 3 inventors who come up with previously non theorized environmentally friendly ideas they can implement in their city called: Masdar City.

Soon you will know, when you buy a new car in California. Emissions stickers will rate the carbon footprint from 1-10. This is meant to discourage people from purchasing cars that are less friendly to the environment.

In my opinion this is not going to solve a single problem. Perhaps prohibiting the sale of vehicles over a 2 would help?

Source: Newser

Or at least that’s the rumour. I’ve read that Prius in 2009 will have the option to upgrade to solar powered A/C.

Toyota has not confirmed or denied these plans, but given the state of the economy, fuel prices and overall green thinking thanks to global warming, you can only assume this will be a home-run.

Yes, it’s true. I am sure I am late to report this, but there is a new car on the block expecting to come out by 2010 that is powered by AIR.

Quite the interesting concept, and I would love to see this come to life: Click Here to Read More

I love the idea of the future. Especially technology that employs the most creative minds and shows humanities brilliant ability to make the most out of everything we are given. We can recycle nearly everything and be very self sustaining if only we were patient enough.

Future City really takes this to the next level. This artist rendition of a massive metropolis shows how we could make the most of everything we sit on, drive and walk on and even eat.

Click Here to see the Plan and you will see exactly what I mean. How inspiring is this? Extremely, in a word.

It’s an epidemic. It’s a problem that has been spiraling out of proportion for 70 years. It’s called over consumption - or overeating. Americans are famous for it, as it shows in our obesity statistics year after year. What we don’t really consider about this issue is the other side of it - food waste. Overeating means we are consuming extra food. The average American wastes an absolutely insane amount of food every single year. The average person doesn’t even feel guilty about throwing away food, either.

I’ve been seeing people take a couple bites of something and toss it for far too long, and I need to just yell from the top of a mountain about it.

When people start complaining about the rising cost of food, I can only smile and reply “well it’s your fault.” That never gets the reaction in should. When I explain what I mean, people tend to nod their head but I can see nothing has stuck - they won’t be changing their ways. Imagine the money you would save if you only ate what your body needed. Imaging ordering only what you knew you would eat - that goes from lunch at the office to grocery shopping at a local Whole Foods (or other organic/trendy store).

So how can you help the Earth and your wallet at the same time and stop wasting food?

1. Purchase only what you know you will eat. That means planning meals, or ordering food from a menu you know you will like, and be able to eat all of. If you DON’T eat it all, take the leftovers home and eat them as a snack or a meal.
2. Don’t order food just because it is free. An example is I went to Rain Forest Cafe and I got a free appetizer. I knew I wouldn’t be able to eat it, so I ordered it but bagged it right away and ate it as a snack that night. Most people would just nibble at it and toss it because “It was free so who cares?”
3. If you eat out more than at home and you keep tossing out veggies, just stop buying the things you waste. Don’t double up just because you think you MAY need it.

The benefits of wasting less food will come back to help your wallet and on top of it all stop the vicious cycle of throwing away Earth’s blood, food. A nice bi product of all of this is you’ll probably drop a few pounds if you start watching your food intake. So we really hit a 3 in one with this idea. So go do it!

A side note you should consider is that about 25% of all food produced is WASTED and sent to a landfill. This not only fills up our landfills but when the food decomposes it emits greenhouse gasses.
Also be aware that some of the food we consume such as SEAFOOD is not so easy to produce. Some of the stocks of seafood have been shrinking for a hundred years due to overfishing/catching. Who knows, maybe eating 25% less seafood would mean we’d end up having crabs for awhile which would be nice.

I hate paper waste. I despise seeing shredded paper all over offices, stacks of useless files being thrown out etc. I find it offensive that we simply toss out paper as if it had no value at all. The majority of paper is not recycled, and is just thrown in the trash and therefore land filled.

I had a thought about 2 years ago where we would work an initiative to stop bulk junk mail. Who loves getting tons of paper in their mailbox daily that you never even look at? I hate it, and I thought if we could eliminate the BILLIONS of pounds of junk mail waste that we produce yearly, we may be able to make a dent in the clear cutting and absolute decimation of our world’s forests.

Today I was browsing for some tips on how to make a service like this, when I ran into Green Dimes which is a service that takes local area junk mail providers and allows you to remove yourself from their lists for up to 5 years.

This takes some time with their FREE service. You may want to set aside 30-60 minutes to complete all of the opt-out processes but I can assure you it is worth it if we can help reduce waste even a fraction of a percent.

This service really will help if we can spread the word. So if you liked it, tell a friend.

Note: Go to the biggest culprit directly and remove yourself to stop 90% of the BS in your mailbox. Click Here Now.

I have compiled a few sites and tools I have found to be invaluable during my research online. Hopefully you get some use out of them also.

1. Carbon Footprint Calculator find out how much you damage and where you can save.
2. 30 gas Saving Tips that really work
3. Make your own Diesel and save $3+ per gallon in fuel
4. Recycle regularly because the amount of glass we toss into landfills is disturbing.

These are just 4 of thousands of sites and tools out there to help you get going. Next I am going to catalogue a bunch of very small changes you can make in your life to make a MAJOR impact. I want to share my day to day ideas on recycling, saving money on gas and electricity and much more.

I was doing a random search today and I ran into a sign that suggested motorists shut off their engine when idling at long rail crossings. I come from farm area and 150 car trains are not uncommon and they do take forever to pass. Sometimes 5-10 minutes. You could save yourself some coin and the air by turning off your engine during planned or unplanned LONG idle periods.

I think we need to begin adopting more ideas like this to place green ideas inside of people’s heads without them thinking about it.