What is your favorite green product?

Just make sure they are the ones with you in a green jersey. The blue one wouldn't look right in this thread.

Tom

 

Not me. If I try to stand up on a bike, the bike falls over.

Any time there's only two wheels, maintaining balance in the long run is impossible. Sooner or later the bike falls over. That's why I prefer no wheels at all. And there's no traffic to get run over by in my basement.

We share the same flaw, but not the same predilection. I couldn't care less about diapers, but I do like going to hot places with warm water to dive in (both with and without artificial breathing gear). And since I don't want to take weeks getting there and back, I use commercial airlines, thus boosting my carbon footprint into the stratosphere. (Pun intended.)

A true environmentalist would own no means of transportation other than a horse or mule or donkey, or something like a bicycle or trike that operated entirely on his own power, and would never travel farther from the small plot of land where he grows his own food than he can travel in half a day on said animal or bicycle or tricycle. A moderate environmentalist would travel, if at all, by train and sailboat.

I'm reminded of the time I was arrested along with a friend and locked into a cop car. The cop was really quite nice about it and left the A/c on. My friend told the cop he could turn off the engine and A/C because we were "radical environmentalists." I told my friend: "Speak for yourself. I'm a moderate environmentalist." It was a very hot and sunny day. -- But I can no longer claim to be even a moderate environmentalist. Now I'm an armchair environmentalist: I want us to clean up our act, but (like you and everyone else) I am unwilling to change my lifestyle. (Which, of course, is why the Prius is so popular: You get to pretend to be saving the planet while making no sacrifices whatsoever.)

So, to get back to the thread topic: There are no green products. Green is making do without "products."

 

Enjoy your tropical diving while it lasts. This year's coral bleaching has been the worst ever thanks to record warm ocean temperatures. Estimates have about 40% of the corals dead with 80% bleached.

Green Car Congress: International study finds heat stress to Caribbean corals in 2005 worst on record, coral reefs suffered record losses

This news probably deserves it's own thread.

 

Yep. I know. Go on a scuba chat board and read the sub-forums for any dive location, and all the old-timers will talk about how much better it used to be.

It's still amazing down there. Just nothing like it used to be. Of course, the coral is the world's mine canary: long about the time there's none left, folks will have to start carrying oxygen tanks to survive on land.

We're damn lucky there's no god, because if there was, he'd send us ALL to hell, believers and non-believers alike, for what we've done to this green Earth.

 

My favorite green product: Hundred dollar bills!

 

Just gave this latest & greatest LED bulb a try...



This one addresses limitations of current LED bulbs in the standard A19 shape. It's quite a bit brighter (definitely like a 60-watt) and the illumination is projected to the sides rather than out the top.

I really like it.
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What was the retail price on that LED bulb, John?

 

$39.97 more info

Taking into account how well it actually works, its extreme life-expectancy, and the fact that I've seen a surprising dent in my electrical bill, that's reasonable for the early rollout years.

Hopefully, price will plummet as the 2014 incandescent phaseout deadline approaches.
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ok i waded thru the first 91 posts and did not see the obvious, so i will offer

1) My (soon to be) Leaf. IT will unlikely be the best but it will make history as being the first or the catalyst for the renewed EV movement. its fully electric and i fully believe that Nissan's "all in" approach has forced the hand of several other manufacturers to push their EV timetables up (Toyota...). its seats are made from discarded plastic water bottles which brings me to

2) my stainless steel water bottle of which i have two. one for water, one for coffee. i do not do plastic, styrofoam, etc. granted, my efforts have probably reduced the Pacific Plastic Flotilla from 100,001.002 gazallion square meters to 100,001.001 gazallion sq meters. but at least its smaller.

3)my battery LESS, rechargeable flashlight (ya know, the shake kind) . i once read an article somewhere a long time ago (hopefully things have changed) where one of the largest sources of toxic waste in our landfills came from improperly disposed batteries. the chief source of those batteries...Flashlights. from there is was a slow painful migration (one option was stumbling around in the dark...not a fond memory) from high intensity low power blub to rechargeable batteries to LED's to what i have now. it was spendy. $40 but it has 7 LED's i have had it for over 3 years and i figure i have gained back at least .... well probably only about $6 in battery cost savings... but who's counting??

oh
wait!!
and my arm is in much better shape too!!

 

Who makes the flashlight? How long between shakes?

 

My 2007 Silver Pine Mica (Green) Prius.

 

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Seriously though, my favorite green product would be the Nissan Leaf or roof-top solar panels for residential homes. (I own neither, but I would LOVE to own both!)

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I have a better flashlight design. I do have one of those shake flashlights but it takes A LOT of energy from the user. The other type I have has a lever that you push in and a wheel spins in circles as it generates more electricity. Remember those things we had as kids that you push the lever in and it spins faster and faster as it glows brighter and brighter? Same concept, except it's a generator, battery, and flashlight.


More info:
[ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanically_powered_flashlight]Mechanically powered flashlight - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]

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Not buying anything new, even though I really, really want an iPad.

 

ummm. dont know. paperwork tossed years ago. i bought it at G.I. Joes around 2004 or 05 maybe?

i also have the squeeze handle (pictured above...LOL) type but am on my 3rd version of that. they dont seem to hold up as long.

as far as light; the shake one lasts longer. it will go up to 10 minutes. the squeeze one i have are more for exercise in that you pretty much have to squeeze them continuously and the light intensity varies a lot. the shake one seems to store more charge. the squeeze one doesnt store anything at all

but then again, maybe i just have a cheap one. one was given to me for displaying my Zenn at the Lacey Alternative Fuel Fair. i liked it because its smaller but still puts out some good light.

now my father in law of sorts who has a lantern with crank handle. that works the best. it will stay lit for 20-30 minutes and its really bright. his came from REI. the biggest thing is the lantern is also the quietest by far.

can't tell you how many times i was kneed when shaking my light in a dark campground at 3 am

 

Promise to use it in place of your desk top energy-hog? I grant you permission.

But seriously, I like your answer the bust - no more new stuff.

 

now that is tough to do. i compromised. i am getting Leaf (#258!!) and although its new. it does use post consumer plastic to manufacture the "cloth" for the seats.

now will i like the seats? i dont know. did a test drive and it was fine. spent an hour crawling around the car (with help from the other 100 people there!!) and seats are simply hard to quantify unless you can input the feedback that only 100 test drives can offer. so i will get back to you on that

 

Paperless receipts.

 

I may have posted this before. If so, my apologies. I had a shake flashlight. It was supposed to last forever: No batteries, and it used an LED instead of an incandescent bulb. It died after a year or so, and never even got much use! Of course, I learned that it was dead when we had a power outage and I wanted light!!!

I may look for one of those crank lanterns at REI.

 

Some of the "shake" flashlights are nothing more than cheep LED flashlights with a lithium button cell, plus a coil of wire and a slug of steel to make it look like a shake flashlight. Shaking doesn't do anything at all, except exercise your arm.

Others, of course, are the real deal and actually produce electricity when you shake them.

Tom