http://consumerbrigade.com/s2se Smart Shopping to Save the Planet Tue, 23 Sep 2008 17:35:13 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en When you want to cut down on your electricity consumption in your home, the easiest approach is to just turn stuff off when you're not using it. But when you turn it off, is it really off??? Chances are, it's not. Plasma TVs, VCRs, DVD players, game consoles, ... tons of ... http://consumerbrigade.com/s2se/beware-of-the-vampires-in-your-house/ I'm drunk right now. That's right. Totally smashed. I can hardly even type. I've just had 9 bourbons. Don't get me wrong. I'm not some kind of an alcoholic. I'm actually just an evironmentalist who has had a very long weekend. You see, I just read from on Environmental Grafitti that ... http://consumerbrigade.com/s2se/saving-the-world-while-im-drunk/ The sun is a wonderful thing.  How can you not love a great big ball of gas that provides us with light, heat, food, and electricity?  If the sun were an olympic swimmer, it would be Michael Phelps.  If it were a politician, it would be Obama.  And if it ... http://consumerbrigade.com/s2se/block-uv-rays-keep-the-yellow-light/ I had only been living in this apartment for 7 days when the first power bill came.  Now it had been a while since I had last lived in America and I knew energy prices were soaring, but I was nevertheless shocked to see a charge of $328.03 for 7 ... http://consumerbrigade.com/s2se/the-heat-is-on-take-control/ I ride my bike everywhere I go. To work. To the beach. To the farmers' market. To the kids' school. And I'm sick of it! That's right. You heard me. I'm f*@#$ing sick of it.  Just because I'm some tree-hugging, carbon-hating, crunchy conservationist, why should I also have to stay ... http://consumerbrigade.com/s2se/i-need-a-solar-powered-golf-cart-bad/ It's one thing to be a good guy; individually reducing, reusing, recycling, cutting carbon, saving water....yadda yadda yadda.  But it is quite another to inspire the same kind of conscientiousness in others especially in kids.  There is so much about having kids that is just so unenvironmental...like diapers for example.  ... http://consumerbrigade.com/s2se/how-to-grow-green-kids-part-1/ I thought I was doing the world a great service by foregoing a car and subsequently cutting down on 5000 pounds of carbon dioxide per year. But transportation isn't the only way we all contribute to air pollution and creation of greenhouse gases.  Electricity consumption is a big contributor, not least ... http://consumerbrigade.com/s2se/how-much-electricity-am-i-using/ Said the mother to the inexperienced father after returning from a day of shopping, "Honey, why haven't you changed the baby's diaper?" The husband responds: "The package says: up to 15 pounds." By my count, I've changed about 4,173 diapers over the past 6 years.  Some of them were of ... http://consumerbrigade.com/s2se/fill-diaper-feel-better/ Climate 411 reports about a Hong Kong gym that powers the lights by electricity generated by the gym members running on treadmills and a London dance club that gets its power from the kinetic energy created from the dancers.  Despite my love for green electricity, working out at the gym and ... http://consumerbrigade.com/s2se/go-kinetic-and-never-replace-a-watch-battery-again/ When we shop for new cell phones, new pcs, new gps's, and other electronic products, we typically make our decisions in 2 dimensions: price and features. I would argue, though, that there is a third (less visible) dimension that also ought to play a role in our decision-making process: environmental ... http://consumerbrigade.com/s2se/meet-the-greenest-gadgets-and-their-makers/