Breathing Earth

Here's a cool site a friend forwarded to me - The Breathing Earth Simulation. It tracks CO2 emissions, birth rates and death rates for every country in simulated real-time. Simply scroll over a country and get the relevant info. Very impressive site - very disturbing data.

Environmental survivalists

Interesting article

Green Real Estate

My father-in-law is a real estate buyer's agent down in North Carolina - his company is Fletcher Realty. You'll notice the "go green" link on the bottom of his webpage which has some helpful tips for future and recent homebuyers. Check it out!

It is good to see so many businesses these days jumping on the green bandwagon!

What's Your E-IQ?

Here is another short quiz at abundantforests.org, which has a great website (specific to forests, obviously). This quiz actually gives you a rating at the end and a little better information. Take the quiz HERE.

Answer the quiz honestly and see what they think of you. I'm a "Green Giant" - what about you?

How green are you?

Take National Geographic's Green Guide's quick ECO-IQ TEST! It's very basic and you don't get a score, but it'll give you some helpful tips and reminders.

The Oscars Go Green (sort of)

As thousands of celebrities and their millions of dollars worth of clothing and accessories amass somewhere in L.A. to celebrate themselves and how amazing they are at getting rich at the expense of, well, everyone else who is not a so-called celebrity by creating those few movies we love among the many we hate... hey, at least they are "going green" while doing it. CLICK HERE to read more about how the Oscars have gone green. Sure, it might be greener to take the millions of dollars spent to put this great night together and contribute it to charitable and environmental organizations, but then how would we all know that Katherine Heigl looks stunning in red or that George Clooney is, in all respects, the greatest human ever or that Gary Busey is still insane.

All joking aside, it is in fact great that the Oscars are making an effort to reduce their ecological footprint, and every little bit helps. There are also many celebrities who share a great passion for environmental issues and do make unbelievable contributions to this cause, so I must commend them. Also, while I am a firm believer in doing what you can to be green, I also do not think it should come at a cost of shutting down life as we know it. In other words, the Oscars may go on! We still should enjoy our passions, even if not very eco-friendly, as long as we commit in other ways to offset those guilty pleasures.

My apologies to those who love this stuff, including my wife. No offense.

Some amazing art

I came across this website which is referenced on 1 Bag at a Time. Simply amazing, and quite scary! Make sure you read the captions for each photo - that is the scary part.

http://chrisjordan.com/

Green it up!

Hello and welcome to my blog!

Whether you like it or not, whether you believe in "global warming" or not, whether you care or not, you impact the Earth's environment every day. Unfortunately, most human impact is negative and it takes a deliberate course of action to reverse that trend. The current life we, as humans, have created for ourselves, especially in middle- to upper-class America, makes it quite difficult not to harm the environment. Spending, consuming and wasting have become the norm. However, with the right information, a little hard work, and the willingness to care, everyone can "green up their lives" and make a difference.

I do not wish to preach (so I hope this blog doesn't read that way!), and I am not an expert on this topic, but I come across so much useful and interesting information, I want to share some of it. I hope it makes even the slightest difference somewhere, somehow.

Your comments, questions, corrections, criticisms are always welcome.