GoingGreenTV goes live!

Yes, we will be streaming to you LIVE from the Arts Factory in downtown Las Vegas during the First Friday event this Friday, May 1, from 6pm-10pm.

Tune in as we ask people how they are going green!

True Green Heroes

I read with exuberance through the bios of the top forty Heart of Green Award nominees, nominated by readers of thedailygreen.com.  I found many of the stories inspiring - real people making a difference in the world in their own way.  I was inspired by a 17-year old in New York who created RelightNY, a program where young people raise money to buy CFL bulbs to give to low-income housing,  and a young woman in Miami that spotlights local green businesses and services on 305green.com, including a "Green Scene" calendar of events and the guy who uses stories and songs to educate children on complex issues such as the Pacific garbage patch and mountain-top removal through his web series, Gorilla in the Green House.

The Heart of Green Awards honor those people, organizations and companies that have taken the green message to the mainstream - to the "heart" of the American people and are sponsored by TheDailyGreen.com, a website dedicated to the green revolution.  Other categories include food, politics, media, parenting and business.  You can read about these heroes and explore the other categories at thedailygreen.com.

Happy Earth Day!

Earth Day was founded in 1970 by Gaylord Nelson, then a U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, who proposed the first nationwide environmental gathering "to shake up the political establishment and force this issue onto the national agenda. " "It was a gamble," he recalls, "but it worked."

On April 22, 1970, 20 million Americans took to the streets, parks, and auditoriums in support of a healthy, sustainable environment. Denis Hayes, the national coordinator, and his youthful staff organized massive coast-to-coast rallies to raise awareness about oil spills, polluting factories and power plants, raw sewage, toxic dumps, pesticides, freeways, the loss of wilderness, and the extinction of wildlife.

Earth Day 1970 achieved a rare political alignment, enlisting support from Republicans and Democrats, rich and poor, city slickers and farmers, tycoons and labor leaders. The first Earth Day led to the creation of the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the passage of the Clean Air, Clean Water, and Endangered Species acts.

As the millennium approached, Hayes agreed to spearhead another campaign, this time focused on global warming and a push for clean energy. Earth Day 2000 combined the big-picture feistiness of the first Earth Day with the international grassroots activism of Earth Day 1990. For 2000, Earth Day had the Internet to help link activists around the world. By the time April 22 rolled around, 5,000 environmental groups around the world were on board, reaching out to hundreds of millions of people in a record 184 countries. 

Celebrate Earth Day 2009 by finding simple ways you can go green.  Ride your bike to work, recycle, reduce waste by watching out for excessive packaging, bring your own reusable cloth bags with you to the grocery store instead of using more paper or plastic, insulate your pipes and water heater, fix leaky faucets, turn off the lights when you leave a room, use the power-save feature on your computer so it powers down after a period of inactivity, donate your old clothes for someone else to reuse, what other ways can you think of?

For more information on how you can celebrate Earth Day, visit the EPA's website at http://www.epa.gov/earthday

Green TV programming planned for Earth Day

Several broadcasting networks, including Fox Broadcasting, NBC and Nickelodeon, have announced green-themed TV program scheduling in honor of Earth Day, April 22.

Fox Broadcasting plans to launch specially themed TV shows, on-air graphics and instructional segments about being more green, kicking off on April 19 through to April 22.  Called “Green It. Mean It”, Fox is committed to reducing the network’s impact on the world’s climate and becoming carbon neutral by 2010.

NBC celebrates Earth Week April 19-26, starting with the “Miss USA” show and will air more than 150 hours of green-themed programming across NBCU’s 40 on-air and digital brands, including a four-part MSNBC series called Future Earth. Lauren Zalaznick, president of NBCU women and lifestyle entertainment networks, told Media Daily News that NBC Universal has saved $2 million last year by going green.

On Earth Day, Nickelodeon will have environmentally-themed episodes of hit shows including The Wonder Pets, Olivia, Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!, iCarly, and Yo Gabba Gabba! Nickelodeon will air vignettes of real kids taking action to improve the environment, and Nickelodeon, NOGGIN, and The N will all power down for 60 seconds at 9:00 p.m.  In addition, Nickelodeon will unveil The Big Green Help - a grants program to support schools and local organizations with sustainability projects. Applications will be accepted online from April 22 to Dec. 31, 2009.

Green dating site matches eco-friendly singles and saves trees

By Jonathan Cribbs, writer for MotherNatureNetwork.com

A Dutch Internet entrepreneur is hoping a new dating website dedicated to reforestation might help lonely environmentalists hug something more than just trees.

DateForTrees.com, which launched last June, pledges to donate a planted tree for each of the site's daters every month of their paid membership.

While Internet dating and environmental advocacy might not be the most intuitive business pairing, founder Ralph van Troost said last week it's the sort of novel, quirky mashup that might lead the site to greater success.

"I figured dating and reforestation — the environment — make a pretty unique combination, and they are both popular subjects."

The website is partnered with American Forests, a nonprofit conservation organization based in Washington, D.C. The group plants trees across the country to rejuvenate areas ravaged by wildfire, prevent soil erosion, stop pollutant runoff and rebuild endangered animal habitats. American Forests has planted more than 20 million trees over the last two decades, some of them in other countries, executive director Deborah Gangloff says. It tries to plant between 1 million and 5 million trees per year at a cost of about $1 each. None of the planted trees are harvested, Gangloff says, and are placed in protected areas.

"It's wonderful to see this kind of interest from organizations you wouldn't normally think would be environmental or into tree planning," she says. "There's so much that is needed in terms of tree planting that we welcome sponsors."

"It's very clear to people what happens with the donations DateForTrees makes," van Troost says. "In fact, the name of the site says it all. I hope all of this will give the members of DateForTrees a sense of greater involvement with the environment, especially when compared to other [more passive] 'green' dating sites."

General dating is already difficult for most people, let alone the eco-conscious who typically seek mates with similar environmental concerns, she says.

"It's difficult for singles to meet these days, period," says Jill Crosby, founder of Planet Earth Singles. "Everyone's just gotten so busy. … You can go to different events and charitable fundraisers to meet fellow environmentalists, but who knows if they're single or if they're available or emotionally available. … I just know how important it is for green people to meet other green people. You don't want to be dating someone that's eating at McDonald's and leading a wasteful life. It just doesn't go together well."

Smart Power gets smart by going green!

Over the years, Smart Power has used a traditional Madison Avenue agency approach for their traditional radio and TV campaigns to raise awareness of clean power. They hired college students to go door to door explaining the process and worked with nonprofits to encourage their members to sign up. After leading regional campaigns in Connecticut and Pennsylvania, partly funded with government money, Smart Power was able to drive up buy rates for clean energy.

Now they are going green with viral marketing on Internet. Brian Keane, who leads the nonprofit, wants to make wind and solar and hydropower and geothermal energy really cool, and get more people to buy them and he’s found that it is a much greener, cheaper and quicker way to reach people. Obama Girl, as she’s known, agreed to produce a “Save Energy” commercial for a carbon footprint reduction contest for about $5,000, (compare to $100,000 a year retainer with the Madison Avenue agency) and within just a few days it had attracted more than 100,000 viewers on YouTube.

"It’s magic,” Keane says. “It spreads like fire."

In addition, there are pages on Facebook and MySpace promoting the contest, as well as a Twitter feed. Save green by going green!

Give a Little Green to combat global warming

GlobalGiving launched a new GlobalGiving Green initiative in honor of Earth Day, that includes a 50% matching donation on all gifts to this fund that helps reduce global warming in the U.S. and in the developing world.

Mari Kuraishi, President and co-founder of GlobalGiving said, "We can address the problems associated with climate change and achieve economic growth by identifying and investing in innovation that puts people to work or improves their livelihood while reducing harmful carbon emissions. GlobalGiving Green includes current projects in the developing world that fit this criteria and 'Give A Little Green' provides that extra incentive for individuals to support such projects now in this time of great need."

GlobalGiving Green is working towards creating a market-based incentive for green development, by helping to translate the demand for climate change solutions into a carbon-neutral path for development. Donors can connect directly to earth-changing grassroots projects, like supporting training in solar energy at a technical institute in Sierra Leone or cultivating forests in Indonesia, ensuring even the smallest donation goes a long way. "Give a Little Green" launched on April 4th, and will run through April 28th or until the $25,000 in matching funds has run out.

GlobalGiving (http://www.globalgiving.com/) is the leading online network for peer-to-peer philanthropy with a mission to sustain a high-powered marketplace for good that connects donors directly to the causes they care most about.

Empire State Building is Going Green!

The Empire State Building is going green with $20 million worth of energy-efficient retrofits, saving $4.4 million in energy annually. The energy improvements include refurbishing existing thermopane glass windows, insulating behind radiators, updating lighting fixtures, adding controls that mix lighting with available natural light, power-saving power strips, and occupancy sensors.

Planners aim for the building, which was originally constructed in 1931, to qualify for LEED Gold status once the work is completed in 2013.

Zappos is one of the most successful online sellers of shoes, but what they really shine in is service. So it is no surprise that they sell more than shoes. Clothing, bags and other accessories are now available.

But my favorite category is the eco-friendly category. There are shoes made from recycled rubber and shipped in recycled packaging, bamboo shirts, organic cotton dresses, recycled plastic backpacks, even "vegetarian" non-leather, animal-friendly shoes. Available, of course, at zappos.com.

Making green investing in green

Green investors are beginning to see green from their green investments. While the Dow is up 21% from its low in early March, cleantech indexes are up 30%. Green building stocks are up 11.6% in the past two weeks, exceeding the 7.9% increase registered by the S&P 500 and NASDAQ.

"People I work with are more optimistic than I've seen in years,” notes Sam Jones, portfolio manager of the New Power Portfolio. “The stimulus plan is a big piece of it."

The optimism professional investors show in a recent survey demonstrates that despite the financial crisis and economic recession, investment momentum is growing to bridge the financing gap - institutional investors provide crucial long-term global financing for industries that mitigate climate change. (Survey conducted by New Energy Finance and DB Climate Change Advisors, Deutsche Bank's climate change investment business).

According to Progressive Investor, a monthly newsletter that guides investors and analysts toward green investments published by SustainableBusiness.com, leaders in each Green Stock category include:
• Solar: First Solar (FSLR), SunPower (SPWR)
• Wind: Vestas (VWS.CO), Gamesa (GAM.MC)
• Geothermal: Ormat (ORA), WaterFurnace (WFI.TO)
• Smart Grid: IBM (IBM), Itron (ITRI), EnerNoc (ENOC)
• Energy Efficient Buildings: Owens Corning (OC), Baldor Electric (BEZ), ICF International (ICFI)
• Water: TetraTech (TTEK), Northwest Pipe (NWPX)

For more information, go to http://www.sustainablebusiness.com/index.cfm/go/progressiveinvestor.main