Green Dining

Green Holiday Shopping

How to Keep Your Holiday Shopping Eco Friendly

Americans like to shop green. In the 90s, this meant buying Ben & Jerry’s. (Okay it may have meant more, but such as the perspective of a girl who spent graduate school in Vermont.) Now with cars to cleaners to organic meatballs, Madison Avenue is pushing the environment on everyone. And hey, we’re not complaining.

Holiday Shopping Tips: Green Gift Guide

The holidays can be hard on all things green:  from your money to the environment.  This year, give both a break by trimming down your approach to holidays.  Embrace gifts that are low in cost, don’t require excessive shipping, and help preserve both the environment and your cash.

Happy “Hallowgreen”

Green Halloween:  A healthy, green & fun community movement

This Halloween, think treasures, instead of candy. Kids love little trinkets like spinning tops, stickers and collectable cards. Most children especially love gifts from nature like polished rocks, crystals and seashells. Think keepsakes, tokens and stocking-stuffer type gifts but don’t forget to think healthy and green. Although non-food items are generally healthier than food items, try to avoid non-recycled plastic toys.

Readers, Send Us Your Green Halloween Photos!

Did you pass out organic candies or fair trade treats? Design a fresh-from-the-farm jack-o-lantern? Throw an eco-fabulous Halloween party? Enjoy the bloodcurdling benefits of a DIY costume? Prove it! We want to see photos from your green Halloween for our next readers slideshow--if you're the last minute type, check out Planet Green's How to Go Green: Halloween . Click through for details and see the potential for your photo in this week's Readers' International Day of Climate Action Photos.

The Green Halloween Movement

A few years ago, while taking her then six- and two-year-olds out trick or treating, Colwell-Lipson was impressed and inspired by the houses that provided treats like bubbles and stickers as an alternative to candy. She thought it would be great if there was a way -- like a sign -- for parents to know which houses had healthy treats, so they could steer their children accordingly.

Green Home Business

Home Based Green Businesses Are Raking In The Green

All of us have been exposed to the green movement in one form or another, you can’t turn on the TV or radio, can’t open a newspaper or magazine without getting blasted with information about how we need to protect the environment.  I have personally seen the phrase “ Green is the new Black” used at least five hundred times over the past year and although I’m an environmentalist, I could certainly survive without having to hear that little quip once more.

Green Home Business Profitable Start-Ups

Fortunately, savvy entrepreneurs are using their ingenuity along with new technologies and renewable energy sources to recycle, reduce, and reuse waste materials to start profitable ventures. Here are fifteen green home business ideas for you to consider that are potentially-profitable and earth-friendly.

Green Living Made Easy - The Eco-Friendly Lifestyle

Green Redecorating

Green redecorating / remodel on a budget PART1
There is a time in the life of a house when remodeling, or at least redecorating is absolutely necessary: walls thirsty for paint, tired rooms begging to be rejuvenated. In our difficult economic times few people have the resources for such home improvements. However, it is not impossible to redecorate or remodel on a budget while still upholding green standards.

Green redecorating / remodel on a budget PART2
The initial stages of a remodel can be daunting for homeowners, decreasing energy consumption is one of the primary goals of green remodeling. This can be achieved in a myriad small ways begun quite simply by fostering environmentally sound habits: turning off appliances and lights, decreasing use of heating or air-conditioning, etc.

Green Careers: Green Design

Carbon Capture And Storage

Carbon Capture and Sequestration 101
Several recent congressional hearings on the deployment of carbon capture and storage technology require a look at why CCS is necessary and how best to implement it.

Carbon capture and storage: Absolute necessity or crazy scheme?
That said, there is urgency to the task, according Gardiner Hill, head of environmental technology at oil giant BP, which is participating in the CCS project in Algeria. "For every five years of inaction, it requires an extra gigaton of reductions," he said. And that urgency—plus U.S. and global political realities—are pushing even environmentalists to back CCS for coal.

DOE awards $21.6 million for 12 carbon-capture projects
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- The Obama administration on Friday awarded $21.6 million to a dozen companies seeking to capture carbon dioxide emissions from cement plants, chemical plants, oil refineries, paper mills and other industrial sources.

Smart Green Infrastructure: How To Grow Sustainable Cities

Global Climate Week

Notes of Urgency at ‘Climate Week’ Kick-Off
“Remember, we cannot press the undo button if the climate gets out of hand,” said Connie Hedegaard, Denmark’s climate and energy minister, who urged immediate action.

Climate Week Begins, as U.N. Negotiations Near
Starting today, advocates will be staging dozens of events throughout New York City in an attempt to influence the world's government and business leaders, who are converging on Manhattan for a round of United Nations global warming.

Climate Week Opening Ceremony
Hugh Jackman, he of climate change destroying adamantium claws, just kicked off the climate week in New York in an event at the New York Public library with Ban Ki Moon, Tony Blair, and UN Foundation President Tim Wirth, among many others.

Z-Weed

Solar Roads?

Solar Roadways Could Solve The US Energy Crisis
The benefits to their solar powered roadway go beyond the conventional. In addition to generating electricity, the solar road ways, which are crafted of solar cells and glass, contain LEDs that could provide drivers with information similar today’s overhead highway signs as well as melt snow and ice using built-in heating elements.

Solar Roadways Receives DOT Contract
A visionary project, called Solar Roadways, announced that it has been awarded a $100,000 Department of Transportation contract to build a prototype road "paved" with solar panels.

Solar Roadways Site

Alternative Energy Videos

Green Shopping

Part One


Part Two

Back To School...The Green Way!

8 Ways to Green Back to School
Don’t be fooled: Even if Alice Cooper’s “School’s Out” has been playing nonstop lately, the beginning of another school year is quickly approaching.

How to Go Green: Back to School
So, how do you combine school's three R's -- that's readin', writin' and 'rithmetic -- with the planet's three R's of reduce, reuse, and recycle? Here's how to follow up your green summer, full of green barbeques and fun, with a green school year.

Back to School Green Shopping Guide
Today's new green school supplies are high on style and usability, as well as increasingly affordable.

Green Tax Credits

2009 Top Green Tax Credits and Deductions
A tax credit is a one-for-one dollar reduction in your total tax bill. Think of it as the government literally giving you a credit for a particular amount of money off of your tax bill. A tax deduction on the other hand reduces your taxable income. Once you have all of your deductions taken off of your total income, this amount is then the amount of money you will be taxed against. The difference is a large one in that a tax credit is much more beneficial than a deduction, but both are useful in reducing your tax bill.

Green Energy Home and Auto Tax Credits in the 2009 Economic Stimulus Package
As a soon to be home owner, I was surprised at the amount of "green" tax credits available in President Obama's $787 billion economic stimulus package (aka 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act). The $1500 energy efficiency credit has been well publicized, but there are a lot more goodies in there that you could save you a lot of money when it comes to tax returns next year, and reduce your carbon footprint to boot.

GIY: Green It Yourself

How to Make a Non-Toxic Cleaning Kit
Non-toxic cleaning can give you a deep feeling of gratification in knowing that your family’s health is protected, and that your home is a place for your bodies to rest and recuperate rather than promote harm.

Green Homes & Green Solutions For Your House
These articles feature energy saving tips about existing appliances and home systems, explanatory information about Energy Star ratings and unique approaches to gardening and landscaping. Get started by selecting a topic below.

Planet Green - Do It Yourself
Multiple articles on green DIY projects.

Do It Yourself Green Roof
A green roof is a roof that is covered with vegetation. Very popular in Europe, they are an excellent and economic way to reduce energy costs, insulate during the winter, and cool during the summer. Aside from receiving special tax benefits, green roofs can save the home-owner a ton of money throughout their lifetimes, sometimes up to 50% of what they would otherwise spend on energy and insulation.

Alternative Energy

Scavenging Energy from Evaporation
According to NewScientist: “The researchers added metal plates to the walls of the central stem and connected them to a circuit. The charged plates and the water within the stem create a sandwich of two conducting layers separated by an insulating layer – in effect, a capacitor.”

Future Uses of Solar Energy
According to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy arm, there will be more breakthroughs in new materials, cell designs, and novel approaches to product development in photovoltaic research and development. Future uses of solar energy could include our mode of transportation and even clothing, which will be equipped to produce clean, safe electric power.

Ambitious green targets boost renewable energy
Fund managers say this increased commitment, together with a similar focus from the US, plus stronger moves towards clean energy from China, is welcome news for an industry that has been slow to take off – and has suffered more than others in the recent downturn.

Green Products

Prepara sprouts dirt-free garden
Thankfully, there is hope for busy and forgetful people like me. The Prepara Power Plant doesn't require any soil, planting, or high maintenance. Herbs, small vegetables, fruits, and salad greens grow quickly, as the container provides the seeds with the right amount of nutrients and water.

"Green" Back to School Supplies
As July comes to a close it's time for stores to roll out "back to school" sales. This year when you're filling your cart with supplies take some time to look around at some of the greener products out there.

Supermarket small steps: new eco-friendly household products
Steep prices for natural, organic household products are fortunately becoming a thing of the past with the entry of new products on supermarket and drugstore shelves. While it’s important to support the smaller companies who have been taking environmental initiatives since well before consumers demanded it, sometimes we just have to listen to our wallets and shop the big box retailers who are staying competitive with shoppers’ green expectations.

Green Jobs

greenjobs
Bringing recruiters and job seekers together in the renewable engery industries

What is a green job? And how do I get one?
Maryland’s Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation (DLLR) defines green jobs as, “those that will support Maryland's growing green economy.” That isn’t especially helpful. You have to push a bit further to learn that green jobs are found in organizations focused on energy efficiency and conservation, alternative and renewable energy production, waste management administration, and environmental stewardship and service.

White House Projects Gains in Health, 'Green' Jobs
President Obama's economic team released an upbeat employment forecast yesterday that predicted robust jobs growth in the health-care and clean-energy sectors, and a recovery in manufacturing positions over the next decade.