Articles by Chris Schults

Amazon encourages its customers to buy green

Ah, Earth Day. What could be a better way to celebrate our planet than buying more stuff and then having it shipped halfway across the country?

Regardless of what you may think of the online behemoth, Amazon.com should get some credit for prominently promoting its Earth Day store on its home page for the last week. And if their customers are going to buy things, it might as well be green things, right?

In their "10 Ways You Can Help the Environment" they suggest buying CFLs (of course), a bike, a programmable digital tire gauge (for better fuel efficiency), a battery recharger and rechargeable batteries, and the must-have for every eco-shopper: a canvas bag. There's more, but no where near as comprehensive as the Grist store (powered by, ahem, Amazon.com), where your favorite online environmental news site earns a percentage of every purchase.

Amazon has also begun tagging some of their blog posts with "Green Life" and "Healthnut" and have been writing about Grist's Earth Day dinners article, CFLs (again), green PCs, and organic chocolate. And Doug informs us that for each purchase of An Inconvenient Truth on Earth Day, one school in the U.S. or Canada will get a copy donated. (But will they be able to watch it?)

But if you really want to be green and buy a DVD, check out Amazon's Unbox Video Download service, which allows you to buy or rent from a large assortment of movies and TV shows, and watch them on your computer (legally), including: An Inconvenient Truth, Who Killed the Electric Car? and Fast Food Nation.

Local and federal leaders step it up

As reported by KING5.com (video), more than 1,000 people took part in Step It Up Seattle, which began at Occidental Park in downtown Seattle and ended in Myrtle Edwards Park where a rally and solutions fair commenced. Many Grist staff members were present, and took pictures and chatted with local Grist readers. My job was to record brief audio interviews with some of the participants. Early in the week, we plan to share these photos and recordings with you.

For now, here is just a taste of the day's events, the unedited audio recordings (Windows Media) of the rally's speakers:

KC Golden, Policy Director for Climate Solutions -- Listen (7:22)

Jiji Jally, Marshall Islands representative -- Listen (4:36)

Jay Inslee, U.S. Congressman; Greg Nickels, Mayor of Seattle; Ron Sims, King County Executive -- Listen (26:00)

Dave Freiboth, MLK Jr. County Labor Council; Emily Duncanson, Western Washington University student and founder of Kyoto in the classroom; Rev. Lisa Domke -- Listen (13:22)

More to come.

Update [2007-4-16 17:13:1 by Chris Schults]: Check out today's podcast to hear from some of the Seattle marchers.

Update [2007-4-20 12:44:12 by Chris Schults]: Check out Grist's audio slideshow.

In Second Life

How did Grist miss this one last week, as reported by National Geographic News?

Tokyo, Amsterdam, and the entire Mediterranean island of Ibiza were inundated with floodwaters today due to rising sea levels brought on by global warming.

Oh:

Wired reports on undersea mining plans

Speaking of mining and threats to marine life, Wired is reporting that there is the potential for a huge undersea gold rush and very few environmental groups seem concerned: