Quick Green Links

Ok, so I'm getting a little lazy right around the holidays. Sue me!

At least I'm taking a break from blogging about all the ways Christmas decorations can kill your children. Here is a blog entry with some good links...

• Vampires Suck - Your electronics are betraying you right now. As you sit at work, earning money, your stereo, TV, and Wii are back at your place burning a hole in your wallet. GoodMagazine.com has an awesome graphic to explain just how much money your electronics on stand-by mode will cost you. Maybe you should have asked for a SmartStrip for Christmas.

• Ocean Power is all the Wave - California has just signed a deal that will allow for buoys to be placed in the ocean and generate electricity. The project will produce 2 megawatts of electricity that will offset 245 tons of carbon dioxide per year and could be expanded to 100 megawatts if successful. Read more HERE.

• Cheapest Source of Power Yet - Skeptics beware, solar power has finally become less expensive than coal. There goes West Virginia's entire economy. The New York Times is reporting on a start-up company, whose investors include Google's founders, that is manufacturing voltaic cells on aluminum at incredibly low prices. They have taken orders through the next 18 months. Read the story HERE.

• Dead Zone Expanding - The Dead Zone is an area of the Gulf of Mexico where fertilizers from farms along the Mississippi River are causing oxygen to be completely depleted from the water, killing every type of life that once existed in this zone. The new reliance on corn for ethanol means more farms using more fertilizers which is making the Dead Zone bigger. This has to stop, by all indications, Ethanol isn't even cleaner than gasoline! We need an all renewable electricity economy people. Read about it HERE.

• Greek River Turns Purple from Pollution - The people of a Greek city along the Asopos River have been experiencing high rates of cancer for years without knowing what the cause might be. Although highly populated towns up the river were warned, people in Oinofyta weren't told that the purple water in the river was the result of factories dumping waste like Chromium-6, the Erin Brockovich chemical, into the water body. This particular river was once so beautiful, it was mentioned in ancient Greek mythology. Read about it HERE.

• What to do with Leftover Christmas Cards - You will have dozens of cards laying around after the holidays. Besides simply throwing them in the recycling bin, what else can you use them for? Get some ideas HERE, HERE, and HERE.

• Painted Your House, Got Extra Paint - A lot of people paint their homes just prior to the holidays so it looks all spruced up for their guests. Inevitably, paint will be leftover. If you have too many slightly filled cans to keep around the house, how do you get rid of the excess in an environmentally responsible way? Find out HERE. Of course you should be using organic paint in the future, which you can read about HERE.

There is your green fix for the day. It may not be a proper blog post, but its better than nothing!