My problem with The Lazy Environmentalist, green radio host Josh Dorfman's self-proclaimed "guide to easy, stylish, green living" isn't that it lacks information. It's actually a quite comprehensive guide to supporting green companies. I dog-eared multiple pages so I could visit websites of the companies in which I was interested. But it's not so much a guide to green living as it's a guide to green buying. I guess the tone set forth from the brief introduction rubbed me the wrong way:

These innovators make it easy for us to integrate environmental awareness into our lives. They understand that while so many of us are concerned about the environment, we don't always have the time, energy, or inclination to do something about it.

I only wish this was written in a less-than-serious voice. In my mind, if you don't have the "time, energy, or inclination" to do something about the environment, than you can hardly classify yourself as an environmentalist. You are looking to alleviate guilt for your conspicuous consumption, a culture of consumption that is devastating our planet. It's exactly the "culture of convenience" that's waging all-out war on our resources. Consider this passage from the chapter on cars:

There really is something for everyone–even those who drive Hummers, the most colossal of all urban assault vehicles…By offsetting the carbon dioxide emissions spewing from your car's tailpipe, TerraPass offers Hummer drivers eco-salvation.

Eco-salvation for Hummer drivers? A little too, oh, oxymoronic, for my tastes. Lazy is definitely geared towards a more high-end clientele, despite it's mention of Wal-Mart as an organic clothing retailer (Yeah, I know what you are thinking…I can't trust them quite yet, either).

Stepping off of my soapbox, for those of us who do have time, energy, and inclination to do something to lighten our footprint still have to buy goods and services, and Lazy provides a well-laid, well-written plan to finding greener versions of those goods and services. If you have to spend money, you might as well spend it on more sustainable products, right?

Don't ever pass up the opportunity to judge beer. Ok, I know you do that anyway, but I'm not talking about your personal opinion of Pabst Blue Ribbon. It turns out that real-life beer competitions require amateur beer judges to work alongside the pros. Apparently, amateurs provide useful feedback to brewmasters with their 'average Joe' opinions.

And that's where I come in.

May 19th was the 25th annual Heart of the Valley Brewfest held in Corvallis, Oregon, featuring home-brewed beer from all over the Pacific Northwest. It was two days of beer drinking fun and *hard work* – no really, judging beer takes skill, concentration, and stamina (not to mention a fully functioning olfactory sense).

I had none of these, but still managed to hold my own. What's exciting about being an amateur judge is how much you learn about beer, and quickly. "It was good" is not going to cut it, and adopting a complicated beer vocabulary is highly encouraged. It's also exciting to have an excuse to start drinking beer at 9 a.m., which is when the judging started.

Today the three remaining activists made their way safely down the construction crane – ending their occupation of the Olkiluoto, Finland, nuclear plant construction site.

You can read a (2nd hand) update from one of the climbers on the Greenpeace UK blog or read our feature story for more info.

And here’s the news from Kaisa (Greenpeace Finland):

The climbers came down because they saw they had achieved already a lot. They managed to raise wide discussions about the problems of nuclear in general, and the problems of this particular reactor. They were able to get attention to the other side of the story…

Continue reading Olkiluoto nuclear plant protest ends…

When Apple CEO Steve Jobs made his “A Greener Apple” statement he acknowledged that Apple fans expected more from Apple. We wanted to send him a permanent memento and reminder of the great work many Apple fans had sent us via our Green my Apple website. But Steve is obviously a busy man – how to get a suitable memento to him in an appropriate manner?

Continue reading How to get a green message direct to Steve?…

Posted by Greenpeace team (at the last day of the International Whaling Commission, in Anchorage, Alaska)

The functional extinction of an entire species the Baiji dolphin – got just fifteen minutes of fame (or maybe less) here at the International Whaling Commission meeting. The Vaquita, the Mexican dolphin likely to become extinct in the near future got about as much notice. No time at all was spent on the estimated 3,288 cetaceans that have died worldwide as bycatch since the 59th IWC meeting began, plus the incalculable
deaths from other human causes like ship strikes, pollution, bycatch and climate change.

Continue reading The IWC ends: But what about the Baiji and the Vaquita?…

Posted by Dave (at the last day of the International Whaling Commission, in Anchorage, Alaska)

Yesterday at the IWC, the debate on the Japanese resolution for coastal whaling took place. There’s been no agreement in the request for such a programme, so the vote has been put off until later today.

It’s at once interesting, unsurprising and alarming that Japanese delegation is now making no secret of the fact that that coastal whaling is a form for commercial whaling. Yet, they’re also trying to claim it’s no different from Aboriginal Subsistence whaling as practised by indigenous people in Russia, Alaska and Greenland. They want to have their whalemeat and eat it, so to speak.

“What’s wrong with commercial whaling?”, asked the Japanese commissioner, Joji Morishita.

Continue reading Coastal whaling: Japan’s double standard on indigenous people…

Posted by Greenpeace team (at the last day of the International Whaling Commission, in Anchorage, Alaska)

The functional extinction of an entire species the Baiji dolphin – got just fifteen minutes of fame (or maybe less) here at the International Whaling Commission meeting. The Vaquita, the Mexican dolphin likely to become extinct in the near future got about as much notice. No time at all was spent on the estimated 3,288 cetaceans that have died worldwide as bycatch since the 59th IWC meeting began, plus the incalculable
deaths from other human causes like ship strikes, pollution, bycatch and climate change.

Continue reading The IWC ends: But what about the Baiji and the Vaquita?…

At tonight’s Harvard Law School cocktail party, before Nicholas Negroponte arrived to give a talk about One Laptop Per Child, a friend asked me why I continue to attend Negroponte’s talks. “Given how many of these you’ve heard, what are you going to get out of this?” The truth is, I learn something new every time Negroponte talks about the project. Even before he began talking, it was interesting to discover that he’s come equipped with almost a dozen “B2″ prototype machines. They’re open and live on tables around the room, for people to play with – that’s a big improvement from the last time I played with the machine, when the machines were still being hand-built, were in scarce supply and you needed someone to walk you through the Sugar interface. Negroponte starts by reminding us that OLPC is an education project, not a laptop project. He traces his work on the project to Seymour Papert and to the learning process students go through in learning Logo. Debugging, he argues, is as close as we can get to learning how to think… and it works for skills like spelling, as well as for programming. Much of the focus of… (more)

(Posted by Ethan Zuckerman in Emerging Technologies at 1:29 PM)

We come across a lot of interesting ideas and innovative solutions, but we choose only a few to discuss in detail. The best of the stories we don’t cover get selected and collated as headlines in News and Views. It’s like a little Worldchanging news service, and if you haven’t noticed, the daily News and Views stories are now being delivered via RSS feed either with the other posts, or as a feed by themselves. 31-May The Dirty Water Underground Chicken Poop: More Glamorous Than Ever Disaster Balloons House-Off Button Makes ‘Going Green’ Easy Sustainability Reports Help Investors Manage Risk 30-May Off The Grid Homes We Want Solutions! Global Peace Index – The Texture of Peace Ban Considered On Organic Food Brought In By Air Can Nanotechnology Be Good For Climate? 29-May China’s Solar-Powered City Design That Solves Problems for the World’s Poor Changing Ecologies of Food and Agriculture The Green View From Beijing ‘Synergies’ Between Renewables, Efficiency Would Cut GHG Emissions 28-May Biodiesel Makers See Opportunity as New York Seeks Greener Future Architecture and robotic ecologies Plasma Could Turn Old Tyres Into New Emission Scheme To Shield the Poor Grassroots Green Chemistry 26-May Ants show us how to make… (more)

(Posted by David Zaks in Media at 11:11 AM)

Posted by Dave (at the last day of the International Whaling Commission, in Anchorage, Alaska)

IWC stories: The security has been pretty tight here at the IWC – I’ve even seen members of the National Guard wandering about in full fatigues. There’s been lots and lots of police here. That said, the police have been really friendly – and are constantly dropping by the Whale Broadcasting Corporation to say hello. Earlier, I caught a hotel security man was eyeing my camera. I thought I was in trouble for something – he wanted advice on doing long exposures of the Northern Lights.

Earlier, our whales expert, John Frizell, was in the elevator of the Captain Cook hotel, with some tourists.

“Are you here for the convention?”, they asked.

“Yes, I am”, said John.

Continue reading From the International Donut Commission, in Anchorage Alaska…