Green Daily

Would Obama's "Buy American" Push Kill Clean Energy?

Shawn Schuster — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 12:02:00 EST

Filed under: Polit-eco, Alternative Energy

On Wednesday, a controversial "Buy American" clause was diluted by the Senate, after being under consideration for inclusion in President Barack Obama's economic stimulus package. This clause would require public works projects to use only American-made materials in order to receive funds from this stimulus package. As "stimulating" as that may sound to the US economy, the fact is that it would be a pipe dream to assume that many things could be made with only American-made materials.

One perfect example of this is the alternative-fuel choices that use imported batteries, photovoltaics and other components manufactured outside of the country. While it may not put a halt to the production of these products, it would certainly slow down the process. On top of that, it could incite a trade war of sorts, diminishing the international trade reputation of the United States. However, we may just be in the situation now to use this stimulus funding to rebuild the country into a green technology giant.

"There are widespread expectations that Mr. Obama's stimulus plan will transform the United States into the world's largest growth market for green technologies." The New York Times states. "It promises $150 billion over a decade to create five million jobs and update energy infrastructure. But few believe the United States can reach those goals alone."

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Michigan Outlines Aggressive Energy Plan

Shawn Schuster — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 15:30:00 EST

Filed under: Polit-eco, Activism, Alternative Energy

It appears Michigan's governor Jennifer Granholm (D) is pulling no punches when it comes to environmental issues. She has already done so much for the cause, and plans to expand upon it, according to her State of the State address last night.

In addition to the backing of an energy efficiency effort that has already saved the state $60 million, she announced a goal of weatherizing more than 100,000 homes and placing renewable energy technology in another 1,000 buildings. A new program, entitled Michigan Saves, will work together with utility companies to cover the costs of these improvements. The reasons for this attention to energy efficiency has a deeper purpose than simple money savings; Granholm states that all of these changes will contribute to a better alternative of coal-fired power plants in Michigan.

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Did Peanut Production Plant Know About the Salmonella?

Shawn Schuster — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 12:02:00 EST

Filed under: Food, Health

Last week's news of another salmonella outbreak in peanut products has us all on edge a bit about the popular food, but now we get word that inspectors actually knew about the contamination beforehand. According to a report in the Washington Post, the Georgia plant from which the contaminated peanut butter originated has knowingly shipped tainted product 12 times in the last two years.

How can something like this happen? It's obviously not carelessness, since the Peanut Corporation of America tests their products before they're distributed, but the kicker here is the fact that they aren't mandated to share those test results with state or federal regulators. I smell a costly cover-up.

[Via SuperEco]

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Obama Halts Bush's Eco-Unfriendly Rules

Shawn Schuster — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 15:37:00 EST

Filed under: Polit-eco, Climate Change

After hearing news of former US president G.W. Bush's midnight mayhem before leaving office, many of us became a bit worried about how his last-minute regulations would affect environmental policy. Some of these include Uranium mining permits near the Grand Canyon, more logging opened in Oregon and new rules for genetically engineered plants, milk and meat.

Well fret no more, as it turns out newly-appointed president Barack Obama has come to the rescue by halting all new and pending regulations thrown in at the last minute by Bush. In Obama's own words, he insisted that "no proposed or final regulation should be sent to the Office of Federal Register for publication unless and until it has been reviewed and approved by a department or agency head appointed or designated by the President after noon on Jan. 20, 2009." The worrisome part comes when we'll discover which of these rules made it in just before the inauguration.

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Now is the Time to Buy Your Backyard Chickens

Shawn Schuster — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 15:02:00 EST

Filed under: Health, Home

For anyone thinking about raising chickens for the first time this year, now is the time to start your orders and look for deals. For the largest mail-order companies like McMurray Hatchery, their hatching season starts in January and February, and they begin their first shipments of day-old chicks around the second or third week of January. Depending on your climate and the set-up you have for your chickens, this the best time to start raising them for the best productivity throughout the year.

Wait, they ship live baby chicks in the mail?! Yes, and its been working for them for 94 years so far. You can head on over to their website or sign up for their free catalog for complete information on the ordering process. Also, be sure to check out Green Daily's Suburban Farmer series on raising chickens in a suburban setting.

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How to Green-up Your Significant Other

Shawn Schuster — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 14:24:00 EST

Filed under: Home, Activism

To help kick off the brand new Supereco.com, their writers have been posting some great articles on making a greener difference. Two such articles refer to the three best ways to green up your man, or your woman.

In the 'man' article, we're told that the best way to rid men of their eco-nightmare chemicals, cleaners and paints is through positive reinforcement. Translation: don't nag him. In the 'woman' article, the focus is on what not to give, in regards to material items. Services are the key here, as simply giving her your time, adoration or devoted hard work could go much further. Check out both articles and help welcome Supereco.com to the green flock!

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Gray Wolves Taken off Endangered List... Again

Shawn Schuster — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 12:01:00 EST

Filed under: Plants and Wildlife

The Bush administration has just announced that Gray Wolves in Idaho, Michigan, Wisconsin, Montana and Minnesota will be removed from the endangered species list. This is great news, right? Well, notsomuch, depending on how you look at it.

In 2007, the Gray Wolf was removed from the endangered list as well, only to re-appear in July of last year. This is an ongoing yo-yo effect which has lasted for decades and is causing concern in the animal rights and nature conservation community. The removal of 'protected' status means bad news for any species on the brink of extinction, and some environmentalists expect Obama to reinstate the endagered status once he takes office. If not, they promise to sue, claiming a wolf population that can easily be proven too small to be considered safe.

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Methane Discovered on Mars Could Aid Global Warming Problems on Earth

Shawn Schuster — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 10:04:00 EST

Filed under: Alternative Energy, Climate Change

NASA has just announced that a 2003 discovery of gas being released from Mars is definitively methane gas. Luckily for the Martians, the atmosphere of Mars prevents a build-up of the gas, otherwise they could quickly face their own global warming problems. Yet, what's interesting is the fact that there are essentially two sources for methane: biological or geological means.

This means that it is still very possible for life to exist on the red planet, even in a microscopic capacity, miles beneath the permafrost layers. This also gives hope to scientists for the research of not only the creation and destruction of methane gas on Mars, but also how it could potentially be applied to our own uses here on Earth. Methane gas is the main component of natural gas, which is used for fuel. Alternatively, it is also a greenhouse gas that is 25 times more powerful than CO2, and blamed for much of our planet's global warming problems. Let's hope this discovery on Mars can only mean good things for us and our planet.

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Tesla to Offer Faster, More Expensive Roadster Sport

Shawn Schuster — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 19:02:00 EST

Filed under: Cars and Transportation, Gadgets and Tech, Alternative Energy

Announced Sunday during the Detroit Auto Show, electric car manufacturer Tesla will be offering a high-performance version of their current luxury Roadster model. The Roadster Sport boasts higher peak torque which makes for a faster ride, but is it worth the $128,500 price tag?

Curiously enough, Tesla's cheaper Model S was recently put on the back burner. Was it for this faster, more luxurious model? It seems that way, but when will Tesla make their projected 'electric cars for the masses' they've envisioned? Tesla's CEO Elon Musk insists that the way into the electric vehicle market is through luxury car sales, which will eventually lead to financing for the lower-priced models. Whether this business plan will be successful or not, we have yet to see.

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Dumpster Diver Awarded Scholarship to Oxford

Shawn Schuster — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 16:33:00 EST

Filed under: Food, Activism

Becoming a Freegan, or Dumpster Diver, can be daunting at first. Rifling though another's trash for perfectly usable items - including food - goes against most of our developed standards. Yet Alex Barnard is aiming to change all of that.

As a Princeton University senior, Bernard has focused his academic research on Dumpster Diving, which has awarded him the 2009 Daniel M. Sachs Class of 1960 Graduating Scholarship. He plans to use this award to pursue a Master's Degree at the University of Oxford. Does he do it for the free stuff? Is he literally just another starving student? That's not really his point. Bernard believes that Freeganism is a movement to boycott the greed and profit of our Western economic system. "If you have a problem with consumer culture in American society, do all you can to stop participating in the system," he says.

While this topic of Freeganism has been discussed here at Green Daily before, I'm curious of your take on Bernard's research. Let us know in the comments below.

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CES has Gone Greener for 2009

Shawn Schuster — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 10:03:00 EST

Filed under: Gadgets and Tech, Alternative Energy

Last year's CES saw the introduction of a new "green" awareness for the consumer electronics convention, showcasing more energy-efficient and off-grid gadgets for the environmentally aware. This year, they're taking it a few steps further.

The newly-dubbed Greener Gadgets Tech Zone area of the Las Vegas convention has grown from a 520 square feet section to more than 3,000 square feet this year. This is in addition to a new program where they aim to reduce the creation of carbon emissions, rather than simply purchase carbon offset points as they did last year. Big-name consumer electronics manufacturers like Toshiba, Sony, Samsung, Panasonic and HP are all expected to announce exciting environmental news this year, from now through Sunday. Check out the CES main website for more details.

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PETA Names Veggie-friendly Fable 2 as the Game of the Year

Shawn Schuster — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 18:02:00 EST

Filed under: Health, Kids and Parenting

If you or your children are gamers, you may already be familiar with Fable 2 from Microsoft's Lionhead Studios. The game is set in an open-ended, consequence-based fantasy universe and is available only on the Xbox 360. According to PETA, it is also a vegetarian's dream come true.

In their 2008 year-end awards, PETA awarded Fable 2 their prestigious Game of the Year honors, citing pro-vegetarian themes that teach gamers the real-life benefit of a vegetarian diet. Apparently, in the game your character can eat a plant-based diet to rack up "purity points", whereas eating meat will make your character fat and evil. PETA is certainly no stranger to gaming as they've recently caused a stir with their Cooking Mama: Mama Kills Animals Flash game, poking fun at the Nintendo game Cooking Mama which uses predominantly meat-based recipes.

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Run Your Honda Accord on Trash

Shawn Schuster — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 13:04:00 EST

Filed under: Cars and Transportation, Gadgets and Tech, Alternative Energy

If you've watched the end of the original Back to the Future lately and wondered why we haven't developed a garbage-consuming fuel system for our cars yet, then your wait is over. Kinda. Over at instructables.com, a few enterprising young DIYers have created an easy kit and how-to (or instructable) on converting a Honda Accord to run on trash.

Sure it may not be the most practical thing for the tool-impaired, but it's just inspirational to see these guys build this 'gasifier' to run their car much like people did during WWII when fuel was rationed. This guide goes through every step, including the all-important safety precautions, and even provides a video of the finished product to see the car driving down the road, burning trash. You can also check out their website for more information on their Gasifier Experimenter's Kit (GEK).

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The 10 Most Important Cleantech Victories of 2008

Shawn Schuster — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 13:06:00 EST

Filed under: Gadgets and Tech, Alternative Energy

There's no doubt that 2008 has been a significant year for clean fuel technologies. The positive progress being made is very promising, but actually sitting down to figure out the best of the Cleantech victories for 2008 is where things get tricky.

Luckily, Earth2Tech has done the dirty work for us. Their 10 Biggest Cleantech Victories of 2008 article highlights everything from the most obvious to the stories we may have forgotten over the year. Without offering too many spoilers, you can probably guess the importance solar power's popularity plays on this list. Check out the entire top ten article and let us know what you think of your own top ten list in the comments below.

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Exxon to Spend $170M on Improving Their Carbon Footprint

Shawn Schuster — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 11:03:00 EST

Filed under: Activism, Climate Change

While they may not have the best track record when it comes to environmental issues, ExxonMobil is looking to change that with a $170 million investment in carbon storage technology.

The first $70 million of that will go towards a capture and storage project for 6 million metric tons of carbon emissions annually from its natural gas plant in La Barge, WY. The other $100 million will be invested in a technology that will strip carbon out of natural gas; a goal they hope to achieve by 2010. While $170 million is a drop in the bucket for an oil company that has reported record profits for 2008, it's certainly a step in the right direction, especially considering their recent environmental stances.

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Dell to Reduce Packaging Waste by 10 Percent

Shawn Schuster — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 09:05:00 EST

Filed under: Gadgets and Tech

Computer hardware manufacturer Dell recently announced their plans to reduce packaging materials worldwide through intensive recycling and sustainability programs. They've estimated that these measures will avoid 20 million pounds of desktop and laptop packaging within the next four years, saving the company $8.1 million. They also believe that these steps will help preserve more than 150,000 trees in the process.

How will they do this? Primarily, they're looking to recycle a material known as High-Density Polyethylene (HDPE) for their thermal-formed packaging cushions. This material most-frequently comes from milk jugs and laundry detergent bottles, as the company aims to integrate nearly two million of these into their new Studio Hybrid system over the next year.

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Obama Still Pledging Green Jobs to Help Ailing Economy

Shawn Schuster — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 17:02:00 EST

Filed under: Polit-eco, Climate Change

As anyone reading this knows, the economy is not in the greatest of conditions right now. There's a good chance that the majority of you at least know someone affected by a job loss somewhere. This has been one of Barack Obama's main campaign promises, as noted in a recent address last week where he pledged an Economic Recovery Plan that will create 2.5 million new jobs for Americans by January 2011.

This is certainly a positive step in the right direction, no doubt, but what may end up being an even more important addition to this proposal is if many of these jobs end up being green jobs. He's already said that his presidency "will mark a new chapter in America's leadership on climate change that will strengthen our security and create millions of new jobs in the process." We can only hope that he has some ideas to incorporate his climate change tactics with his job creation tactics, to ultimately restructure this country's job force and look to the future of technology and environmentalism.

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Video Game Consoles Waste $1 Billion in Energy a Year

Shawn Schuster — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 12:03:00 EST

Filed under: Gadgets and Tech, Home

As video game consoles get more advanced, their power consumption increases. This evolution of entertainment has led to an estimated 16 billion kilowatt-hours of energy consumption a year from the more than 40 percent of homes in the United States that own at least one of these consoles. This is roughly equal to the annual electricity use of San Diego.

In a recent report by the Natural Resources Defense Council, better power management for these consoles could result in a savings of around 11 billion kilowatt-hours per year. This in turn would cut more than 7 million tons of C02 annually. The NRDC goes on to compare the exact usage of each console, among Microsoft's Xbox 360, Sony's Playstation 3 and Nintendo's Wii. You may be surprised to find out which consoles use the most energy, and why.

Continue reading Video Game Consoles Waste $1 Billion in Energy a Year

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Green Daily's exclusive interview with Captain Paul Watson of Whale Wars

Shawn Schuster — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 09:00:00 EST

Filed under: Celebrities, Movies, TV and Books, Activism, Plants and Wildlife

In the on-going fight against illegal whale hunting, one man stands out as the most prominent activist for the cause: Captain Paul Watson. Marine Wildlife Conservationist, Environmentalist, Greenpeace co-founder, Author and Writer, Watson and his non-profit Sea Shepherd Conservation Society have actively been fighting the illegal practices of whale hunting for over 30 years now.

In a new seven-part series on Animal Planet entitled Whale Wars, Captain Watson and his crew draw attention to the real danger and drama that can occur when battling illegal whaling in oceanic territories. This series kicked off last Friday, November 7th at 9pm EST on Animal Planet, and aims to deliver a real insight into the everyday lives of those fighting for the lives of endangered marine life.

Green Daily was able to catch up with Paul for an exclusive interview regarding Whale Wars, and a bit more background into his organization. In the interview, Paul explains more about the show, the bad blood between his organization and Greenpeace, and how Sea Shepherd has managed to maintain a spotless no-injury/no-conviction record for the 31 years they've been participating in their high-risk activism. Follow along through the link below for the full interview.

Whale Wars: The Paul Watson interview>>

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Whale Wars: The Paul Watson interview

Shawn Schuster — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 09:00:00 EST

Green Daily: Thank you for this opportunity, it's an honor to speak with you. With the recent debut of Whale Wars on Animal Planet, many of our readers may have had a chance to get a taste of what it is you do, and what we can look forward to in future episodes of the show. Can you tell us a bit about your take on the show?

Captain Watson: Well sure. What Whale Wars does is give millions of people the opportunity to come with us to one of the most hostile and remote areas in the planet, and see what we do to protect whales. For the most part, whaling is out of sight, out of mind. Many people aren't even aware that it's still going on. So I think that's the most important thing, the educational value of this to make people aware and also to show that something's being done about it.

"I don't like protesting, it's such a submissive sort of thing, you know? It's like please, please, please don't kill the whales, but of course they do it anyway"

Tell us a bit about how Animal Planet got involved with this.

A couple of years ago we were looking at the idea of this type of show, and we actually went around to a few different networks about it, and Animal Planet was the one that was interested. My idea was that Discovery has Deadliest Catch, where it's really a bunch of guys in boats in very rough waters catching crabs. So I said, well, we can give you men and women in boats in very, very rough waters, saving whales. Then there's the added bonus of icebergs and penguins and confrontations.

Tell us a bit about how you got started in all of this, especially with your organization, Sea Shepherd.

Oh, that goes way back. I actually started when I was 10 years old, protecting beavers in eastern Canada, sabotaging trap lines and releasing beavers from traps. Then I was the youngest founding member of Greenpeace at 18 years old. I left Greenpeace in 1977 to establish Sea Shepherd because I wanted an organization that would intervene against illegal activities. I don't like protesting, it's such a submissive sort of thing, you know? It's like please, please, please don't kill the whales, but of course they do it anyway. So that's why I set up Sea Shepherd as a unique organization, because we're not a protest organization, we intervene. We use the United Nations World Charter for nature as our guideline, because it allows non-government organizations to uphold international conservation law.

In the first episode of Whale Wars, we got to see some "bad blood" between you and Greenpeace. Would you like to talk at all about that?

Greenpeace has been going down there, and we've been going down there, and we've been trying to cooperate with them for years. In fact we do cooperate with them, as everytime we find a whaling fleet, we give Greenpeace the coordinates so that they can find them too. But they won't reciprocate, they won't return the favor. They're constantly denouncing us for our tactics, even though we've never injured anybody, or been convicted of a crime.

Now, I'm actually really upset with Greenpeace, because this year they've been raising money for ten months and millions of dollars to go down and protect whales again, and then two weeks before the Japanese fleet departs, they announced they're not going down again. It also coincided with Japan announcing that they're sending a gunboat down this year, so I think they got scared off. But if you're going to collect money to save whales, then you should do it. When I say we're going to go out and save whales, this isn't a slogan for us; we mean it.

What can we expect in the future of Whale Wars?

Well first of all, I should say that the campaign was an incredible success. Out of the quota of 50 Humpbacks, they took zero. Out of the quota of Fin Whales, they took zero, and their quote of 935 Minki Whales, they took only about half. So we cost them about $70 million, and they only got about half of their quota from the year before. We hit them pretty hard, and if we keep this sort of pressure on them, I'm pretty sure we can shut them down.

We have to develop tactics that aren't going to injure anybody, but at the same time are imaginative and humorous. So that's why we launch what I call the first non-toxic, organic, bio-degradable form of chemical warfare ever when we attack them with rotten butter and methyl cellulose, which are both food-grade products, although butyric acid stinks like you wouldn't believe. But the whole objective was to make the ship so stinky and so slippery that nobody could work on them.

Then also to draw attention, and put the Japanese on the spot, on the day that the Australian Federal Court ordered the Japanese to not kill whales in the Australian Antarctic territory -- when they went ahead and did anyway -- we boarded one of the harpoon boats, I put two people on board knowing exactly what the Japanese would do, and they held them for three days. That allowed us to break into the Japanese media, which hadn't been done before. They actually sent me a ransom note, saying, "Look, we'll release your people, but you have to do this, this and this, " which gave me an incredible opening to say that I don't do business with terrorists.

Anyway, what happened was the Australian government was forced to intervene, because I knew that there was no way that the Australian government was going to allow the Japanese to pick up an Australian citizen in the Australian Antarctic territory and bring them back to Japan under arrest. So they had to intervene, they did, and my guys were released.

What we kept doing after that was chasing them. We chased them for 21,000 miles over that period of time, and they kept moving and moving. The thing is, while we're chasing them, they can't whale. One of the things I always say is since I left Greenpeace in 1977, I haven't seen a whale die. When we show up, the killing stops.

One of the criticisms that I always found kind of amusing is when people say that Greenpeace has all this incredible footage of whales being killed, and you don't have any. I say, "Yeah, we don't make snuff flicks. We're there to save whales, not to film them dying."

"When I say we're going to go out and save whales, this isn't a slogan for us; we mean it. "

In closing, was there anything else you wanted to add about Whale Wars, or Sea Shepherd in general?

Over the weekend, we got about 80% positive comments and about 20% negative. Most of the negative ones were the usual: people don't like what we do or how we do it. But one of the things that people did point out was why we have such an inexperienced crew, and there's good reason for that. We give people the opportunity to get involved and to learn. Also, the kind of passion that these people have is not the kind of passion I'm going to get out of professional sailors. These are people who really want to save whales, and they learned as they go along. People say this is irresponsible or people get hurt, but the fact is that our record speaks for itself. In 31 years, we've never had any serious injuries, and we've never injured anybody.

In the part where the boat was overturned and they say people could have died, you know, we were prepared for that because every one of those people was wearing a wetsuit under a Mustang survival suit, so they were good in that water for 20 minutes, anyway.

Thank you so much for your time, we appreciate the interview and everything you're doing.

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