The world’s biggest technology giants have vowed to reduce their carbon emissions to win your green dollar.

So who decides what “going carbon neutral” really means?

According to the Wall Street Journal, companies like Dell, Google, and Yahoo are all active in cutting the amount of carbon dioxide produced in their operations.  The problem is that each company defines their carbon neutrality in a different way.

Dell calculates their 490 thousand ton footprint from what comes out of their offices, company cars, and employees who fly.  20 thousand of this was cut making some green building improvements and grounding some of their airborne employees. So what about the other 470 thousand tons?

The solution seems to be in the good work of others. Renewable-energy certificates, or carbon credits, are created by clean energy companies and sold off to offset the remaining tonnage acquired by these big companies.

Until a universal standard for carbon neutrality is decided, the onus is on the consumer to find out how green a product truly is.

For more details on how to calculate corporate carbon neutrality, try out some of the following links:

Google to outspend government on environment (Planetsave.com)

Revealed: How the Times got confused about Google and the tea kettle (Tech Crunch)

Dell, Apple, Microsoft, H.P. perceived as U.S. green tech leaders (Environmental Leader)

Photo by bobby__emm.

Full Gothamist article here.

This post was originally scheduled for News but I thought, “how is this news?”  I mean, it’s significant but it’s not the kind of thing that’ll  determine the pace of the world’s environmental progress/decline.

But I digress.  My feelings about LEED nightclubs and decor that screams GREEN the minute you walk in is something that puts me in a quandary and schedules this post under the Category, “EEEEEK-oh!” - a category loosely defined as “the sound my brain makes when reacting to something that reeks of greenwashing.”  Posts filed under EEEEK-oh! may be a cautionary tale with an undercurrent of truth that connotes a good deed despite it’s flashy exterior.

I digress again.  Does anyone remember the “Pink Room” at the 90’s NYC club, The Tunnel?  The Pink Room looked like the walls had been stuffed with that Pink Panther-endorsed insulation and everything was plushy and furry with globular mirrors all over the place.  Seems like not much has changed since those ecstasy-heavy days but instead of fiberglass insulation as decor, now it’s some other fake fur crap.

Decor aside, has anyone figured out how to do the kinetic energy dance floor thing yet???  That’s seemingly the most intuitive innovation to making a club green but then again, you need people to fill the floor to make the lights come on.  Is clubland still packing the house like it did in the 70s, 80s, and 90s?

Photo by Katie Sokoler.

How safe is protected land and are logging, oil, and mining companies using our national parks for profit?

A land trust is a purchase of a large piece of real estate that in theory, remains protected from development.  But it’s known that some of the biggest corporations and investment groups use the land for profit through logging, drilling, and mining.

Dan Tishman, Chairman of the Board for the Natural Resource Defense Council.

One has to define what logging is.  There is good logging and there is bad logging.  You can’t just tie up land as an eleemosynary thing forever.  You have to understand that land is a valuable asset, it’s valuable for a whole host of reasons.  And if in order to preserve land you need to figure out how to have some economic stream to preserve land, good sustainable certified logging practices might be the right sense.

One thing we can trust regarding our land is that not everyone has it’s best interests in mind regardless of what they say.

For more on American land trusts, visit some of the following links:

WorldLandTrust-US.org

PlacerLandTrust.org

Creating Your Own Land Trust (Possibility.com)

Photo by Куртис Перри

Click below for more of our exclusive conversation with Dan Tishman, Chairman of the Board of the NRDC.

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Jumbo shrimp, a parkway, pretty ugly, and now clean coal.

Do they think we’re oxymorons?

Talk of clean coal is polluting the air around the climate debate and stifling the discussion of alternative energy solutions.  The fact of the matter is that coal extraction and incineration is a downright dirty process.

Additionally, this buzzword charade is being used by the two Presidential nominees as both a mudslinging tactic and vote generating accelerator.  So what are they really talking about?

It’s basic shorthand for a technology that does not exist.  The idea of carbon dioxide being separated from the exhaust of US coal plants is as likely to succeed as drilling for oil in ANWR will reduce gas prices significantly in 2009.

So while new coal technologies are experimental, the Politically infused notion of clean coal is nothing more than hot air.

For more on clean coal, check out some of the links below.

Clean Coal Technology (Wikipedia)

Presidential Race Runs through the Heart of Coal Country (Market Watch)

Managing Wastes From Coal (World Nuclear Association)

Photo by rtokunaga.

Discussed: Disconnect/Phobia of Nature, Community Supported Agriculture, Federal Trade Commission, Industry Supported Lies, Center for Global Food Issues, Chemical Farming, Monsanto, Against the Grain, Permaculture and Ancient Agriculture

There are a few voices that speak with resonant clarity through the noise of the “too much information generation.”  They are the conscientious mavericks whose passion and diligence in finding the truth of things have elevated them beyond mere mortal thoughtless drones but as hyper-human change makers, or as we like to call them, superheroes.

One such individual is Anna Lappe, co-autohor of Grub and Hope’s Edge, founding principal for the Small Planet Institute and the Small Planet Fund.  Her literary work brandishes a samurai blade in the face of the chemically tainted, spurious battle against the evils of the commercial agriculture and biotech industries.  Her ambitious work with the Small Planet Institute prods and ignites the basic human tendency toward social mimicry by generating a broad spectrum of “entry points” through media to understand, accept, and impart democratic social change.

See below for more photos from the MINI Space Rooftop: Sustainability Roundtable Discussion:

For the full transcript of this interview, click below.

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Blinded by the barrage of eco-friendly stickers on your everyday products?

Deafened by the earthy tones of green marketing verbiage?

Greenwashing is the process by which companies mislead consumers regarding environmentally friendly products.  You see it everyday, stickers that read, “natural, green, earth friendly…” you know the drill.

Here are some key terms to watch out for:

1.) Organic - according to food industry standards, organic food is grown without conventional pesticides, artificial fertilizers, human waste, or sewage sludge.  If you see the USDA Organic Seal, that’s a safe choice.

2.) Environmentally Preferred - There is nothing about plastic or rubber that the environment prefers, so watch out for this term alongside unnatural or inorganic products.

3.) Sustainable - there is no standardized definition of sustainable in the context of commerce.  Sustainability implies permanence in nature so be especially aware of this term.

While there are many well-intentioned companies doing good things, protect yourself from greenwashing by understanding certain simple terms.

For more on greenwashing, click here.

Photo by MU_313679.

Full Guardian article here.

A few months ago, one of the biggest news stories of the year hit the press. Photos of a “lost tribe” were circulated and piqued the interests of everyone from anthropologists to tinfoil-hat conspiracy theorists. Accompanying the photos of men in red paint huddled outside their straw huts were accounts of savagery that included shooting arrows at helicopters. This was a fantastical story that had people salivating.

But that was exactly the case. It was all a fantasy. This is not to say that the tribe really consisted of out-of-work actors on a back lot in Hollywood. However, the lost tribe was not exactly lost. Photographer José Carlos Meirelles admitted that he only sold the photos as an attempt to bring awareness to deforestation; not exactly the typical reason for creating media hoaxes.

This event reveals a new aspect to the plight of the environmentalist and several questions beg to be asked. Is sensationalism the only way to get us to pay attention? How far will other environmentalists go for their agenda to see light? And are we really so apathetic to issues regarding the Earth that we will act only to pretend-play Indiana Jones?

It is a bit pathetic to think that we need shock tactics for us to come to realizations with what we are doing as a population and the effects these actions have. Maybe it is our mundane (as well as hectic) lifestyles that push seemingly frivolous environmental agendas to the back of our minds. Or maybe, we simply don’t care. And in that case, José Carlos Meirelles has started a new wave of environmental activism that can actually make us sit up and take notice.

Photo courtesy of Harcourt Books.

According to the color wheel, it’s red.

According to the sassy young lass I recently met milling around the meat pop hors d’oeuvres at the last Internet Advertising Bureau cocktail party, it’s purple.

Our candid conversation regarding her exasperation with the landslide of questionable Green information spilled all over the media and in advertising lately is what prompted her conjecture.

“I don’t give a s*%t about being Green,” she said bluntly, “I mean, my building actually requires it’s employees to use the stairs instead of the elevator.” I bit my tongue and asked if she was disabled. “No but I can’t stand all these companies and newscasters using the environment as a sales pitch.”

To that I couldn’t help but agree.

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