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Editor's note: Please welcome Green Options' newest writer, Elizabeth Redmond. Elizabeth is a sustainable designer working in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Her past experiences include working with her sister Sara Snow on a Discovery Health TV series called Get Fresh with Sara Snow, where she researched sustainability and built environment content.

I asked Elizabeth to give me an "elevator pitch" of her focus here at Green Options. Her response:

Today's green products and services seem to be an eclectic collection of "lighter tread". I propose that we begin to design and interact with products and systems that encourage heavy treading, where a heavy active footprint is one step in the right direction without a half step in the other. My objective is to tell you how things work, and enable you with the information to make responsible, and conscious decisions about society, lifestyle, health, and sustainability.

More than tornadoes, hurricanes, snow, or cold weather itself, heat is the number one weather related cause of death in the United States. So urban dwellers (that means half of us in this world) beware! Much of our urban heat is due to a phenomena called the Urban Heat Island effect. An Urban Heat Island is a metropolitan zone that is warmer than the surrounding, less developed area. The EPA reports that "On hot summer days, urban air can be 2-10°F [2-6°C] hotter than the surrounding countryside”. What does this mean? It’s going to be a hot summer, but luckily we can do a couple of things to help cool your stroll down the sidewalk.

First, how does this phenomena work? It is all about the energy transfer of solar radiation to our built environment. Lets go back to high school physics and review. All you need to know is that heat from the sun (radiation) gets stored in our constructed impervious and dark surfaces such as concrete and pavement (insulators). During the day these surfaces of high heat capacity collectively act as a massive heat energy reservoir. (I.e.: concrete can retain nearly 2000 times the heat as an equivalent volume of air). Next, the heat on the surface of these materials mixes with the already hot air and you experience a hot gust that feels dense enough to chew on (convection).

Amazon Rainforest At A Tipping Point, But Globalization Could Help Save It
What Does the Internet Look Like?
Solar-Beaming Sats
Taskforce to Cut ‘Cyber Warming’
Turning Cars Into Wireless Network Nodes

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(Posted by David Zaks in News and Views at 9:04 PM)

I’ve recently been introduced to two artists who use large-scale installations to provoke awareness and shift public perspective on current social and environmental crises. They hit a point of synergy in two works that both feature shelters destroyed by water — one directly related to New Orleans and Katrina, and the other sparking the same associations through the archetype of Atlantis. Both artists strive to incite action towards sustainability and social justice with a visual jolt to the system. Takashi Horisaki: A Latex Replica of a NOLA Shotgun House, Post-Katrina When artist Takashi Horisaki left his native Japan, he moved to New Orleans to spend his first three years in America earning an BFA at Loyola University. He left before Katrina ravaged the area, and returned in 2006 to discover “how seriously those of us living outside of the victimized area fail to grasp the reality of the tragedy suffered by New Orleans and the lethargic pace of recovery.” So he decided to help outsiders get a better perspective by creating a sculptural replica of a condemned house in the Lower 9th Ward. This is a continuation of a series Horisaki calls Social Dress (this one being called Social… (more)

(Posted by Sarah Rich in Arts at 7:43 PM)

Blood Diamond exposed to the movie-going masses the horrors of the diamond industry's operation in the West African country of Sierra Leone. Four West African countries, Angola, The Congo, Guinea and Sierra Leone, where the diamond trade is bloodiest, produce about 20% (PDF) of the world's rough diamonds. The growing global market for diamonds reached nearly $70 billion dollars in 2005 fueled largely by the insatiable appetite of US consumers who purchased $33 billion dollars in diamonds that year.

The movie has helped to bring energy and attention to reforming diamond operations with the goal of reinvesting more diamond money into the infrastructure and economies of these ruined nations. At the New York International Diamond Conference in February earlier this year an idea emerged to apply Fair Trade standards to the diamond industry in Africa as a first step toward reformation. During the conference Ed Zwick, producer of Blood Diamond, issued a passionate calling out of the diamond industry that inspired quick action.

The Rapaport Report, a leading diamond industry publication, wasted no time in working with the government of South Africa, the Fair Trade Labelling Organizations International and private diamond companies in bringing to market the first Fair Trade diamonds. The diamonds were on display last weekend at the Rapaport Fair Trade Conference held in Las Vegas.

"Mr. Green" poster design by Von Glitschka

Sustainability is becoming a pressing concern to the graphic design community. Designers are buzzing about it as they try to green their own practices and make sense of it all. In order to tap into this buzz, I organized a round table virtual discussion with several people involved in the design industry to chat about green design and the growing sensibilities of sustainability in our field.

"Green Design Dialogues" was born as a way to build the green design community and learn from each other. Our first discussion, via instant messaging, was May 25th. We touched on a broad range of topics relating to green design, which I will report on in a series of "Green Design Dialogues" posts in coming weeks. This week, I'll introduce the crew involved with our first Green Design Dialogue and relay each designer's experience with green design before summarizing our discussion.

Involved in the chat were designers from various backgrounds. Bryn Mooth joined us from HOW magazine, a wonderful graphic design magazine that has recently started covering more green topics. Dani Nordin, founder and principal designer at The Zen Kitchen, brought to the discussion her experience with running a small design studio that focuses on green design. Eric Benson is a Professor at the University of Illinois and the creator of the wonderful green design resource renourish. Eric Karjaluoto works at the interactive services firm smashLAB in Vancouver, and was involved in creating Design Can Change, an excellent call to action for the design community. Jess Sand is an independent designer and writer at her communications studio Roughstock Studios, who also writes a great blog on "sustainability for the rest of us," Small Failures. And of course, your humble Green Options design writer, Megan Prusynski, brought everyone together for the chat.

Today's tip is pulled from an amazing organization across the pond called We Are What We Do. In the land of the tea-drinkers, kettles are electric, and they say: "Only fill your kettle with the water you need. If everybody did we could save enough electricity to run all the street lighting in the whole country."

It's true. And it relates to more than just tea! Boiling water for pasta or potatoes? Why fill that pot all the way up? It's only going to take longer to boil, and you'll probably have your bowties floating around in way too much water. The longer it takes, the more energy you use!

Image credit: Tena Engelman/National Park ServiceToday we talk about Environmental Alliance for Senior Involvement (EASI) programs around the country. It all started in Pennsylvania ten years ago; now, EASI senior volunteers are involved in a wide range of projects, including trying to save a lake in Mexico.

Today's podcast is available here.

Going on a Diet, Working at Krispy Kreme Newsflash! Sprawl drowns polar bears! More concretely, sprawl makes it hard to hit climate targets, as Eric de Place notes: Building new road capacity in lightly developed areas is like begging for sprawl — and that directly undermines our attempts to put the brakes on greenhouse gases. It’s a bit like promising to go on a diet and then taking a job at Krispy Kreme. We’ve known for quite some time that land use planning has a profound impact on transportation, energy use and other aspects of our ecological footprints. Mixed-use density is one of the best levers for creating urban sustainability. What will that density look like? Well, it can come in many different forms: check out this awesome Lincoln Institute field guide to density (free reg required), which shows that there are a multitude of lifestyles which good planning can accommodate. Just because we’re not living in McMansions doesn’t mean we’re crammed like rats in a cage. Dense urban living and the good life rhyme. Your body is a Temple When we think of the horrific ecological legacies the 20th Century left behind it, we tend to focus on the… (more)

(Posted by Alex Steffen in Media at 2:53 PM)

Lately, I???ve been hearing about a lot of investment going into green companies and technology, which has me wondering: Is ???green??? the new tech boom? GE is ???doubling down??? on clean tech investments. According to Cleantech Network, last year???s 4th quarter saw $600 million in venture capital investments. So, if the opportunities are ripe for budding entrepreneurs and you have a great idea, how do you get started? The 2nd annual California Clean Tech Open might just be your ticket to success.

Sponsored by Acterra: Action for a Sustainable Earth, a non-profit based in Palo Alto, the competition seeks to solicit business plans from new clean tech companies. According to Acterra, the competition serves to, ??????create economic growth and environmental sustainability by sparking a clean technology cluster in California. By giving winners early-stage capital and expertise, the competition speeds clean technologies from lab to market. The goal is to foster innovative new businesses.???

At the G8 Summit, six of the G8 countries agreed to “at least halve global carbon dioxide emissions by 2050” and to achieve this goal together “as part of a United Nations process.” The US and Russia were holdouts on halving. Together, all eight nations agreed to “substantial” emissions cuts, without setting any target. The agreement paves the way for talks beginning in Bali, Indonesia in December to find a successor to the UN-backed Kyoto Protocol. An unusual and intense tropical cyclone—Gonu—formed and headed into the Gulf of Oman, striking Oman and Iran. More… Hundreds of glaciers on the Antarctic Peninsula (AP) are flowing faster, further adding to sea level rise according to new research published this week in the Journal of Geophysical Research. Climate warming, which is already causing increased summer snow melt and ice shelf retreat of the Antarctic Peninsula, is the most likely cause. More… Demand for electricity in Beijing hit 10.51 million kilowatts—the highest so far this year—as more families and businesses switch on the air conditioners in the early summer heat, according to Beijing Electric Power Corporation. More… Current fuel economy bills in the US Congress are proposing targets that are further away and less… (more)

(Posted by Mike Millikin in Transportation at 9:17 AM)