Website Review: Treehugger

(image from the Treehugger about page)

Treehugger (affiliated with the Discovery Channel and Planet Green) is an enormous resource for pretty much everything related to the environment. It can get extremely overwhelming (so much so that in the About section, there's a 12-step program to help you most effectively use the site...), but it's possible to narrow down the content with categories like Design + Architecture, Food + Health, Science + Technology, etc under the "Get Informed" section at the top. If your attention span is fully charged, this is a great resource for information from How to Green your Sex Life to the latest on ocean acidification. They also have a separate website called Hugg, which is a blog of "user-submitted green news."

I'll leave you with picture of Bill Nye the Science Guy (because we all know I think he's bomb):Here's an interview with him on Treehugger.

Blog: Tiny Choices

Tiny Choices is a great blog run by Karina Tipton and Jenn Sturiale. It's just what the name implies: a blog about the small choices we make in our daily lives and how those choices can be made with the environment in mind. They have a sweet weekly roundup for those of us who need our information in small portions (uh, hi) as well as other regular features like the Easy Peasy Tip and the Tiny Choices Survey (filled out by readers). The blog is very readable and the posts are relatively concise (does anyone else find themselves tuning out halfway through a long article or blog post? What's happening to my attention span?! Perhaps part of the answer lies here). Anyway, the blog is full of interesting tidbits. Maybe I'm weird, but I'd never heard of a shampoo bar before...I may have to try that out.

Climate Counts

Emilie sent me an email about this website called Climate Counts (yay Emilie!). It's basically a rating service that assesses "how serious companies are about stopping climate change."

Climate Counts use a 0-to-100 point scale and 22 criteria to determine if companies have:

• MEASURED their climate "footprint"
• REDUCED their impact on global warming
• SUPPORTED (or suggest intent to block) progressive climate legislation
• Publicly DISCLOSED their climate actions clearly and comprehensively

Seems cool. They have info for 60 companies at this point. I was confused at first because this seems like a relatively small number--but once you take into account the fact that most of the companies listed are mega-corporations and that therefore lots of well-known products fall under them...it's a pretty decent list. Each company's info page features a list of "representative brands" (for example, Odwalla is owned by Coca-Cola so it's listed there). I also found this interesting list of what media companies own (like General Electric owns Universal Pictures...?). Actually, now that I'm getting on a tangent, if you're interested in corporate issues i've been reading a book called No Logo by Naomi Klein for like, a year (I think I actually left it at home this semester because I really just don't have time to read it). But from what I've read I would recommend the book. Aaaanyway, back to Climate Counts: they have a nice pocket-sized shopping guide, if you're into that.

Taking Action

I keep seeing this book around called The Lazy Environmentalist. I haven't actually read it but I don't think I agree with the message, which is basically that you don't have to sacrifice any of your lifestyle to be green (you can decide for yourself by checking out the website). Anyway, the point of my bringing that up was that the title pretty much describes me a lot of the time (as much as I hate to admit it).

One fairly important facet of environmentalism is political lobbying. For most of us, that means calling or emailing state representatives. If I had to figure out how to do that myself, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't get done (sometimes I'm an ideas person and not really an action person). Lucky for my conscience, there are a bunch of websites that set it up for you by providing convenient "take action" buttons and prefab letters (which you can customize, of course). Just as a warning, you will get emails often if you sign up for some of these lists.

1. Union of Concerned Scientists: This group sends action alerts fairly frequently if you subscribe to the UCS Action Network. They also include a personalized email in the action emails they send you (so all you have to do is click "Take Action" and you can send an email to whatever representative or official needs to be contacted for that campaign). They run a lot of campaigns ranging from food safety to energy issues. There are also some newsletters you can subscribe to (a digest specifically about food and one entitled "green tips"
2. Sierra Club: This website has too many actions to count (see, I told you I was lazy). Once you become a registered user, you get personalized actions as well as an action history (cool). There are actions under such categories as "America's Wild Legacy," "Safe and Healthy Communities," and "Smart Energy Solutions"
3. Environment America: This organization is a federation of 23 state environmental groups whose focus is "to build support for federal legislation." It's a pretty easy site to navigate--there are sections for each issue (New Energy Future, Stopping Global Warming, Healthy Oceans, Clean Air, etc) and on most pages there is a "take today's e-action" box. Here's the Environment Connecticut website.
4. Save Our Environment: Like the Sierra Club website, this one has a personalized actions and action history profile type thing. It's harder to tell if some of these actions are up to date, but hey. The fact is, they're partnered with Ben & Jerry's to create a website called Lick Global Warming, which includes a Global Warming Game called "Ben & Jerry's Eco-Mission." Definitely worth a look.
   
5. Clean Water Action: This is a more specific website about...water-related issues. Okay. They offer national campaigns as well as state-by-state listings of petitions and such. Right now there's a campaign underway regarding the Clean Water Act ("The Bush Administration is attempting to redefine what waters would be protected under the Clean Water Act by issuing a series of policies that offer "no protection" for our critical water resources"). They're accepting public comments until January 21st, so that's something you could do now if you're interested.

If you know of any other helpful websites or whatever, leave a comment!

Eco Blogs

Winter break is good for blogging (you know, during commerical breaks of the Top Model marathon). In addition to our blog (which I know you read avidly, right?), you might want to check out these blogs for some other perspectives:

1. Dot Earth: this blog is a New York Times blog about global warming. "In Dot Earth, reporter Andrew C. Revkin examines efforts to balance human affairs with the planet’s limits. Supported in part by a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, Mr. Revkin tracks relevant news from suburbia to Siberia, and conducts an interactive exploration of trends and ideas with readers and experts."
2. RealClimate: this is basically a blog (I don't think they explicitly call it one, but hey) run by scientists. "RealClimate is a commentary site on climate science by working climate scientists for the interested public and journalists. We aim to provide a quick response to developing stories and provide the context sometimes missing in mainstream commentary. The discussion here is restricted to scientific topics and will not get involved in any political or economic implications of the science."
   
3. No Impact Man: this blog is a guy's record of a project begun in November, 2006. New York City resident No Impact Man (plus his wife, toddler, and dog) seek to have no net impact on the environment during their one-year experiment. I guess it's still going because he's still updating the blog...
4. Save Your Trash: "Because there is no such thing as away..." I found out about this story a few days ago on the news. Basically, this guy from Berkeley (Ari Derfel) saved ALL of his trash for a year. Here's the original news article about it (he also has some links to news videos about the project on his blog).
   

coolmove.org

This website is...cool. Created by a Wes alum and his friend in 2006, the site offers an energy saving tip each day plus a great page of climate change themed links. Check it out!