I watched Live Earth yesterday, and am really glad that the message is getting out. I changed to CFL bulbs awhile back, and living in California got us into the good habit of recycling everything. There were a lot of interesting stats thrown out during the event, but the two that stuck in my mind were:

• Unplug devices when not in use. The prime examples being chargers, such as cell phone chargers. I’ve also got a lot of devices that require charging (from my Harmony 880 remote controls to my SoniCare Elite e9500 toothbrush) and have left the charger plugged in. This morning, I unplugged them all.
• Stop buying bottled water. When you dive into the details, it’s pretty crazy.
  • 24% of all the bottled water we buy, is tap water repackaged by Coke and Pepsi.
  • We consume so much bottled water, we’d need 37,800 18-wheelers to deliver it every week.
  • Water from obscure sources (like Fiji Water), needs to get to your local shop from Fiji. Think about the fossil fuels used to truck and fly that water to you.

I created Blue Sky Mining a few months back, which aggregates environmental issues & topics from around the Internet. It is a tribute to Australian band Midnight Oil’s song about how we profit today to the detriment of our future.

There was a recent article published in an Australian newspaper, reporting that there was no evidence that organic foods was any better than conventional produce.

Shoppers who buy more expensive organic food often believe they are getting nutritionally-superior products — but experts warn there is no evidence to support the claim. Research shows most fruit and vegetables on sale in Australia have the same levels of nutrients and no traces of pesticides, regardless of whether they are organic or not.

Jennie Brand-Miller, professor of molecular and microbiological sciences at the University of Sydney, warns many consumers are paying more because of mistaken beliefs. Organic produce is usually significantly more expensive than conventional foods — sometimes double the price.

Which made me wonder:

• Would the same hold true for US foods?
• We’ve heard for a long time about how there’s really no difference between bottled water and water coming straight from the tap. But that hasn’t decreased the popularity of bottled water. I imagine that this counter-thought about organic food will be similarly ignored by the masses.
• Pesticides and other chemicals are used in the food industry for a reason. I wonder what the consequences will be, when humans try to mass-produce foods without that support? Such as antibiotics given to chickens so that more can be kept in confined spaces without mass deaths (will we see protests about sprawling chicken farms?), pesticides to kill rodents who shit on/in our vegetables/fruits (will we see more strange diseases or even simply e.coli from those eating organic produce?), etc.

Organic foods, whether they help, hinder or do nothing… seems like they’re here (permanently) to take a chunk out of our wallets.

By now, most of us know of the dangers with consuming transfat. To quicky recap from wikipedia: Trans fatty acids (commonly termed trans fats) are a type of unsaturated fat (and may be monounsaturated or polyunsaturated). Most trans fats consumed today are industrially created as a side effect of partial hydrogenation of plant oils

On my recent trip to Australia, I discovered the moisturing lotion (supplied by United Airlines in Business Class) included an intesresting ingredient!

To dive in for a closer look (click on thumbnail to see the highlighted words):

Hydrogenated vegetable oil?! They put transfat in moisturizers? WTF?!

About a month-and-a-half ago, I changed pretty much all the lightbulbs in my house to flourscent bulbs. I did it after watching An Inconvenient Truth. If you haven’t seen that movie yet, you should!

I changed because I wanted to do my bit for the future planet (those who know me, know that I’m usually far from the environmentalist camp!). But I also did it in an attempt to lower the cost of my electricity bill (honestly, if the environmentalists would just start selling the “personal benefit” of being green, they’d get alot more converts!).

When I’d dabbled with flourescent bulbs a few years back, I was pretty disappointed:

• They took too long to reach full brightness. So it wasn’t really practical to turn them on and off (I’d been taught since young to only have the lights on when you needed them).
• Even at “full” brightness, they weren’t very bright (certainly less than a 60W incandescent bulb).
• They were very costly to buy (6+ times the cost of a normal bulb, but only had 4 times the expected life)
• I never persevered enough with those old bulbs, to determine if there was any true savings.

Having used them for a little over 7 weeks now, I’m happy to report that the new generation of flourscent bulbs:

• Aren’t that expesive anymore (about 2 times the cost, with 4 times the expected life)
• Reach full bright much more quickly. Depending on the type (e.g. normal or floodlight style), that time will be anywhere from 2 seconds to 15 seconds. But the important point is that within 2-4 seconds, the brightness is at a practical level.

And in my most recent electricity bill, I’ve cut my electricity by ~10% (from $94, to $85 per month). I live in Las Vegas (so your per kW cost may be different). The bulbs cost me ~$150, so I’ll probably break even in a little over a year. Although I have a large-ish house we only turn on the lights in the area(s) that we are in (so the length of time it takes me to break even will probably be longer most people’s).

So, now I feel good for doing a little bit to help the environment. And I feel great for saving abit of money.

Australia will phase out traditional incandescent bulbs by 2010. Only flourescent light bulbs will be sold after that period.