Dipping into the EarthFirst.com Archives: Littering in Space, Guerrilla Gardening, Styrofoam Eco Fail and Life After Oil

What would happen to American society if our oil supplies were interrupted for an extended period of time – a month, or even a year? In a word: chaos. Relive this October 2008 article and more in our little journey through the EarthFirst.com archives:

Oh, Great! Astronaut Accidentally Litters in Space While Cleaning Solar Panel – There’s a lot of random junk floating around in space, and now we can add a tool bag to the list after an astronaut, startled by an exploding grease gun, let go of her cleaning supplies.

Is Your Cell Phone Drenched in Blood? In the Congo, prisoners – including children – are forced into deadly mines in search of coltan, a mineral that is refined into a heat-resistant metal powder used in electronics.

Eco Fail: Giant $6M Foam Statue of Liberty a Big Polluting Mess – Why the hell would we need a 50,000 pound, 130-foot styrofoam replica of the Statue of Liberty? As one of our lovely commenters remarked, “It’s kind of like masturbation… but for a whole nation.”

Urban Gardening: You Can Grow Food No Matter Where You Live – It’s summer, and for many people, that means garden-fresh veggies and herbs. If you thought you couldn’t grow edibles because you don’t have enough space, check out our tips for urban gardens.

What Would Happen if Oil Supplies in America Suddenly Dried Up? No food on grocery store shelves, riots, martial law and the threat of thousands of zombie-like starving people roaming the suburbs looking for something to eat.

9 Easy Ways to Green Up Your Life – And they really are easy. Have your nanny use public transportation, buy a Tesla roadster and consider renting Johnny Depp’s eco-resort next time you need a break from the arduous rigors of your pampered life.

Organic Nation: Exploring America’s Sustainable Food Landscape

EarthFirst.com’s own managing editor, Dorothee Royal-Hedinger, is setting out on a tour of the Midwest and West Coast with her new project Organic Nation. Organic Nation is an exploration of the American sustainable food landscape focusing on the people, places and products that are shaping a new green economy and lifestyle.

From OrganicNation.tv:

We’ll be exploring such fundamental questions as: What does “organic” mean and how are products certified? What do scientists say about the risks of chemical pesticides and fertilizers on human health? What are the costs of switching to organic production and is it affordable for farmers and consumers? Is organic better than local or vice-versa? Can organic food production feed the nation and is it truly sustainable?

Check out the trailer below:

Organic Nation Trailer from OrganicNation on Vimeo.

Dorothee, who also runs Fresh Cut Media and regularly contributes to Change.org and BUST, will be traveling with writer and photographer Mark Andrew Boyer.

Tour itinerary:

May 10th-20th Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin
May 22nd – 24th Buffalo, New York
May 25th – 28th San Jose, California
May 29th – 31st San Francisco, California
June 1st-10th TBA

Support Organic Nation! O.N. will be accepting donations through June 10th to keep them on the road. You can also support Organic Nation by voting in the Organic Film Trailer Competition, following them on Twitter and reading the Organic Nation blog.

Link [OrganicNation.tv]

Dipping into the EarthFirst.com Archives for Hair-Raising Environmental Problems, Bloody Whale Massacres and Rich Ass Greenies

It’s been a little over a year since EarthFirst.com first unleashed its forces of awesome upon the general public, and what a long, crazy ride it’s been. We’ve seen amazing green gear, bizarre green inventions, too many jaw-droppingly creative renewable energy advances to mention and a whole lot of election madness including plenty of well-deserved hatin’ on Sarah Palin.

But among the 1,600+ posts we’ve written, we’ve got some favorites that we want to share with you again. Here they are, in no particular order:

7 Environmental Problems That Are Worse Than We Thought – Mammalian extinction, ocean dead zones, polar ice loss, continuing rainforest destruction… holy crap, we have really screwed things up, haven’t we?

Even Suave Obama Looks Dorky in a Bicycle Helmet – Becoming our president (thankyouohholyflyingspaghettimonster) hasn’t stopped Obama from rocking dorky gear like mom jeans.

Brutal Faroe Islands Pilot Whale Slaughter – The extremely bloody annual killing of thousands of pilot whales in the Faroe Islands is a controversial subject and hoo boy, do y’all have some creative expletives to hurl at each other over it.

Silverleaf Resorts Greenwash – we totally pwned a very-not-green timeshare company giving away very-not-green cruises at least year’s Chicago Greenfest.

25 Rich Ass Greenies Who Made Their Fortune Saving the Environment – Green entrepreneurs are rollin’ in the dough. Just ask Roxanne Quimby, Frank Asbeck or Cheung Yan.

Galactic Green Cred: The Environmentalism of Star Wars – need we say more?

Happy Holidays from EarthFirst.com

Merry Christmas, Happy Kwanzaa, Happy (belated) Hanukkah, Merry Winter Solstice, etc. etc. to all of you out there, and here’s hoping for an awesomely green new year! Now go and glut yourself on free-range ham, organic veggies and all the spiked beverages you can get your hands on.

Link [WrongCards.com]

EarthFirst’s Shea Gunther on Green Talk Radio

EarthFirst.com Publisher and VP of Content Shea Gunther was interviewed on episode 135 of ‘Green Talk Radio’ with Green Living Ideas’ Sean Daily!  Shea talks to Sean about his various green ventures, including the 5(!) companies that he’s founded by the age of 30 and upcoming projects like the organic screenprinted t-shirts he’ll be selling at MeatSpaceTees.com.  He also discusses the need for ‘greedy greens’, how he crafts the snarky editorial voice here on EarthFirst and how companies can get good publicity for doing green works (and bad publicity for greenwashing).

“I really don’t think that we’re in danger of there being a green burnout because it just makes too much sense.  It might take a little bit longer for everyone to come around to it, but when you can show people that we can live in a world where we can have TVs, and we can take trips and we can wear nice clothes, and you know – we can do all that stuff without polluting the crap out of the world – then, how do you argue with that?”

Check out the podcast at PersonalLifeMedia.com!

Link [Green Talk Radio]

Eco Tips Illustrated Part II: Green Up Your Life in Five Easy Steps

Sometimes, it’s hard to figure out what to do in various situations in order to be ‘green’. With the help of these simple illustrations, you can learn to live a greener life and avoid the mistakes and pitfalls that can happen to the uneducated. This random selection of 5 green illustrated tips will show you how to properly interpret ‘go green’ advice. Check out Part I as well, which features such tips as ‘Get Smart with Gasoline’ and ‘Don’t Eat Animals’.

Illustrations by Stephanie Rogers

Eco Tips Illustrated: Green Up Your Life in Five Easy Steps

Sometimes, it’s hard to figure out what to do in various situations in order to be ‘green’. With the help of these simple illustrations, you can learn to live a greener life and avoid the mistakes and pitfalls that can happen to the uneducated. This random selection of 5 green illustrated tips will show you how to properly interpret ‘go green’ advice.

Illustrations by Stephanie Rogers

Confessions of A Greenwasher: Like an AA Meeting, but with More Guilt

Hello, my name is Stephanie Rogers, and I’m a former greenwasher. It’s true. I know, I’m ashamed. I’m a writer and graphic designer from Asheville, North Carolina and once worked for a company that was attempting to jump on the eco-friendly bandwagon. When I say attempting, I mean they had good intentions and were really trying to be legit, but realized after a good six months of planning that they were in way over their heads.

Being the staff writer, I was in charge of coming up with all kinds of ways to justify calling the products we were selling ‘green’. “Was part of it possibly handmade? Can we verify whether it was handmade by an 8-year-old in Cambodia? No? Okay… hmm.” It could get particularly challenging when said product had, for example, a solar component, but the main part of it was shipped in on a boat from China. Moral dilemmas galore.

That’s just one of many reasons why I’m happy to be joining EarthFirst. I’m excited that instead of being a part of the problem, I can now be a part of the revolution that’s gathering steam – the call to change. I’m dedicated to earth friendly practices in my own life and am constantly seeking ways I can improve, and I’m psyched to share in that process with all of you. So howdy, EarthFirst readers – I hope this is the start of a beautiful friendship (sniff).

Catch Us After You Plug Back In: EarthFirst is Liveblogging Earth Hour Tonight 8-9pm

I’ll be liveblogging tonight from 8-9pm to help celebrate Earth Hour, the 60 minute span when the world is being asked to turn off all lights and electricity. I will be camped out at EarthFirst HQ East (my living room) with all my lights on watching the TV set to something good and trashy while warming my hands over my plugin heater. My posts will cover what I’m watching on TV, any snacks I happen to make, and the general atmosphere in the room as we suck up all the excess energy left on the power grid by the rest of you do-gooders.

If you’re a good little greenie you’ll have to catch up on things after you plug back into the system at 9pm. Woot.

Q&A With Mr. Cranky Green: Send Us Your Questions!!!!!

We’re starting a new feature here at EarthFirst called “Q&A with Mr. Cranky Green“. Every Tuesday we’ll be bringing you questions asked by readers and answered by our very own Mr. Cranky Green, a amalgamation of EarthFirst personalities and anonymity that we hope will add a little crack up to your day.

You can send questions about the environment, “going green”, green business, gadgets, environmental activism, or anything else under the eco sky to CrankyGreen@earthfirst.com. We’ll pick the ones that don’t suck and answer them here for all to read.

Send us some questions so we don’t have to make them up. To sweeten the deal we’ll send some free green swag or whatnots to ya if we choose your question.