!marty finestone's activitybook » green

eat local? food miles may not be the best sustainability indicator

Marty Finestone — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 12:33:57 +0000

This article from Reason posits that eating local may sometimes produce more carbon emissions that shipping food from other countries. Here is an excerpt as some food for thought:

Local food production does not always produce fewer greenhouse gas emissions. For example, the 2005 DEFRA study found that British tomato growers emit 2.4 metric tons of carbon dioxide for each ton of tomatoes grown compared to 0.6 tons of carbon dioxide for each ton of Spanish tomatoes. The difference is British tomatoes are produced in heated greenhouses. Another study found that cold storage of British apples produced more carbon dioxide than shipping New Zealand apples by sea to London. In addition, U.K. dairy farmers use twice as much energy to produce a metric ton of milk solids than do New Zealand farmers. Other researchers have determined that Kenyan cut rose growers emit 6 metric tons of carbon dioxide per 12,000 roses compared to the 35 tons of carbon dioxide emitted by their Dutch competitors. Kenyan roses grow in sunny fields whereas Dutch roses grow in heated greenhouses.

via Arts & Letters Daily

steps towards an eco-friendly pc

Marty Finestone — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 02:15:46 +0000

Recyclable plastics, bamboo cases and reduced power consumption all go along way to making computers more environmentally friendly. According to this article, Dell, HP and other companies have taken big steps to making better for the environment. However, as Forrester Research analyst Christopher Mines says, probably the best thing would be to extend the lifespan of a computer. Technojunk certainly does not help our planet.

“H-P and Dell are making credible strides, but remember that these guys have PCs to sell this month, this quarter,” he said. “The greenest thing the PC companies could do would be to lengthen the lifecycle and warranty of their products, making PCs more upgradeable and modular — so they don’t have to be purchased and thrown away so often.”

That said, one should still not deride energy efficiency.

vampire machines: learn how electric devices suck energy

Marty Finestone — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 12:34:14 +0000

It is after Earth Day and that means that you should still care about sustainability and being more efficient. To that end, I recommend viewing this Good Magazine produced video that illuminates how many of our electric appliances and devices suck electricity, even when they are turned off.

Click here to view the embedded video.

digest: golf is not as popular, obama’s early years, e-tickets and more

Marty Finestone — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 00:02:01 +0000

Yup, I have been sick over the past few days – hence the hiatus. Well, let’s get back to it:

- Teenage Pregnancy Implementation Manager is a real job title.
- Here is a great article about the years when Barack Obama came up.
- Golf is declining in its popularity. (via arts and letters daily).
- Paper airfare tickets are just about to be a thing of the past.

carbon footprint basics

Marty Finestone — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 02:42:08 +0000

Treehugger has put together this fantastic overview of the carbon footprint. Learn what the carbon footprint is, why it is such an important metric and a couple of ideas on how to reduce yours.

paper saving tip: cut back on your bank statements

Marty Finestone — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 12:46:03 +0000

Here is a simple thing that you can do to reduce paper usage in your everyday: reduce the frequency of receiving your bank statements by paper or simply stop them all together and go electronic.

sweden is a model for an ethanol economy

Marty Finestone — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 13:22:28 +0000

The Detroit News reports about how Sweden’s use of ethanol fuel may serve as a model for the U.S. shift away from pure crude oil-based fuels.

pilot pens is selling recycled pens

Marty Finestone — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 14:54:40 +0000

As reported on SustainableBusiness.com:

Pilot Pen Corporation of America introduced the world’s first full line of earth-friendly writing instruments this week.

Selling for the same price as their non-recycled products, Pilot’s BeGreen writing instruments–including ballpoint pens, rolling balls pens and mechanical pencils–are made from 70% recycled content and packaged in recycled materials.

Nice! I hope that this the beginning of something larger and also not part of a green-washing effort.

swedes using body heat to warm buildings

Marty Finestone — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 01:03:09 +0000

The BBC reports on an innovative green heating initiative in Stockholm:

In Sweden, the Jernhusen company, which owns Stockholm’s central station, is planning to channel passenger warmth to heat a 13-storey office block being built next to the station.

Heat exchangers in the station’s ventilation system will convert the body heat into hot water, which will be pumped into the heating system of the building.

It is not yet certain how effective the technique will be.

But Jernhusen engineers hope it will meet up to 15% of the heating needs of the building, which will provide about 40,000 square metres of space for offices, hotels, restaurants and shops.

Some existing buildings already recycle body heat from people in the building to contribute to heating requirements.

But this is the first time excess heat is to be transferred from one building to another.

Thanks to Dana

man is sued for not using local trash service

Marty Finestone — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 02:08:33 +0000

This is messed up, a man’s local local municipality has filed suite against him for withdrawing from use of its contracted trash removal service:

A man who claims to have reduced his waste to nearly nothing out of concern for the environment now faces a lawsuit from San Carlos for canceling his garbage-collection service.

Eddie House, 53, says he was shocked when he was served with a lawsuit Sunday at his Cedar Street home.

The lawsuit, filed by San Carlos Deputy City Attorney Linda Noeske in San Mateo Superior Court on Jan. 22, seeks a permanent injunction forcing House to maintain garbage service. City officials are also seeking to recoup from House the costs of the lawsuit.

As reported in the Examiner. (via celsias)

if you are going to leave your computer on, at least let it do some good

Marty Finestone — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 13:59:08 +0000

From Nature.org (via digg):

In fact, if you leave your computer on 24 hours a day, it could be responsible for releasing up to 1,500 pounds of CO2 into the atmosphere every year. The flying-toaster screen saver is cool…but is it that cool?

But if you have to leave your computer on, here’s a way you can make up for it: By joining a distributed computing network that models the effects of climate change.

Distributed computing networks harness the unused power of thousands of personal computers to perform complicated tasks.

For instance, climateprediction.net is a distributed network run by Oxford University and other partners that helps climate scientists run climate models on networked computers when those computers are on, but are not running at full capacity.

Wow – leaving a computer on to such a degree really does leave a heavy carbon foot-print for something that would just be sitting there otherwise. I say turn it off, but, yeah, if you do leave it on why have your CPU work away on something useful.

change the margins – save the paper

Marty Finestone — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 14:06:35 +0000

changethemargins.com promotes the idea that if we reduce the margins in our Word documents we can save paper. Serious amounts of paper. Good Magazine puts it nicely and bluntly:

…changing their margins from the current luxurious standard 1.25 inches to a the more modest .75 inches. It may sound like a small change, but if everyone in the nation did it, we’d save a little less than a Rhode Island’s worth of trees every year.

This is a great, simple idea that could effect change. So do it! Cut your margins and tell the others.