Green Daily

I knew that Brazil was big, but I didn't know until recently that it harbors almost 14% of the planet's fresh water.

Actually, it might not be quite appropriate to call it "fresh," since so much of it is threatened by land degradation, soil runoff and heavy agricultural land use.

That's why WWF-Brazil is applying pressure on Brazilians and the Brazilian government to protect water sources like springs. While Brazil's springs are already classified as Permanent Protection Areas or PPA's, they have been under increasing environmental stress.

WWF hopes that grass roots "adoption" measures will return springs to health; the idea behind the adoption is that communities take responsibility for their own local water sources.

A model draft bill detailing the action is up on the web if you'd like to explore further. Unfortunately for many of us, it's written in Portuguese.

Money offers an interesting conundrum for recyclephiles because it's already reused and exchanged. In fact, that's it's function. Hmm.

So I pose this question to all you philosophers: is re-purposing quarters better for the environment than just using quarters as, well, plain old quarters?

I really don't know the answer. But take a look at these interesting chairs made of coinage.

And while you're at it, there's a completely gorgeous origami koi fish made out of dollar bill out there. I just wish I knew how to replicate the folds. Oh, well.

A week ago, I posted about sunscreens and noted that California Baby sunscreen came highly recommended. This week, I wanted to tell you a little more about the entire California Baby body-care line, which I love.

California Baby was started by Los Angeles resident Jessica Iclisoy, who, back in 1991, was raising newborns. She was also having difficulty finding bath/diaper products for them that contained organic, non-synthetic ingredients. Lucky for us, the entrepreneurial spirit drove her to make some of her own.

Today, Iclisoy's line is in health food stores across the country. And even though it's "supposed" to be for babies...who cares?! Try anything of hers, even if you're 102.

Today, Bjork's new 3-D "Wanderlust" video is being released on DVD. Ordinarily, this wouldn't merit mention on an eco website, but her video happens to feature seven minutes worth of (most unusual) animated nature scenes, including a prominent display of water buffalo. (No, it's not your average MTV jam, is it?)

The video was created over the course of 9 months by San Francisco-based company Encyclopedia Pictura. As a New York Times video interview gaily informs viewers, some of the boys over there derived inspiration for it by heading out to the woods hopped up on psychedelic substances. Artists do it so you don't have to:

There's a helpful post on sunscreens up at Enviroblog; contributor Jovana Ruzicic points to a guide to using sunscreens created by the Environmental Working Group. In case you were wondering, California Baby brand stands out as a winner. Kiss My Face, too.

Jovana goes on to mention a chemical called oxybenzone, which, a new study finds, contaminates nearly all Americans. According to the post, it's a synthetic sunscreen ingredient linked to, "allergies, hormone disruption, and cell damage." (Hmmm. Sounds like oxybenzone might protect you from the sun, but still kill you dead.)

Jovana also calls out the FDA on it's lax application and creation of standards for sunscreen chemicals and use.

So wear a hat. Problem solved (temporarily)!

It's okay -- we all grab disposable utensils on the run. But some throwaways are greener than others.

If you own a business or host lots of summer BBQs, you might benefit from knowing about Jaya fork/knife/spoon combo packs, which come in a 250-count case. They're non-toxic, biodegradable and compostable. Pretty cool! How often can you throw a plastic-y fork in the heap with your melon rinds?

Bamboo tableware is also worth checking out. It's not only completely green (compostable, biodegradable, etc.), but also sleek, reusable and antibacterial.

Bonus: lowimpactliving.com offers more than one option for biodegradable plates, so you can have the most eco-fabulous picnic this world has ever known.

Or try a rice design plate!

You know how your pleasure center totally lights up/explodes/jumps around when you dive into a bag of SunChips? Well, the sensation is about to get even more intense.

That's because 75% of the energy used to make the chips will soon be produced by a 10-acre solar-collector "farm" in Modesto, California.

The Frito-Lay division of PepsiCo will start churning out the super-sunny SunChips on April 22 -- that's Earth day, everybody!

Brainwashing of the American population will commence even earlier, on April 4:

The commercials in the [SunChips] campaign, which are to start appearing on April 4, feature girls and women frolicking in the sun as an announcer invites viewers to "imagine capturing the sun's power and making chips with it." The spots end with the words "SunChips, now made with solar energy," and the brand's theme, "Live brightly."

I know that I would live even more brightly if SunChips were made with organic grains. How about you?

With all Green Daily's talk about furniture a few weeks ago, I began to consider what inhabits my room. Nothing made of foam...except pillows. Toxic city, probably.

So I sought some good alternatives through PureRest.com (though there are organic bedding sites and stores, galore).

My dream pillow is the organic cotton-fill standard. I've tried these over at Whole Foods, and they're really quite dense, which I like. What I don't like is how expensive they are: around $60 a pop.

The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain. And sometimes it's windy there, too.

So says MetaEfficient, which reported that, for a brief time last Saturday, wind-generated power accounted for 40 percent of all electricity being used in the country. In fact, strong breezes were intercepted by land-based wind farms all weekend.

Spain hopes to triple the power it reaps from renewable energy sources such as wind by 2020.

In service of that goal, the government approved plans for the construction of wind "parks" along the nation's coastline last summer.

Environmentalism can have a spiritual bent, as an article in May's Yoga Journal attests.

"Inspired Refashionistas" drops concepts like aparigraha (greedlessness) and ahimsa (nonharming) within the greater context of a discussion about talented young designers -- and yogis -- who "repurpose" fabrics and other materials.

So detailed were his musings about blooms that scientists have been using Henry David Thoreau's journals to track global warming, and its effect on spring's arrival.

In conjunction, they've also been referring to a Lowell, Mass. photo from May of 1868. It shows a cemetery filled with barren branches, spring having not yet sprung that year.

When Wal-Mart refers to a new store it's opening in Las Vegas as being modeled after an HE. 5 prototype, we can truly be assured of the sophistication of our civilization.

In case you were wondering, the computer-age term refers to a design method that emphasizes integration between energy consumption and the environmental particulars of the Western U.S. (read: dry, desert-like conditions).

According to Wal-Mart's press release, the new HE. 5 store, which opens tomorrow, will feature, "advancements in heating, cooling, refrigeration and lighting to conserve energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions."

The green technology Wal-Mart proudly highlights is a temperature-control system that pumps water through roof-mounted cooling towers. In lieu of traditional air conditioning, it runs the roof-chilled water back underneath the retail floor.

According to the AP, the store will also incorporate, "innovations from the previous pilot stores that include recycling heat from refrigerators and combining low-power LED lights in freezer cases with sensors that turn off those lights when no customers are around."

Wal-Mart also added that the new HE. 5 store will use up to 45 percent less energy, "than the baseline Supercenter," which appears to mean it's gonna be totally, totally rockstar awesome.

Last week at SXSW, activist site worldwithoutoil.org won top honors, along with a dozen or so others.

The premise of the site is a little complicated, which is why there's an entire FAQ page dedicated to explaining it. Luckily, that page is easy to navigate. And here's what I learned: World Without Oil is a game of "What if?" More specifically, "What if an oil crisis began on April 30, 2007?"

You and I know there was no "real" oil crisis in 2007, which is what makes World Without Oil an alternate reality game, or ARG. ARG's are created not so much for entertainment purposes as for educational ones. According to Wikipedia, an ARG:

...is an interactive narrative that uses the real world as a platform, often involving multiple media and game elements, to tell a story that may be affected by participants' ideas or actions. ARGs are typified by intense player involvement with a story that takes place in real time and evolves according to participants' responses, and with characters that are actively controlled by the game's designers. ARGs generally rely on the Internet as the central binding medium.

See, I told you it was complicated!

In the case of World Without Oil, which launched on April 30, 2007, players contributed over 1,500 stories in the form of blog posts, videos, photos and voicemails. Each story documented an (imagined) element or impact of 2007's oil crisis.

You can see how it all worked by navigating week 1, and move forward from there.

FYI, the game concluded on June 1, 2007. It ran for 33 days.

I went to Alaska for the first time last summer. I surprised myself, since I had always thought it was the kind of place you went after you turned 65 to gaze at fjords from the comfort of a vast boat.

And while the scenery did turn out to be remarkable (all encountered on foot, by the way), the fish was no less so. Best. Salmon. Ever.

Which is why I'm grieved to tell you that Chinook salmon (also known as king salmon) wont be commercially available until the Alaskan fishing season opens in July, and, when it does, the fish will be very expensive.

That's because Chinook salmon are usually fished up and down the Pacific coast beginning in May. But this year, the entire population seems to have disappeared without a trace.

No one is quite sure of the cause, perhaps because a variety of causes is the cause: mismanagement of the Sacramento River is one. Climate change and related change in ocean current is another. As a much-passed-around New York Times article indicates, the question is still up in the air. Or under the sea, if you will.

The U.S. currently has over 200,000 cell phone towers that sap the power grid -- they use roughly four to eight times the electricity of the average household.

David Twiddy of the AP reports that companies are now experimenting with towers powered by wind turbines, solar panels and hydrogen.

But he also concedes that the push towards green hasn't been tremendous, mostly because wireless users haven't been demanding it. Note the tentative language of one cellular executive:

Miles Schreiner, director of national operations planning for T-Mobile USA, a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom AG, said his company last year began using a small number of hydrogen fuel cells in the Northeast "mainly to kick the tires and see how it does."

Green Daily will keep you posted on developments.