Staff Blog
Live from Iceland
It's a rare thing when business and pleasure interact, particularly in a good way. But that's exactly what's happening this weekend, when the Green Guide's parent company
National Geographic streams an exclusive webcast of the Nattura concert in Iceland, featuring musicians Björk and Sigur Rós.
The event is set to raise awareness about the destruction of Iceland's cherished natural landscape (the largest unspoiled wilderness left in Europe ) through increasingly invasive aluminum smelting activity. It will also promote a new book by Andri Snær Magnason, Dreamland: A Self Help Manual to a Frightened Nation, which details Iceland's role in the environmental crisis and suggests what can be done to rectify such problems.
Commenting on the concert, Björk said: "Too often battles being fought for nature turn into something negative and into mudslinging. The 21st century is not going to be another oil century but rather a century where we need to recycle, think green and design both power plants and our surroundings in harmony with nature."
So enjoy a guilt-free virtual trip to Iceland, and tune in to watch the concert live from Reykjavik on National Geographic World Music this Saturday, from 12 p.m. – 5 p.m. EST.
E-Waste Management
As a card-carrying member of the YouTube generation, my laptop is my best friend. It's there when I wake up in the morning to give me the latest rundown of headlines; it braves the subway twice a day to follow me to work; and it keeps me company at night, providing hours of entertainment when my flakier cohorts fail.
But even the most loyal of companions sometimes need replacing, raising the question of how to properly say goodbye to our reliable tech toys. Electronics can contain lead, mercury, brominated flame retardants and other less-than-friendly materials, making their proper disposal endlessly important. In order to promote the healthy habit of recycling electronics, or eCycling, Best Buy has agreed to follow the urgings of As You Sow, an organization that promotes corporate sustainability, to test free on-site recycling of items such as TVs, computers, phones and cameras at 117 locations, starting June 1. The program will be tested at 117 locations in the Baltimore, San Francisco and Minnesota markets, covering nine states. (To find out if there is one near you, visit Best Buy's News Center.)
Other retailers practice similar efforts, like Staples' EcoEasy program, which provides drop-off bins for unwanted handheld devices and offers in-store recycling of large electronics for a fee of $10. Most cell phone companies, including Sprint, Samsung, T-Mobile and Motorola, offer recycling services for any cell phone.
With all of the options becoming available, it's time for the rest of the electronics industry to step up. A lot of time is spent developing new gadgets and gizmos, but figuring out what to do with them is just as important. Programs like Best Buy's could--and should--become second nature. With all my laptop has given me, I can at least make sure it gets the chance to give back.
For more information about eCycling, visit the EPA's Web site.
© The Green Guide, 2008Cows or Cars?
Seems like a ridiculous question, until you learn the answer is cows. And it's not because of all the CO2 (the best-known greenhouse gas) in cow burps, since they account for just 9 percent of all CO2 emitted by human-related activities. It's actually the methane and nitrous oxide cows release in their farts and dung. Methane, in their flatulence, is 72 times more potent a greenhouse gas than CO2, and N2O, part of their manure is an overwhelming 296 times more potent than CO2.
My aim here is not to take the heat off gas-guzzling Hummer drivers, but offer up yet another reason—the first being our health—to cut one's red meat intake by one serving a week (not a huge sacrifice, as chicken, pork and fish remain on the menu). If we each ate a quarter of a pound less red meat every week starting this cookout season, that's about 13 pounds less meat consumed per person over the course of the year. Not a whole lot, but when multiplied by more than 300,000,000 Americans, you've got a lot of red meat not consumed by Americans between now and next Fourth of July.
Just like driving less, eating less meat can help in the fight against global warming. So can choosing meat that's grass-fed. Grazing animals have stomachs that naturally convert grass into food they can digest. Conventionally grown beef comes from cows that are fed grain—primarily corn—in feedlots. Grain is not a good food for cattle, and as a consequence is not good for our health, nor for our shared planet. And it's a slap in the face to the world's poor, who have seen their grain and vegetable oil prices nearly double, putting the most basic of foods out of reach.
Beyond improving animal diets, and our own, there are other initiatives to control the harm conventional cattle-rearing causes to air, land, water and people. Recycling cow manure at biogas plants may help, by converting dung into electricity to power our hybrid electric cars. Hey, it's better than vegetable grease—but that's another story.
For great tasty ideas with less meat, click here.
© The Green Guide, 2008
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