So Green Wednesday, the day after Earth Day, is here. Today
is a day when consumers can vote Green with their dollars and reward those
companies who offer eco-friendly products. I’ve been saving up my greenbacks and
researching my Green Wednesday purchases for weeks. It hasn’t been easy to
think of new green things we can do since our lifestyle is already very green,
but I’m ready to start exercising my purchasing power!

My environmental commitment is focused in three areas: “good
for me” green, “good for my family” green and “good for the planet” green. Here’s
where I’m putting my money today:

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By Paul J. Gough, HollywoodReporter.com

NBC Universal’s push toward green business is sweeping over its newsgathering operation.

During Monday morning’s “Today” show, the network is scheduled to take the wraps off what it calls the “mean green streaming machine,” a hybrid SUV that leaves less of a footprint as it collects and transmits news from the road.

The white and green Ford Escape hybrid uses not only electric and gasoline power but also solar panels and wind turbines to recharge the batteries for its electronics gear.

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By Brian Thompson, WNBC
What struck me as I reported on how homeowners are going green is the slow realization and acceptance that comes to environmentalism.
For example, one woman is all into saving money, but admits to no clue on the environment. I interviewed a corporate CEO who’s totally committed to taking his company green. The vehicle he drives? A gas guzzling (albeit smaller sized) SUV. I know a dedicated environmentalist -he lives and breathes the stuff 24/7- and while he drives a small, relatively fuel efficient car, dismisses hybrids as a “drop in the bucket” gimmick.

In short, one person’s idea of Going Green may be quite different from another’s. In. Effect we are dealing with shades of green, which leads to this question: just how green are you?
Brian Thompson
Producer, NBC New York
http://wnbc.com/goinggreen/

 

By Nicole Walters, GreenisUniversal.com

The kind folks at mokugift.com have even made it easy for you. Just send GreenisUniversal.com an eTree and mokugift will work with Sustainable Harvest International to get a real tree planted.

It only costs a dollar a tree, plus look at how lonely our little bunny is…

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By KXAS NBC5
A man in Silver Spring, Md., has started a company called Global Worming Worm Tea so people can have a healthy garden in a world that’s Going Green. Many people don’t know that their garden’s best friend is a worm. Simply by eating and excreting, worms create dirt that is full of natural fertilizers and nutrients.
The Global Worming Worm Tea factory is three wooden boxes in Chip Py’s basement. The employees are 36,000 red wiggler worms who work for food, specifically Py’s garbage.
Py buries his waste in the soil and puts the worms on top of it and they go to town. The garbage goes into one end of the worm and what comes out of the other end is incredibly rich dirt called worm castings.
Py then takes the dirt and puts it in a cheesecloth bag.
“It becomes like a giant tea bag, and I put it in my bio-blender and mix it with distilled water,” said Py.
For 24 hours the blender forces the water through the tea bag, producing an incredibly concentrated worm broth.

Py bottles that broth and sells it as Global Worming Worm Tea, which he said could be used as a fertilizer and insect repellent.
Py is hoping his worms will show people there’s a natural way to a beautiful landscape. Global Worming Worm Tea is sold at four locations in the Washington area and online.
Because the product is so unusual, Py often appears himself to explain how it works.
KXAS NBC5 – Dallas/Fort Worth
http://nbc5i.com/goinggreen/11441069/detail.html

 

By Ryan Hanrahan, NBC Hartford
Jeff Bradley knows what it means to “go green.” Several months ago I toured his unusual 10,000 square foot workspace in Clinton, CT to get a glimpse at how he works to preserve the past and preserve future.
Bradley is an exceptionally talented woodworker who has merged his love for woodworking with his strong belief in preservation. His company, New England Outbuildings, works tirelessly to rescue antique barns that are slated for demolition. Piece by piece, he takes apart barns that have dotted the landscape of rural New England for the past few centuries. After bringing the salvaged lumber back to his warehouse he begins the painstaking task of reassembling it by hand.

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If you weren’t able to sign-up for greendimes.com service at the NBC Experience Store during Earth Week, you can still sign up for their services at greendimes.com.

$20 seems like a pretty good deal for 5 years worth of mail monitoring, but if you feel like saving all the fun for yourself, here are a few things you can do:

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By By Simran Sethi, NBC News
In my first few days on-air as NBC News’ new contributing environmental correspondent, I was labeled a “flaming liberal” by a gentleman on the web. Why? Because of my affinity for clean air, safe food, and healthy water and the suggestion that one easy thing people can do for the environment is to vote for elected officials that care about the preservation of natural resources – and hold them to task once they are elected.

My commitment to the environment is informed and inspired by leaders like Martha Marks, co-founder of Republicans for Environmental Protection who first helped me bridge the red/ blue divide and understand that we all share our natural resources and are dependent on our environment; Arianna Huffington, who reminded me that “rhetoric is cheap” and we must continue to monitor our elected officials once they are in office; and Interface CEO Ray Anderson, who heralds the concept of a “restorative enterprise” and the cost savings eco-efficiencies afford businesses.
President Teddy Roosevelt stood before Congress is 1907 and said: “The conservation of our natural resources and their proper use constitute the fundamental problem which underlies almost every other problem of our national life.” Waterkeeper Alliance president and Natural Resources Defense Counsel (NRDC) attorney Robert Kennedy Jr. calls environmentalism “the most fundamental civil rights issue.” Activists from Harlem to West Oakland are working to transform the blue collar economies that have dissolved in an era of globalization into vibrant green collar economies that make the United States a market leader in the development of renewable resource development and technology. And Wall Street is pouring funds into environmentally-forward businesses and funds not for philanthropic purposes but because they believe green will beget green.
The paradigmatic shift in what environmentalism is and who environmentalists are is an exciting one. All issues can be viewed through a green lens because they all exist within and our dependent on our ecosystem. Environmental issues are issues of public health, national security, and economic prosperity. Environmentalists are teachers, preachers, hunters, businesspeople, and soccer moms. And our collective concerns to preserve our farmlands, sustain our businesses, and sustain global leadership do not belong exclusively to the Reds or the Blues. Green, yes I am going to say it, is Universal.
By Simran Sethi
http://www.nbcnews.com

By Michael Marano, SciFi.com
We can’t say we haven’t been warned. Hollywood (OK, a dubious messenger if ever there was one) has conjured images of environmental disasters at least since the debut of talkies.
We’ve found some stand-outs, each with a different horrific result. Dancing man-frogs, fertilo-fascism, no-grain bread and saffron hekinis (see photo). All have been foretold.
Check out our featured article: 5 Environmental Futures That Await Us If We Don’t Clean Up Our Act
Michael Marano
SciFi.com
http://www.scifi.com/sfw/screen/sfw17255.html

By Trevor Curwin, DVICE.com
Carpet stained after the big party? Forget the steam cleaner – try using the microwave to clean it up. That’s kind of the gist of this trailer-mounted microwave, invented by Dr. Chang-Yul Cha, founder of Cha Corporation in Wyoming. He created the contraption to reclaim solvents that are polluting some of the most contaminated industrial sites across the country.

Cha’s method uses microwaves to recover pollutants (like solvents, lubricants and fuels) by adsorption (yep, adsorb, not absorb) from activated carbon. The carbon adsorbs the chemicals similar to the way the charcoal in your barbecue fires up to cook some franks – he chemical fluids bind to the surface of the carbon in a thin layer. This saturated carbon is then exposed to microwave energy as it passes through a quartz tube reactor, condensing the chemicals.
So unlike the Hoover steam cleaner from the supermarket, Cha’s microwave doesn’t leave you with a bucket of dirty water, dog hair and guilt. Instead it actually recovers the original chemicals so they can be reused – hopefully more responsibly than the first time.
Trevor Curwin
DVICE.com