Welcome to the eKos Earthship, your one-stop-shop for great environmental diaries and series.
Be sure to follow us on Twitter! And if you can't wait for the eKos Earthship post, you can get your fill of eco-diaries at our regularly updated database.
Beneath the fold you will find today's table of eco-diaries, some advice on buying renewable energy, a letter from WarrenS (he has many), our environmental pic of the day, a little meta, and an appeal for an eKos logo/banner. Enjoy!
Today's editor: patrickz
Announcements
Upcoming Diaries (If you want to advertise here, please e-mail ekos350atgmaildotcom with author handle, title, and posting time)
Ecojustice Diary tonight at 10PM Eastern by rb137
I work with a Congolese relief group called HEAL Africa. This week, the founder of their strategic program to end gender-based violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo is in the US giving talks about their program. I met with her for lunch last week. I'll be writing about that at EcoJustice tomorrow. They have very few English speakers and almost no technology, so they have very little voice in the west. They are a brilliant organization, though, and they are changing the face of the DRC.
The eco connection is that their war is supported by minerals (used in cell phones, electronics, and green technology and research) -- conflict minerals that we need to regulate. This diary just talks about the gender-based violence program and its successes.
Macca's Meatless Monday...Oil, Darling tonight at 6PM Eastern by beach babe in fl
In this weekly series we have been discussing the benefits of a vegetarian diet including; animal rights, food safety, better health, global food crisis, frugal living and the immense contribution of meat production to global warming/climate change.
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Calling all artists!
If eKos is going to be a proper series, we need a banner and/or logo. I'm not artistically inclined, and my better half is incredibly busy. Please e-mail me if you are willing to help out.
meta
I want to stress that eKos was never meant to compete with any other project. I fully expect eKos to evolve as other projects get off the ground, and with the release of DK4. If eKos becomes detrimental in any way to the community, or redundant, then we will retire it.
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How to Buy Renewable Power
Climate change, oil spills, pollution - there are many reasons to kick the fossil fuel habit. Even if our congress and administration act on climate legislation, it won't be enough to avert disaster. We need to do our part to drive up demand for clean, renewable energy.
Luckily, many states have made it easy to purchase clean energy through your electric utility. The US Department of Energy has a website devoted to the process:
If retail electricity competition is allowed in your state, you may be able to purchase a green power product from an alternative electricity supplier. Some states have already implemented electricity competition. Check the Status of State Electric Industry Restructuring Activity (last updated 2003) map, prepared by the U.S. Energy Information Administration, to see if your state has passed an electricity competition law.
Even if your state is not implementing electricity market competition, you may still be able to purchase green power through your regulated utility. More than 600 regulated utilities spanning more than 30 states offer "green pricing" programs (see our map of green pricing programs). The term green pricing refers to an optional utility service that allows customers to support a greater level of utility investment in renewable energy by paying a premium on their electric bill to cover any above-market costs of acquiring renewable energy resources.
Finally, whether or not you have access to green power through your utility or a competitive electricity marketer, you can purchase renewable energy certificates (RECs). RECs (also known as green tags, green energy certificates, or tradable renewable certificates) represent the environmental attributes of power generated from renewable electric plants. A variety of organizations offer RECs separate from electricity service, that is, you need not switch from your current electricity supplier in order to purchase these certificates.
To find out what green power options are available in your state, please visit our Can I Buy Green Power in My State? page, where you can click on your state to view available green power products.
For more information on buying green power, see: Guide to Purchasing Green Power (PDF 1 MB)
I currently purchase 100% wind power. Keep in mind that it costs a little more (2.5 cents/kWh extra for me), but is well worth the price if you can afford it. I was able to complete the entire process online.
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Today's eco-diaries (will update regularly throughout the day):
Author | Diary | Time |
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Meteor Blades | Green Diary Rescue and Open Thread | 05/03/2010 00:17:39 EDT |
punditician | BP To Gulf Coast Residents: We'll Give You $5,000 If You Give Up Your Right To Sue! | 05/02/2010 22:15:19 EDT |
raccoondog | The Gulf Coast tragedy: Capitalism on collision course with nature | 05/02/2010 20:33:16 PDT |
Taming the FOX | Excuses, Excuses, Excuses | 05/02/2010 20:33:37 PDT |
Kendrick Meek for Florida | Tell Rubio and Crist: 'No New Drilling in the Gulf' (Petition) | 05/03/2010 10:09:36 EDT |
eljefebob | Blowout Preventer is "Not Closed, ... is Not Going to Close" | 05/03/2010 09:52:28 EDT |
Edger | Animation: Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill Growth and Movement | 05/03/2010 08:51:49 EDT |
JeffLieber | On George Will and Hideous Bird Murder... | 05/03/2010 08:00:06 EDT |
jamesboyce | What's Up With the Rainforest: United States has higher percentage of forest loss than Brazil | 05/03/2010 15:33:20 PDT |
beach babe in fl | Macca's Meatless Monday...Oil, Darling | 05/03/2010 15:07:39 PDT |
slinkerwink | BREAKING: Schwarznegger Pulls Support For Offshore Drilling! | 05/03/2010 14:13:39 PDT |
lowkell | Crazy Cooch Launches Climate Change "Witch Hunt" at UVA | 05/03/2010 12:08:36 PDT |
DWG | The week in dirty coal: May Day edition | 05/03/2010 11:44:32 PDT |
aaraujo | Offshore Drilling is Dead, Put pressure on Graham to move on Climate | 05/03/2010 11:24:13 PDT |
Turkana | Faux News Goes Oil Spill Truther | 05/03/2010 11:12:21 PDT |
Ellinorianne | Joe Shaw -- Wetlands Advocate, Gay Kossack, and My Friend. | 05/03/2010 11:02:15 PDT |
Southernlib | A short, dynamic history of drilling and Florida opinion | 05/03/2010 09:39:49 PDT |
fivefouranonymous | It's not as bad as I thought. | 05/03/2010 08:45:40 PDT |
icebergslim | "Drill, Baby, Drill" is retired. | 05/03/2010 06:41:51 PDT |
NLinStPaul | Offshoring Our Offshore Drilling | 05/03/2010 17:42:55 PDT |
RLMiller | Look North to Test the Reach of a Drilling Moratorium | 05/03/2010 16:55:47 PDT |
jamess | BP's containment problems, may go further than Oil. | 05/03/2010 15:55:55 PDT |
Salo | Unsafe at any Depth | 05/03/2010 16:30:32 PDT |
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Yesterday's diaries:
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Also, don't forget to check out these eco-series:
(All times Eastern!)
Listed diaries do not necessarily represent the views of the eKos editors and rangers.
Note: We will be keeping an archive of the listed diaries. You can access it here.
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Green Diary Rescue
In case you missed it, check out MB's Green Diary Rescue!
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A Letter from WarrenS:
WarrenS made a New Year's Resolution to write a letter advocating climate action every day. The result is over one hundred letters to congresspeople, newspapers, President Obama, and more. Warren has even been published in the New York Times and the Boston Globe.
Before we get to today's piece, Warren has an important message:
To anyone who feels like writing a letter...
...please (please!) visit my site. Find a letter or letters that suit your taste. There's music, too, not to mention India photoblogging and a bunch of other good stuff (like a funny piece about hippies).
Rearrange the sentences, reverse the order of the clauses, substitute some synonyms, tweak some analogies and call it yours.
That's how I write mine; the actual work of finding and presenting the information is done for the most part by e-kossacks like A Siegel, RL Miller, Patrickz, DWG and many others. I steal their stuff, mess with it a little bit, and sign my name to it.
As Brahms said, "Mediocre composers plagiarize. Great composers steal." Dare to be great! Steal my stuff!
WarrenS asks a simple and profound question in today's letter to Newsweek:
The fate of hundreds of communities and multiple ecosystems now hangs in the balance as a toxic oil slick begins to wash up on the coastlines of Louisiana and Florida. The Deepwater Horizon spill is both a crisis of terrifying proportions and a testament to human folly and hubris.
The crucial question is, "What will we learn from this disaster?" Will we learn that we need to wean ourselves from oil as rapidly as possible — or will we learn that communities and ecosystems are expendable? Will we learn that there is more energy to be saved through eliminating waste than there is to be found under the seabed — or will we learn that conservation (in the words of Dick Cheney) can "never be the basis of a sound energy policy"? Will we learn that when we include the costs of cleaning up spills and mitigating the worst effects of climate change, oil is not cheap, but horribly expensive?
We can no longer afford disasters of this magnitude. How many more Deepwater Horizons will it take before we learn that we’re better off leaving that oil in the Earth, and moving to a renewable-energy economy?
WarrenS
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Environmental Pic of the Day
Menhaden Fish Kill by eutrophication&hypoxia
This is a photo from 2003 taken in Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island. It shows the disturbing result of dead zones caused by fertilizer runoff. For more information on dead zones, check out Cenobyte's recent diary on the subject.
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About eKos
The Idea
This project was inspired by the Earth Day @ DKos Blogathon. In case you missed it, we had 31 participating environmental diaries, all of which were linked to in the Mothership. During the event we had several requests for an eco-mothership diary series in the mould of the Earth Day effort.
The Mission
eKos is all about promoting community eco-diaries. Daily Kos already showcases several series, but sometimes the work of dedicated green diarists pass off the recent diary list hardly noticed. Our goal is to make these diaries more accessible. In the process we hope to build community and bring in a broader audience to the exceptional environmental writing here at DK.
eKos Schedule
Ideally, we would like to post a mothership diary every day. Considering most of us have busy schedules, this may be an unattainable goal. For now, we'll post as often as we can. Mothership diaries will be posted in the morning (exact time TBD) and updated throughout the day. Eventually, we may reserve one day a week to post an edited environmental diary with the eKos handle.
How eKos Works
If you want a diary included in the list, please let us know by leaving a comment. We'll do our best to search out green diaries, but are bound to miss a few. For eKos to live up to it's full potential, eco-diarists will need to post a link to the mothership at the end of their diary. This will provide readers with easy access to other recent environmental diaries.
Requirements
eKos is meant to be inclusive, but we will have standards for quality and content of listed diaries. (As long as you don't violate site rules and have a modicum of relevant, original content, you should be fine.)
'eKos' tag
If your diary gets listed, we'll ask you to add the eKos tag to your diary.
Contact
You can follow us on Twitter
If you are interested in becoming an eco-ranger for eKos, or just want some more info, e-mail ekos350atgmaildotcom
eKos Rangers
In no particular order:
Regina in a Sears Kit House
boatsie
Hopeful Skeptic
RLMiller
Ellinorianne
Earthfire
A Siegel
dRefractor
SolarMom
Please give them some mojo if you see them, they deserve it!