Galactic Green: How Eco-Friendly Is The Return Of The Jedi?

We’ve been examining the hidden green cred of the Star Wars Trilogy (Eps 4-6, 1-3 don’t count) for the last few weeks here on EarthFirst.com and have come around to the last chapter as we throw down a few of the green things to be found in Return of the Jedi.

1) That Bikini. Yeah, you know the one.

This is pretty simple: less clothing in a desert environment means you don’t have to crank up the AC and pump loads of carbon into the atmosphere. This probably has something to do with why Jabba is always naked, too. Ewww….

2) Jabba’s Eco-Friendly Executions [Read more]

Galactic Green Cred: The Environmentalism of Star Wars

Not to make sweeping generalizations, but it’s probably safe to say that if you’re reading this blog you’re more than just a little familiar with Star Wars (and by Star Wars we mean the first three Lucas made). Maybe you can quote the movies at will. Maybe you still have your Return of the Jedi bedsheets. Maybe you read the fan fiction (hell, maybe you write the fan fiction). But, if you, like us, are nerdy little fanboys at heart, well, buckle up, because you’re about to love George Lucas’ space opera even more. It turns out that there’s actually a fair bit o’ green to be found in Star Wars.

1. Clean Energy For The Droids?

We see C-3PO and R2-D2 shut down occasionally, but we never do see them do anything to power themselves. Solar? Really big batteries that last through the film? The Mr. Fusion from Back To The Future? We don’t know. But we don’t see them suck in anything remotely resembling a fossil fuel, nor do we see them plug in. [Read more]

Greening Up War: A Round Table Discussion on Environmentally Friendly Killin’

The Onion nails it just right- if we’re going to torture, wage war, and ethnically cleanse, it should be in a environmentally friendly way.

H/T to the big guy Jordan for dropping this link on me.

Electric Feedback: Use Too Much Energy and This Light Switch May Shock You

Oh, how I wish this were true. From Gizmodo:

The Consumption Feedback Switch is a device that monitors your electricity usage. If it feels you’re within your light quota when you flip on the lights, you’ll see a small, harmless spark. But if you’ve been one of those dolphin-unsafe villains from Captain Planet, reading a few minutes too long at night, a gigantic stream of deadly electricity will mend your ways pending you not die.

Alright, we’re actually not sure that you feel a shock at all since the word “spark” may have been the choice of a liberal Google translation denoting “small glow.”

Damn, I would LOVE to do a product review on a light switch that actually gave you a shock if you were using too much energy. Eco-evil. I with there was an Etsy Alchemy for green tech products.

Link [Consumption Feedback Switch] via [Gizmodo] via [dvice]

Vanity Fair’s Greenwashed Cover: There’s Nothing Green About Madonna

Why the fizuck is Madonna on the cover of the latest green Vanity Fair issue? She’s a wrinkly ol’ piece of plastic ass with a bigger environmental footprint than many small African nations. Blech.

Link [Ecorazzi]

Video Shows Growth of Wal-Mart Matches Outbreak of Infectious Disease

This is awesome- Kiwi Tobes has a downright creepy video showing the growth of Wal-Mart since its founding. I’d be willing to lay a tenner down on the table betting that the growth of Wal-Mart is similar to the outbreak pattern of an infectious disease released from Bentonville- think Stephen Kings The Stand here.

It’s pretty damn clever how the video was put together. Here’s what Kiki Tobes says:

Freebase has a topic for every zip code, along with it’s longitude and latitude. Here’s one example. One query pulls out all the ZIP codes along with their longitudes and latitudes. You can turn longitudes and latitudes into graphical coordinates with some simple transformations (which will vary based on the region you’re plotting and how big your image is) — here are the ones I used:

x=(longitude+127)*16
y=(50-latitude)*20

If you plot all the ZIP codes using a library like PIL, you get a nice map with dots that roughly match population density, which has the advantage of looking a little bit like a night-time satellite photo of the United States.

Freebase also contains a list of Wal-mart locations, along with their addresses and the year that they opened. Here’s an example. One query pulls all of these out of Freebase.

To create the animation, I generated 30 images for each year starting with 1962. I spread all the Wal-marts that opened that year over the 30 frames. To show the appearance of a Wal-mart, all I had to do was plot a large white dot over the small yellow dot for the appropriate ZIP code. I turned the 1380 images into an animation using MEncoder.

Here’s a version I found on YouTube, but I like the one on Kiki Tobes much better. There’s something about seeing it spread out into the black and slowly trace the outline of the country, as if the ocean is the only thing holding its hungry growth back. Click over and watch the Kiki Tobes version, it’s worth the minute it’ll cost you.

Link [Kiwi Tobes] via [Boing Boing]

The Oracle of Omaha Loves Him Some Railroad Stocks

Get this- railroads are hot again. CNN Money reports that Warren Buffett has been quietly buying up stock in railroad companies.- he got 18% of Burlington Northern Santa Fe in January. Railroads were deregulated in 1980 and the industry has been on an efficiency boosting tear since then. Productivity has more than doubled since 1990 and technological advancements have pushed fuel efficiency by more than 80% since 1980.

Railroads are a lot more efficient than trucks, emitting 65% less emissions than trucks alone on trips over 1,000 miles. Expanding capacity on the rail network is not easy and demand is rising so the railroads are able to raise prices. Railroad stocks have mostly been immune to the softening in the market and after word of Buffett’s buy got out the companies he bought into all saw boosted stock prices.

It’s good (for your bank account) to be green(er).

Link [CNN Money]

Green Extreme Sports: Paddling Across the Atlantic in a 23 Foot Coffin (Kayak)

Greg Kolodziejzyk is a certified Green Badass. He’s an Pro Adventurer and is planning to cross the Atlantic Ocean in a human powered kayak dubbed WiTHiN. His 23 foot boat is pedal powered and is big enough for Greg, his partner, and the food and gear they’ll need for the 40 day journey (at 5-6 KPH). One person will pedal at the front of the boat while his partner sleeps or rests in the sleeping space in the rear.

I hope they have a laptop or something good to keep themselves occupied. From the looks of it, the person who isn’t paddling will be resting in space little bigger than your standard coffin. A little porn wouldn’t hurt either.

Link [WiTHiN] via Gizmo Watch

Heidi Fleiss is Opening The Greenest Little Man-Whorehouse in Vegas

According to the February issue of Elle, Heidi Fleiss’s plans for a wind-powered Man-brothel are still in the works. So while its going to be an eco-friendly bordello, Fleiss will effectively add both men and and Mother Earth to the list of tricks she can whore out for a dime as she plans to sell the wind power generated from the Studfarm back to the grid.

Ladies looking for a refreshing girls getaway of manis, pedis and unbridled lust can look at the Earth-friendly set up as a delightful kind of eco-penance for paying for sex. The only set back right now is that Fleiss is waiting for the federal trial of of her ex-pimp to blow over. Also, she lives alone in a rented house in the dessert. With 24 parrots. That she inherited from a desert Madame that died in a trailer. Should be a class act, this Green Sausage Store.

Link [Elle]

The Eco Drop Shower Invites Pain Into Your Daily Routine

I do my best to keep my showering times to a bare minimum. I’ve even installed low-flow shower heads to reduce waste — and sometimes I throw a bucket under the shower to collect the lukewarm water for plants while it heats up. I consider myself extreme. But the new Eco Drop Shower is too much for me. It’s like graduating from kinky sex to BDSM, Little House on the Prairie to Keeping Up With The Kardashians, or dating Natalie Portman to dating Amy Winehouse.

To put it plainly, it’s hardcore.

How does it work? When you first start to shower, your feet are planted firmly on a plastic mat of sorts with embedded concentric circles. As your water usage increases, the circles slowly start to rise, making it rather uncomfortable to stand in one place for long. Manage to continue enjoying yourself, and pointy mounds will also move upwards from the center of the circles. For anyone with foot issues (warts, corns) this would start to get painful. They don’t show what happens should you somehow avoid these obstacles, but we’re thinking electricity and burning sensations are next.

I love technology that reminds us we’re nothing but a plague upon the planet, but enjoying my morning shower is one of the few pleasures (next to Wii) that I thank modern-society for providing. I think I’ll pass on the Eco Drop and just continue working my water conservation the old-fashioned way. Although it would be entertaining to have one of these installed in the guest bathroom…

via Born Rich

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.

Green News Roundup 3/17: Pollution a Sin, Wal-Mart’s Not Green (Duh), and Glaciers Are Melting Fast

We’re happy to have our new Editorial Intern and Writer Caroline Rau getting started this week with a new feature that looks back on the previous weeks bit of green news. Here are a few good stories you might have missed last week.

Pope Decrees Pollution a Sin

The Pope stated in an interview with the Vatican’s Newspaper that modern sins include genetic manipulation and polluting the earth. The Vatican has also installed electricity-generating photovoltaic cells on it’s grounds and facilitated conferences on Global Warming. Praise Jebus! From Reuters.

The “Emerald Isle” may become the “shit-brown” Isle

Happy St. Patty’s Day! While we were busy polluting our eco-system with toxic green dyes and our livers with Guinness, a report from the Irish American Climate project reported that Climate Change is threatening to turn the lush green of Ireland brown. Let’s drink more to forget. From ENN.

Daylight Savings May not actually Save Energy

We may have “sprung forward” for no reason. Don’t you hate when that happens? Since only parts of Indiana participate in daylight savings (the parts that aren’t too busy drinking Colt45 in their trailer to notice the time) UC Santa Barbara was able to study the energy “saved” by day light savings. It wasn’t much. Which probably means we need to focus more energy chuggers like air-conditioning instead. From WorldChanging

China Shuts Down Mount Everest

Until May 10th, the north face of Mount Everest will be a no-go zone due to overcrowding and “environmental pressures.” Recently, over 17 tons of trash have been cleared from the Moutain’s hiking trails. From Green Daily and TreeHugger

Walmart not Green

Walmart’s CEO Lee Scott Jr. announced that Walmart is not a green company. To use a turn of phrase from Junior High, Duh Hickey. Scott did say however, that steps are being taken by the giant superstore chain to reduce packaging and energy use not for the sake of the planet, but for cost efficiency. From Wallstreet Journal

CEO’s Predict Regulations on Climate Change will Save Jobs

At a conference hosted by the Wall Street Journal near Santa Barbara, C.E.O’s backed by the Governator himself demanded that Washington step up to create a cohesive energy policy. They argued that tax subsidies supporting green energy would create jobs for Americans.From Environmental News Network

Con-Way Freight loses Speed to save the Earth

Con-Way’s freight trains will be reprogrammed to run around three miles slower per hour in order to save over 3 million gallos of fuel and 70 million pounds of Carbon Emissions. Whoo-Whoo! From Green Biz

Island of Plastic in Pacific is Here to Stay

So there is this huuuuge wad of plastic (we’re talking twice the size of the good ole U.S. of A) floating in the Pacific. And there’s not much we can do to stop it. Suckness. The plastic kills wildlife, fucks with the food-chain, and inhibits the growth of plankton who help deal with all our access C02 but there is no techology as of yet to get rid of the hulk of crap. From Green Daily

Glaciers Melting at Fastest Rate Recorded

The UN Environment Program found that Glaciers have been losing more ice in recent years than they ever have in the past five Millenia. The rapid melting could cause massive flooding and a change in land and food security. A vast change in energy consumption is needed to avoid all that shit. From Treehugger