environmental activism

Offset Your Carbon Emissions While You Watch Green Videos

jplatt — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 09:38:01 -0400

YouTube isn't the only place to watch online videos. It also isn't the greenest. That honor probably goes to Go Green Tube, the newly launched video sharing site that focuses on environmental topics and puts its money where its microphone is.

With less than two months under its online belt, Go Green Tube already offers hundreds of videos in more than a dozen channels. Topics include how to be green, green computing, green music, organic foods, and solar power. Kids even get their own corner with material created just for them.

But even beyond the programming, Go Green Tube offers something different. For every video watched by registered users, Go Green Tube will offset one pound of carbon dioxide emissions through carbonfund.org. So far, this equals about 2,000 pounds of emissions -- not a huge amount, but one that's sure to grow quickly as people discover the site.

Give it a spin. You might like what you see.

Do Green Good Every Time You Search the Internet

jplatt — Thu, 29 May 2008 12:00:00 -0400

My brother works for a small theatre, and they get some of their funding from an unusual source: a search engine.

Like some 59,000 other non-profits -- including hundreds of environmental organizations -- my brother's theatre is signed up on GoodSearch, a search engine that generates income for organizations with every search.

Here's how it works: You visit GoodSearch and first do a search for a charity that matters to you. You could pick the WWF, StopGlobalWarming.org, Bat Conservation International, or American Forests to name just a few. Once you find the charity you want, click verify. After that, every search you make on GoodSearch generates a donation for your chosen charity.

The funds come from advertising on search results, the same formula that has made Google a multi-billion dollar company. But GoodSearch donates 50% of its search revenues to charities and schools. The company estimates that every search sends 1 cent to a charity. That may not seem like much, but if 100 people support a charity and search just one time a day, that sends $365 a year to that charity.

(And if you're a web power-user like me, and you search a few dozen times an hour for your work, the donations really add up!)

GoodSearch's search results are powered by Yahoo, the number 2 search engine, so they're pretty reliable. And for charities, the funds are like found money.

Give it a try! Who knows, you might never Google again...

Adrian Grenier: Green God

kbutler — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 00:00:00 -0400

I know what you’re thinking – why should we care how a celebrity lives his life? Well, most of the time we shouldn’t. (And somewhere, Paris Hilton trips on her heels.) But sometimes, when a celebrity does good work, we like him, we really like him! And right now we really like Adrian Grenier. Why? Because he uses his celebrity to promote more than a cautionary tale about DUIs, stage momagers, and bi-polar disorders. He often uses the red carpet as a podium to discuss environmental issues, which is more than we can say about….most of Hollywood.

For starters, Ecorazzi recently reported that Grenier of the dreamy eyes and dusky facial visage has been tapped to receive the 2008 Blue Sky Award for Environmental Activism. He will receive the award at the Vail Film Festival, to be held in Colorado in April. Grenier also revealed that he did a complete green remodel on his New York brownstone – interestingly enough, by using old jeans as insulation. Further, he’s producing a new show for the Discovery Channel with partner Peter Glatzer on how to apply a green lifestyle to your day-to-day. Called The Green Life, the show is expected to debut in the summer of 2008. In an interview discussing the show, Grenier asserts that “Less travel, less waste, and more substance is (our) goal here.”

We salute you, Adrian Grenier. Looks, career, and a cause. Clearly, the gauntlet has been thrown for a new Prince of Green. (Leonardo DiCaprio, we’re looking at you.)