Green roofs are an environmental and economical win-win: These aboveground gardens absorb the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, combat the urban heat island effect by deflecting the sun's rays, divert harmful storm-water runoff, and can help lower a building’s heating and cooling costs.

Living roofs are gaining serious traction in big cities like Chicago, where city hall wears a green roof. But homeowners and building managers anywhere can also join the green-roof revolution—without forking over too much dough.
First, you'll likely need to hire a landscape contractor for the project—nearly all green roof experts discourage DIY.

The first question to ask your contractor is how much weight your roof can hold, according to Bruce Dvorak of the Conservation Design Forum, an Illinois-based, environmentally friendly design firm.

Extensive roofs have a soil depth of 1 to 6 inches (2.5 to 15.2 centimeters) and can handle a weight load of 15 to 50 pounds (6.8 to 22.7 kilograms) per square foot of living roof.

Intensive roofs have a soil depth of 6 to 24 inches (15.2 to 61 centimeters) and hold 80 to 150 pounds (36.3 to 68.1 kilograms) per square foot.

U.S poison control centers received 214,091 reports of exposures to cleaning products in 2006. More than half involved children under five.

What Can You Do?
Most conventional furniture polishes contain hazardous ingredients, such as the flammable respiratory irritants isobutene and butane and the skin and eye irritant d-Limonene. Fortunately you can save money, and your family's health, with a homemade wood polish. Here's a recipe:

1/4 cup white distilled vinegar or lemon juice
A few drops jojoba or olive oil
3 to 5 drops fragrant essential oil (optional)

When considering the right fragrance, choose an antiseptic essential oil. Sweet eucalyptus will give a clean summer scent. And if you want to give your cleaner an unlimited shelf life, opt for vinegar (lemon can turn rancid).

Courtesy of: National Geographic- The Green Guide (Fast Facts)

The American Association of Wine Economists estimates global greenhouse gas emissions from wine production and distribution to be 5,336,600 tons—roughly the same amount that one million passenger vehicles would emit in a year.

What Can You Do?
The good news is that because shipping wine typically involves moving lots of heavy glass filled with some less-heavy wine, the bigger the bottle, the smaller the carbon impact per ounce. On dinner outings with large groups of people, order a 1.5 liter (L) magnum that holds eight glasses rather than two .75 L bottles. Heller Estate's 2002 Organic Cachagua Cabernet Sauvignon ($45/1.5 L) is lovely and affordable for large dinner parties. For a splurge, try their 1997 Organic Signature Release Cabernet Sauvignon ($200/1.5 L) with flavors of ripe berry fruits, jammy cassis and dark chocolate. And if you're really thirsty, you can pick up a 1995 Cabernet Sauvignon in a three-liter bottle for $260 (www.hellerestate.com). The more, the merrier...

Courtesy of: National Geographic-The Green Guide (Fast Facts)

Courtesy of: National Geographic-The Green Guide
by Vincent Standley

With the changeover from analog to digital TV signals less than a month away, many of us are looking at TV upgrades to match. Given the choice between an LCD or a plasma, however, it's hard to know which to pick. Both use more energy than older CRTs (cathode ray tubes, the onetime standard for television technology), and both are made with nitrogen trifluoride, a chemical that lingers in the air for up to 550 years and one some climate scientists say has a bigger impact on global warming than the world's largest coal-fired power plants. The most earth-friendly decision you can make is to stick with your old CRT until it bites the dust, but when it's time for a new one, is there a truly greener flat-screen TV?

Courtesy of: National Geographic-The Green Guide
By Paul McRandle

The scents in products we wash, beautify and deodorize with may be enhancing our allure at the cost of allergic reactions. A 1998 Danish study found that, after nickel, fragrances were the second most common cause of allergic contact dermatitis; dermatitis, or inflamed skin, is a form of eczema, according to the American Academy of Dermatology (AAD). "Allergic reactions to fragrances are on the rise among dermatitis patients," says Donald Belsito, M.D., a dermatologist at the University of Kansas Medical Center. "Over the last decade, fragrance sensitivities in this group have increased from 9 to 12 or 13 percent," he adds. Studies show that eczema patients' fragrance allergies have risen in the U.S., Denmark and Germany, according to a 1999 report by the European Union Scientific Committee on Cosmetic Products.

Courtesy of: National Geographic-The Green Room

The already blossoming green jobs sector may get an added growth spurt with the U.S. Department of Energy's recent announcement that the FutureGen project is back on track.

A novel coal-fired, near-zero-emissions power plant in Mattoon, Illinois, FutureGen was first proposed by the Bush Administration in 2003 as a way to control carbon dioxide emissions, then later waylaid due to costs.

But U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu announced June 12 that the $1.5 billion plant will likely go forward, with construction planned for 2010.

" … FutureGen reflects this Administration's commitment to rapidly developing carbon capture and sequestration technology as part of a comprehensive plan to create jobs, develop clean energy and reduce climate change pollution," Chu said in a statement.

The plant works by transforming coal into a gas made up of hydrogen, which in turn creates the steam needed to generate electricity through a gas turbine or a fuel cell. It also captures carbon dioxide and stores the gas permanently underground.

Courtesy of: National Geographics- The Green Guide
By Solvie Karlstrom

One month it's green tea, the next it's pomegranate. "New" ingredients, the same ones that peoploe have been using on their skin for centuries, are revolutionizing the skin care industry. But venerated as they may be, they may not be the solution to all your skin care woes. It's not that natural ingredients don't work—in fact, plant ingredients can be more effective than the synthetics we've all become used to. It's that they don't all do the same thing. To help choose the right moisturizer for you, we've put together a guide explaining just what these plant-based ingredients do for your skin.

Jojoba Oil: Anti-blemish and Anti-aging
Jojoba oil is a skin softener that behaves almost the same way as the oil your skin produces naturally, balancing oil levels and preventing moisture loss. It’s ideal for mature skin, which generates less moisture with age. If breakouts happen only occasionally, the mild antibacterial properties in jojoba oil can help prevent the few blemishes you do get.

GG Product Picks

Nurture My Body Regenerating Creme ($22.11/1.75 oz. www.nurturemybody.com)

Posted by: cgamble, for Portland.1thing.us

By Solvie Karlstrom

Last year Americans spent nearly $11 billion on over 8 billion gallons of bottled water, and then tossed over 22 billion empty plastic bottles in the trash. In bottle production alone, the more than 70 million bottles of water consumed each day in the U.S. drain 1.5 million barrels of oil over the course of one year.

Ban The Bottle

Though the sale and consumption of bottled water is still on the rise, certain policy makers and activists have taken steps to reduce it. San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom signed an executive order in June that bars city government from using city money to supply municipal workers with bottled water, and New York City, where residents consume nearly 28 gallons of bottled water each year, launched an ad campaign encouraging residents and tourists to forego the bottled beverage for the city's tap, long considered some of the best water in the country. Even upscale eateries in Boston, New York and San Francisco have taken bottled water off the menu, offering filtered tap instead.

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