Vote for Dorothee to be the Next Green ‘It’ Girl!

Who’s the next green ‘it’ girl? Project Green Search is looking for the woman who wants to be an advocate for the environment, animal welfare, fair trade, and human rights. The next green ‘it’ girl is a model, spokesperson, host, brand ambassador and all around green model citizen, for progressive, sustainable, ethical companies, from fashion & beauty to cars & computers.

We know just the girl… our own Dorothee Royal-Hedinger, sustainable food advocate and co-founder of OrganicNation.tv! Dorothee is more than just a (ridiculously) pretty face – she’s got brains and passion for sustainability in spades, just the qualities that a well-rounded green ‘it’ girl should have.

Please vote for Dorothee so she can continue her work in spreading the message of sustainability.

“The more I learn about sustainability and organic food, the more I realize that being eco-conscious can’t stop at the dinner table. For our health and for the health of the planet, we all need to make eco-friendly choices when purchasing things like beauty products and clothing.

I’ve realized that fashion has the power to make a difference because of the joy and interest it brings people who might not normally be exposed to environmental issues. It’s been such a pleasure working with leaders in eco-fashion that I have to admit, I’m hooked! I would be proud to continue fostering environmental awareness in young consumers through something as fun as fashion.

As a “green” model, I would aim to show that being green means being hip, confident and conscious about what we consume, but most of all I would enjoy celebrating healthy food, healthy clothing and healthy bodies!”

-Dorothee

Voting is really easy, and every single vote counts… just click this link & select 5 stars under her photo, and leave a note at the bottom of the page if you like. Hurry – voting ends tomorrow!

Link [Project Green Search]

Vote for Your Favorite Drive Smarter Challenge Video!

Have you ever wanted to be a film critic? Now’s your chance! It’s time to vote for your favorite video from among ten finalists in the Drive Smarter Video Contest launched by The Alliance to Save Energy. Your vote can help determine who wins the $5000 grand prize and three other exciting prizes!

The entrants took highly creative approaches to illustrate driving and vehicle maintenance tips that save money and increase fuel efficiency. There’s the smart, chatty GPS system that inspires flirting… a carpool with back-seat smooching… a broken-heartened, guitar-strumming, singing cowboy with his truck named Earl…

Public voting on 10 short videos aimed at helping to drive smarter, reduce their gas consumption and drive fewer miles has already begun and continues until Monday, October 19, 11:59 PM (EDT). To rate the videos, visit the Drive Smarter Challenge video contest website: http://drivesmarterchallenge.org/contest.  Videos are just two minutes or shorter, and you can return to the site if you don’t finish rating all 10 in one sitting.

Every video is completely different, and we enjoyed rating our favorites.  Now it’s your turn!

Link [Drive Smarter Challenge]

Tweet for Free Tickets to the No Impact Man Premiere

Want free tickets to the premiere of the No Impact Man documentary in your city? All you have to do is tweet a message about the film, which will be in theaters on September 11th, 2009.

Here’s the info:

New York
Los Angeles
San Francisco
Berkeley
Chicago
Denver
Seattle
Philadelphia
Washington, DC
San Diego
Boston
St. Louis
Minneapolis
Salt Lake City

Follow these two easy steps:

1. Follow us on Twitter
2. Tweet the following:

“#NIMtix @oscopelabs is giving away tix to No Impact Man in theaters Sept 2009 www.noimpactdoc.com”

Winners will be announced soon – good luck! If you don’t score free tix or don’t live in one of the cities listed above, never fear: No Impact Man will be playing in a long list of theaters until November – see the schedule and theater info here.

Some info about the documentary:

Colin Beavan decides to completely eliminate his personal impact on the environment for the next year.

It means eating vegetarian, buying only local food, and turning off the refrigerator. It also means no elevators, no television, no cars, busses, or airplanes, no toxic cleaning products, no electricity, no material consumption, and no garbage.

No problem – at least for Colin – but he and his family live in Manhattan. So when his espresso-guzzling, retail-worshipping wife Michelle and their two-year-old daughter are dragged into the fray, the No Impact Project has an unforeseen impact of its own.

Link [No Impact Doc] via [Treehugger]

DIY Solar Charger Takes Top Prize in Instructables’ EarthJustice Contest

30 million people bought an iPhone or iPod Touch last year alone, and that adds up to a whole lot of electricity use when recharging. Now, they can all build their own DIY solar charger thanks to Instructables’ EarthJustice contest winner Jerome Kelty.

From EarthJustice:

Kelty, 41, of Boulder County, Colo., calculated that charging those units every other day for a year would put more than 30 million pounds of carbon dioxide, the main cause of global warming, into the atmosphere. So he bought a portable charger kit and with a few simple tools, in less than an hour, modified it to run on solar power. The homemade device charges his iPod Touch in a few hours without batteries or plugging it in, and also works with most devices with a USB port.

“Individuals can do a lot to fight global warming,” said Kelty, who will receive a new, “green” Macintosh laptop. “I can ride my bike instead of driving my car. I can use more efficient appliances and use solar and wind power whenever possible. An iPod recharger is a small thing, but it adds up.”

Congratulations to Kelty, who won a Mac Book Pro for this awesome DIY tutorial. Check out the full written instructions at Instructables, along with the hundreds of other interesting entries from a portable wind generator to an electric motorcycle.

Link [EarthJustice] + [Instructables]

Figs & Ginger Earth Day Giveaway

Planning on planting a tree for Earth Day? (Of course you are, right?!) Figs & Ginger, who create the most adorable handmade eco-friendly jewelry ever, want to thank you for helping out the earth. Take a photo or video of yourself planting a tree and send it over – the first 50 people to do so will receive a limited edition Tree Necklace PLUS either a pair of Fawn Earrings or a Fawn Tie Tack.

Earth Day Giveaway from Figs & Ginger! from Figs & Ginger on Vimeo.

Entries must be submitted by May 6th at the latest, but you’d better act fast – you don’t want to miss out on such a gorgeous giveaway! Email your photos or video to EarthDay@FigsandGinger.com. You can also upload the video to Youtube or Vimeo and e-mail them with the link, or send a link to your blog with the picture, or twitpic it on Twitter to , @FigsandGinger. Remember to include your name & shipping address.

Check out all the rules at the Figs & Ginger website, and take a look around while you’re there!

Link [Figs & Ginger]

Grist Says: “Screw Earth Day!”

Grist.org, one of the best green blogs in existence, isn’t exactly where you would expect the statement “Screw Earth Day!” to come from. But what they’re really saying is you can’t make up for a lifetime of excess in one day. Planting a tree on Earth Day doesn’t make you green if you spend every other day driving a Hummer and leaving the windows open with the A/C on.

Grist wants you to make Earth Day every day, not just April 22nd. The “Screw Earth Day!” campaign seeks to draw attention to the importance of being green all the time, and having fun while doing it.

“Too many people tokenize Earth Day, using it as an excuse to hug a tree one day and ram it with their SUV the next,” said Chip Giller, founder and CEO of Grist. “We say, screw that. One day is for amateurs. We can do better.”

Sign up for daily and weekly news updates from Grist and you’ll get two awesome extras: a free download of its award-winning book “Wake Up and Smell the Planet: The Non-Pompous, Non-Preachy Grist Guide to Greening Your Day” and a chance to win a free trip for two to popular music and arts festival Bonnaroo, happening in Manchester, TN June 11-14.

Register at ScrewEarthDay.com between April 9th and April 23rd to participate! And, by the way, check out the newly redesigned Grist site – it’s pretty.

Link [ScrewEarthDay.com]

Disney’s Stunning Nature Film ‘Earth’: Trailer & Giveaway!

Nothing serves as better inspiration to protect the beauty of the earth than the earth itself, and though you may not be able to tour the globe to see its wonders in person, Disney’s new film ‘Earth’ may just be the next best thing. Directed by the same creative team behind the “Planet Earth” series, this epic adventure will be coming to a big screen near you on Earth Day 2009.

‘Earth’ is narrated by James Earl Jones and tells the story of three animal families – polar bears, African elephants and humpback whales – and their amazing journey across the planet, capturing the most intimate moments of our planet’s wildest and most elusive creatures. ‘Earth’ is the first film in the new Disneynature series, so we can look forward to more films like it in the future.

Check out the trailer below:

EarthFirst and Disney are also teaming up to offer our readers a chance to win an awesome ‘Earth’ prize pack, which includes a canvas tote, reusable grocery bag, biodegradable tumbler, a tree seedling and more. Stay tuned for our next cartoon caption contest for your chance to win!

Get more details about the film at the Disney Earth website. Don’t forget, ‘Earth’ debuts on April 22nd!

Link [Disney Earth]

Enter the Instructables Energy Efficiency Competition & Win a Mac Book Pro

Want to help improve energy efficiency, and win yourself a brand new 15″ MacBook Pro from Apple? Create an energy-saving Instructable and explain why or how your project saves energy – whether it’s a whole new invention or an improvement upon an existing product. Instructables and EarthJustice are teaming up to sponsor creative thinking on energy efficiency. Instructables is a web-based documentation platform where passionate people share what they do and how they do it, and learn from and collaborate with others.

From Instructables:

Quick, what renewable-energy resource is cheap, perfectly clean, and available almost everywhere?
Energy efficiency.

Improving energy efficiency is the fastest, cheapest, and cleanest way to power our lives, so Instructables has teamed up with Earthjustice to help spread the news through their United States of Efficiency campaign. Even small changes in the efficiency standards for appliances, lights, and machines can create huge savings in electricity and natural gas – we can help fight global warming, create green jobs, and save scarce resources and money at the same time!

Five first prize winners will receive a Kill-a-Watt, and five runners-up will get an Instructables Robot t-shirt, patch and stickers. Check out the current submissions and communicate with your fellow inventors at the Instructables EarthJustice Contest page. You can also get more inspiration at the Instructables ‘Saving Energy’ page.

The contest started Thursday, March 26th and the entry deadline is May 6th, 2009. Be sure to read the official rules before getting started. Good luck!

Link [Instructables]

Essay Contest: Win a Hybrid Bus for Your School

How green is your school – and how well can you write about it? Kindergarten through 12th graders around the country are being offered a chance to win their school a hybrid school bus from Warrenville, Illinois-based IC Bus through an essay contest that encourages kids to write passionately about their schools’ green efforts.

From USA Today:

“We feel strongly about the fact that every school bus takes 36 cars off the road, about the billions of gallons of gas that it saves per year for every school bus we have on the road,” says IC Bus president John McKinney.

Christian Laskaros, a junior at Half Hollow Hills High School East in Dix Hills, N.Y., entered a few weeks ago. He described how small eco-friendly programs at his school, including a paper recycling program, fliers with energy-saving tips in classrooms and ceiling lights with timers, add up to make a big difference.

“I really hope (the judges) grasp the entire gist of the essay, how you can see nothing being eco-friendly one day, and the next day you’re looking at the bus you’re riding on in the city and how eco-friendly it actually is,” Laskaros says. “And you look at your water bottle, something so small, and realize how much damage it can do.”

The contest is open until April 30th. Students can enter their 500-word essays at AmericasGreenestSchool.com, a website that also offers tips for making their schools more eco-friendly. Ten finalists, chosen by IC Bus’s president and Terra Wellington, author of The Mom’s Guide to Growing Your Family Green: Saving the Earth Begins at Home, will be posted on the website May 11th-17th. The public will then choose the winner, who will receive a $5,000 scholarship as well as getting the hybrid bus for their school.

If you know a student who’s got the passion and the writing chops to tackle this contest, send them to AmericasGreenestSchool.com to learn more. It’s a great opportunity to not only give a deserving school a valuable gift but to excite students about going green.

Link [USA Today]

Greener Gadgets 2009 Delivers Buffet of Awesome Green Tech

Greener Gadgets 2009 kicked off yesterday in New York City, letting forth a deluge of brilliant green technology and gadgets that address the issues of energy, carbon footprint, health and toxicity, new materials, product lifestyle and social development. The Greener Gadgets Design Conference, a collaboration between Greener Gadgets and Core 77, included the debut of fascinating advancements in green consumer tech and the live-judging of the Greener Gadgets Design Competition.

Inhabitat live-blogged the whole thing, giving us virtual front-row seats that almost make up for being unable to attend in person. Inhabitat’s Jill Fehrenbacher is co-founder of Greener Gadgets, along with Marc Alt.

The keynote speech – delivered by inventor, entrepreneur and tech guru Saul Griffith – was lively and fun. From Inhabitat:

He gave a broad overarching talk that visualized our out-of-control energy consumption in a series of easily understandable graphs and charts, focusing upon the ways that climate change and energy problems are design issues.

Beginning with an easy-to-understand explanation of energy using simple measurements, Saul went on to characterize his own energy usage in terms of travel by air and car, the requirements of his household and work, the food he consumes, the physical stuff he owns, and the society he lives in. By tallying up all of these, Saul found that his personal energy footprint amounts to 18,000 watts. Next, he took a broader look at the energy use of the rest of the world, quipping “I’m a planet fucker – all of you are too”.

And then, of course, there was the moment we were all waiting for: when the design competition winner was announced. There were a lot of amazing creations among the top 50, but ultimately, it was… drumroll please… the Tweet-a-Watt! The Power Hog came in second place, with the Indoor Drying Rack snagging third and the Laundry Pod making fourth.

Check out Inhabitat and the Greener Gadgets website for more details and to see the designs of all 50 finalists.

Link [Greener Gadgets] + [Inhabitat]

Get FREE Tickets to the Green Festival!

Seth Goldman, President & CEO of Honest Tea, will be speaking at the Green Festival this weekend in Washington, D.C. and he wants you to join him! Goldman’s speech will by Sunday, November 9th at 2:00pm.  Be one of the first 25 people to email the following info to lauren@honesttea.com to win 2 FREE tickets to GreenFest as well as an Honest Tea t-shirt.

• Full Name
• Address
• Phone
• E-mail

Here’s a message from Seth Goldman:

Honest Tea will be out in full force with loads of cold Honest Tea and Honest Ade for Seth’s presentation “Honest Tea: An Innovator in Sustainability.” Seth will discuss the challenges Honest Tea has overcome as it has grown over the past ten years to be the best-selling organic tea brand.

To learn more about GreenFest, check out GreenFestivals.org.

Get Trees for Your City Using Your American Express Card

American Express® is giving its cardholders a chance to win up to $300,000 worth of trees for their city with the ‘Root for Your City’ contest, going on until October 31st.  How it works is simple: look for participating merchants in your area on the American Express® website, or watch for the tree icon in-store. Pay for your purchase with any American Express® Card to ‘vote’ for your city.  The city that gets the largest amount of votes wins a $300,000 tree-planting grant, and the second through eighth place cities will each receive $100,000 toward planting trees.

Find participating businesses in your area today and you can help green up your city simply by making purchases.  The merchants participating include jewelry stores, shoe stores, furniture stores, movie theatres, museums, restaurants, clothing boutiques and even acupuncturists and fish markets.  The cities participating include Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, NYC, San Francisco and Washington, D.C.

Get more info at the American Express website!

Link [Root for Your City]

Brighter Planet and 1Sky Launch Climate Video Contest

Have an impact on the future of the planet – inspire the next president of the United States to take bold climate action. Brighter Planet and 1Sky have announced their Climate Matters Video Contest to give Americans the opportunity to make a difference. The winner will receive a $3,000 Brighter Planet Visa Gift Card, and the second and third place winners will receive $1,000 and $500 Brighter Planet Visa Gift Cards, respectively.

To enter the contest, upload a 30- or 60- second video encouraging bold climate change to the Climate Matters channel on vimeo.com/climatematters. The topic must be climate change. The deadline to upload your video is September 22nd, 2008, and winners will be announced on September 29th.

Here are some of the details:

The Climate Matters Video Contest provides all Americans with the chance to have their global climate change message seen by our next president and other political leaders. This October, the top 10 videos will be featured during a Washington, D.C.-based event for the media, Congress and both presidential campaigns. These top videos will also be broadcast to millions via Link TV, FSTV, and online at venues including: www.think.mtv.com, www.joost.com, www.huffingtonpost.com and www.quarterlife.com.

“We know Americans are inspired to take climate action; they’re already taking steps everyday,” said actress and Climate Matters juror Maggie Gyllenhaal. “I’m excited to see what people create.”

The 10 most viewed videos will be judged by a panel that includes: actress Maggie Gyllenhaal; Rory Kennedy, Emmy award-winning documentary producer; Tia Lessin, the supervising producer of Fahrenheit 9/11 and Bowling for Columbine; Leila and Nadia Conners, the producers/directors of 11th Hour; author Anya Kamenetz; David Jenkins, Government Affairs Director of Republicans for Environmental Protection; Bill Stetson, Producer and Environmental Consultant; Gillian Caldwell, Campaign Director of 1Sky; and Patti Prairie, CEO of Brighter Planet.

Viewers can log in to Vimeo to pick their favorite video and enter a drawing on the channel to win a Cannon VIXIA HDV Camcorder. Contestants can promote their videos to improve their chances of being counted among the top 10.

Check out an introductory Climate Matters video below:

Climate Matters from Brighter Planet on Vimeo.

Link [Brighter Planet] + [1Sky]