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They Have Reservations

U.S. EPA adopts green guidelines for travel planning As of May, hotels and convention centers hoping to woo government accounts might need to polish their eco-cred. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has crafted a list of must-ask questions for potential hosts on topics from energy efficiency to paperless billing to towel reuse. (Anyone else picturing […]

Thought for Food

Earth Dinners keep cuisine and conversation flowing Lots of holidays have a nice big meal associated with them, but not Earth Day. Because environmentalism is all about sacrifice and denial of pleasure, right? No, silly, it’s just because you never thought of hosting an Earth Dinner. Time to change that! Grist’s Roz Cummins explains the […]

No More Dicking Around

House approves long-delayed Wild Sky Wilderness bill After five years of delay, the House has passed a bill creating a 167-square-mile Wild Sky Wilderness area in northern Washington state. The bill had been approved by the Senate three times in recent years, but stalled out each time in the Republican-led House, with former California Rep. […]

What’s Produced Here Stays Here

Air Force, Nevada go all crazy with the solar energy The largest solar photovoltaic plant in North America is coming soon to an Air Force base near you — if you live in Nevada. Nellis Air Force Base will install 140 acres of solar panels, powering 30 percent of its electricity needs and reducing electric […]

And cellulosic might too — plus it’s still a decade off

Yes, this is another bitter polemic against ethanol, but I want to make one point up front, because I sometimes forget to: The only concrete alternative energy/climate policy that our political class can agree on — a plan that unites Democrats and Republicans to commit some $5 billion per year and rising — is a […]

Photos and voices from Step It Up 2007 rallies across the U.S.

On April 14, 2007, gaggles of enthusiastic Americans gathered at more than 1,400 spots around the U.S. to demand action against climate change, part of a coordinated Step It Up campaign launched by author Bill McKibben. At all the rallies, marches, parties, and other hullabaloos, the message was the same: Step it up, Congress! Enact […]

Energy use might have actually increased with daylight savings push up

This just in: Pushing daylight savings time up a few weeks might have not only not saved us any energy, we might have actually used more. According to a study released this week by a Canadian energy analyst, while overall energy use saw little change, gasoline consumption rose, perhaps as folks took advantage of evening […]

Yahoo!

Yahoo! is going carbon neutral, and the founders seem to have a pretty sensible take on the issue. Also, they have an Earth Day site, FWIW.

… or at least one representative

The House of Representatives held its first Ag committee hearing ever on organic agriculture today. I attended the hearing and found out Rep. Dennis Cardoza, the California Democrat who chairs of the House subcommittee on horticulture and organic agriculture, belongs to an organic CSA! For a full report, see the post on Chews Wise.

Bib you hear the one about … ?

The number one craze in Hollywood -- babies. The number two craze -- using your baby to show off your eco-grooviness.

According to the folks at Ecorazzi, OopC bibs, made from 100 percent organic cotton, are flying off the shelves and into the homes of such glitter-mamas as Gwyneth Paltrow and Tori Spelling. But, as the site rightly points out, buying a few organic bibs does not a true green celeb make:

One new Hollywood grandma who must rename nameless ordered 56 OOPCs -- that's nine for each of her six homes ...

Six homes?! Grandma's lucky she chose to remain nameless as we would be quick to blast such excess. Granted, buying 56 organic bibs is a step in the right direction.

I don't know. In my opinion, the only way buying 56 bibs is a step in the right direction is if 52 of them are being donated to some kind of mothers-in-need program.

But, hey, let me give Hollywood Grandma the benefit of the doubt. She could just be trying to help create an economy of scale for organic baby products.