August 13th, 2008 Frank
The one and only time I went to the every-20-something-must-go-once Lollapalooza rock festival, in Corpus Christi late 1997, it was to see Tool with a few friends who only wanted to smoke out once they got inside the gates. I was there to hear some music and avoid the mosh pit fights that went on, but I never did get to roam the trade tents and see any of the goodies that were on sale (if they even did that back then!).
It seems that Lollapalooza has gotten with the times now and has ‘gone green’ - and not just in a greenwashing sort of way, either. According to the Two Girls Go Green blog, Lollapalooza has:
- Green Street - a retail area that only has earth-friendly stuff
- Only organic foods - expensive but so much better for you!
- Free stuff for picking up recyclable rubbish on the ground - nice
- A ban on styrofoam - I hate this stuff
- Biodiesel-powered amps and lights - biodiesel is debatable but it’s a step in the right direction
- Recycled paper for toilet paper, cups, plates, etc.
- A place to buy green credits to offset driving & flying of the artists and festival supporters
For all the info direct from Perry Ferrel and the Lollapalooza people, check out the Green Lolla part of the Lollapalooza website!
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August 11th, 2008 Frank
The motto for the Beijing Olympics is ‘One World One Dream’, but the Chinese officials in charge of cleaning up Beijing for the eyes of the world clearly didn’t want some things to be part of the ‘One World’ plan. With homes demolished to make way for a cleaner image and ten-foot high walls erected around shanty towns and ugly buildings, clearly some things just aren’t meant for tourist eyes to see.
Check out the clean and green image of the Olympics that cameras are meant to focus on, and not the debilitating poverty that is daily life for too many Chinese:
And in case anyone is wondering: no, I’m not watching the Olympics. I appreciate the effort and skill of all the athletes, but I hardly watched it in the past and the fact that it’s in China makes me want to watch it even less.
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August 8th, 2008 Frank
Just sharing a post from the Daily Green website, they’ve collected what they think are the ten funniest viral (made popular by word-of-mouth) videos with a ‘green’ them. I’ve already seen most of these, and they’re quite good! I’m queueing up the 2 or 3 I haven’t seen already…give them a shot if you have the time. (note, some of these videos drop the f-bomb a bit, they’re noted in the descriptions)
10 Funniest Green Viral Videos - from The Daily Green
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August 4th, 2008 Frank
I was away for a week or so, but I’ve been keeping my ear to the ground, sort of, and catching stories online that are worth talking about.
Rock Port, Missouri is the first town in the United States to be powered completely by wind!
From the article:
The U.S. Department of Energy wants to make wind energy the source of 20 percent of the country’s electricity. Officials admit this could take decades. So how did Rock Port do it? Mayor Helen Jo Stevens says she still wonders “how did this ever happen to a little old town like ours?”
The turbines were the brainchild of resident Eric Chamberlain, who used to work at a mortuary. He says the idea came to him as he was driving to a funeral in northern Iowa. On the way, he passed some wind turbines and thought, “Why can’t we do this? We’ve got wind.” He began researching the technology and eventually started recording wind data.
It’s a nice start, but of course there’s much more to be done to make the US less dependent on coal- and oil-derived power. It is just one town, after all, and there’s so much more of the US to cover.
And there’s not just wind to rely on, either - I’ve checked out a few studies that say a huge array of solar panels the size of some US states could power all of the US, and in-depth articles like this one (from geek site Extreme Tech) about converting a home completely over to solar power encourage others to think about doing the same, either partially or all the way.
Part of the problem right now is that the technology is still new (well, new compared to coal and gas power) so it’s still relatively expensive. A good analogy might be that boiling water over a burning piece of wood is one thing; using the sun’s rays to boil the same amount of water is something else. Even with significant advances in solar tech just in the last year or so (printing solar cells, cheaper production costs through increased manufacture, etc.), there’s still quite a way to go to make it more affordable for the average homeowner.
Here’s hoping more towns work to make up the first wave of energy-independents in the US!
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