Remember to think green when packing school lunches for your children – Green Daily

“Whatever its success in getting new cars off the lots and quickly injecting several billion dollars into the economy, some academics say that the ‘cash for clunkers’ program is an expensive way to help the environment.” That’s some damn fine reporting work there, Lou – Green Inc.

Do you live in Chicago? Do you know the historic Talbott Hotel? Did you know that it is ridiculously green? – Gadling

“Green travel programme offers cars, bikes, buses” and a hilarious photo – Greenbang

Are Clorox Green Works products green? The short answer is yes, but did you know they are a company that has the gall to want to make a profit? – Inhabitat

Tom Savage from CleanTechnica shares his 30 favorite green newsletters. – CleanTechnica

Did you know that Texas is leading the green movement? Hey! Stop laughing! According to the Pew Research Center Texas has the second most green businesses and jobs in the country after California. – cbs11tv.com

Did you know that there may be a new net domain aimed at green groups, .eco, in the near future? Did you know that two groups are fighting to control it? Don’t feel bad, I didn’t either. – Rocket News

Samsung will be introducing a cell phone made from 80% recycled material next week. – earth2tech

Project Green Search is looking for the next green model. Could it be you? – Mother Nature Network

Are you looking for some green iPhone apps? Daniel Hohler at the Matter Network has some reviews. – Matter Network

“A new study by Oregon State University suggests having multiple children may be the most environmentally damaging of all human activities.” Jeeze… That’s a buzz kill. – An Honest Climate Debate

Will the popularity of the government’s Cash For Clunkers Program A.K.A. The CAR Allowance Rebate System (CARS) help the environment?

On one hand, it would be easy to believe that taking cars that are not fuel efficient off the road would have to have a positive effect on the environment. But does promoting the purchase of new cars, even if it requires a trade in of an old car also encourage people to drive more? What do you think? Please take a second to vote in our poll found in the right column. Also feel free to leave any comments you have below!

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A survey of the green attitudes of consumers in United States, the United Kingdom, China, Brazil, India, Germany and France. The results may surprise you – Environmental Valuation & Cost-Benefit News

Green kitty litter? Why not? As long as it doesn’t smell it works for me – CleanTechnica

Does paper that blooms into flowers made from 100% recycled post consumer waste disgust you because it still comes from trees? Do I have the product for you… – News Blaze

The Wanderlust Festival, going on right now, is striving to be the greenest festival around – TreeHugger

Are green banks a good idea? – Economix

How green is your birth control? I Really Have Nothing That I Can Add To That – The Huffington Post

“Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, will launch a labeling system to disclose the environmental impact of the products it sells” – Earth2Tech

“The government today gave the go-ahead for the construction of four eco-towns, offering 10,000 homes overall, which, it hopes, will showcase environmentally friendly living in the UK” – Worldchanging

Bernie Madoff will be spending the rest of his life in the United State’s first and only LEED-certified prison. So at least he has that going for him – Mother Nature Network

The Invention Nation guys build a wind turbine

Invention Nation is a show about three guys trying to make it across the country on a bus that runs on used cooking oil. Along the way they seek out everyday people who have made awesome eco-inventions. Today’s episode centers on inventions that generate energy, with the focus being innovative ways to use old technologies.

First they visit Working Bikes Cooperative in Chicago. This is a place that gives away 5000 bikes a year and sells bikes to pay for shipping. They also promote bikes for power generation within the home. The demonstration on how a simple bike can be used to create energy is really cool.

The next stop for the guys is Chip Energy in Goodfield Illinois. There they build a gasifying stove. The stove is green because when you burn gases you get cleaner combustion or something like that. I have to admit that didn’t totally get it. It just looked like a fancier grill chimney with a fan to me. If you have a better explanation of how it is green please leave it in the comments.

Next the boys go to New York state to meet two people who build wind turbines. One of these guys, James S. Juczak, lives in a house that is completely off the grid and is made from 80% recycled materials, and looks incredibly awesome. In upstate New York that they try to build a small wind turbine, and in a show of my ignorance I discover a turbine is much, much more complicated than a Dutch windmill.

How Green Was the Show: Very. Everything these guys do and show is green.

Fun Facts:

• I lived a few miles down the street from Working Bikes Cooperative in Chicago for two years and never knew it was there
• The turbines that power the off-the-grid house need winds of only 7 mph to function

A theoretical orbital solar cell field

Professor John Mankins has an idea of creating a field of solar cells in outer space that could beam power to Earth and in theory could provide 10,000 times the energy needed by all of Earth’s civilizations. This episode of Discovery Project Earth on Planet Green TV presents a number of tests designed to prove whether such a lofty goal would be possible.

The first test consists of launching a normal solar cell, and a solar cell whose effectiveness is intensified with a Fresnel lens 100,000 feet into the air to make sure that solar cells could function properly at the edge of the Earth’s atmosphere. I won’t ruin the results for you, but I will say that I wasn’t surprised at what happened.

After that test was complete, things got much more interesting. For solar cells to function from space there would need to be a way to get the energy back to Earth. One way that this could be possible would be to beam the power back to Earth using concentrated microwaves. To test this a set of controlled experiments were conducted starting with beaming energy over 12 feet in a lab and finishing with the transfer of energy over 60 miles between two Hawaiian islands. The controlled experiment worked perfectly as did a much shorter version of the 60 mile experiment. The larger experiment didn’t work quite as planned, but going from 100 yards to 60 miles is a rather large jump.

How Green Was This Show: It was extremely green. You don’t get much greener than proposing a way to generate 100% of the world’s energy through solar power.

Fun Facts:

• Solar cells strengthened with Fresnel lenses were eight times as effective in the experiment compared to normal solar cells
• Solar cells in space could generate five times as much energy.

This could be the perfect time to starting investing “green.” With that in mind here are 4 exchange traded funds profiting from green energy – Investment U

Here is a relatively technical article about the development of a new “green” industrial lubricant – Scientific Blogging – Science 2.0

“Let’s be quite clear about this: carbon will be the world’s biggest market and people are set to make a fortune out of it. Some of them might even care about the environment.” – G-Online

There is a company out there (Aakron) making “green” 12 and 17 ounce stadium cups. What a great idea! Cups like these are never going to go away, so they might as well be as green as possible – Ecopreneurist

The bastion of truth and justice that is Fox News has reported that President Obama’s Green Jobs Czar has a history of “anarchism and communism”. I don’t know how stupid Fox News reporters and viewers are, but aren’t communism and anarchism polar opposites of each other? If you really think about it isn’t capitalism much, much closer to anarchy? …I’m just saying… – More About Politics

A nice concise article explaining ways that a “green” automobile will save you money – Online Car Insurance Guide

Every other “green” business article I read seems to be an article about China going green. Now I hear that Pepsi is opening a green plant over there. What are those communists really up to? – TheTradingReport

A list of alternative insect repellents. And may I suggest our own natural bug spray – IdeaMarketers

Lamborghini is going green! Now you don’t have any more excuses not to buy one – CARADVICE.COM.AU

The bedding industry is going green. Plus some tips about how to buy green bedding – TreeHugger

“A new study says that the number of green jobs in the United States grew 9.1 percent between 1998 and 2007, about two and a half times faster than job growth in the economy as a whole.” – The New York Times – Green Inc. Blog

Many companies that don’t own their office space are starting to utilize “green leases.” What exactly is a “green lease?” My Green Element has the scoop – My Green Element