Heart of Green

Earth Hour This Saturday

If good things in happen in the dark, then this Saturday will be a wild night because Earth Hour is coming to San Francisco and the whole planet.

To join this shady party is easy. On Saturday evening March 29, 2008 from 8:00 pm - 9:00 pm, turn off any and all lights. That’s it. And then light some candles and celebrate because the Earth is fighting global warming with the flip of a switch.

If you are really motivated to make a difference, seize the moment to switch an incandescent light bulb to an energy-saving compact fluorescent and put a few power-sucking electronics on a power strip. And then get back to your dimly-lit party for the planet.

Sponsored by the World Wildlife Fund, Earth Hour first came to San Francisco on October 20 as Lights Out thanks to surfing green man Nate Tyler. Nate is now focused on office buildings who leave their lights on all night even when nobody is burning the midnight oil.

City Hall is in. Grace Cathedral is in. The Golden Gate Bridge is in. Many restaurants are in. Sydney, Australia is in. Cate Blanchett is in. Entourage's bad boy agent Jeremy Piven is in. 24 global cities are in. I’m in. Look for your city to go dark on Saturday night.

Eco-Tip: Light a soy candle or beeswax candle. Paraffin candles are made from petroleum and give off as many air pollutants as a diesel engine. Great eco-friendly candles include Method soy candles, Pure Necessities, Something Wicked soy candles with hemp wicks, Philips Aurelle LED candles, Beeswax Candle Works, D.L. & Co Candles, and the beautiful Nomine soy candles.

The Earth Hour web site is a buggy video bandwidth disaster that is trying to promote 60 minutes as the thing. My advice is to skip it and just turn off the lights on Saturday night, and even more importantly every day and night thereafter when they are not needed at home and at work. Good green things happen in the dark.   www.lightsoutamerica.org

Best Green Books

By popular request, here is my personal list of Best Green Books - the secret sources of wisdom about all things green and about life too.

Not having my macdaddy flat screen TV hooked up at the moment gives me more time to read. I know I am missing things, like red carpet moments, mad sports tournaments, and landmark political speeches. YouTube saves me, but I still have to fake many American Idol conversations.

Best Green Books

The Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan: What determines what we eat? These are some of the most enlightening books I have ever read. How did corn take over our food system, and why is organic farming so badass? I won’t spoil the punch line but in a nutshell, eat fresh real organic foods and plants. Lots of plants. Vote with your fork, and let's make the next Farm Bill a Food Bill.

Blessed Unrest by Paul Hawken: This is a blessedly concise book on how the largest movement in the world - the environmental movement - came into being and why no one saw it coming. Can you say bottoms up? Paul Hawken is also the author of the world-famous Natural Capitalism.

Cradle to Cradle by William McDonough: This book presents the ultimate vision of regenerative green design. And it is not printed on paper, i.e. you can read it in the bathtub, underwater. Imagine a modern green world where growth becomes non-toxic and good, just as in nature. What if all biological and technical nutrients could be recaptured and upcycled in a full circle way? This is not cradle to grave. There is no waste and there is no “away.” This is cradle to cradle.

An Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore: The companion book to the movie that changed everything. Filled with fabulous pictures and charts, the book obviates the need to rewind the DVD over and over. It memorializes the moment in time when the world woke up to the challenges of global warming, got mad, and decided to get even. Rodale has also published some other bestsellers on organic living such as the The Live Earth Global Warming Survival Handbook and Chickens in your Backyard. Hmmm, how about chickens in your apartment?

The Legacy of Luna: Imagine living in a redwood tree for a year?  Or rather, imagine climbing a redwood tree for starters?  Julia Butterfly Hill is a heroine for many, and her story is incredible. So incredible that a movie is being made about her life with an A-list actress. Redwood trees are great sources of inspiration for me personally. Having a mental block about something or need a creative idea? Take a walk through a redwood forest, and I guarantee something good will happen or your money back. Oh wait, it was free.

The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight by Thom Hartmann: This book led to my ah-ha moment about the true meaning of fossil fuels. Take oil for example. Oil is derived from ancient organic matter that was compressed deep into the ground billions of years ago and fossilized. This explains why fossil fuels are not renewable. Once they are extracted and gone, they are gone. Now sunlight and wind on the other hand...

Anything by David Suzuki: The renowned David Suzuki has published his own list of must-read green books because that is just the kind of guy he is, but he deserves to be on his own list. David Suzuki just gets it, and he has a wonderful way of stating things. No offense to Warren Buffet, but I would like to have lunch with Suzuki someday.

Green Chic by Christie Matheson: A new book that embraces the fabulousness of green living with a sexy cover to match. It is overflowing with practical eco-chic lifestyle ideas tested by the author. It makes a great gift!

The Green Book: This green how-to guide edited by Elizabeth Rogers and Cameron Diaz also features tips from an impressive line-up of eco-minded celebrities including Robert Redford, Will Ferrell, Jennifer Aniston, Faith Hill, Tim McGraw, Martha Stewart, Tyra Banks, Tiki Barber, and Justin Timberlake.

Let the Mountains Talk, Let the Rivers Run by David Brower: Famous conservationist, mountain climber, and bold hero of the planet, David Brower tells all in his final book. He puts forth many amazing ideas - some have been realized and others are just sitting there waiting to be implemented. Brower was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize three times. CPR for the Earth: conservation, preservation, and restoration.

Earth Island Journal: It may look old school, but this award-winning magazine is filled with up-to-the-minute new school information about the planet. It embodies great investigative journalism, the story behind the story.

What about us?: We spend so much time working on sustainability, how can we sustain ourselves through the green highs and lows? My favorite three books that have changed my life are the following: The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell, The Illuminated Rumi, and Think on These Things by J. Krishnamurti. I really believe that the key to life resides in these books, but let me know what you think and what has inspired you.

Happy reading!  If you have a favorite green book, I'd love to hear about it, and please let me know who wins American Idol.

Del Forte Delights

What is hip, eco-conscious and blue all over?  Del Forte’s ultra fabulous premium denim for women who want to look darn good while saving the planet.

Boot cut, high waist, trouser, skinny, you name it, designer Tierra Del Forte has the style and eco-cred to match. Del Forte jeans are 100% organic cotton (rare even among some eco brands) and made in the USA (even rarer).

Standouts from Del Forte’s Fall line include the imaginative and flirtatious Marina Trouser with custom buttons and a lace-up back.

Why organic cotton?  Organically-grown cotton is produced without chemical fertilizers or pesticides. A field must be pesticide-free for three years for the cotton to be certified organic, as it then becomes safe for the farmers, consumers, and natural environment.

In contrast, conventionally-grown cotton takes 2/3 of a pound of pesticides to make one pair of jeans. Per the EPA, conventional agriculture in general is responsible for 70% of all pollution problems in American rivers and streams.

Back to the sexy styles, I am mad about Del Forte’s ReJeaneration skirt made from recycled Del Fortes in a full circle, cradle to cradle way. When you are finished with your Del Fortes (um, never?), send them back to the company, and they will give you 10% off your next purchase or make a donation to the Sustainable Cotton Project. Project Rejeaneration. Recycle your jeans and regenerate your style. I’m sold.

Featured in Vogue, Teen Vogue, People, Glamour, and hundreds of articles, Del Forte is one hot cult eco jeans brand that just keeps getting hotter. The fit is amazing because Tierra designs her jeans for curves. Check the Where To Buy list and grab your size, or even one smaller, before it sells out.  www.delforte.com

Do Not Mail

I just got word about the groundbreaking Do Not Mail initiative and wanted to share.

What do Adrian Grenier, Leonardo DiCaprio, Darryl Hannah, Lawrence Bender, Anna Getty, Ed Begley, Jr. and Paul Hawken have in common? 

Besides being eco-conscious celebrities, they have all signed the petition to create a national Do Not Mail registry. It would be similar to the historic Do Not Call registry which just celebrated its 5-year anniversary. Imagine being able to opt-out of junk mail. It is within our grasp thanks to a bold initiative launched today by ForestEthics.

A national Do Not Mail registry would give us control over our mailboxes. It would protect our privacy and lessen identity theft. It would save forests that absorb carbon dioxide and provide clean water to the world. And it would end one of the most annoying things around - junk mail.

Do Not Mail Campaign by ForestEthics

Launched: March 11, 2008

Signed By:
Adrian Grenier, Darryl Hannah, Alicia Silverstone, Jackson Browne, Anna Getty, Aaron Douglas, Paul Hawken, Ed Begley, Jr.

Join over 18,000 others and sign the Do Not Mail petition.

Junk mail is called junk for a reason. Americans receive 100 billion pieces of junk mail per year. 44% goes straight to a landfill unopened. These piles of credit card offers, coupons, ads, and catalogs consume more than 100 million trees and produce global warming emissions equivalent to 3.7 million cars.

I have tried everything to get rid of junk mail. Signed up for OptOutPrescreen, called catalog companies to unsubscribe, switched to electronic bill pay, wrote Return To Sender, and more. And the junk mail still keeps coming. Sometimes I feel like Will Ferrell in his Junk Mail PSA made for Live Earth.

Where does the paper come from? The irreplaceable Canadian Boreal Forest which stores more carbon than any other ecosystem on earth. Stored carbon dioxide equals less global warming. Yet, the Boreal Forest is still logged at a rate of 2 acres a minute 24 hours a day to produce junk mail, catalogs, and other paper products. This gives a whole new meaning to the term, junk in the trunk. It is more like junk from the trunk.

In an exciting newsflash, it was just discovered that old growth forests store even more carbon than originally thought. Read the pioneering Giving Trees article.

"Junk mail is more than an annoying waste of time. It's a waste of our environment," said Entourage star Adrian Grenier and Peter Glatzer, co-founders of The Green Life. "Joining ForestEthics Do Not Mail campaign is a great, easy way to stop the waste."

Let’s stop the junk mail madness, stop the waste, stop the deforestation, and stop climate change. Let’s sing the Elvis Presley song Return To Sender and take back our mailboxes. www.donotmail.org

About ForestEthics:
The nonprofit ForestEthics recognizes that individual people can create positive environmental change, and so can corporations. Armed with this unique philosophy, the organization has transformed the environmental practices of Fortune 500 companies including Staples, Home Depot, Dell, Williams-Sonoma, and Victoria Secret and has protected more than 12 million acres of endangered forests.  www.forestethics.org

Meet John Patrick Organic

You are invited to an exclusive preview of Organic’s eco-stylish Fall ‘08 Collection with the designer himself John Patrick at the new hip luxury boutique Carrots. Don’t miss this opportunity to strut your eco-stuff.

Carrots Hosts Organic Designer John Patrick

WHEN:
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
11:00 am - 4:00 pm

WHERE:
Carrots Boutique
843 Montgomery Street at Jackson
San Francisco, CA
415.834.9040

Featuring:

• John Patrick, the Organic founder and sustainable style ambassador
• Preview of the Organic Fall ‘08 eco-fashion designer collection
• New hip luxury boutique Carrots

Mullens PR. Hosted by Nadine Weil & Zem Joaquin

Invitation:
View the Invitation

About Organic:
Organic by John Patrick is a stylish, sophisticated eco-conscious line created with the best organic wool, organic cotton and cashmere fabrics with exquisite design and tailoring.

“I envision a world in the near future where people won’t ask, is it Organic, but rather say, of course it’s organic!” states founder John Patrick.  www.johnpatrickorganic.com

Update:  Style fashionista Sarah Granger has an excellent write-up of the Organic Party on her blog SFBayStyle.

Climate Saving Computers

While we are on the topic of green power tools, I want to give a shout out to the excellent Climate Savers Computing Initiative.

Formed by Intel, Google, PG&E, and the World Wildlife Fund, and now backed by over 130 companies, Climate Savers helps individuals and businesses buy more energy efficient computers and take advantage of power management tools.  Their noble goal is nothing less than cutting computer power consumption by 50% in three years. This would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 54 million ton per year and save $5.5 billion in energy costs by 2010.

I didn’t realize that the average desktop PC loses half of its power in heat. Boo. The Climate Savers Computing Initiative is aiming to transform the industry with a new 90% efficiency target for power supplies. 

Check out the Climate Savers online catalog of efficient computers with an Energy Star seal of approval.  PG&E’s energy efficiency czar Mark Bramfitt made a convincing case for turning on (or turning back on) the power management features of our computers. Like the bears, our computers can automatically hibernate and save energy. Real eco-warriors use green power tools. Also, many 3d animated screen savers, like the famous fish one, consume more power than no screen saver at all. A side health note, please don’t use a laptop in your lap for obvious reasons.  www.climatesaverscomputing.org

The Northern California utility PG&E has a wealth of energy saving tips and rebates on their web site. They run over 80 energy efficiency programs! 

Also see the eBay Rethink Initiative for e-waste. For web developers, check out this substantial GreenDev list of 50 eco-friendly applications and resources including the very useful Google Transit. For more scoop on the world of Green IT, visit the site Greener Computing by GreenBiz at www.greenercomputing.com

The Magic Power Strip

If 2007 was the year of the magic bulb – the CFL - let’s make 2008 the year of the magic strip – the power strip.

We've channeled Leonardo DiCaprio and replaced light bulbs with compact fluorescents. What is next on the green path? 

A few months ago, I looked around the house and office and took an inventory of every plugged-in device. Specifically, I was looking for phantom loads, electronics that suck energy out of the wall even when they are turned "off." Vampires some affectionately call them. Leaking electricity is another name. It turns out that any device with a power supply (black box transformer), remote control, or electronic clock is a culprit.  Measuring the standby power loads showed that the worst offenders were the TV, DVD player (oy!), TiVo, computer, printer, and copy machine. They may have looked asleep, but they were really awake, drawing current from the wall.

According to the Department of Energy, in our average home, 25% of the electricity used to power home electronics is consumed while the products are turned off.  Phantom power loads cost people $7 billion per year. An estimated 37 power plants are needed to fuel this vampire power. Per the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the wasted energy sends over 97 billion pounds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Are we going to take this standby power lying down?  We do not have to stand by while phantom power increases our energy bills and global warming.

How to Outsmart Vampire Power

Enter the power strip. We can save energy costs and save the planet with the flip of a switch.  It's fun, it's easy, it's empowering.

1. Optional - measure it:  For the eco-geek, measure how much electricity your devices draw when supposedly off. A great tool for this is the P3 Kill-a-Watt Electricity Usage Monitor. Its LCD display counts consumption by the kilowatt-hour, the same as your local utility. Or just feel the black box on the power supply. Chances are it stays warm to the touch.

2. Gather a few power strips:  Round up your favorite power strips such as these below. A boring one from a hardware store will work just fine too.

Smart Strip:  As seen on the Oprah Winfrey Show, it senses when you have turned off one device and powers down the rest of them.

Power Strip Liberators:  Big bulky transformer boxes putting a cramp in your power strip strategy?  These liberators will set you free.

Power Squid:  This friendly octopus ensures no more wasted outlets from big plugs. www.powersquid.com

3. Put electronics on power strips:  Plug in especially the following standby power hogs: TVs, DVDs, VCRs, TiVos or DVRs, computers, monitors, WiFi routers, printers, copy machines, video game players, cordless phones, and cell phone chargers. Good candidates are devices with a black box transformer on the power cord, a remote control, an always-on red light, or an electronic clock.

I ended up with one power strip in the office and one in the living room. My energy bill is now down to $15 per month. True confessions:  I decided to forgo the cable box and TiVo in a 6-month experiment. I experienced reality show withdrawal the first month but am in recovery.    

Don’t bother with blenders, fans, and other purely mechanical devices, unless of course they have a new electronic smart interface that says hello when you walk in the room.

4. Switch power strips to off:  When not using the gadgets, flip the strip's switch to off. Watch the energy savings and CO2 savings roll in. You should save at least the equivalent of one full energy bill per year. Smile because vampire appliances no longer have you by the neck. You are in control.

Here are some other high-wattage power-saving tips:

Screen Brightness:  Reduce the brightness of your TV or computer screen by half, and watch power consumption drop by about 30 percent.

Computer Power Options:  Set your computer to automatically hibernate after a set time of inactivity. On a PC, go to Control Panel - Power Options.

Unplug Chargers :  Orlando Bloom's favorite tip, don't leave chargers for cell phones, PDAs and iPods plugged into the wall.

Energy Star:  Look for new appliances with an Energy Star label, the mark of higher energy efficiency.

Designer Power Strips:  Call me an eco-fashionista, but I think there is a market window for designer power strips. Imagine if you had a choice of power strips in attractive colors and modern styles. Barneys, Target, visionary utilities, Dell, HP, Google, Apple - this green opportunity is calling your name.

Not to get too crazy here, but there could be colorful skins for power strips. Companies could even brand power strips and give them away as energy efficiency presents. I think strips have the potential to be sexy.

When you search for designer power strips, all you get is the PowerSquid Calamari edition pictured here. It is moving in the right direction, but you be the judge of whether this cephalopod is high fashion or not.

The E-Rope Modular Power Strip is promising with its sleek futuristic design. In this concept strip, each socket can be rotated for easy access. Twisting a socket 90 degrees disconnects the flow of electricity.

Think of all of the electronics plugged in right now across every household and business in America and the world. Now imagine all of them on power strips, and all of those switches turned off when not in use. This is huge low hanging energy efficiency fruit. This is within our power.

If 2007 was the year of the magic bulb, then we can make 2008 the year of the magic power strip. Let's save the planet one socket at a time.