Lunar Eclipse May Shed Light on Climate Change

Researchers are using the eclipse data to track changes in the opacity of Earth's atmosphere.

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Power Items in your house with your bike!!!

Now this is cool! There are a few green items offered by this site, but by far the coolest is an attachment for you bike that will create 75 -200 watts of power while you get your exercise. I've heard of this before (they did something similar at the superbowl this year) but this is the first I've seen something you can order.

I specifically would like to try it because I have two small kids that soon will be old enough to play video games. What a great thing to say yeah you can play your video game but you have to ride your bike long enough to power it!

You can buy the product fully assembled or you can buy plans to build it (think about your kids understanding how to build the machine that ensures they get exercise and have fun!!!!). It looks like you can also purchase a battery to store the energy to be used later, or just plug in whatever you want to use while you are riding.

If you have an existing 12V power system (solar panels or wind, etc) you can tie it right into this and be creating additional power when you do your exercise!

Very interesting. I think I'm going to purchase. If I do I'm going to get the build your own plans and will take pictures for a future blog post! Please let me know if anyone out there has tried this yet!

Here is the link: www.ecovergence.com

Live It Up: We’ve Got '20 years before it hits the fan'

Here is an interesting thought about how we've passed the tipping point. Basically we've done so much damage to the environment that we're past the point of no return. 20-40 years left before it all goes off?!

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Link to sites that make it easy to help

Here are two links that seem to be good sites to give you tips on how to reduce your personal carbon emissions, as well as show you how to offset the ones you can't...

Environmental Defense Fund

Fight Global Warming

Also this is a GREAT blog that I came across while looking into these sites: Climate 411

Also here is another GREAT link to a site that shows the 47 most common reasons that skeptics of global warming use to debunk the "myth". It then gives the detailed reason why it just doesn't make sense. This is exactly the kind of site I've been looking for to use as ammunition when talking to someone that just doesn't get it! Awesome site! www.SkepticalScience.com

Coal plant to test capturing carbon dioxide

This is the first I have heard of a US power plant actually sequestering carbon. 3% isn't much, but at least one of them is doing something!

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Green Washing

The Truth about Green Washing!

I've been away from the "blogishpere" for sometime now (having two kids in two years will tend to do that). But I recently came across an article in a new magazine that I've been reading (Fast Company) about Green Washing.

In recent years (probably mainly because of the two kids) I've become much more aware of green issues, and would like to do everything that I can to pass on a viable planet to future generations. As part of that I do try to find products which are "Green", whenever I can. However the writers of this article did a little research and selected over 1200 "Green" products to look at. Would you like to take a guess as to the percentage of these products that were just claiming to be green, as opposed to actually doing something real to help the world????

Try 99.9%!!! OUCH!!!

In other words if you are trying to be conscious like me to buy green products you are really only doing something good 1/10 or 1% of the time!

Now in fairness the criteria that the writers chose was very strick. But still even if you relaxed the criteria and brought the green products up to 50%, is that really any good? I mean some of these products use 1% recycled paper in the packaging, and are horrible for the environment besides and put a huge "GREEN" at the top of the label and you and I purchase it thinking we are saving the world when really we're just make it worse!!!

Another great overall point that the article made was that people that are truly trying to be green aren't as worried about the smaller stuff like the percentage of recycled paper in the toilet paper they buy (although every little bit does help) as they are about moving to a home where they can ride their bike to work. Or finding someplace where they can grow their own food. Things like this.

It's really the bigger items that will make the vast difference. But for people that are at least trying to make a difference even if in some small way, it's a shame that they wool gets pulled over their eyes, and they end up making things worse.

They moral of the story is that Green might not be easy, but it can be cheap and worth while, but you'll have to do your research!

Enough solar electricity to power the US for $.10/kwh

Here is an interesting article I came across about a company that claims they can gear up in the next 18 months to power the entire US with solar power that would cost less then $.10 per kilowatt hour!

Sunny Outlook: Can Sunshine Provide All U.S. Electricity?