Tara Holmes

This past Friday, I attended a workshop lead by Dr. Doug McKenzie-Mohr entitled “An Introduction to Community-Based Social Marketing: Fostering Sustainable Behavior.”  As someone who’s personally very intrigued by the oftentimes overlooked (and dare I say critical) link between our everyday psychology and environmental sustainability, I was eager to attend. What I learned was both enlightening and somewhat anticipated.

In brief, humans, at least the populations Dr. McKenzie-Mohr has studied, tend to default to the easiest common denominator of behavior when it comes to environmentalism.  Of course, this isn’t to say there aren’t outlier personalities who go above and beyond the “green” call, but overall, unless regulated to do so, or cajoled by neighbors or friends, most people will resort to the path of… [view entry]

Green jobs, no longer just an environmental buzz phrase, represent a critical component to the progressive growth of the US economy. On February 23rd, the Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration (ETA) announced the availability of $40 million in green jobs development grants.  The funds are authorized for the Green Jobs Innovation Fund (GJIF) and are meant to encourage the growth of the green economic sector, which includes everything from renewable energy technology and implementation, to policy and programmatic work.  The announced grant will also support individual training and development within the green jobs sector to ensure interested candidates receive the proper credentials to be competitive within the green economy.

Debating on whether or not to get a real or fake Christmas tree this year?  Well, if you haven’t already, then think twice: a recent article by the New York Times reported that unless you keep your fake tree for 20 years or more, it’s more environmentally conscientious to purchase a real tree. It sounds counterintuitive – aren’t Christmas tree farms agriculturally damaging and don’t we need more trees intact to act as carbon sinks? Turns out, it might not be that clear cut.

Using calculations that included greenhouse gas emissions, use of resources and human health impacts, a Montreal-based environmental consulting firm found that the annual carbon emissions associated with using a real tree every year were one-third of those created by an artificial tree over a standard six-year lifespan.… [view entry]

Speaking at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, President Obama issued new proposals for issuing tax credits to renewable energy companies as a means of stimulating job creation. The President urged increasing the current funds already approved by the Congress totaling some 2.3 billion dollars. The problem is, there aren’t enough tax credits  to go around,” Obama told the crowd at the university.  “When we announced the program last year, it was such a success that we received 500 applications requesting over $8 billion in tax credits. But we only had $2.3 billion to invest. In other words, we had almost four times as many worthy requests as we had tax credits.”

President Obama’s trip to promote alternative fuels was also part of a larger effort to help push Senate elections this… [view entry]

If there’s one clear cut hope for the future of energy, its that a completely clean and renewable source of energy, like the sun, could one day come to completely replace our current addiction to fossil fuels. Solar energy, if applied properly could provide the Earth with years of nearly endless power with virtually no environmental drawbacks. However, there are some major hurdles to clear before this dream of a sustainable future through solar energy could become a reality. Currently, the biggest drawback to solar panels is the low efficiency of these devices, even under constant sunlight. Most photovoltaics today only run at a top efficiency of 20%, making them mere complements to other energy sources, rather than complete replacements.

Despite these setbacks, new research from across the world has recently… [view entry]

Although it’d be easy to dismiss “The Lazy Environmentalist” as a simple product placement vehicle for Brita filters and GE CFLs, it can be an entertaining and informative show¹. In this Sundance Channel series media personality Josh Dorfman tries to convince small business owners and hobbyists from all walks of life to adopt alternative products and techniques. If you don’t subscribe to this premium channel, recent episodes are also available via Comcast On Demand and clips of episodes can be viewed on the series website. Check it out next time you feel the need to become one with the couch, but there’s nothing good on.

Also for your enjoyment, a 45 minute discussion by Josh to Google employees about his approach to environmentalism:

^{1. The enlightenment can also}… [view entry]

The light-emitting diodes (LEDs) are becoming more and more common in traffic lights and are moving into streetlights.

LEDs produce three or four times more light per watt of electricity than standard incandescent lamps do, and they are more than 4 times as efficient as Compact Fluorescent Light (CFL) bulbs, typically lasting  up to 50,000 hours.

The Dialight Corporation, of Farmingdale, N.J., a subsidiary of a British company,  has about one-third of the United States market for LED traffic signals, and is now looking forwards on another target: street lamps. Edinburgh and Pittsburgh are already trying this new lightning system. Even if LED street lamps doesn’t produce much more light per watt than a conventional lamp, it’s strength is to shine in only one direction whereas other lamps shine… [view entry]

A few weeks ago Paul Rogers of the Mercury News wrote that despite the general perception that the current administration having accomplished relatively little Obama has in fact made major strides in national environmental policy. Some examples not included in the article are: the significant tightening of the previously weak regulations surrounding non-conventionally raised livestock, and the FTC’s stepping up efforts to address greenwashing amidst increasing complaints
and problems such as the bogus “bamboo” textiles.

A New Scientist report highlights the dramatic differences between consumers’ perception of a company’s “greenness” and reality.

New Scientist investigated consumer perception via a 2008 Earthsense survey of consumer ratings, and compared those numbers to each company’s Trucost score, the estimated cost of its environmental impact as a percentage of its annual revenue. The resulting infographic is striking: you can see a clear divide between consumer perception and real performance of certain companies.

A few examples which standout are potentially perceived as being greener than they are Discovery Communications, whose environment-focused television programming probably influences consumer opinions, and Whole Foods Market, although the article defends them by pointing out that they haven’t yet released all of their emissions data.

On the flip side, some companies rated by… [view entry]

No, we didn’t get a new toilet. We converted our old one with a One2flush kit. Turning the handle one way makes a half flush and turning it the other makes a full flush. And it’s easy to increase or decrease the water levels of both of them if necessary by adjusting the settings on the flapper.

Our toilet was already a modern, low-flow toilet, using just 1.6 gallons of water per flush. But you really don’t need 1.6 gallons for every flush. That’s now the default setting for the full flush, and 0.8 gallons is the default setting for the half flush, but we’ll have to continue playing around with the water levels to figure out what’s the least amount that we can use.

The kit was relatively simple… [view entry]