We had a great time hitting the roads in Frederick last Thursday. Nothing too exciting found this time, but we had a great war with the pokey sticks.

This link was sent over to me by Derek.  It is a great read, and I thought one of the coolest things was seeing how much solar panels would generate on your house using Virtual Earth.  Some tips I had seen before, and others were brand new to me.

Also, a blatant plug for Derek’s band, Sun Tornado.  July 11th in Baltimore at Metro Gallery.

Enjoy,

greg

Use the Web to Reduce Your Carbon Footprint

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Given the steady drumbeat of news about climate change, water shortages, food riots and high oil prices, many of us are pretty well-versed in the basics of protecting the environment.

What’s lacking, particularly for us tech-lovers, are the tools to help us live our on-grid, totally Wired lives with the smallest possible impact. And we do need some help. If everyone lived like North Americans, we’d need at least five planets to support our lifestyles.

Here are some online actions you can take to “plug in greener.”

This article is a wiki. Got extra advice? Log in and add it.

iHitchhike

Ride sharing is an effective way of reducing the impact of transportation on the environment, but it comes with two thorny problems: How do you a) find a car going your way and b) make sure that driver isn’t a psycho? The Facebook app, Carpool, or something like it, could eventually be the solution. By using your own social network to search out rides, it allows you to differentiate between your friends and creepy truckers, and if the app can gain some traction — which it hasn’t yet — you could be hitching a ride anywhere with your mouse-button index finger, not your thumb. Or getting paid to provide rides.

Drive the “Network Effect” of Carbon Footprints

Back in July of last year, Clive Thompson wrote, “Imagine if your daily consumption were part of your Facebook page — and broadcast to your friends by RSS feed…. You’d work harder to conserve so you don’t look like a jackass in front of your peers.” Well, that day has come with the Facebook Carbon Minder application. Get it, do your calculations, and start shaming your friends.

Another must-read is Katie Fehrenbacher’s article on earth2tech about the “Network Effect” of carbon footprints.

Calculate Solar-Payback Time for Your Home

Sungevity allows you to get your home fitted for solar panels. Using Microsoft’s Virtual Earth satellite imagery platform, it calculates not just how much power the panels would generate, but also how long it would take you to recoup your initial investment. This image is the app’s workup for the apartment building that I live in here in San Francisco.

Fly Green

Flying to Vegas this weekend? A new calculator from TerraPass and TRX will show you which airline has the lowest carbon emissions for any route in the world.

Stop Your Junk Mail

GreenDimes is a classic win-win. You, as a consumer, get a service that removes you from catalog mailing lists and cuts down on the amount of junk that lands in your mailbox. By making your life better, you also help the environment, because all those catalog are printed on paper, and you can bet most of it isn’t the nice, recycled stuff. The company claims to have stopped 3.5 million pounds of waste already.

Offset Your Blog’s CO2 Emissions

CO2Stats lets you track the carbon dioxide emissions of your website, blog or individual posting. Based on the traffic it receives, the company calculates the carbon footprint of the content and offsets that amount of emissions. They hope to pay for this scheme by selling advertising.

More than 1,000 sites have signed on, and even though the widget’s design is simple, it works, albeit with a fairly minor impact.

Buy Data-Hosting Powered by Renewable Energy

If offsetting the emissions from the traffic to your site isn’t enough for you, try out GreenestHost or AISO and purchase some solar-powered hosting.

Plot an Alternative Route to Work

If you need to get from here to there, walking or riding your bike has a smaller environmental impact than taking a motor vehicle. But if you’re a novice like me, you might not know the best route across your city. That’s where Bikely comes in, a website that allows grizzled bike messengers to let you in on their fastest routes. Then, just send that data to the handlebar-mounted GPS you built, and away you go. l The same goes for taking public transportation instead of dragging your 2,000 pound wheeled metal exoskeleton into the company parking lot. Google Transit tops the list if you’re in an urban environment and want hitch a ride on your city’s people transporters.

Add Your Own Tips Here

We know you’re out there scouring the internet for good tools too, so let us know what sites you find most useful for reducing your impact on the environment.

Global warming is affecting more countries than ever, and the United States is beginning to see it’s effects more each year. One way is the reduction of water availability, and this group is trying to raise awareness through educating kids as to what it is like trying to get water in other parts of the world..

greg

Press Release: Local Montessori Students “Walk For Water”

LOCAL MONTESSORI STUDENTS “WALK FOR WATER” TO RAISE MONEY AND AWARENESS FOR GRASSROOTS WELL-DIGGING PROJECT IN NIGER, WEST AFRICA

DERWOOD, MD (May 17) —More than 170 students and parents from local Montessori schools will walk around the perimeter of Rock Creek Park’s Lake Frank, in hopes of raising money and awareness for a program which seeks to lessen the marathon journey—which can be a stifling 35 miles roundtrip—that children in the Azawak region of Niger must face each time they and their families need a cup of water to drink.

Sponsored by Honest Tea, My Organic Market and Signs By Tomorrow, the second annual “A Walk for Water” will be held on Saturday, May 17, starting at 10 a.m. Although the walk will be only a fraction of the distance that children in Niger’s desert must journey for water, to the students, who have been learning about the children of the Azawak in their classes, the event will symbolize their solidarity with the Nigerien children.

Each participant will raise funds to benefit Amman Imman, a program which digs borehole wells—reaching depths as far as 3,000 feet below the Earth’s surface—for the people living in the Azawak. Sponsored in part by money raised through the first annual Walk for Water one year ago, Amman Imman built its first well last summer. The well provides water for 25,000 people and their animals. This year’s walk—kicked off in the company of a native from the outskirts of the Azawak—will support Amman Imman’s second well.

“The focus of involving students in “A Walk for Water” is to bring them together in the spirit of collaboration to make a positive change in the world,” said Debra Kahn, associate director of the Oneness Family School, in Chevy Chase, Md. and organizer of the walk. “The Amman Imman project appeals to their natural desire to help humanity and to reach out to children who are just like them, yet have a lot less.”

Extreme poverty coupled with a warming climate has made life in the Azawak increasingly difficult. Currently, the majority of the 500,000 people living in the Azawak have no water for nine months out of the year due to a lengthening draught. During the three months that they do have water, it is brackish, brown and thick with mud, dirtied by the people and animals which bathe in the marshes. With no schools, health centers or roads nearby, the Azawak is largely abandoned by the outside world.

Ariane Kirtley, founder and director of Amman Imman, hopes that by building more wells, Amman Imman will act as an impetus to change all of this. “Until there is a permanent and sustainable flow of water in the region, no organization will come to the Azawak,” she said. “I hope that our work will serve as a catalyst for humanitarian organizations to bring much-needed developmental aid, such as food aid, health care, education and gender equity to the region.”

Participating schools include: The Oneness-Family School, Chevy Chase, Md.; The Barrie School, Silver Spring, Md.; Henson Valley Montessori School, Upper Marlboro, Md.; Aidan Montessori, Washington, D.C.; Boyd School, from multiple locations in Virginia.

Program Amman Imman is a Washington, D.C.-based program, working in partnership with the American non-profit The Friendship Caravan. For more information on Amman Imman’s collaboration with local schools, visit: http://montessori-amman-imman-project.blogspot.com/

I wanted everyone to be aware of these free energy audits. Several states across the U.S. do them and I’ve heard a lot of success stories. You can’t go wrong with free…

greg

Free Home Energy Audits Available to DC Residents

Washington, DC – With air-conditioning season just around the corner and energy costs on the rise, the District Government is again offering free energy audits to single-family homeowners. The DC Department of the Environment’s Home Energy Rating System (HERS) program identifies a home’s energy deficiencies and provides homeowners with cost-effective, energy improvement recommendations.

“I hope our residents will take advantage of the free audits,” said George Hawkins, Director of the DC Department of the Environment. “We have found that many consumers don’t consider energy conservation because they’re not sure what to do. The HERS program will give homeowners new insight.”

The HERS Program will send a RESNET certified Auditor to evaluate a home’s existing energy condition, including walls, floors, ceilings, windows, doors, hot water heating, heating and cooling mechanical systems and other related aspects. Once the home audit is complete, a detailed HERS improvement analysis report is provided to the homeowner. Recommendations range from no-cost behavioral changes to major improvements to reduce energy loss in the home.

District residency and DC homeownership are the only program eligibility requirements. To schedule a free HERS audit, interested residents should call Willie Vazquez at 202.671.3304 or LaKeisha Estep at 202.673.6733.

To learn more about the HERS program, visit ddoe.dc.gov.

At our stores, I always call the catalogs myself and ask to be taken off of their mailing lists. It is pretty effective, but to do this at home is an entirely different story. There is so much junk mail coming in, that to imagine the scale nationwide, is pretty scary.

There is a pretty cool organization that can help you with it called Green Dimes. They get you removed from 95 percent of all the junk mail lists, and they give donations to American Forest, Trees for The Future, and Sustainable Harvest International.

Check out their site, and let me know what you think…

www.greendimes.com

By getting rid of all the construction material that is dumped there on a daily basis. Think about it… All of the used drywall, plywood, wood, sinks, cabinets, flooring, bathtubs, decks, and everything else that is torn out of houses. Read the rest of this entry »

So, I just went on a tour of Trex yesterday. They are located in Winchester, Virginia and they take plastic grocery bags and turn them into deck material. It is made by mixing other ingredients in with shredded up plastic bags, and then the bags act as a kind of glue holding the other stuff together.

I had a chance to see the whole process, and it was very cool, but I don’t want to give away details as I did sign a confidentiality agreement and I’m not sure what is public knowledge.

What I can tell you is that I saw literally three gigantic warehouses full of bales of bags, and got to see it from the delivery of the bales to the end product coming out of the machines.

Another aspect which I found interesting, is that I got to see how random objects included in the bale could mess the entire piece up. I saw a rubber band sticking out of one piece, and what could have been a shredded up soda bottle in another. They told me stories of finding diamond rings, cats, dogs, money and all sorts of things while sorting the bags.

So double check your bags when you take them to the grocery store. Even if you don’t do it to save the people sorting them time and trouble, you should make sure nothing else got inside along the way.

I also wanted to say thank you to Samara and Ray, who were very courteous and informative, for taking me on the tour and showing me how everything works. I am a natural skeptic, and wanted to see the process in action. I’m convinced!!

You can find information about their company HERE.

greg

There is a good article in The Washington Post today about how the House bought carbon offsets in their efforts to green the Capitol. I’ll let you read it and form your own opinions, but my personal belief is that it is better to try and fail, then to not try at all. Just like anything else in life, when you start an initiative, you are only going to learn over time how to improve the process.

Here is the link

As some of you know, MOM’s is a founding partner of the Clean Energy Partnership.  Another of the founding members, Gary Skulnik, is the president of Clean Currents.  Up until recently, the main emphasis was on helping businesses make the switch.  Now, residents are able to purchase wind power for their homes as well.

For those of you aware of how the system works, this is not your normal REC (Renewable Energy Credit) purchase.  It goes directly through your energy provider and currently anyone with Pepco in D.C., or Pepco or BGE in the Chesapeake region of Maryland is eligible.

It ends up being a line item on your energy bill, and does not cost that much more than your current bill does.  In addition, you get to lock in a rate for one or two years, so if your current rates go up you will end up saving money over the long haul.  A hidden benefit of going green.

You can check out the nuts and bolts here at Clean Currents.

Found another great source of information out there.  It’s called Go For Change, and can be found at Goforchange.com

I’m a firm believer in supporting people who are trying to get information out, and these folks seem to be posting daily.

For those folks reading our MOM’s blog locally, Go For Change should be of special interest to you, as they are based out of Baltimore and feature many arenas of action.

greg