Although the peacock logo for the NBC television network was meant to be multi-colored, for one week each year it definitely “goes green!” For the second year NBC Universal presented over 150 hours of environmentally themed content in a variety of platforms. “Green Your Routine” was the theme of the week of November 16th through the 23rd this year. NBC and NBC.com celebrated their talent in “The More You Know” PSA campaign. Using famous NBC regulars, they produced green-themed storylines in several of their daytime and primetime shows. Read the rest of this entry »
Green TV
Eco-friendly cabin life
In a New York Times article on November 14, 2008 Louise Tutelian wrote about a new trend toward cabin life across America and how cabins have been “re-imagined” in eco-friendly, but stylish ways. Some are combining traditional industrial materials, while others are employing reclaimed or recycled material to reduce their building costs and yet stay eco-friendly. It seems that cabin owners want what they always have pursued, an escape into the natural world.
Michelle Kodis, whose book “Modern Cabin” was published in 2007 commented for the article: “Given our busy, techno-heavy lives, people are seeking places where they can rejuvenate and connect to nature…They want simple, beautiful, indoor-outdoor cabins that require little upkeep and are free of fuss and heavy, overdone details.”
“Moving on up” the green chart
SustainLane.com now measures 16 areas of urban sustainability, with “water supply” added as a new measurement in 2008. The top 13 cities are labeled “Front-Runners” with the bottom 13 tagged as “Trailing.” Omaha placed in the middle group, “Hitting Their Stride”. According to their most recent report, Omaha now ranks 25th among the country’s 50 largest cities, which is an improvement in its 2007 ranking at 37th.
Thieves going green?
Solar panels are becoming one of the major ways homeowners can go green. The panels are usually mounted on the roof, but they can also be mounted on ground racks, trellises and custom structures. Solar panels quietly produce electricity directly from sunlight for an expected life span of 30 years and offset over 5 tons of greenhouse gasses each of those years.
Solar panels are so popular with homeowners that they are becoming one of the hottest targets for burglars. An editorial in the Omaha World
Herald on October 18, 2008 warned potential internet buyers to beware of unreasonably cheap offers of solar panels for sale. The editorial (“When thieves ‘go green”) points out that they are often sold for as little as $100 over the internet, but their actual worth is estimated at $1,500 each.
It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature
Mother Nature can be annoying for some athletes when the weather doesn’t cooperate on game-day. One of the major reasons many collegiate and professional sports are being played on artificial turf is an attempt to take Mother Nature out of the equation. 
“It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature” was a line used in a commercial many years ago showing the wrath of Mother Nature when Chiffon was able to create a spread that tasted just like butter. However, on June 25, 2008, Jane Akre posted an article on InjuryBoard that used this tagline in her exploration of the potential harmful effects of the lead that shows up in the artificial turf on athletic fields.
http://feeds.injuryboard.com/IBNationalNews is a website dedicated to personal safety, injury prevention and recovery. Their interest in the lead in artificial turf is because, as Akre points out, the CDC (Center for Disease Control) estimates that lead levels are elevated in more than 300,000 children in this country. The real concern comes because tests have revealed lower IQ scores, memory problems, hyperactivity and behavioral problems in children who have had excessive lead exposure. Read the rest of this entry »
Gorilla in the greenhouse
What is the best way to get children involved in environmental projects? SustainLane and the Earth Day organization are proving that animation can get them very interested. Kijani is an 800-pound visionary gorilla that left the Congo to live in a magical San Francisco greenhouse. He joined up with four kids from around the world to create a sustainable earth. Kijani means green in Swahili, but the kids call him “KJ”.
“Gorilla in the Greenhouse” is an action-filled animated web site (www.greengorilla.com). It was released on Earth Day, April 22, 2008. 
The pilot episode (“The Great Pacific Garbage Patch”) features the Greenhouse Gang uncovering an island of plastic bags in the Pacific. This adventure inspires the gang to start taking actions towards a healthier environment. The web site is very creative and uses music to motivate other children to join in their cause.
“Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink.”
In “Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner” written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in the 1700’s, men on a long voyage began to run out of drinking water. Even though they were surrounded by water, it was seawater causing them to say, “Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink.” Is it possible that we might have a similar concern about the lack of drinking water in the future?
Elizabeth Royte, an environmentally focused researcher and reporter, has written several books about the “greening” of America. Her first two books were Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash and The Tapir’s Morning Bath: Mysteries of the Tropical Rain Forest and the Scientists Who Are Trying to Solve Them. Recently she has also authored Bottlemania: How Water Went on Sale and Why We Bought It, and discussed her book with Dr. Mehmet Oz on his radio show on XM channel 156.
Royte grieved over the fact that Americans throw away over 30 billion water bottles a year. Additionally, she offered some startling statistics:
• U.S. water sales jumped from $115 million in 1990 to $4 billion in 1997.
•Sales increased a shocking 170 percent from 1997 to $10.8 billion in 2006.
•Bottled water is now a $60 billion-a-year business worldwide.
•Per person consumption of water went from 5.7 gallons in 1987 to 27.6 gallons in 2006. Read the rest of this entry »
Green Lesson Plans
“Eco-education doesn’t have to be expensive,” wrote Daniel Stone in the September 15, 2008 Newsweek magazine. In his article, “Getting an Early Start,” he described how environmental learning is not just about climate change or the “plight” of the earth. Innovative teachers with “green lesson plans” focus on the natural world as a basis for their lessons in a variety of subjects.
Stone gives an example of a classroom studying a stream by incorporating the study of language, math and social studies. He also pointed out studies from the State Education and Environment Roundtable reporting, “students exposed to a nature-based curriculum score higher more than 90 percent of the time than students taught the same subjects in the classroom out of a textbook.”
It’s Not Easy Being Green
Kermit the frog used to sing a song on Sesame Street that began, “It’s not easy being green!” While he was lamenting his color and worrying about his own identity, American consumers might be singing the same song in their reluctance to buy ecologically friendly products.
In the “Cultivating the Green Consumer” in the fall 2008 publication of the Stanford Social Innovation Review (HTTP://WWW.SSIREVIEW.ORG/ARTICLES/ENTRY/1030/), Sheila Bonini and Jeremy Oppenheim discuss the difficulty in getting individual consumers to “walk their talk” about their concerns for the environment. Their statistics show that 87 percent of consumers surveyed are concerned about the environmental impact of the products they buy, but much fewer consumers actually follow through.
The “Walking School Bus”
The September 15, 2008 edition of NEWSWEEK magazine had a section of several articles under the heading “Project Green.” These articles showcased green architecture, green schools and a green curriculum. Caitlin McDevitt wrote one of the articles highlighting the Columbia Missouri school district and its “walking school bus” program. She made the point that with the rising costs of diesel fuel (up 34 percent in the past two years), this school district cut their transportation costs by redrawing its bus routes and eliminating some buses. With adults supervising groups of students who used to ride the bus, they now walk a half-mile to and from school each day.
