Not Dead

Just wanted to stop by the ol' blog and let everyone know I am still among the living. The MBA program has been very time consuming this semester and will continue to be so for the next month.

While I am not reading as much on green, I am still trying to live it as much as possible. A few updates:

1. I am still incessantly bugging my co-workers to recycle, turn computers off at end of day, and reduce their paper use. I can't directly quantify it but it does seem there has been slight improvement by most of them, although a few are still waste tornadoes who leave a trail of trashed recyclables and wasted resources in their wake.

2. I have greened my house a bit more. I now have every electronic gadget on power strips which I turn off when not in use.

3. I made my first green investment. I purchased 183 shares of General Electric stock, largely because the share price was so low but also because of GE's commitment to green technology.

4. I have not forgotten about my pledge to go before the Hattiesburg city council and argue for the implementation of a glass recycling program. I will find the time to do it this summer.

5. Finally, all of this greenius activity was completely negated when I flew to Chicago last week. Doh!

Are the Grammy's Green?

If any of you are like me and watched the Grammy's last night, you may be wondering where did all of the energy come from to produce all of that glitz and glam, and no I'm not talking about Neil Diamond's jacket?

By doing a quick search I was able to dig up this press release from the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). It appears, at least from this statement, that the Recording Academy made a concerted effort to make the show as green as possible.

Here are a few highlights of the actions taken:

• Renewable energy used to power STAPLES Center and Los Angeles Convention Center
• Renewable energy credits purchased by Bonneville Environmental Foundation to offset carbon emissions from the Pre-Telecast and Arrivals
• Organic and environmentally-friendly food (including seafood, dairy, and produce) featured at GRAMMY Celebration after-party
• Un-used food donated by Wolfgang Puck to Angel Harvest

There are plenty more items listed in the press release but I am glad to see an effort was made.

Oh and by the way there were some stellar performances last night including Neil Diamond bringing down the house with "Sweet Caroline". M.I.A. performing despite being 9 months pregnant. Then there was this gem from one of my all time favorites Radiohead with the USC marching band.

Getting Fat Off The Land

This post it a bit of a follow up to my New Year's Anti-Resolution. First let me begin by saying that I am a follower of the Dude philosophy. I can sit on my ass, take elevators up one floor, and eat fast food with the best of them.  I know these things are bad for me, but I continue to do them. With all this green on the brain, I've had a bit of a personal revelation. It has really sunk in that not only are these lazy habits bad for me, but they are bad for the environment. 

Our society has recoded the word "lazy" into the more palatable word "convenient."  It is not that I am lazy that makes me drive five minutes to a store two blocks away rather than walk, it is that it is more convenient.  We rationalize such behavior by arguing that we are just too busy to do things the slower way.  Meanwhile we waste our precious and limited time by watching an average of 4 hours of television per day. All the while we are getting more Jabba the Hut like, creating more waste, and depleting the earth's natural resources. Burning dirty fossil fuels to power our elevators, escalators, and moving sidewalks.  This realization and addition to my personal shame has truly motivated me to stop being so convenient. I just hope it sticks.

In closing, economists should coin a new industry term; the Lazy Industry. This would include elevators going into 5 story buildings, moving sidewalks, escalators, fast food restaurants, and cities that build endless stretches of highway while being completely devoid of bike routes. What else should be included in the Lazy Industry?

Note: Most of the pictures above came from public Flickr accounts, but I was too lazy to write down the creators' names. Please email us if you want them removed.

Was the Grinch the first Green Santa Claus?

I guess literally and metaphorically, he was. He took the gifts and decorations from the whos and thought he would stop Christmas from coming. Didn't matter, they had Christmas without all that. I know my family has tried to buy less "plasticrap" this year, and I think if everyone bought a little less and gave a little more it would be a win for the environment and our finances. And we wouldn't have to cancel Christmas.

Check this out for 20 ways to wrap your presents without waste. My personal favorite is the present inside of a sock. I'm a little unsure about the aluminum foil, but perhaps it's been used and washed and saved from the trash. I'm assuming there are already many people on the "green Christmas wrapping paper alternative" bandwagon, but if anyone has any ideas I'm sure there's room for some Greeniuses as well. I guarantee that in 5 years wrapping paper as we know it today will be drastically different.

I'd like to weigh in on the age-old green debate on which is better: real Christmas trees or fake Christmas trees. My response is that not having a tree is best. For those of us with wives and or children who must have a tree, I say go with a real tree from a local farm. If not, then you can be like my family and use the same fake tree for 10 years and counting. This is already being done, but I see huge potential in the Christmas tree rental business. They bring a tree in a pot to your house and you hang stuff on it and put your presents beneath it. On January 1 they pick it up and plant it somewhere. Can they make a Prius with a truck body so this part of it is greener?

Ed. Note: This Christmas edition of my green living post was originally entitled "I'm dreaming of a Green Christmas," until I noticed that there were no fewer than 12,400 blog posts or internet pages of the same title.

Ed. Note: This post was typed using ECO Font. Font with microscopic holes in it so that when printed it uses less ink. Please don't print this just to see it, because that would be wasting paper. Great idea though, don't you think?

The Greeniuses Buffet: Now Serving Tasty Green News

We're dishing out links hand-selected by The Greeniuses for your consumption.  Here are the daily specials:

• Green Building:  "First Net Zero Energy Commercial Building in Florida" from MarketWatch
• Green Investments:  "Profits triple at Envrionment & Ecology" from BusinessFirst
• Green Living:  "Downhill trend seen in number of miles driven by Americans" from The Dallas Morning News
• Green Politics:  "Obama Should Implement Carbon Tax" from TreeHugger
• Green Technology:  "Tokyo Station Installs New Floors to Generate Electricity" from GearCrave

Hungry for more?  Click here:  The Greeniuses Buffet

Wait, I'm not Green.

"So, are you like, going green or something?"  That's what I was asked the other day by a friend who was checking out our blog for the first time.  The phrasing of it struck me as funny.  It kind of indicated that she thought of Green as a personal lifestyle choice, like say, becoming a vegetarian.  "So, you're going vegetarian?  Does that mean you have to eat that tofurkey stuff?"  

This lifestyle-type question caught me off-guard, because lately I've been thinking about Green more at the macro-economic level.  More as a gamechanging global initiative.  With Barack Obama, T. Boone Pickens, and many others talking about making huge, wide-ranging, multi-billion-dollar investments in Green-related projects, it's hard not to be fixated on the big stage.

But in focusing so much on the high-level stuff, am I neglecting to face the reality of my not-so-sustainable lifestyle?  Here's a snapshot of my life in terms of my carbon footprint:

1. I live in the Dallas-Ft. Worth metroplex, which is really spread-out and has virtually no mass-transit (all freeways, see photo to the right)
   
2. My wife and I live in a 1720 square foot townhome
3. I drive a Toyota FJ Cruiser that only gets about 18 mpg
   
4. I live about 13 miles from work; I sometimes carpool w/ the wife
5. We buy most of our "stuff" from Wal-Mart, Target, or other importers
   
6. We like to travel a lot

So, I obviously have some work to do if I wanna "go green."  My worst guilty pleasure is my FJ.  It's an "eco-foul" no doubt.  But I love it!  I don't really want to swap it for a Prius, and can't really afford to take the hit on the trade-in value.  But in a place like DFW, I really shouldn't own an SUV.  There are just too many miles to drive, too many gallons of dirty fossil fuels to burn.  But it's an off-roading beast!

Most of you probably have a guilty pleasure or an eco-foul of your own, right?  What is it?  Come on, you can admit it.  Is it your gigantic, oversized suburban home?  Your 45 minute commute each way to work?  Your obsession with turning the A.C. down to 60 degrees the moment you walk into your hotel room?  Swimming pool?  If you're a true red-blooded American, you have something wasteful to share, so let's hear it...

Old School Green

Do you remember those really old grass-cutting contraptions that came before lawn mowers?  Here's a photo of my wife, Mariana, using one (not really, she leaves the lawn chores to yours truly)...

Now you know what I'm talking about.  I bought that bad boy a few months ago to cut my teeny-tiny little backyard (only a couple hundred square feet).  I love it!  No motor, no gas, no grease...no problems.  Plus, it's super-green (no burning fossil fuels, less material required in manufacturing, etc.).  What an elegant solution.

This solution won't work for everyone obviously.  If you live in a traditional home, you probably have a bigger yard than mine, and you're probably not trying to mow it with this thing.  But that brings into question the whole American suburban lifestyle, and I just don't have the energy to tackle that one today...I mowed the lawn earlier.

Does $1/Gallon Gas Cost us More?

Lots of people are speculating about the future price of gas, but like the future price of anything, it is not an exact science. In less than five months, gas has fallen from an average of $4.11/gallon to $1.66/gallon. That is great news for most Americans as a $20 bill can almost fill up your tank again, but is it also a sign of a weak economy? Will low gas prices cause people to stop buying fuel efficient cars? Some have suggested a gas floor imposed by taxes. This money could be used to fund investments in alternative energy. I know that I am breathing easier with under $2 gas, but I am also wary of the future. Your thoughts?

Two of The Greeniuses contributors, including myself, "growed up" in Polk City, FL, a town of little more than a thousand people.


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I have never considered the city management to be conservation minded, but I may have to change my opinion after reading this article. In an effort to encourage water conservation, they are setting up a tiered rate system to reward those who use less water. I know I am always saying this, but people respond to conservation efforts that benefit them financially. I currently pay a flat rate for water up to 8,000 gallons/month, which I never go over, but I think it's unfair if I only use 2,000 gallons. Are a lot of municipalities changing to this system? Do you think it will reduce water usage?

I admittedly know nothing about the harvesting of algae for use as a biofuel, but the prospects sound promising. This Wired article outlines a defense department initiative to study the prospect of turning algae into jet fuel. According to the article, it is much more efficient for use as a fuel than corn, and it's use wouldn't increase the price of a food crop as not too many people are eating algae these days. Again, this is the type of research that is necessary now, but with fuel prices dropping, I hope it will continue to be funded and pursued.

Simple Green

As most intelligent people like to read, how does an intelligent, but green-thinking person rationalize the cutting down of 20 million trees per year for American book production? The Amazon Kindle is a great product, but I think it is still a few years away from being perfect. The public library is great, but they only get one or two copies of every new book and the waiting lists can be brutal. Book Swim is Netflix for books. Read it, return it in their 100% recycled plastic bag, and someone else can read it without cutting down another tree. Simple but brilliant.

While Florida is not usually considered a hot-bed for green development, Miami's Tri-Rail Trains have announced that they will be operating on a 99% biodiesel blend. Evidently South Florida is one of the few places that can run on such a pure blend of fuel due to the temperate climate. Public transportation is one of the easiest ways for someone to live green.

The brains behind RecycleBank prove that you don't have to be an expert or have a PHD to impact the environment in a positive way. They have developed a plan that rewards you for recycling. For every pound you recycle, you earn points that can be redeemed for discounts at green-friendly businesses. This article explains the process and how it has been rolled out in 13 states already, or visit RecycleBank's website. This is a win-win-win in that more people will recycle, the businesses that donate discounts get more business and good publicity, and the cities pay less to dump garbage.

These are all simple ideas that translate to huge environmental rewards. I think that simple is a big part of the future of Green.

Green Funeral

So I'm driving home from work today listening to how bad the Red Raiders choked on the local sports station, when a construction site catches my eye. I look closer, and its another freaking funeral home! Funeral homes and Senior living communities are popping up like Starbucks in the Dallas suburbs.

When I get home I do some research and learn that the National Funeral Directors Association needs a new website, and expects 2.6 million deaths in 2010...then over 3 mil in 2020. According to their fact sheet, in 2004 the average US cost of a funeral was $6,500. That cost includes an outer burial container, but does not include cemetery costs. Are you kidding me? These guys are ripping people off.

Then I start thinking more about the funeral ceremony and all the wastes involved in the process. Doesn't it seem weird that when a loved one dies, we embalm'em then store'em in a bulky, decay-resistant wooden casket?

So naturally I type 'green funerals' in google, and BAM....I'm inundated with great ideas that others (mostly Europeans) have already thought of. Things like cardboard biodegradable coffins, or super-eco friendly recycled newspaper coffins that look like those Yakima storage containers that the lesbians in Oregon put on top of their Subaru's.
The Spaniards are even getting creative with their new solar power cemetary. So what do you guys think? Maybe there's a serious future for an inexpensive green funeral service in the US.

Green Golf

If the green revolution is to take off, I think it has to affect every area of our lives. The top priority in many people's lives after all the answers they give out of obligation is golf. This article talks about how more and more golf courses are making environmentally friendly (and money-saving) changes to their courses to make them more green.

"If courses act as environmental stewards, there is the opportunity for them to actually benefit nature. The vast expanses of green grass and trees act as "air conditioners" and produce large quantities of oxygen while cleansing the air of pollution. Turfgrass can trap and hold pollutants in place, acting as a catch basin for residential and industrial runoff, according to the GCSAA. Golf courses can also be built on environmentally damaged sites, like landfills. And golf course managers, who often cite their love of nature for their career choice, continue to push new and innovative solutions to environmental problems."

I personally like the idea of golf courses built on former landfills. All that garbage would probably grow some nice grass. Would you pay more to golf at a green course? Would you play at a course that was green but the conditions weren't as perfect as the non-green course across the street?