Courtesy of: CGamble at Portland.1thingus.com

Look ma, no hands! The 1997 Buick demonstration drive.

A big worry people have about electric cars is something called "range anxiety." We're used to cars that routinely travel 300 miles between fillups -- if a battery vehicle goes only 100 miles (sort of like a gas car with its fuel gauge permanently on "E") then are we going to be anxious all the time?

This problem was highlighted in a story I did recently about the Tesla Model S sedan. Tesla wants the car to have 300-mile range, but to do that requires an 85- to 95-kilowatt battery pack, and nobody's built one that large for automotive applications. Tesla is confident, but conventional wisdom says it will be large, heavy and expensive. That gives people, well, range anxiety.

I am an apple afficionado and while I was perusing National Geographics the Green Guide I noticed that the Mac Book Air was rated the greenest laptop which made me quite happy:

I always loved mac because I love editing video, and never realized the green benefit!  The Green Guide listed  two main tips for buying green laptops -

Posted by: cgamble for Portland.1thingus.com

Most of us probably don’t buy furniture on a daily basis. That’s for the best; we don’t feel like we need five couches this week. Since furniture buying isn’t a quotidian part of our sustainable life, we might forget to include environmental responsibility in our quest for a new coffee table. However; green furniture is not only good for the environment, it’s good for your health. So what is it and where do you get it? Green furniture is defined by these characteristics:

Sustainable materials. Look for furniture made from wood that’s grown and harvested with sustainable forestry practices. Also, look bamboo. It’s a very strong material but grows practically as fast as grass.

Recycled materials. There’s a lot of furniture made from plastics and metals that have been used before. Keep it out of the waste stream, if you please.

Low toxicity. Believe it or not, a lot of furniture releases toxic gases or other emissions into your home. Find out what furniture is good for the Greenguard Environmental Institute certification for products with low toxicity.

Posted by: cgamble for Portland.1thingus.com

You may use recycled paper in your office. You probably recycle your cans, bottles and newspapers at home. However; in the bathroom you could very well be flushing trees (literally) down the drain.

toilet paper

There's a great article in Time Magazine about recycled paper and your bathroom. One quote says: “Using toilet paper made from virgin trees is the paper-industry equivalent of driving a Hummer.”

Yikes, we don't want Hummers in our bathrooms.

Read the article here.

Posted by: cgamble for Portland.1thingus.com

Some of the best sustainably produced wines are vinted right here in the U.S! Since we’re always working to green-up our lifestyles, why not enjoy the efforts with a sip of Greenopia's directory of sustainable United States wineries.
The top three rankings were developed based on the following factors: green fruit, eco-friendly wine packing, growing practices, production and transportation, and environmental certifications.

1. In Rutherford, CA you’ll find Frog’s Leap Winery, the only winery on the list to use dry farming, a method that reduces the amount of water used. Frog's Leap also plants cover crops annually, such as oats and mustard, that give off natural nutrients, which foster soil growth and serve as a habitat for local insects and birds. In addition to its green farming practices, its winery headquarters are LEED certified and are powered by solar energy.

2. With its four certified organic vineyards, Cakebread Cellars (also in Rutherford, CA) boasts an elaborate green framework. Cakebread also bottles its wine in recycled input glass containers.

Posted by: cgamble For Portland.1thingus.com

It’s a rule of thumb in brain storming that you take the cap off your ideas and throw out as many as you can, never mind how unfeasible and nutty. Then you take all the bold ideas generated and cull them down to something workable. But some situations call for BOLD action. At least, that’s what the UK thinks. They’ve created an initiative over there with 20 Bold Ideas for combating climate change. Here’s a sampling of the often “out there” and “sci-fi” ideas up for grabs: (From infrastructurist.com)

1. Dump Billions of Tons of Limestone Into The Ocean
CO2 is making the oceans more acidic (or, strictly speaking, less alkaline). This threatens the viability of many of the creatures–including krill–that form the base of the oceanic food chain. Dumping (or, sprinkling, let’s say) a profoundly enormous quantity of lime into the ocean would in theory restore the water’s chemistry and allow the seas to absorb even more CO2 from the atmosphere.

2. A Giant Artificial Stomach That Eats Seaweed

Posted by: CGamble for Portland's 1 thing

What, the new school year is only three weeks away? Sorry, we were too busy sweating to keep track of the time. Go, go, go! Hurry, hurry, hurry! To the stationary isle! Paper clips, Post-It notes, staplers, just shove it in the cart—THERE’S NO TIME!

Wait, three weeks? Oh, that’s plenty of time to get the kids geared up for school. Sorry to spaz out on you like that. Since we have the time, and you’re here anyway, let’s check out the eco-tastic options awaiting you and the kids.

Paper: Just about every paper pusher produces a post-consumer version of the stuff. Mead, that well known stationary name, offer up recycled paper and notebooks for your kids note taking, doodling, etc. Opt for the grey or brown paper, which means no bleach was used in the process.

Backpack: Sometimes the greener option just happens to be the cooler option. For instance, check out this slick looking bag from Portland based footwear maker Keen. This bag features 100% recycled rubber, 100% recycled aluminum and 100% recycled liners. It looks pretty rad too. The kids still use the word “rad”, right?

Courtesy of CGamble - Portland.1thingus.com

1. Select your herbs. When making an herb pot, it is essential to have a good variety of herbs and companion plants that will assist your culinary pursuits. Some good choices include:
Sweet Marjoram
Lemon Balm
Sage
Common Basil
Mint
Lime Basil
Thyme
Oregano
Strawberries
Hot Pepper

2. Prepare the pot.
Make sure that your pot has holes in the bottom for good drainage.
Take your gravel or grit, and pour this into the container to about a quarter of the pot's depth. This will help water drain out from the bottom of the soil.

3. Fill. Once the gravel is in place, start to fill the pot with a multi-purpose or soil-based compost. This should fill approximately three quarters of the pot's remaining depth.

4. Start planting.
Place the herb plants into the pot, with about 15cm between each stem.
Squeeze each herb gently from its temporary pot, and tease the roots from the root ball; this will encourage them to spread out.

I love yoga, and when I found this article I thought it was very interesting, I think I may be going out to purchase a new yoga mat tonight!!

Courtesy Of: National Geographic's The Green Guide
BYO Yoga Mat

By Emily Main

Photo: Yoga Mats

Photograph Courtesy Shutterstock Images

Yoga should bring inner peace and enlightenment, not environmental pollutants or unsightly foot ailments. The production of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastic, a common ingredient in cheaper mats, releases cancer-causing dioxins into the atmosphere. Furthermore, hormone-disrupting phthalates, often mixed with carcinogenic lead or cadmium, are added to soft PVC products to make them more pliable but are released over time. And rental yoga mats pose their own individual threats. "Fungus thrives in moist, dark and warm environments, like the folds of a yoga mat," says Timothy McCall, M.D., medical editor of Yoga Journal. "I've never seen anything as disgusting as the yoga mats at a gym I used to belong to." Even podiatrists are seeing more cases of plantar warts and athlete's foot on mat renters.

Posted by : CGamble on Portland 1 thing

If you have a reusable grocery bag you take to the grocery store, great. However, you might have a larger family and be purchasing a lot more than a couple of reusable sacks worth of groceries per trip. So what to do with all those extra plastic bags you accumulate? You can’t put them in with your recycling. A lot of us find new purpose for the bags. Take one to the park and pick up any trash you create. Still, those plastic bags can pile up and there’s nowhere to take them, right? Actually we just discovered a place. Shaws stores have a bin for recycling plastic grocery bags. So if you absolutely need to grab plastic bags at the store, now you have an inside tip where to unload them sustainably.