Stumptown Coffee

A guest post from me pops:

"I don't know if you want to pay $12 per pound of coffee, but I recommend that you review Stumptown's great coffee. I have read in several places over the last few years that Stumptown - in Portland - makes the best coffee of all the "gourmet blenders". They are not big like Starbucks, and only have a few stores in that area, but they are consistently rated the best. I also found them rated tops in Consumer Reports, as I recall. I read somewhere that Portland folks will line up at length each morning just to drink Stumptown's coffee. I think they are a green company, also, and that much of their beans are free trade. If you visit their site www.stumptowncoffee.com you can read all about them. You can find their organic blends at between $12 and $13 per pound, which is high but may be worth the cost, at least for a treat." --Pappa Java

I checked out the site and found this bit: "Believing in the social, environmental, and economic benefits of sustainable business leads us to not only support coffee farms that are committed to the well being of their workers, land and water, it compels us to be a sustainable business in our own community. Providing health insurance for our employees and donating freshly roasted coffee to the Oregon Food Bank are some of the ways that we act on our belief in sustainability."

That's a lot of money for coffee, and most of us will need it shipped, but I'd gladly support these guys because of what they do.

Top Green Power Users

For the first time, a corporation ­leads EPA's national Top 25 list of green power purchasers. Wells Fargo & Company claimed the top spot, purchasing 550 million kilowatt hours annually. Organizations that purchase electricity generated from clean, renewable resources such as solar, wind, geothermal, biogas, biomass and low-impact hydro make up the quarterly list. After Wells Fargo & Company, Whole Foods Market ranks second and the U.S. Air Force ranks third. The U.S. EPA ranks fourth, with Johnson & Johnson rounding out the top five. Newcomers to the list include Cisco Systems Inc., New York University, Carbonfund.org, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, and Kohl's Department Stores.

EPA's Top 25 green power purchasers are buying more than 4 billion kilowatt-hours of green power on an annual basis. This is equivalent to the energy needed to power more than 350,000 average American homes each year. The EPA Green Power Partnership encourages organizations to purchase green power as a way to reduce the environmental impacts associated with the use of electricity from fossil fuels and to diversify America's fuel supply. The partnership is comprised of a diverse set of organizations including Fortune 500 companies, small and medium businesses, government institutions as well as colleges and universities. EPA's Top 25 Green Power Partners is as follows, listed in order of purchase size:

1. Wells Fargo & Company

2. Whole Foods Market

3. U.S. Air Force

4. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

5. Johnson & Johnson

6. Starbucks

7. DuPont Company

8. U.S. Department of Energy

9. Vail Resorts Inc.

10. HSBC North America

11. Cisco Systems Inc.

12. Staples

13. New York University

14. The World Bank Group

15. University of Pennsylvania

16. IBM Corporation

17. Carbonfund.org

18. U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

19. NatureWorks LLC

20. Sprint Nextel

21. Safeway Inc.

22. Pennsylvania State University

23. Kohl's Department Stores

24. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania

25. The Tower Companies

So what? Well, if you're interested in putting your money where it may do some good (or at least less bad), buy some groceries from Whole Foods, take a loan from Wells Fargo, or buy some staples at Staples.

Green Super Bowl

The Super Bowl has gone Green. The NFL is offsetting the carbon created by producing electricity consumed during the super bowl by planting native trees and purchasing renewable energy certificates. They even think that all of their efforts will make the event carbon negative. They are also pushing recycling at the event and will be donating any uneaten food.

The NFL isn't the first big player to host a green event. The Turin Olympics and the last World Cup were carbon neutral or negative, and the IRL is converting to ethanol from methanol (way more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas). Thanks Forbes.

DIY

One mainstay of treehugging is doing it yourself, or DIY. There are a few reasons for doing it yourself, such as saving money. You also have a much better chance of being able to buy locally made materials than buying a locally made complete product. Other environmental advantages depend on what the finished product is, but sometimes it's more efficient to ship the raw materials than to ship the finished product. If nothing else, it is rewarding to know that you made something yourself.

There are lots of sites out there that guide you through everything from knitting a toy to building your own wind turbine. Knitting toys, animals, scarfs, etc. is a great way to be green because you can often find organic yarn, especially if you live near Amish areas. Knitty.com is a good site for finding patterns and instructions. Howtopedia is a newer cousin of Wikipedia, but is made up of articles on how to make to do things. That's where you can find instructions for your own wind turbine, or even a biomass digester. Instructables is a favorite, where among others things, you can learn how to wire your own LED lights. There is a DIY network, where they've combined guides from TV and online about most things under the sun. eHow and HowStuffWorks have been around a long time too.

One last resource that I'm sure no one has thought of is the good 'ol library. Try it - libraries are the ultimate communal efficient way to share entertainment and information.

WaterSense

You've likely heard of the EnergyStar program under which products and buildings that meet certain energy efficiency criteria may display the EnergyStar logo. It's a convenient way for you and I to pick out appliances that are more efficient.

The EPA has a similar program for water efficiency called WaterSense. And now you can get your own throne with the WaterSense logo. Yep, efficient toilets are getting the nod. The news release says that by reducing from a standard 1.6 gallon flush toilet to a 1.3 flusher, it can save you 10% of your water bill. I don't think I flush that much, but who knows.

Right now they've only got irrigation systems and toilets, but hopefully they expand to things like dishwashers, clothes washers, and shower heads.

TreeHugger Hit It

Here's another lazy copied post for you. I think this TreeHugger post captures the heart of the current environmental movement - or at least my current mindset. Here's part of the post:

"TreeHugger was conceived with the intent of showcasing those cool products and services which could help the hesitant move toward a more sustainable lifestyle, without feeling they’d have to revert to hippydom. But from the outset we were very aware that it is simply not possible to buy a greener life. Money can open up choices, but it cannot be traded for core values or attitudes. And this is one of the determining factors for the dilemma we find ourselves in. We are conditioned by advertising, TV, cinema, and so on, to believe that more stuff will make us blissful. If the glow of owning a new plasma TV wears off, we jet away to the Bahamas, or buy another pair of shoes to fill that gnawing happiness void. (It is the materials extraction, manufacturing, distribution, use and subsequent disposal of all this desired ‘stuff’ that is at the root of our environment (and social) woes. Yet, while it has been long studied and reported that there is no link between wealth and happiness, we still pursue them. Recent related research now suggests that wealth and longevity are not good travelling buddies either. The US is up the top of list when it comes to Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the measure of a country’s ability to spend money. But it ranks way down in 30th spot for life expectancy."

While my family still buys our share of stuff, we're doing some things differently: really thinking about whether or not we need the item, looking for the most environmentally sound choices, looking for something made locally, and looking for the item used on Freecycle, Craig's List, or Ebay. It is difficult to fit in (keep up with the Jones') when you show up with a beaten and faded slide for your kids while the neighbors have a new Rainbow Play Set, but the feeling of doing something positive for the environment while saving money is really starting to feel good.

State of the Union

Well, he was better than his usual speaking self last night. As usual, the address was full of hope and great ideas and new spending with no way to pay for it. Apparenlty I don't know enough about the current budget status because he spoke about how he cut the deficit in half. I thought it was balanced when he inherited it. Hmm ... maybe I was dozing off.

His environmental/energy content was pretty disappointing relative to what it was built up to be. I think he spent about 5 minutes on it. So his plan is to cut gasoline (note - not oil) usage by 20% in 10 years. I thnk it will be really easy to accomplish based on all the current and almost-here technologies. At a large corporation I used to work for, we used to have all sorts of goals, and the hardest part was always determining how to set a goal that appeared hard to achieve, but that you knew you could meet (since bonuses were paid on them). I think Bush set an easy goal last night that we shouldn't have any trouble meeting. We're talking 10 years here!

Gasoline only. In this post, I noted how Sweden pledged to elmininate fossil fuels in 13 years.

Also notice GW had nothing but a general reference to global warming.

What a joke we are.