Find the Greenest Paper Products with Greenpeace’s Mobile App

If there’s one paper product most people can’t get around buying, it’s toilet paper. The environmentally conscious will seek out recycled versions, but sometimes it’s hard to tell just how earth friendly various brands really are. Instead of spending ten minutes reading the claims on the packaging, you can just whip out your phone and use a new mobile app released by Greenpeace to find out which paper products are easiest on the environment.

From Greenpeace, via Consumer Reports:

Our team of experts evaluated over 100 products and gave the “Recommended” rating only to those brands that: contain 100% overall recycled content; contain at least 50% post-consumer recycled content; and are bleached without toxic chlorine compounds. The app also has categories for those products that “Could do better” and those that you are advised to “Avoid.”

“Tissue products made from recycled content help to reduce our impact on ancient forests, protecting forest ecosystems and wildlife habitat,” said Greenpeace Forest Campaigner Lindsey Allen. “Customers who download the iPhone or Android version of the Greenpeace Recycled Tissue and Toilet Paper Guide can compare brands available at their local grocery store to find which brands are most environmentally sustainable.  For those interested in protecting ancient forests from clearcutting and supporting truly sustainable companies, this application makes informed decision making even more convenient.”

The app can also recommend the greenest paper towels, tissues and paper napkins (though, of course, reusable cloth alternatives are best). It’s available now for the iPhone and iPod Touch, and can be accessed by any phone with mobile web access at 3rdwhale.com/greenpeace/wap.

Consumer Reports adds that its own tests found Marcal’s ‘Small Steps’ brand to be the best value in recycled toilet paper.

Link [Greenpeace] via [Consumer Reports]

Hot Dish: New Climate Change News Application on Facebook

Grist.org has partnered with News Cloud to debut a new application on Facebook that allows users to read, discuss, post and share news about climate change. The application, called Hot Dish, also allows 6- to 25-year old U.S. residents who participate in the Hot Dish Action Team can earn points through online and offline actions and compete for rewards.

From News Cloud:

Top eligible participants can win a grand prize trip for two to the Arctic from Quark Expeditions, an Amazon Kindle 2, a “green” Apple MacBook and much more. Prizes will be awarded each week through May 3, 2009. Please read the official rules for full eligibility details.

The Hot Dish application is part of a study being conducted by University of Minnesota researchers to find new ways of engaging young people in current events inside social networks such as Facebook. The research is funded by a grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. The research results will be published later this year. The software behind Hot Dish will be released to the open source community at the end of the project. A second Facebook application for University of Minnesota students is due in Q2. You can learn more about the research at http://newscloud.com/research

Check it out for yourself – it’s got top climate news, featured stories, and lots of challenges you can take part in. Right now, the grand prize ‘action reward’ is a trip for 2 to the Arctic! Watch the video clip below for more info.

Link [Hot Dish]

Google Rebuts Claims about CO2 Cost of Searches

The UK’s Times reported last Sunday that doing two searches on Google uses about as much energy as boiling a kettle of water, an allegation that Google is denying on their official blog. The information in theTimes article was supposedly based on research by Harvard University physicist Alex Wissner-Gross and delves into the “secrecy” of Google’s energy consumption and carbon footprint.

From the Times Online:

While millions of people tap into Google without considering the environment, a typical search generates about 7g of CO2 Boiling a kettle generates about 15g. “Google operates huge data centres around the world that consume a great deal of power,” said Alex Wissner-Gross, a Harvard University physicist whose research on the environmental impact of computing is due out soon. “A Google search has a definite environmental impact.”

Though Google says it is in the forefront of green computing, its search engine generates high levels of CO2 because of the way it operates. When you type in a Google search for, say, “energy saving tips”, your request doesn’t go to just one server. It goes to several competing against each other.

It may even be sent to servers thousands of miles apart. Google’s infrastructure sends you data from whichever produces the answer fastest. The system minimises delays but raises energy consumption. Google has servers in the US, Europe, Japan and China.

Google responded by explaining on their blog why the “7g of CO2” number is “many times too high”.

Google is fast — a typical search returns results in less than 0.2 seconds. Queries vary in degree of difficulty, but for the average query, the servers it touches each work on it for just a few thousandths of a second. Together with other work performed before your search even starts (such as building the search index) this amounts to 0.0003 kWh of energy per search, or 1 kJ. For comparison, the average adult needs about 8000 kJ a day of energy from food, so a Google search uses just about the same amount of energy that your body burns in ten seconds.

In terms of greenhouse gases, one Google search is equivalent to about 0.2 grams of CO2. The current EU standard for tailpipe emissions calls for 140 grams of CO2 per kilometer driven, but most cars don’t reach that level yet. Thus, the average car driven for one kilometer (0.6 miles for those in the U.S.) produces as many greenhouse gases as a thousand Google searches.

On Monday, January 12th, Alex Wissner-Gross denied singling out Google, saying his study focuses on the internet in general and that the Times apparently had an ax to grind with Google. Tech News World has the scoop:

“Our work has nothing to do with Google. Our focus was exclusively on the Web overall, and we found that it takes on average about 20 milligrams of CO2 per second to visit a Web site.”

And the example involving tea kettles? “They did that. I have no idea where they got those statistics,” Wissner-Gross said.

Wissner-Gross, who manages the Web site CO2stats.com to help educate people about energy efficiencies on the Internet, has been inundated with press requests since the Times story was published. The Times quoted him correctly in the story as saying, “A Google search has a definite environmental impact” and “Google operates huge data centers around the world that consume a great deal of power,” he confirmed.

“I don’t think anybody would disagree with those statements,” Wissner-Gross said. “Everything online has a definite environmental impact. I think everybody can agree on that, including Google.”

As Fast Company points out amidst all of these accusations and rebuttals, the real story here is that there is, and will continue to be, dialogue about the energy costs of the information age. It’s a reminder that there’s a carbon cost to everything we do on the computer, from watching videos to playing games. Awareness is spreading about how our use of such technology has an impact on the earth’s resources, and that will undoubtedly continue in the years to come.

Link [Times Online] + [Google] + [Tech News World] + [Fast Company]

FreeRice.com: Improve Your Vocabulary, Feed Hungry People

When you’re bored – or avoiding work – it’s easy to get sucked in to reading gossip, playing games, and mindlessly surfing the internet. But, you can fritter away your time, improve your vocabulary and, amazingly enough, send rice to starving people all over the world instead. The website FreeRice.com donates 20 grains of rice for every vocabulary question you gaet right to the UN World Food Program.

From the FreeRice website:

Do I really make a difference by playing FreeRice?

The rice you donate makes a huge difference to the person who receives it. According to the United Nations, about 25,000 people die each day from hunger or hunger-related causes, most of them children. Though 20 grains of rice may seem like a small amount, it is important to remember that while you are playing, so are thousands of other people at the same time. It is everyone together that makes the difference. Thanks to you, FreeRice has generated enough rice to feed more than two million people since it started in October 2007.

The rice is paid for by the sponsors whose names you see on the bottom of your screen when you enter a correct answer. These sponsors support both learning (free education for everyone) and reducing hunger (free rice for the hungry). We thank these sponsors for their generous participation at FreeRice. For information about how you or your company can sponsor FreeRice, please email freerice.rep@wfp.org.

Give it a try! It’s really addictive. In getting sucked into Free Rice I’ve noticed that words do tend to repeat a bit too often, and as a former English major I find a lot of the words insultingly easy, but there’s a good mix of appropriately obscure words thrown in.

In addition to vocabulary, you can change subjects to instead answer questions about famous paintings, chemical symbols, geography, language learning and even math. Give your brain a workout and help Free Rice feed the hungry – it’s a win-win.

Link [FreeRice.com]

Green Retailing 3.0: An Interactive World of Green Internet Shopping

In the past few days, we’ve seen a lot of bleak stories about how the retail industry is struggling to make ends meet due to consumers limiting their spending. Dire predictions have been made about the many outlets that won’t survive the season, as people do everything they can to save money – including not buying anything at all. But, even as most mainstream retailers resort to desperate measures for sales, the green retail industry is seeing growth.

Graham Hill, founder of Treehugger, wrote about how the green retail industry can continue to beat the odds, and proposes a quick shift to ‘green retailing 3.0’. From The Huffington Post:

So how about leap-frogging to green retailing 3.0? This would combine the best of two worlds – the well-developing empire of Internet-based e-commerce and an expanded universe of truly well-designed and quality-made green goods. An example of an early attempt at this is the Green Home online store, and the UK’s Green Store.

However these, and really most e-commerce sites, have been hampered by an inability to give people a full shopping experience. But that is starting to change. Look at Zoomii, an online bookstore that copies Amazon’s pricing and shipping policies but lets you browse the bookshelves. Perhaps It won’t be long before your own (realistic) Second Life avatar can go in to a virtual store and try on the organic t-shirt and jeans you’ve been needing.

Seem far-fetched to think that those vast tracts of land now taken up by the behemoth buildings we call “malls” can be replaced by online sites and distributed networks of green suppliers? Well, E-bay probably seemed like a crazy idea not too long ago.

Hill points out that brick-and-mortar neighborhood stores with a green theme typically don’t have a great selection, and we can’t depend on mega-retailers to go green in any meaningful way, no matter how they might attempt to pander to environmentalists.

There are pros and cons to both local shopping and internet shopping, and that won’t change no matter how fancy and interactive online storefronts might become. Earth 911 has a rundown on the battle between online vs. local in-store shopping.

Hill’s ‘green retailing 3.0’ idea is intriguing, though. We’d certainly love to see the world of online shopping get a lot greener, and in order to do that on a large scale, stores need to entice even mainstream consumers to buy their merchandise.

Link [The Huffington Post] + [Earth 911]

Use the Web to Help Fight Greenwashing!

Companies have definitely noticed a growing public interest in green products, and they’re taking advantage accordingly – some of them, marketing products as ‘green’ without any factual basis for doing so.  That, my friends, is called ‘greenwashing’, and it’s something we’re always on the lookout for here at EarthFirst.com.  Why should we spend more of our hard-earned money on stuff that isn’t really good for the earth, just because some greedy company wants to make an extra buck?

Luckily, we’ve all got an easily accessible ally in our fight against greenwashing: the world wide web.  Last week, two new sites launched that can help us separate the good from the bad.

From Gigaom:

GoodGuide is the product of a decades’ worth of investigation by professor Dara O’Rourke, first at MIT and then at UC Berkeley, into supply chains and the building blocks of consumer goods. The site, which O’Rourke says was inspired by a desire to know what, exactly, was in the suntan lotion he had been rubbing on his daughter’s face, is meant to be an authoritative “top-down” approach to aiding in purchase decisions. It taps 200-plus private and public sources of information, among them government databases, non-profits, third-party research firms and the media. All that info culminates into one decisive rating that tells consumers where the product ranks, on a scale that ranges from bad to excellent, vs. its competitors.

Green Wikia, on the other hand, is all about letting the masses decide what the best green products and services are. Jimmy Wales, who co-founded both Wikia and Wikipedia, said he launched the green section of Wikia because he noticed a profound lack of quality information on green issues. And unlike the info on the green-focused pages of Wikipedia, Wales said he wants Green Wikia to offer more lifestyle tips, product options and how-to’s. Of course, relying on the wisdom of the crowd is nothing new, and a study in the journal Nature found that Wikipedia is about as accurate Encyclopedia Britannica.

Between the two of these sites – with the GoodGuide rating the ‘greenness’ of products based on 140 criteria and Green Wikia highlighting the green qualities of all different kinds of goods – we should have a pretty good starting point as we try to navigate the maze of green product claims.  It puts more power on the consumer’s side, making sure that companies are forced to back up the supposed earth-friendly features of their products.  So, use the web and be a kickass greenwash fighter!

Link [Gigaom] + [GoodGuide] + [Green Wikia]

Sen. Joe Lieberman Attacking Free Speech on the Internet

It’s no secret that many Democrats don’t like Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman. We don’t want him spouting off ideas that sound like they came straight out of Dick Cheney’s mouth while simultaneously claiming to be one of us. So, we’re glad he’s now technically an Independent.

From truthout.org:

HR 1955, “The Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007″ passed the House in October 2007 with almost unanimous support. The bill immediately came under fire from civil liberties watchdogs because of what many saw as a deliberate targeting of Muslims and Arabs and the possible chilling effect it might have on free speech.

The original bill intended to set up a government commission to investigate the supposed threat of domestically produced terrorists and the ideologies that underpin their radicalization. The ten-member commission was to be empowered to “hold hearings and sit and act at such times and places, take such testimony, receive such evidence, and administer such oaths as the Commission considers advisable to carry out its duties.” The bill also singled out the Internet as a vehicle for terrorists to spread their ideology with the intention of recruiting and training new terrorists.

Needless to say, the public didn’t like that. After a lot of pressure, the bill stalled in the Senate and wasn’t passed. However, Lieberman doesn’t want to let it go. On May 19th, he sent Google a letter asking them to immediately remove content “produced by Islamic terrorist organizations” from YouTube. Google refused, citing its respect for free speech laws, with the exception of videos that violate its community rules against violence and hate speech.

Jim Dempsey of the Center for Democracy and Technology asserts that Lieberman, “no friend of civil liberties”, is displaying a fundamental lack of understanding about how the internet works, saying “take the videos off YouTube and they’ll appear elsewhere.”

Lieberman claims that censoring the internet is essential to our country’s self defense. His committee’s recently released report, “Violent Islamist Extremism, The Internet, And The Home Grown Terrorism Threat”, blames the internet for radicalization.

What Lieberman fails to grasp – or perhaps, doesn’t care about – is the fact that one step toward censorship leads us down a slippery slope that could easily turn all sorts of nonviolent dissent on the internet into ‘terrorism’. Who would they come after next – snarky green bloggers with strong opinions?

Link [truthout.org]
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

Coal is Clean! Get the Real Facts About the Coal Industry

As oil gets scarcer and more expensive, the coal industry is revving up their ad campaigns and propaganda to portray coal as a clean, patriotic energy source. So, when you visit the website Coal-is-Clean.com, you may not be too surprised to see images like that of a young boy in overalls and a cowboy hat waving an American flag, and headlines like ‘The Future of America’s Coal-Based Economy and National Security Depends Upon You’. Sick, right? Well, keep reading.

You may then notice ‘Health Workers for Clean Coal’ and ‘From Coal Mine to Golf Course’. Hmm. Then you’ll see ‘Move over java, it’s time for Hot Coal-Cappuccino!’ and ‘Check out what Dr. Coal has to say about the health benefits of coal for you and your family!’ If you’ve ever read The Onion, you know where this is going.

Click on any of the links on the page and you’re taken to Coal-is-Dirty.com, where everything is suddenly all flip flopped around on you. Coal is Dirty has gathered all of the straight facts about coal energy and put them together on one website where you can get info about how coal pollution is threatening our national parks, negative health effects of coal and how the coal industry has turned the greenwashing dial to 11 to convince Americans that it’s a clean source of energy.

The article ‘Clean Coal = Greenwash’ explains it perfectly. Here’s a snippet:

But in 2008 they are going primetime. Having tapped coal companies and utilities for money, the groups launched a $45 million TV, print and online advertising campaign to re-brand coal as clean and patriotic- trying to greenwash one of the dirtiest sources of energy on earth.

ACCCE’s campaign spin has taken over the election season, blitzing key state presidential primaries with clean coal propaganda in the form of billboards, advertisements and a blue sky painted “Power Van” driven by “volunteers” all over the country to political rallies and debates and loaded with clean coal propoganda handouts, t-shirts, hats etc…

Along with their print ad campaign and billboards, ACCCE paid CNN $5 million to be one of the main co-sponsors of six presidential debates, which gave them saturation advertising during the debates on television and on the CNN webpage. Grist noted the irony that during these debates, no questions have been asked about climate and specifically about coal.

Some startling figures really put it all into perspective. You may not have known that 24,000 people die every year from pollution from coal-fired power plants, or that smokestack emissions from coal fired power plants are the primary source of mercury pollution in the U.S. These are just a few of the facts you’ll find on the Coal is Dirty website, which is a joint project managed by The DeSmog Project, Rainforest Action Network and Greenpeace USA.

Once you’re done reading all of the sobering facts about dirty, dirty coal, check out the video ‘Clean Coal’ for a laugh that might help brighten up your mood a bit. Then pass on the link to everyone you know.

Link [Coal is Clean]

Eco-Chick.com Kicks Ass!

Eco-chick.com is the go-to source for all things eco-friendly and feminine. It’s a virtual treasure trove of green eye candy, fun features and valuable ‘green’ info. Eco Chick fills the niche left between all of the environmental blogs that cater to men and moms. Sometimes, you just wanna know about the best natural mascara, the latest in green fashion and, as the site’s founder and editor in chief Starre Vartan says, where to get a fair trade spanking paddle.

From the site:

Starre founded Eco Chick in October of 2005 with the idea that women who cared about the planet needed a place of their own on the web. At the time, most environmental blogs were guy-oriented, and very serious, and Starre thought that while discussion of scientific issues was important, consumer action would be second only to policy shifts in protecting the environment and creating a more sustainable culture. Enabling individuals to clean up their lives also gives each and every person an opportunity to realize their impact natural environment, a principle imperative to real change.

It’s a simple principle; every object has a life cycle, whether it be a bar of soap, a take-out container, an energy bar, a pair of shoes or a loveseat. It was somewhere before you got it, and it will go somewhere else when you’re done or gone. Just because you can’t see it before or after you buy it/use it/eat it/love it doesn’t mean you’re not responsible for it. We’ll show you how to find the things you love, and keep you updated on what’s going on in that great green world.

Recent stories on Eco Chick include natural cleaning recipes, ruminations on the effects of the natural sweetener ‘stevia’ going corporate, an organic bedding giveaway, reviews of organic booze and observations of green practices in Paris, France.  Starre and Olivia Zaleski, the Managing Editor, also write for the Huffington Post and several other green blogs including The Daily Green and Treehugger.

Fun Eco Chick fact: the site is run and hosted by anarchist webmaster, Dan Sieradski. He’s the guy who created the website for Matisyahu, and if you don’t know who that is, go check it out, because he’s beyond awesome. An orthodox Jew from Pennsylvania playing reggae – amazing.

Finally, a little shameless self-promotion if I may. If you just can’t get enough of yours truly here on EarthFirst.com, check out my posts over on Eco Chick, where I write about beauty and herbal medicine.

Link [Eco Chick]

Sound the Alarms! Treehugger Bought an SUV

Treehugger, we really hate to do this. We love you like family. You have always been the eco-conscious big brother that helped us make the right decisions. But your justification for purchasing an SUV – and it’s not even a hybrid SUV – just doesn’t seem to jive. We’re sorry to give you a big fat ECO FAIL for that, bro.

Treehugger’s Mark Ontush (MJO) is based in Boston, has a family of three and telecommutes. His wife rides the bus to work. When his car, used primarily to pick up large purchases and haul visiting family around, gave out on him, he went into the dealership with the intention of getting a hybrid or Smart Car and came out with a Honda CRV. The reasoning is mostly based around, er, moving dishwashers.

From Treehugger:

Having space in a car is a funny thing – you don’t need it all the time, but when you need it, there aren’t a lot of options; you aren’t going to get a dishwasher into a Prius, or transport your extended family around when you are all together and going somewhere. So then you are into renting trucks and vans for these types of situations – which we did for years – and these rentals can really add up.

The other big item was safety. We realized that SUVs are often overrated in this regard, but the fact was that the SUV felt safer. I don’t know why this is exactly; you are up a little higher, it is heavier; you sort of feel that if you get hit, mass will be on your side. Again, this is one of those ‘probably never need it but nice to have things’; environmentally, it’s a luxury item. But the effect is pretty powerful and swayed our decision.

A commenter points out a previous Treehugger article, “SUV’s not safer for Kids”, in response. Other commenters wonder how much stuff MJO is buying every year that he needs to rent vans and trucks to the tune of $1500 total to bring it all home. And, uh, can’t your family ride the bus like everyone else? Tell them it’s part of the city experience!

Treehugger commenters can certainly be an ornery bunch, so it’s not surprising that this post got an SUV-load of scathing comments, but most of them had good points.

Sometimes I’m amazed that the rest of the world can manage to raise families without SUVs, the way they’re talked about in the States. – Ross

This does not sound like good enough justification. I’ve heard this before from my ‘green’ friends — who’s wives ultimately pushed the decision to an SUV.

[there was a wife involved, yes mjo]

When all else fails, blame it on the wife, right? My husband likes to pull that sometimes, too. It takes two, baby!

I generally agree with making the decision that’s right for you at the time, and certainly none of us are saints – but imagine if everyone in America reasoned this way. The fact that Mr. Ontush lives in Boston and not a suburb makes it even worse, since convenient, efficient mass transit abounds. We’re trying to get even suburban people to give up the SUVs, MJO, so when ‘green’ city people do it, it don’t look too good.

Link [Treehugger]

Eco Geek Says It’s Time to Stop Sending Letters

Yesterday, the price of stamps went up again by a penny. It wasn’t all that long ago that you could send a letter for 25 cents, and now it’s 42 – a pretty sharp increase in such a short amount of time. Of course, part of that is due to the fact that we now use electronic communication so much more often, and that is a good thing for the earth – it means far less waste ends up in landfills.

Eco Geek thinks it’s a fine time to stop sending letters, and they’ve provided a list of ways you can avoid using stamps: through scanning, online bill pay, e-cards, video letters, choosing postcards instead of letters when you do have the urge to do it the old fashioned way and finally, avoiding air mail at all costs. Makes total sense, right? Especially the air mail bit – what a waste of carbon emissions. People are very impatient these days.

So why is my eyelid suddenly twitching? Why do I feel a sense of dread, like something is terribly wrong? Oh, right – I was an English major. I’m a literary and history dork. I have a passion for all things romantic and old-fashioned, and that love of parchment paper and quills and envelopes sealed with wax is completely at odds with my desire to be more ‘green’. I am a collector of old, dusty, well-worn books and a lover of language. I am a scholar of the Italian Renaissance, and wrote my thesis on a long-dead European daughter of a pope. I hate acronyms and techie newspeak (or what nervous parents refer to as NetLingo) like ‘LOL’, ‘BRB’ and ‘AFAIAA’. When I use them, I do it with sarcasm, but despite that, a little part of me dies every time.

In this way, I represent the resistance to change that’s making it difficult to get a momentum going in this fight against global warming and everything that goes along with it. I treasure old things, and mourn the loss of the art of letter writing. I’m sad that kids are no longer taught cursive handwriting in school. I think it kind of sucks that typing has taken over as the dominant form of nonverbal communication. But, I don’t want to be one of those people that holds us back from moving into an age that could save us from ourselves.

I think it’s okay to write handwritten letters every now and then. We just need to make up for it in other ways. For example, I’m funneling my love affair with old things into a sort of recycling effort. I choose second-hand before new, any time I get the chance. I keep odds and ends like pretty soap wrappers and nicely printed cardboard product packaging to use for handmade cards. I don’t like the idea of a future where kids don’t even know how to write words out, and can only type them – so I want to make sure that those kinds of skills get passed down. I’m afraid of the truth in fiction like Fahrenheit 451, 1984 and even the action film Equilibrium.

Essentially, I will be one of those people who fights to preserve some of the personality and history behind written communication, but I’ll do it in such a way that prevents me from being part of the problem.

What say you? Will you give up hand-written communication for the environment?

Link [Eco Geek]
Image credit: Ballantine Books

Fsck Your Hummer, And His Hummer, and Her Hummer, and That Hummer Over by the Tree

10 Miles Per Gallon…
2 Soldiers a Day.

It’d be funny if it wasn’t so tragic. FUCKYOURHUMMER.com doesn’t mince word:

Welcome to FUCKYOURHUMMER.COM. This site is being set up as on omage to vandalized hummers. Whether it is a hard to peel off bumper sticker, slashed tires, keying, spray painted… we want to have your pictures of it! WHY you might ask? This grotesque monster of an SUV is a symbol that says “I could give a shit about the enviroment, wars over oil, global warming, energy independance, or any number of other issues.” You are the epitomy of stupid americans, and make the rest of us look like assholes. Some of us in this country actually do give a shit. Now I hope others will force you to give a shit.

While we don’t condone scratching up your neighbor’s Hummer, it’s hard for us to muster up any sympathy for the “victims” of such an act. Hummers are teh suck.

Link [FUCKYOURHUMMER]

National Geographic, Stephen Colbert Among 2008 Webby Awards Winners

“Respected… Trustworthy… Smooth. There’s only one word to describe it: Trustigious.” Stephen Colbert will undoubtedly be making an extra fist-pumping self congratulatory jog around the studio on the set of his Comedy Central show tonight after winning Webby Person of the Year. From The Huffington Post:

As host of cable television’s “The Colbert Report,” Colbert has managed to persuade fans to inject his version of reality into the user-edited encyclopedia Wikipedia while getting Web sites to add enough references to him that a Google search for “greatest living American” at one point brought his Colbert Nation Web site to the top.

In naming him Webby Person of the Year, judges recognized his online fan base and credited him with raising more than $250,000 online for an education charity.

In a recent interview with The Associated Press, Colbert spoke of how instantly he gets feedback from his audience online:

“The Web is essentially improvisational. … The Internet is the shortest, hardest wall against which your voice will echo back,” Colbert said. “It’s a big place, but, boy, you get an echo back really fast.”

National Geographic Online won the Magazine and People’s Choice categories.

Other winners included Stephen Gondry for encouraging people to remake their favorite films in honor of his movie ‘Be Kind Rewind’, will.i.am for his ‘Yes We Can’ video supporting presidential candidate Barack Obama and The Onion for all around awesomeness.

Link [Huffington Post] + [Webby Awards]

Photo credit: AP Photo/Jason DeCrow

Surf the Web, Stay on Top of Green News in Eco-Chic Style

If you want to get in on what all the cool kids are doing, check out Flock’s new ‘Eco Browser’. It’s the greenest way to surf the web! Basically, you can do all of the things you normally do in whatever browser you’re currently using, plus you can set up all your favorite green news feeds to get your daily dose of green goodness. It’s similar to the Mozilla Firefox setup, which will make all of us anti-IE folks happy.

From Flock:

Flock has partnered with leading respected content and opinion leaders from around the web to bring you the latest breaking news. Here’s just a sampling of the sites that are preloaded into the Flock Eco-Edition browser: Treehugger, Think MTV, Environmental News Network, Ecorazzi, National Geographic, Green Yahoo, Grist, Spring, Planetgreen and many more…

I just downloaded it myself and must say it’s pretty slick. It seamlessly pulls together all the content you’re likely to need on a daily basis. Special tools make it easy to stay connected via Flock-supported social networks like Facebook, Flickr, YouTube and Twitter. I got all my feeds loaded up and found some new favorites in the process. It’s easy to learn and use, and it looks mighty purty.

Stumbleupon Going Green for Earth Day: Turn Your Thumbs Up Into Trees!

If you’ve been thinking about checking out Stumbleupon but haven’t gotten around to it yet, do it now! On Earth Day, April 22nd, they’re teaming up with Tiki Barber (former New York Giants running back and current Today Show correspondent) to plant a tree for every thumbs-up you give.

If you’ve been living under a rock, perhaps, or just aren’t hip to what all the cool kids are doing on the internet, Stumbleupon is an awesome tool that basically learns your tastes and interests and helps you discover things that fit. It’s a browser tool bar that allows you to give a ‘thumbs up’ to sites you like (and write up reviews, if you’re so inclined) and a ‘thumbs down’ to those you don’t. When you hit the ‘Stumble!’ button, it brings you random web pages based on your likes and dislikes. It’s a great way to literally ‘stumble upon’ things you may never have otherwise seen.

Sign up and get started today if you want to participate on Earth Day, so you can set up your ‘home page’ and get the hang of stumbling. Take this chance to give lots of thumbs down to greenwashing sites, and thumbs up to the good ones (like, oh, I don’t know, US!)

This way, if you end up spending most of your day in front of a computer instead of out actually planting trees yourself, you won’t feel so guilty! A win-win all around.

Link [ecorazzi] + [Stumbeupon]

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Pranking on The Coal Industry: NRDC Spoofs “America’s Power”

The good folks over at NRDC have taken America’s Power website (Coal Industry Front) and added a varnish of truth to it for today’s Prankstivities.

Before:

After:

Coal is the Enemy of Mankind. Anyone who rips on the purveyors of humanity’s destruction is good in my book. Nice Work NRDC! Swing over and check out their spin.

Thanks to Michael for sending this one over.

Links [Evil Coal Baron Fronted Shill Group] & [Fun Loving Green Pranksters Spoof Page]

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.

Guy Kawasaki Wants to Invent 500 MPG Car But Fears Valleywag and TechCrunch Won’t Like It

OK, this is a little tongue in cheek, but whatever- it’s Friday.

I got sent a link for an interview with famed (if you’re a geek) Apple Software Evangelist Guy Kawasaki over at Red Herring where he wraps up the interview by saying:

RH: Truemors has been much criticized for its cheap interface and for collecting more spams than news. How do you feel when you read the virulent attacks of your critics?

G K: Well I am a big target and no matter what I do I am a target. Let’s imagine that one day I invent a car that goes 500 miles per gallon with zero emission, and let’s say that TechCrunch writes that up, or Valleywag. The commentaries would be “it’s not that hard to do, this car could have been designed in one hour; and the only reason why Guy is getting attention about this car is because 25 years ago he worked for Apple.” It’s just my life.

Don’t let the haters hold you back Guy. If you feel there’s a 500 MPG car inside you, let it out. Al Gore will protect you from those meanies Michael Arrington and Owen Thomas.

Link [Red Herring]

Photo credit: Flickr user Randy Stewart

The Internet Saves 10 Watts of Energy for Every Watt it Uses

Geeks are great. And a new study now shows that they’re are also green.

The American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy did a study on computer usage and found that for every watt of energy used by the internet, 10 watts are saved elsewhere. EcoGeek has it:

They [The ACEEE] have put numbers to what I have long expected to be true. Folks who complain about how much energy computers waste are crazy. Computers save tons of energy, while, themselves, using less energy than the light bulb used to light the workstation. And now we know how much.

The study focused on a metric called “energy intensity.” Basically, that’s the amount of energy necessary to produce a dollar of economic output. The first major drop in energy intensity occurred after the oil crisis in the 1970s. That was a cost-based drop, not generally the ideal.

So how do computers save us energy?

• They have allowed everything to become more efficient.
• They people and things to travel digitally, instead of physically. For example: meetings online instead of driving your SUV to the office.
• They allow us to do our shopping online instead of driving your SUV to the retail store. (Did I already mention the SUV?)
• And lastly they allow me how to tell YOU to put the earth first, instead of me driving over to your house in an SUV, knocking on your door and telling you face to face.

I knew there was a good reason that I have this weird relationship with my laptop. Oh, and on a side note, I do not drive an SUV.

Link [EcoGeek]

Photo: Flickr user NaOH