I’d be a hypocrite if I advocated without qualification for Buy Nothing Day (this Friday in the U.S. and Saturday internationally). For one, I just finished compiling and editing some green gift lists.

Granted, this consumer boycott being advocated by AdBusters has great appeal. It says “no” to what has become an embarrassing grab-fest of shopping on the Friday after Thanksgiving.

A "Buy Nothing" demonstrator in Manila

I like the concept of the boycott: Send a message to those corporations that want to hijack your wallet this holiday season. Refuse to shop. It makes a lot of sense. We really do need to cool it on the consumerism to help re-chill our warming planet. It’s painfully obvious now that our rabid consumption of limited natural resources coupled with our willingness to trash stuff is destroying our planet. Here in the U.S., we’ve got a TV or computer in every room in many households, and they’ll be in the landfill soon because tech wizards come up with the next generation of electronics about 28 minutes after we’ve purchased the first. We’ve got food, and clothing and houses large enough to sustain multiple families. And it’s not just us. Asia’s got a taste for luxury. Sharks are being killed for their fins. Coal pollution is encircling the globe thanks to the two biggest polluters, the U.S. and China.

So before I explain why I don’t see a boycott of Black Friday as an effective solution, let me make one thing clear: Less stuff — it’s a great idea. We need more time with our kids. More time outdoors. More reflection, more sharing, more recycling, more book reading (would that be on a Kindle or on paper?). We need to cook food “from scratch”; visit with our neighbors and install community gardens. But we don’t need more things.

We don’t need shopping as entertainment. And we don’t need to be brand slaves (check out the cute protesting “brand zombies” on Ad Busters).

That said, I confess, I am a home improvement junkie. Give me $25 and I’ll find a project. I’ll buy paint or varnish or plants or fabric and try to “improve” something.  And I’m a parent. I have a strong urge to give my kids a few magical moments, some of which involve gifts, many of which I will buy.

So here’s the problem with trying to stop the buying on Black Friday.  I don’t think it will work. But more important, consumers sometimes can find a darn good deal on Black Friday. Yes, the frenzy, the 4 a.m. openings, the loud advertisements, the bait-and-switch enticements, that’s all quite annoying and sometimes leads us to spend more than we should. But should we ask financially strapped people to skip the deals that could leave them with a little more cash on hand? Amid the hype, they might just get just what they need, for less than they would next week.

I’m not a marketing analyst. Maybe the best deals are to come. And maybe all the focus on this one day really does jack up our consumption, as those who do analyze these things have noted. But here’s an alternative solution: Let’s resist spending more than we should. Let’s act like adults. Don’t stampede anyone at the door. In fact, don’t even get up early and don’t stay out late. Pay cash if you have to make a point with yourself. Even better, make a holiday budget. Make a pact with your spouse, not your credit card.

If you want to add a little social consciousness to your shopping, look for the labels that count. Fair Trade goods assure you they come from socially responsible sources. Organic labels help say “no” to pesticides. Recycled products are a nice way to show you want to live more lightly. Non-toxic cosmetics and bath goods help tamp down the chemical creep, and they’re healthier for your recipients (go to your local natural market to find them.) Give the gift of nature by donating to a group that supports conservation or helps sustain communities in fragile ecosystems around the world. (There’s the World Wildlife Fund, Heifer International, Natural Resources Defense Fund, Habitat for Humanity and many more.) Spread the wealth by buying from artisans in developing nations. Give a gift of energy security with a gift basket of CFLs and a cute draft stopper to help someone cut their energy bills. (Yes, I’m that much of a geek, and I’ve got the solar tube I gave my husband for the holidays to prove it.)

And remember child labor practices. That is, put your kids to work on homemade gifts. Cookies, hot cocoa mixes, picture frames, all these come with extra love and help parents and kids spend time together. Want to get a little greener? Make a bird feeder or a seed bagel for someone’s backyard. Concoct a mix of wildflower seeds and package it with a bow. Older kids can give pledges, like the pledge to make a meal or visit a nursing home or help in the garden or at the local food pantry.

I’d like to think that we can hold onto the gift giving — but ditch the irresponsible behavior. Give a gift that really means something — I know your mom’s been telling you this for years. Use  the opportunity to remember what it is we truly cherish — the people we love and our home, planet Earth.

And if you want to buy nothing or  join a demonstration against rampant consumerism, go for it. Good luck and Happy Holidays!

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

Got a greenie on your shopping list this year, someone who’s yearning for a composter or a bat house? Here are a few gift ideas for the newly minted or entrenched ecoist.

A Chlorine Filter for the Shower.

Rainfall Showerhead filters out the chlorine and other chemicals

Give the gift of soft skin and hair with this High Output SHower Filter. It will collect the chlorine from your city water before it gets a chance to dry your skin, and seep into your pores. It can be used  with your own low-flow shower head, which some people are quite attached to. Buy a replacement filter when you order and you’re covered for two years.

Or get a spa-like Rainfall Showerhead with a built in filter, a gift of luxury and good health, it contains a filter to get out chlorine and a variety of other chemicals and meets federal guidelines for 2.5 gpm.

($58 and $78 at Gaiam, respectively.)

Envirocycle Composter

Envirocycle composter

Even the earthiest among us can get discouraged composting giant mounds of earth and grass that have to be turned with a pitchfork. This spinning Envirocycle Composter makes it easier to collect and reprocess  organic matter. Instead of grappling with a mountainous mass, you just spin. Not only can you produce fine compost, this contraption collects compost tea in the the base. The tea makes a great foliar treatment, and the solid compost can be spread on flower and veggie beds at any time. This particular composter may not accommodate a large household, but can handle conservative amounts of organic waste from the kitchen. It could be used in tandem with a compost pile. Enclosed it helps keep odor down, and it’s reasonable. ($126.50 at Greenfeet.)

Let’s shop green without being obvious about it, OK? You can, you know. There are many ways to tweak the holiday list this year to skew it toward recycled, socially conscious, energy-conserving goods. Of course, we don’t like to advocate lots of consuming. We definitely don’t buy that theory that it’s our patriotic duty to purchase our way out of the recession.

On the other hand, we are going to exchange gifts this holiday season. With that in mind, here are a few humble suggestions for keeping it green (and affordable), subtly.

A TOASTER OVEN

Black and Decker CTO6301 Convection Toaster Oven

Mom, dad, a kid on her way to college. Lots of people can appreciate the utility and electricity savings of a Toaster Oven. Did you know that the average 1500 watts used by a toaster/convection oven is less than half, or even more, than that used by a full-size oven? How many times have you heated the entire oven just to warm rolls for dinner? Or to bake a couple ramekins of dessert? Or broil a tuna melt? Or brown a small brushetta?

Turn that big oven off, and use a tool that’s sized-right for the job. That’s the very sound idea behind this “smart” appliance. There are dozens to choose from. The Black & Decker one shown here can be had at Amazon and other stores for around $60. It gets good reviews for durability, space and function.

THE WOVEL

THe wovel uses see-saw action to shove snow.

This goofy looking simple machine just might keep some snow blowers off the road. It’s unique enough to keep the relatives marveling about the weird gift Aunt Sally got Uncle Mel, but it’s got it’s serious side: It powers through snow without using fossil fuels.  More importantly to most users, it makes the job of shoveling the white stuff, pound per pound, easier. Easier on the back, mainly, because the motion of pushing and then “throwing” the snow engages leg and arm muscles.

We don’t actually have one, and we wonder if it’s quite as easy as it looks, but the see-saw action does appear to take a load off the back, a victory over bending, raising and twisting to shovel snow the old-fashioned way. The Wovel has made several YouTube appearances since being named on Time’s Best Inventions List in 2006. Check out this video by a convinced user.

It is expensive for a shovel ($119.95 retail), but it solves a problem, without adding another pollution-spewing machine to the household arsenal.

RECYCLED TIRE WALLET

Recycled Tire Wallet made by artisans in El Salvador

Number three on our list is black, but so very green. This completely recycled, vegan friendly wallet is made from discarded tires. But it looks so much like the standard leather version we thought it would qualify as a green gift that doesn’t stand out as different. Each 9 x 3.5 inch wallet has a slot for money and six slots for credit cards, just like you’d expect. A Fair Trade artisan group in El Salvador makes these wallets, helping provide jobs and living wages in their community. You can buy it ($30)  through the GreenHeartShop in Chicago, at their online store.

Green Heart helps promote artisan craft goods, clothing and food from around the world and in the U.S.

It’s The Year of Living Dangerously all over again.

Orangutan (Photo: Tom Theodore/Dreamstime)

On Tuesday, two journalists were arrested in Sumatra while covering a politically sensitive topic – palm oil harvesting and the ensuing decimation of Southeast Asia’s old-growth, carbon-capturing rainforests, and the subsequent release of giant CO2 pockets that lie beneath the forests and their peat swamps.

More disturbing than the reporters’ deportation, though, is how little we consumers seem to realize that, not only are we what we eat, but when it comes to palm oil, we are eating our own lifeblood. We’re ‘eating’ our oxygen, we’re ‘eating’ our fellow species. We’re consuming our own future by driving up carbon emissions much faster than we can offset them. We are the snake eating its own tail.

Mass deforestation, due to the rapid establishment of palm oil plantations backed by multinational corporations, has recently made Indonesia the third-largest carbon emitter in the world. Think of it, number three  – after the more industrialized China and the United States.

Indonesia’s neighbors, Malaysia and Papaua, New Guinea, also are top producers of palm oil, making Southeast Asia a veritable carbon drain. Because of rapid rainforest loss in these sensitive areas, experts estimate that between 50 and 60 endangered orangutans perish each week, as their habits are destroyed or they are killed by workers. Roughly two football fields worth of rainforests are felled every minute by palm oil plantations, bellowing out stored carbon.

In addition, recent studies show that global deforestation creates one-fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions; and conversely, that tropical forests now absorb one-fifth of the world’s carbon emissions that are caused by burning fossil fuels.

“Rainforests are one of the biggest ways that carbon gets absorbed from the atmosphere, so rainforests and trees and peat swamps – the whole ecosystem – takes in a large amount of carbon and stores it,” says Margaret Swink, of the Rainforest Action Network (RAN), which in the past year has stepped up its protests against companies like Cargill, which uses palm oil in many manufactured foods.

“It only releases when you destroy it – burning being the worst way. When rainforests are cut and burned, you’ve just released millennia of carbon absorption into the air, which is why rainforest destruction is such a threat. …You’ve just released all this carbon into the atmosphere, but because it’s a cycle (remember studying the carbon cycle in fourth-grade science?), you’ve also taken away the thing that was removing carbon from the atmosphere … and so when you replant a palm-oil plantation, it doesn’t absorb as much carbon that those older trees – as that whole ecosystem did” for many thousands of years.

And we, the current people generation, get a double carbon-whammy.

But until, say, two to five years ago, who knew that some of our favorite foods – holiday season or not – contain palm oil derivatives to preserve, add flavor to or fry foods to a golden crispness? Things like cocoa mix, crackers, potato chips, margarine, instant soups, cakes, chocolate bars, cookies, even certain types of granola are all formulated with palm oil.

Yet, as the holidays hover around us and we try to figure out what we’re really giving thanks for, we can take simple steps to slow rainforest destruction. We can learn about campaigns, such as RAN’s recent Call Cargill campaign and check out our pantry for products that rely on palm oil.

“Palm oil is the leading driver of deforestation in the second-largest standing rainforest, which is in Indonesia,” says Swink, who used to work for the Peace Corps in Cameroon; seeing trucks drive past her house, hauling thousand-year-old trees led her to RAN, headquartered in San Francisco.

“There are three areas of tropical rainforests still left in the world – the Amazon, Indonesia and Malaysia. Then there’s the Congo Basin. … But in Southeast Asia, we’re seeing the fastest rate of deforestation. RAN has been looking at the incredible rate of destruction, intersecting that with climate change. And Indonesia is now the third-largest greenhouse gas emitter on the planet, after the U.S. and China. But with the USA it’s fossil fuels and transportation that create the emissions. With Indonesia, it’s mostly deforestation. So when you take it all together, palm oil is a really large threat in terms of deforestation leading to climate change.”

As organizations like RAN, 350.org, Greenpeace, Rising Tide North America , World Wildlife Fund and the Rainforest Alliance amplify the clarion call, some companies are taking note. Gucci Group just declared its commitment to abandon paper products (i.e., those tony shopping bags) from Asian Pulp and Paper – and specifically from Indonesian plantations and rainforests, following Tiffany and a few other luxury brands’ leads.

And Cadbury recently announced that as a direct result of a New Zealand zookeepers’ boycott, it has vowed to dump palm oil and return to cocoa butter (but there’s a catch: that’s only in New Zealand).

Burning forest to make way for plantations in Sumatra (Photo: Mark Edwards, WWF-Canon)

These companies are responding to the dire situation that’s resulted over the past 70 years of deforestation by various industries, mainly logging and agriculture, in these Southeast Asian rainforests.

Aside from the devastating impacts on climate change, the forest destruction is taking a big toll on the biodiversity of the area. World Wildlife Fund estimates that converting natural forest to palm plantations results in the loss of 80 to 100 percent of the mammal, bird and reptile species in these normally rich ecosystems. (For a good graphic depiction of the rainforest losses, see the WWF’s report on Borneo and Sumatra and maps of the region, which show, for instance, that Sumatra has lost 85 percent of its natural forest.)

All this begs the basic question: Why are palm oil derivatives in so many foods and emulsive products, to begin with?

The answer “is easy,” says Brihannala Morgan, an activist with Rising Tide North America who lived in Indonesia for nine years and is now based in the Bay Area, where she is a graduate student in forest and climate policy at UC-Berkeley.

“Palm oil is the cheapest oil in the world, second only to soybean oil,” she says. “It’s about how much oil you can produce per hectare of land, and you can produce more palm oil per hectare than almost any other oil. So the laws of supply and demand apply. …It’s used not only in foods but in industrial lubricants, biofuels. But, in foods, it’s mostly for preserving. I’m not a food chemist, but all these things have to have some kind of oil, and they pick the cheapest, for the highest profit. In most countries besides the United States – and we’re only responsible for five percent of all palm oil consumed – but in other countries, it’s used for a frying oil – particularly in China and India, which have populations that are becoming wealthier and can afford more fried foods.”

You don’t have to wait for next Halloween to track down energy vampires in your home. Any time of the year will do.

Just follow these Alliance to Save Energy guidelines, which are fun for kids and will surely be enlightening for adults too.

First step, turn off all the lights and appliances in the house. Take a flashlight outside to see if the meter is still running. It probably will be, because you’ve got things on “stand by” all over the house — hair dryers, phones, computers, televisions, DVRs.

Now investigate. Walk around the house with the flashlight and find the little LED lights that indicate an appliance is “ready.” Even in sleep mode, it’s drawing energy and you can

KillAWatt EZ will tell you how much energy your electronics are gobbling

often tell by feeling the item or the plug-in. Is it warm? It’s drawing energy.

The solution, aside from unplugging individual appliances, is to put equipment on a power strip. Then turn the power strip off whenever possible.

The costs of “phantom energy” are real. The Department of Energy estimates that the constant energy draw of appliances and electronics that aren’t even turned on can account for 20 percent of your energy bill.

According to the Alliance To Save Energy’s worksheet (developed with Energy Star), it costs about $6.85 a year (on average) to keep a VCR on standby and $4.28 for a TV that’s plugged in. Seem like chump change? Multiply those by how many VCRs and TVs there are in the house, then add in all the other clocks, toasters, phones and computers you’ve got plugged into the wall.

If you want a more precise fix on your vampires, consider proving their harm with a KillaWatt, a device that you can plug suspicious appliances into to give you a read out of how many watts are being consumed. The KillaWatt, by P3 International, an electronics firm in New York, is sold in several versions. See the P3 website.

Remember Chevy Chase’s escapades with a ladder and those strings of outdoor lights in Christmas Vacation? Apparently many Americans would have been happy to help him kick that plastic Santa to death.

A new survey commissioned by GE of 1,050 Americans found that dealing with those tangled, twisty lights appears to be one of the Christmas season’s biggest hassles.

Of the people who plan to decorate with lights (870), a majority (56 percent) cited untangling last year’s lights as the season’s “biggest hassle”.  Others noted that stringing lights on the house or in the yard (47 percent) and stringing lights on the tree (39 percent) as the season’s biggest non-joyous headache.

And the bah-humbug didn’t end there. Others said they didn’t much care for hanging ornaments and decorations (23 percent) or getting the tree to stand up in the stand (19 percent).

Spiked eggnog anyone?

Moving on to less edgy topics, the survey by Goodmind Market Research found that 24 percent of the respondents planned on decorating with LED lights this season. This led GE Consumer & Industrial, engineer of the survey, to conclude that a pre-lit LED Christmas tree could be the “hit of the season.”

Perhaps that would be about the perfect combination of convenience and energy-savings for economically stressed, celebration-weary Americans.

And surprise! A GE licensee, Santa’s Best Craft Ltd., happens to sell pre–lit trees with low voltage, cool burning GE brand Energy Smart® LED holiday light sets that use about 80 percent less energy than traditional holiday lighting. (Available in scads of stores across the country.)

Of course, the verdict’s still out on whether artificial really is greener than using a live tree that’s been chopped down at a tree farm. Some worry that all those plastic trees end up in landfills. At the same time, others (except for Christmas tree farmers) say those cut trees are a big carbon waste. This perennial argument would be an excellent debate topic for while you’re untwisting those strings of lights.

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

Chicago’s Greenheart Shop is declaring that Black Friday will be Green Friday this year at their store, which sells Fair Trade, eco-friendly and socially conscious gifts, food, clothes and accessories.

Greenheart, a non-profit cultural exchange and storefront (at 1911 W. Division) will be serving free Fair Trade wine, cocoa and snacks to shoppers. Visitors can also see a make-your-own gift wrap demonstration. The event, on Friday, Nov. 27, when shoppers traditionally swarm the stores keeping retails in the black, will run from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Those who can’t attend can still buy Greenheart products online.

The goodies sold at Greenheart benefit disadvantaged workers, coops in developing nations and support ecologically sound growing methods, like shade-grown cocoa. They include:

• 

  Clutch made of recycled saris.

  Purses and clutches made from recycled saris, such as this one made by a family of artisans near New Delhi, India, through WorldFinds, a Chicago-based organization that partners with fair trade organizations, women’s self-help groups, and small families of artisans in India, Nepal, and Indonesia.

• Beeline Honey, an all natural raw honey produced by (bees and) Sweet Beginnings, LCC, a social enterprise and transitional job program of the North Lawndale employment network in Chicago. The program helps people who face barriers to employment, particularly those with histories of criminal conviction. The Beeline enterprise helps workers establish a work history and learn productive work habits.

• Eco-friendly gift wrap that is 100 percent tree-free. Made out of recycled cotton rags, each sheet of gift wrap
  

  Wrapping paper made of recycled rags.

  offers unique colors and patterns. Customers can specify a color preference for these 22 x 32-inch sheets of wrap made by Artisans at the Eco Friendly Papers workshop in Rajasthan, India, who collect cotton waste, such as rags, and turn it into a pulp.

The shop also sells soy candles, women’s dresses, baby accessories, reusable water bottles, Fair Trade cocoa and more.

To read more about Greenheart and its work around the world, see the history on their website.

The Greenheart storefront is open  M-F 11-7; Sat 11-6; Sun 12-5; products are available online.

If anything makes as big a thud on your doorstep as the Yellow Pages books, it has been the JC Penney semi-annual “Big Book.”

The 2009 Big Book - Collector's item?

But the retailer has decided that that thud has outlived its impressiveness and is taking a heavy toll on marketing costs and forests, announcing today that it will no long print the giant catalog. Instead, JC Penney will dedicate its resources to specialty catalogs and online services.

Explained the press release: “The discontinuation of “big book” catalogs aligns with JCPenney’s ongoing commitment to promote the sustainability of forests and other natural resources, and builds upon its legacy of operating in an ethical and socially responsible manner.”

The company expects to use 25 to 30 percent less paper for catalogs in 2010 – which will continue  “a four-year trend of declining paper consumption.”

JC Penney also will be using lighter weight paper in its remaining catalogs to keep down the wood fiber content.

Plano, Texas-based JC Penney is ”keeping pace with consumers’ changing media habits and continued migration to online versus catalog shopping…,” said Myron E. (Mike) Ullman, III, chairman and chief executive officer, in a press release.

“Big book catalogs have become less relevant, as customers have embraced shopping online,” noted Mike Boylson, executive vice president and chief marketing officer, “where they have ready access to our entire assortment at any time on jcp.com, one of the nation’s largest general merchandise sites on the Internet.”

Yellow Pages, the pressure’s on.

Lots of vegetables can be substituted for either the asparagus or the mushrooms in this recipe; green beans, peas, zucchini, and artichoke hearts would all work nicely. For a more dressed-up look, serve individual portions in four 6-ounce (or six 4-oz) ramekins. The Pearl Coucous can be cooked up to 2 days ahead, making this dish even more appealing — Mark Bittman, How to Cook Everything Vegetarian.

Ingredients:

Coucous provides the base for a sophisticated substitute for bread stuffing (Photo: GreenRightNow.)

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil or butter, plus more for the dish
1 shallot finely chopped
1 c. chopped wild mushrooms, like morels, chanterelles or porcini (or any variety)
8 oz. asparagus, trimmed and peeled if necessary into one inch pieces
Salt and freshly ground pepper
½ c. cream, milk or vegetable stock
½ c. traditional Pesto
1 egg
2 ½ c. cooked pearl couscous
4 oz. goat cheese

Instructions:

1. Grease a 2-quart soufflé or gratin dish or an oblong baking pan. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Put 2 tablespoons oil or butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. When the oil is hot or the butter is melted, addthe shallot and cook, stirring frequently, until softened, les than a minute. Add the mushrooms and cook for a minute or two, then add the asparagus and a sprinkle of salt and pepper; cook until the asparagus is just tender, another 5 minutes.
3. Whisk the cream, pesto and egg together in a small bowl until blended. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and set aside. When the asparagus mixture is done, stire in the couscous and heat until warmed through. Turn off the heat, taste, and adjust the seasoning.
4. Spread the asparagus and couscous mixture in the bottom of the prepared dish. Driszzle the cream and pesto mixture over it all. Evenly distribute the goat cheese (small clumps are fine) on top.
5. Bake until the edges and top are browned and bubbling, 30 to 40 minutes, depending on how deep your baking dish is. Serve immediately or let rest for up to an hour and serve at room temperature.

Print

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

More Holiday Recipes:

• Top green cooks transform Thanksgiving dishes into natural wonders
• Organic Gardening’s Shredded Brussels Sprouts with Crispy Shallots
• Jackie Newgent’s Earth-Style Sweet Potato-Butter Bean Gravy with Rosemary
• Jesse Ziff Cool’s Ginger Yams with Mascarpone
• Myra Goodman’s Easy Cranberry Sauce
• Anna Lappé’s ‘Green’ Apple Pie
• Myra Goodman’s Flaky Whole-Grain Pie Crust
• Myra Goodman’s Pumpkin and Winter Squash Pie
• Myra Goodman’s Sweet Pie Crust

Comedians have joked about how Christians oddly commemorate their savior with a symbol connected to his death, a crucifix. (Of course to Christians, this is the symbol of the resurrection).

Strawberry Tree (Photo: Friends of the Urban Forest)

Now let’s consider the coming holiday, Christmas. It’s a wonderful time of year, joyous, giving, sharing — when lots of people also run out to kill trees or buy those that have already met the axe.

Behold, the magnificent evergreen, symbol of everlasting life, sliced down in the prime of life so we can slap some glass balls on it, enshrine it in lights and send it to the mulcher when it turns crispy.

Here’s a requisite ritual of the approaching celebration (and not just for Christians, either, we all know there are plenty of other non-believers who haul trees into their homes because they share the spirit of the thing, if not the theology) that requires a certain degree of destruction.

Or does it?

In San Francisco, the city government has partnered with Friends of the Urban Forest, to offer residents a living tree at a reasonable price ($95) for the holiday season. The trees are, if not native, then adapted for the area and will be planted alongside city streets afterward.

San Francisco residents can pick out their 6 to 8-foot tall magnolia, strawberry tree, Tristania or New Zealand Christmas Tree at City Hall Plaza on Dec. 5-6. (See the website for details.)

Later, Friends of the Urban Forest will plant the potted trees along public walkways, adding to the city’s forest, and recognizing that many urban dwellers simply wouldn’t have a spot to plant it themselves.

Perhaps it’s time to quit using so many trees for Christmas and start cultivating them instead? It could be a celebration of new life. Very 21st Century.

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

Most commodities come with a clear price attached to a distinct amount. A bag of potatoes, a can of beans, a jar of peanut butter….the cost of these is stamped on a sign at the grocery and an individual label breaks down the nutritional details.

Zerofootprint's Talking Plug

Electricity is sold with a price tag also, a price per kilowatt. Every month, customers pay a provider based on how many kilowatts their household has used. But there’s no label breakdown.

We don’t know how much electricity was expended to power the HVAC or dishwasher or fridge or computer. It’s a mystery what caused that spike in our bill. Our worst power phantoms are hiding.

Could the problem be those old incandescent light bulbs?

We don’t know. We’re in the dark.

“The way we use electricity is quite antiquated and quite dumb,” said Zerofootprint founder and CEO Dr. Ron Dembo, in a news conference Monday to introduce his group’s solution, the Talking Plug ™.

If we knew more — like how much, when and on what we were spending our electricity dollars, we’d be wiser consumers, he said. We could shift electricity use to off-peak hours making utilities happier  –  reducing our bills and our carbon pollution.

The TalkingPlug™ can be the starting point for all that because it takes energy monitoring to the micro level. It exposes errant appliances and runaway energy hogs in the home, but unlike similar, competitor devices that merely signal high or low energy use, it sends a stream of information to a software program (Zerofootprint’s web-based VELO software) so residents can monitor or re-tailor their energy use, and turn things on and off remotely via the Internet.

Set top box not needed today? Turn it off from your office or laptop computer.

“It’s win, win, win,” said Dembo, whose  Toronto-based carbon management company launched in 2005.

The TalkingPlug, he explained, is not just another cool gadget, but a foot in the door toward a new way of thinking about electricity. By putting more transparency into electricity consumption, Dembo proposed that it could lead to a paradigm shift that’s needed to fight climate change.

“It’s about changing culture more than anything,” he said. And changing the culture is necessary. Right now, green buildings are producing wonderfully new efficient buildings, he noted, “But if you leave the electricity on it doesn’t make any difference.”

His theory: You’ve got to develop precise measurements so people can compare their usage. “In short, it’s understood that if you want to change culture you compare things. These products allow you to compare very easily,” he said. This will take environmental consciousness to a new level, he predicts.

As the information bubbles up, and becomes accessible, there could be many applications, Dembo said, such as these:

• 

  A computer screen would register energy use using the TalkingPlug (Photo: Zerofootprint.)

  A school could track its precise energy consumption using TalkingPlug technology, and it could be made public with a meter over the door showing if current energy use was in the red, orange or green zone. Such a device could inform the public and exert pressure on schools — or businesses — to watch their watts.

• Appliance companies could track how their products worked in the home, and aggregate that information and use it for marketing. They could prove their claims of lower energy use, and do research.

• Utilities and residents could make deals to idle, by remote, certain appliances at certain times, resulting in a rebate for the user and a reduction of peak demand for the utility. (Utilities are built for peak demand to avoid blackouts, Dembo explained, but “it’s only a few minutes a year that we hit full peak.” So at the commercial level a lot of electricity is generated to be on “stand by” that is not needed, and never used.)

All these are all potential applications for the TalkingPlug technology, Dembo said, adding that this new technology will be compatible with Smart Meters that are being installed by some utilities to get a better handle on how energy is used in a given home. But they won’t require rewiring or any retrofitting of appliances.

The SmartPlug and Smart Meter technologies could work “in tandem,” Dembo said. “I see this as a rapidly convergent market.”

Right now, the TalkingPlug is being custom produced, and each one costs about $50. But that will come down to somewhere in the $30s after the first of the year, and drop further as it’s adopted and can take advantage of economies of scale, Dembo said.

ZeroFootprint operates a for-profit software and carbon management programs aimed at helping companies reduce their carbon footprint through better risk management and new technologies. The organization also operates a non-profit foundation with a mission of reducing carbon pollution.

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

Beekeeper Laura Johnson enjoys tending to her buzzing friends, but the real motive behind her hobby is stopping the decline of honey bees.

Honey Bees (Photo: USDA)

Bee Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) has been threatening bees, and the dozens of crops they serve, around the world for the past several years.

So Johnson, an organic gardener in suburban Atlanta, decided it was time to jump into honey.

It wasn’t a great year to start. An unusually rainy season cut honey production for many Georgia beekeepers. And since Johnson’s hive was so new, she decided to let the bees keep their honey this year instead of harvesting it.

“That’s part of the reason I got a hive. I figure if we help the bees along maybe that will help. Without bees we won’t have food,” she said.

Johnson reasons that more bee keepers can help slow the decline of honey bees. And with scientists breeding stronger strains of bees, she hopes they have a fighting chance.

Right now she has one hive, but has plans for another in the spring.

“I’m trying to do it as natural as possible, with no chemicals,” she said. “I was green before it was cool.”

For example, she puts powdered sugar in the hive to get rid of mites and cinnamon to discourage ants.

Bee keepers across the US had a slightly better year in 2009, with honey bee losses slowing slightly in the U.S. over the 2008-2009 winter, when the most bees succumb to disease. About 29 percent of the domestic honey bees died from CCD and other causes, compared with 36 percent and 32 percent in the previous two winters.

While the year was better, losses of that magnitude are not “sustainable,” according to the report by the Apiary Inspectors of America and the USDA.

Georgia saw a rough harvest this year, according to avid beekeeper and county cooperative extension agent Tom Bonnell.  Honey production was down due to a weird confluence of heavy rain and heat. Bonnell’s hives only produced eight gallons this year, compared with 15 gallons last year.

Like his fellow bee keepers, Bonnell monitors reports about CCD, a phenomenon in which the bees leave the hive, become disoriented and fail to return, leaving the hive to die.

Some experts believe Colony Collapse Disorder can be attributed to a virus caused by the varroa mite; others say the bees are being poisoned by pesticides that act on the nervous system. The bees are exposed to the pesticides while eating pollen in crop fields, and the neurotoxins cause them to lose their bearings.

Some believe another contributing factor to CCD is the way bees are used in commercial agriculture, with beekeepers taking hives large distances across the US to pollinate fields. This theory maintains that the traveling bees become vulnerable to disease and stressed as they move in and out of their home turf.

Tom Bonnell demonstrates his working honey hives

“About every 10 years something comes up and aggravates the honey bee,” Bonnell said. “I think CCD is hitting the commercial bee keepers and not the hobbyists … (is) because they (hobbyists) don’t drag bees all over the United States.”

“Once you drag them from state to state you don’t know what they’re getting into.”

Heightened awareness of CCD has led to an increase in the number of new beekeepers and bee clubs, Bonnell said. And that’s a sweet situation.

“It can be a family adventure. You can look at that as an heirloom to pass down to generations,” Bonnell noted.

Commercial beekeeper Billy Engle also relishes the practice of bee keeping, but has decided to downsize this year because it’s too much work for his failing health.

Engle has operated Rose Creek Honey Farm in The Rock, Georgia for more than 20 years.

“It was not a good year for bees. Mine really have not died off like the previous two years, but I only had half a honey crop this time,” he said.