The Green Life

Movie Friday -- Fridays at the Farm

Winter weather getting you down? Escape to the movies with one of our "Film Fridays" selections. Each week we'll feature a movie with environmentally or socially responsible themes that’s currently in theaters or available on DVD.

Seen a good eco-flick lately? Send us a review of 100 words or less and look for your review in the next Movie Friday!

Fridays at the Farm
Coyopa Productions
http://www.coyopa.com/fridays-at-the-farm.html

Feeling disconnected from their food, a filmmaker and his family decide to join a local community supported organic farm.  As he photographs the growing process, the filmmaker moves from passive observer to active participant in the planting and harvesting of vegetables.  Featuring lush time-lapse and macro photography sequences compiled from nearly 20,000 still images, this personal essay is a father’s meditation on his blossoming family and community.

-- Review by Green Life Reader Monica Moran

Winter weather getting you down? Escape to the movies with one of our "Film Fridays" selections. Each week we'll feature a movie with environmentally or socially responsible themes that’s currently in theaters or available on DVD.

Seen a good eco-flick lately? Send us a review of 100 words or less and look for your review in the next Movie Friday!

How Green Is My Screen?

Calling all couch potatoes! Are you warming up more than your sofa cushions?

Learn how you can green your TV without adjusting the color knob by taking our newest online quiz: How Green Is My Screen?

Daily Tip: March 24, 2008

The U.S. Postal Service is launching a free, recycle-by-mail "Mail Back" program. In 10 select areas of the country, you can use free envelopes to mail back inkjet cartridges, PDAs, Blackberries, digital cameras, iPods and MP3 players –- without having to pay for postage. Learn more about the program here.

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Movie Friday -- Who Killed the Electric Car?

Winter weather getting you down? Escape to the movies with one of our "Film Fridays" selections. Each week we'll feature a movie with environmentally or socially responsible themes that’s currently in theaters or available on DVD.

Seen a good eco-flick lately? Send us a review of 100 words or less and look for your review in the next Movie Friday!

Who Killed the Electric Car?
Sony Classics

http://www.sonyclassics.com/whokilledtheelectriccar/

The answer is contained in the movie. It is a simple, yet complicated subject, but you'll laugh, you'll cry, and you'll scream at the TV screen. Who Killed the Electric Car? will give you a different perspective on all the "green-washing" GM is doing right now. It will explain the decision made by the California Air Resources Board that allowed the death of the electric car. It also explains why there are virtually zero electric vehicles on the roads now when there were hundreds not too long ago. Worth seeing and passing it on.

-- Review by Green Life reader Greg Peterson

Winter weather getting you down? Escape to the movies with one of our "Film Fridays" selections. Each week we'll feature a movie with environmentally or socially responsible themes that’s currently in theaters or available on DVD.

Seen a good eco-flick lately? Send us a review of 100 words or less and look for your review in the next Movie Friday!

Who Killed the Electric Car?
Sony Classics

http://www.sonyclassics.com/whokilledtheelectriccar/

The answer is contained in the movie. It is a simple, yet complicated subject, but you'll laugh, you'll cry, and you'll scream at the TV screen. Who Killed the Electric Car? will give you a different perspective on all the "green-washing" GM is doing right now. It will explain the decision made by the California Air Resources Board that allowed the death of the electric car. It also explains why there are virtually zero electric vehicles on the roads now when there were hundreds not too long ago. Worth seeing and passing it on.

-- Review by Green Life reader Greg Peterson

How Green is Your Bracket?

You might not realize that the climate has a stake in the NCAA men's basketball tournament. But if you're a fan of a clean energy future, you can root for the 24 schools that have signed the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment, pledging to go climate neutral. See who's on the list and follow their progress at http://www.greenbrackets.com.

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Daily Tip: March 19, 2008

While they're awfully pretty, resist the urge to take home the free brochures available at concerts, museums, or even real estate open houses. Most of the info exists online and just a Web search away -- and you’re less likely to lose it on your computer than your pocket.

Receive these Tips in your inbox Monday through Friday by signing up here.

Green Beer for St. Patrick's Day

Go ahead and enjoy a brewskie that's been dyed green for St. Patrick's Day, but then check out these beers that are even greener because the companies that make them are working to lighten their carbon footprint. If you know of any others, we'd all love to hear about them.

Then maybe we can enjoy a green-green beer!

New Belgium, maker of the ever-popular "Fat Tire" beer and many other Belgian-style beers, is based in in Ft. Collins, Colorado. In 1998 it became the first U.S. brewery to source its energy from wind power. Employees dipped into their bonus funds to help fund the switch -- very cool.

Using sun tubes and daylighting throughout the facility, they reuse heat in the brewhouse, and continue to search out new ways to close loops and conserve resources. Recycling at New Belgium takes on many forms, from turning "waste" products into something new and useful (like spent grain to cattle feed), to supporting the recycling market in creative ways (like turning keg caps into table surfaces). They've installed motion sensors on the lights throughout the building and evaporative cooling in their new packaging hall.

Meanwhile, over at Sierra Nevada in California, they've installed four 250-kilowatt co-generation fuel cell power units to supply electric power and heat to the brewery. This produces most of the brewery's electrical demand, and the co-generation boilers will harvest the waste heat and produce steam for boiling the beer and other heating needs. And get this: Their fuel cells use the waste methane generated at the wastewater treatment plant as a fuel source.

And hey, they're recycling fools! In 2006, Sierra Nevada kept 33,738 tons of materials --97.8 percent of their total waste, out of the landfill. They continue to earn a WRAP Award (Waste Reduction Awards Program) from the State of California as they have every year since 2001.

The natural fermentation process produces CO2, a greenhouse gas, but these guys installed a system to recover and recycle most of this gas for use around the brewery and during the bottle-filling.

You've heard the saying "It's the water" in regards to beer production. Well, Sierra Nevada continually audits the process to minimize wasteful practices, and have reduced their water usage to almost half of what's typically used by breweries.

They also encouraged and reward employees for reducing their emissions by riding their bikes to work, to run errands, or just for fun.

Cleveland, Ohio, is home to the Great Lakes Brewing Co., where you can climb on board their beer delivery truck and shuttle bus (called "The Fatty Wagon") that runs on straight restaurant vegetable oil! They've cut their trash removal fees in half by recycling the usual stuff, plus brewer's barley. They print newsletters, menus, beverage napkins and promotional items on 100 percent recycled paper. In addition, all packaging (i.e., 4-packs, 6-packs, 12-packs and the unbleached "eco-carton", which holds a case of beer) consists of recycled content.

In the brewery there's a cooling system that brings in cold air during winter months to cool the beer. Skylights and light sensors have been installed in the Tank Farm and cooler to allow in natural light and minimize the use of electricity. An "air curtain" is in place in the brewpub to keep warm air from escaping when patrons enter and exit.

Hats off to the Brooklyn Brewery which, in 2003, became the first company in New York City to switch to 100 percent wind-generated electricity. Community Energy, which manages the 20 wind turbines that produce electricity for the beer house, estimates that Brooklyn Brewery's green power stops 335,000 pounds of carbon dioxide, 1,500 pounds of sulfur dioxide and 500 pounds of nitrogen oxide from being emitted into the atmosphere annually.

And, finally, a shout-out to Orlio, which makes 100% organic beer.

Got a beer-lovin' friend? Spread the word before St. Paddy's!

Movie Friday

Winter weather getting you down? Escape to the movies with one of our "Film Fridays" selections. Each week we'll feature a movie with environmentally or socially responsible themes that’s currently in theaters or available on DVD.

Seen a good eco-flick lately? Send us a review of 100 words or less and look for your review in the next Movie Friday!

Hurricane on the Bayou
a film by Greg MacGillivray
on DVD/VHS
http://www.hurricaneonthebayou.com/

This new film from the producers of Everest follows four musicians before, during, and after Hurricane Katrina and makes a compelling case for restoring the vital wetlands of Louisiana.

Daily Tip: March 11, 2008

Quicky oil-change shops may urge us to change the oil in our vehicles every 3,000 miles. But most cars nowadays don’t need changing that often. In fact, most manufacturers say you can go 7,000 miles without a problem. Ditto for that SUV—unless you really are starring in one of those TV ads and driving it hard and long over dusty roads. What difference does it make? Consider this: each year California alone generates about 153 million gallons of used oil. Change less often and it really can save your engine and the planet.

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The Buzz

"I changed all the lightbulbs to energy-safe lightbulbs, and I'm buying a hybrid car right now. Little things that people can do every day make a huge difference."
--Paris Hilton

Grapevine

*  Peter Garrett, the former lead singer of rock group Midnight Oil, was named Australia's environmental minister in late 2007. 

*  Kettle Foods opened a LEED-certified potato-chip factory with 18 rooftop wind turbines in Beloit, Wisconsin, while Frito-Lay announced that its chip plant in Casa Grande, Arizona, will run on recycled water and renewable fuels by 2010.

*  Target will phase out all products containing polyvinyl chloride (PVC), a potentially harmful chemical compound. 

*  Automaker Daimler AG unveiled the first U.S. version of its compact, fuel-efficient Smart car in January. 

*  Transit planners at the University of California, Davis, have teamed up with the AAA auto club to give plug-in hybrids to 100 Northern California households for an eight-week trial period. 

*  Mayors from five of Texas's biggest cities have called for a new "state lightbulb"--a compact fluorescent. 

*  Ten dollars from each online DVD sale of Out of Balance, a new documentary about global warming (worldoutofbalance.org), will go to victims of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill.

--Lea Hartog, Sierra

Green Biz

A new brand of green hospitality is generating buzz across the country--and it's no longer simply a matter of urging guests to reuse their towels. Many profit-minded hotels are installing solar panels, using nontoxic cleaners, and even growing their own organic food on the premises.

The Gaia Napa Valley Hotel and Spa, which opened recently in Northern California, was built from timber approved by the Forest Stewardship Council and is partly illuminated by high-efficiency tubular skylights that direct sunlight to the interior halls. The Gaia derives 10 percent of its electricity from solar panels, and a lobby fountain circulates captured rainwater.

At the new Proximity Hotel in Greensboro, North Carolina, 75 percent of the construction waste was recycled, its water is heated by 4,000 square feet of solar panels, and a state-of-the-art elevator creates electricity as it descends.

More earthily, the Doubletree Hotel in Portland, Oregon, composts 14 tons of waste monthly and is working to eliminate its landfill impact by 2015. To find other ecofriendly accommodations, visit greenseal.org/findaproduct/#lodging or ecorooms.com. --D.O.

Step Lightly

With recycling all the rage in the footwear industry, it's getting easier to walk the green talk:

Simple has long gone the extra mile for sustainability; last year its parent company was named "Recycler of the Year" by the city of Santa Barbara. The kid's Toeday sneaker (left) boasts organic-cotton uppers and recycled-rubber outsoles.

Flat Tire Footwear will put a bounce in your step with its CrumbTech soles, made from scrap car tires.

El Naturalista incorporates biodegradable rubber and natural dyes in its fashion-forward designs. The Iggdrasil women's clog (right), named after the Tree of Life in Nordic mythology, features an outsole inspired by the texture of bark.

Nike has collected 20 million pairs of sneakers through its reuse-a-shoe program. Its distribution center in Europe runs on wind, and the sportswear giant aims to go carbon neutral by 2015.

Patagonia puts recycled materials into the rubber outsole, cushioning midsole, cork foot bed, and sweat-wicking linings of its Finn hiking shoes (right), which are also made with nontoxic, water-based glues. --Dan Oko

Driver's Ed

Daily bikers and bus riders may scoff, but for those still attached to their cars, a greener driving experience can be as easy as one, two, three:

1 Buy an electric, hybrid, or biodiesel-fueled vehicle at a specialized dealership like the Green Car Company in Seattle;
2 Get your insurance and roadside assistance from the Better World Club, which supports ecofriendly causes and advocacy; and
3 Tune up at a pollution-minimizing repair shop like the Organic Mechanic in Asheville, North Carolina.

Virtually Virtuous

Will gamers who get their thrills by stealing cars, slaughtering aliens, and tossing touchdown passes be drawn to the more sedate satisfactions of role-playing a policymaker tackling global warming? The makers of the Web-based games Climate Challenge and CO2FX hope so, as do the educators and environmental organizations behind other games in which users recycle lightbulbs while dodging obstacles, explore a world where "everyone on Earth consumed like you," and build a sustainable house under budget (below). Direct some of your Halo 3 fever to these high-minded pursuits by following the links at sierraclub.org/greenlife.

The Perils of Pot(s)

Gardening seems as close to nature as you can get, but the 300 million pounds of plastic pots and trays used each year often clutter landfills.

Not in St. Louis, though, where volunteers with the Missouri Botanical Garden's decade-old recycling program have collected more than 300 tons of plastic from nurseries, landscapers, and growers for reprocessing into faux timbers. The garden plans to open new collection centers and year-round drop-off boxes and help set up similar programs around the country. For details, visit mobot.org/hort/activ/plasticpots.shtml.
--Greg Bailey

Trendsetter

Michael Oshman, age 36
Executive director, Green Restaurant Association

It takes more than organic food to make a restaurant green. From the lighting to the linen service, even the most eco-minded owner would have a hard time keeping up with all the best practices. Enter the Green Restaurant Association, which Michael Oshman founded 18 years ago. Since then, he and his team have assessed, helped upgrade, and certified hundreds of dining establishments, leaving the restaurateurs free to do what they do best--feed us.

Q: What is a restaurant's biggest environmental impact?

A: Most people think about whether the waste is recycled or if the coffee is organic, not about the motors in the refrigerators. But the biggest thing restaurants could do to go green would be to reduce their energy use.

Q: What do customers notice when they walk into one of your certified restaurants?

A: Hopefully nothing. If we're successful, they're not going to know that their food is being cooked in a more efficient oven or that healthier cleaning supplies are being used.

Q: How do restaurant owners respond to the changes you propose?

A: In general there's been a major shift in attitude, from "Should we do this?" to "How do we do this?"

Media Lounge

FUGITIVE DENIM
a book by Rachel Louise Snyder
On this unexpectedly affecting, and at times hilarious, pant-chasing excursion into global trade, readers meet the designer for Bono's righteous label, Edun; cotton classers in Azerbaijan who judge the material's quality; and textile workers in Cambodia and China. Afterward, it'll be hard to pull on a pair of jeans and not think about the people who made them. --M.B.S. 

LET'S TALK: Discuss this selection with your friends and neighbors. Learn how at sierraclub.org/sierra/letstalk.

THE LAWS FIELD GUIDE TO THE SIERRA NEVADA
a book by John Muir Laws
If you have room for only one Sierra Nevada guidebook in your pack, make it this little gem. A beautiful resource for better understanding the region, it includes entries on insects, tracks, stars, scat, and mushrooms as well as the usual plants, birds, and animals. Dense with illustration, it's the perfect all-ages introduction to field guides. Well-researched natural-history notes pull the reader more deeply into the story of these iconic mountains. --Pamela Biery

CENSORING SCIENCE
a book by Mark Bowen
Widely acknowledged as the preeminent climate scientist of our time, James Hansen, the director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, has spent decades alerting us about global warming and beseeching governments to take action. Author Mark Bowen relates how Hansen's efforts landed him in hot water with greenhouse-gas-emitting industries--and the Bush administration, which tried to muzzle this courageous public servant. --Marilyn Berlin Snell

SIMPLE PROSPERITY
a book by David Wann
If your New Year's resolutions bit the dust, this book can help you reassess your goals. Our overconsumptive lifestyle is out of sync with our real values, author David Wann says, and we can find greater contentment by creating vibrant communities, right-sizing our homes, valuing our time, and nurturing our health. Wann provides a useful compendium of tidbits and sources, but his concepts will be familiar to Sierra readers.  --Debra Jones

SHARKWATER
a film by Rob Stewart
Like a sleuth in scuba gear, filmmaker Rob Stewart uncovers the grisly reality of a multibillion-dollar black market: the shark-fin industry. He also presents a convincing case that these rulers of the ocean, vilified by Jaws and the news media, are misunderstood and in need of saving. The film is both heartbreaking and hopeful as Stewart explores and fights for the most expansive but neglected ecosystem on Earth.  --Katie Mathis

Mr. Green Talks Bulbs

Now that you have replaced your incandescent bulbs with efficient fluorescents, you might have been wondering how to properly dispose of your dead fluorescent bulbs. Tune into the Sierra Club's Mr. Green podcast to find out the answer.

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Movie Friday!

Winter weather getting you down? Escape to the movies with one of our "Film Fridays" selections. Each week we'll feature a movie with environmentally or socially responsible themes that’s currently in theaters or available on DVD.

Seen a good eco-flick lately? Send us a review of 100 words or less and we may feature it on the e-mail list!

Stolen Childhoods
a film by Len Morris
on DVD/VHS
http://www.stolenchildhoods.org/mt/index.php

This "earnest, unsentimental" documentary looks at the factors driving child labor, some of the successful programs combating it, and the links between child labor and international security, says the New York Times. But mostly, it lets child laborers around the world tell their stories—of working in dumps, quarries, or brick kilns; of being pressed into prostitution or forced labor on a fishing platform; of picking coffee to help their families survive—in their own words.

Bordeaux by Boat

Tesco, Britain’s largest retailer, is working to develop a system of carbon labels for each of their 70,000 products. You might assume that you can easily calculate the carbon footprint of your favorite item by analyzing how far it might have traveled to land in your basket, but to really determine the carbon footprint you need to go further.

For example, if you live in New York, it would create less carbon emissions to drink Bordeaux instead of Californian wine. Although your Bordeaux is traveling from a further distance, it comes by boat, which creates less carbon output than the California wine which travels by truck.

For more information, check out Terri Gross' interview with Micheal Specter, a New Yorker Journalist who explains the idea of putting carbon footprint labels on our food. For a great article on the subject, read his story in the New Yorker, "Big Foot: In Measuring Carbon Emissions, it's Easy to Confuse Morality and Science".

Field of Green Dreams

The old ball game will have a new face on Opening Day 2008, when the Washington Nationals unveil an ecofriendly baseball stadium (pictured in an architect's rendering at left). Under construction on an urban-infill site a block from a subway stop, Nationals Park will have a vegetation-covered roof over one concession area, efficient lighting and water systems, drought-resistant landscaping, and few parking spaces. At least three other teams have installed solar panels on their stadiums. Now if they could just replace the Budweiser with organic beer.

How Green is Your Bike?

"When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race," wrote H.G. Wells.  The perfection of the humble bicycle may, in fact, turn out to be the 19th century's greatest gift to the modern era. Anytime you ride a bicycle, you're building up some serious green karma, and we salute you. But there's green and then there's really green.

Take our "How Green Is My Bike" quiz to find out just how green your bicycle riding really is.

Bike it Out

Short car trips are, naturally, the easiest to replace with a bike trip (or even walking). Mile for mile, they are also the most polluting. Engines running cold produce four times the carbon monoxide and twice the volatile organic compounds of engines running hot. And smog-forming (and carcinogenic) VOCs continue to evaporate from an engine until it cools off, whether the engine's been running for five minutes or five hours.

Check out the following links!

Glow in the dark bike:
http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/01/glow-in-the-dar.html

Kayak-bike:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoSLqm1aVvA&feature=related

Bike made out of bamboo:
http://www.calfeedesign.com/bamboo.htm

Bicycle made entirely out of wood:
http://www.leevalley.com/newsletters/Woodworking/2/3/article1.htm

Home furnishings made out of recycled bicycle parts:
https://www.resourcerevival.com/store/retail