Just a quick post today to promote Catalog Choice.org. I've been using it now for the past six months, and I am beginning to reap the fruit of my labors.

It's a pretty slick site that I recommend everybody sign up for. Essentially, once you're signed up, whenever you get junk mail, you log into the site, look up the publisher, and opt out. They contact the publisher on your behalf, and you're done.

I've come across a couple of pieces of junk mail so far that aren't in their database, but I have suggested those items to Catalog Chioce, and they say they'll get to them.

The site itself is sponsored by the Ecology Center and the National Wildlife Federation, so it seems legit enough.

Check it out and take control of your junk mail.

How to stop junk mail in three steps, as gleaned from recycleworks.org:

1. Hit the big dogs first
Write two letters. One to: Harte Hanks Direct Mailing, Circulation, c/o Pennysaver, 2830 Orbiter St., Brea, CA 92821. The other to: Valassis Direct Mail, Inc., Consumer Assistance, PO Box 249, Windsor, CT 06095. On each, ask for your name to be removed from their mailing list, and make sure to give them all variations on your name (Beth, Elizabeth, Betsy, etc). For template letters, click here, and here.

2. Hit the medium dogs next
Contact Direct Marketing Association (DMA), and get off their list. Online seems easiest, though it requires a credit card to "confirm your identity".

Opt out of credit card offers by calling the opt out number: 1-888-567-8688. This, I believe requires your Social Security Number, but I assure you it's legit.

Opt out of Publisher's Clearinghouse by calling 1-800-645-9242.

Opt out of shopping flyers:
      ValPak Coupons: 800-237-6266.
      Advo/Valassis: 888-241-6760, or online at www.advo.com/consumersupport.html.

3. Get catalogs gone
You can opt out of some catalogs by going to catalogchoice.org.

For some reason, this bit of knowledge just hasn't gotten out there to the masses. I guess it's a bit nerdy, but here goes. When computers are not in use, they can do two very different things. They can either suspend, or they can hibernate (or you can turn them off of course). When they suspend, they go into a power saving mode that stores the state of your computer in RAM. When they are hibernating, the state of your computer is stored on the hard drive.

This is an important distinction because RAM requires energy to store information (making it volatile memory), and your hard drive does not (making it non-volatile memory). Hence, any time your computer is in suspend mode, it is incurring a negative environmental impact, and any time it is hibernating, it is incurring no more impact than a lump of silicon.

So. I won't get into how to deal with these in GNU+Linux, (because I can't get my laptop to do either), but this article has some good information on how to do it in XP. If you are a Mac owner, this decision has been made for you. Your computer will suspend and hibernate at the same time, and there is no easy way I know of to hibernate only. (They call this SafeSleep, and the idea is that if the RAM hasn't been reset by a loss of power, it will boot from RAM. Otherwise, it will boot from the hard drive.)

I should also mention that hibernation is a great alternative to leaving your computer on when you go home at the end of the day. It saves the state exactly how you left the computer, and saves the environment by not using energy through the night.

It's taking some time to catch on, but this is another something to think about when you're out shopping: If you live in LA, and it comes to a choice between local oranges, Mexico oranges and oranges from Florida, choose local.

Not only does it save you money (theoretically), it's fresher and it's better for the environment. Because it was grown locally, it didn't have to travel, and thus didn't pollute its way all the way from the other side of the world. Because it is more likely to have come off the tree more recently, it didn't have to be refrigerated for the past day/week/month, and is also fresher and more delicious.

Now, naturally (no pun intended), this works better for some areas of the country than others, and for some foods better than others. Walnuts for example are almost exclusively grown in California; pineapples and sugar from Hawai'i. So this brings us to another aspect of the food buying game: switch to foods that are local, like honey as opposed to sugar, and avoid those that come from distant places, like Hawai'i.

The final piece of this tip is to buy seasonally. Not only will the food taste better, but it won't have been in the freezer for the past six months, which is nice.

The best thing to do, if you have the ability to do so is, of course, to plant some seeds and grow your own.

Well, somehow two weeks have already gone past, and it's time for another eco-tip. This week is going to be an easy one for me because on Sunday I saw a truly beautiful concept: truly long-term thinking.

Out of pure chance, I ended up at the Long Now Museum in Fort Mason, where I saw a prototype for a clock that will use solar power to run for approximately 10,000 years. The idea was beautiful because it really blows the top off of most environmental thinking these days.

Many people have been saying to me, "Dude, what's with the green blog...why's it so...ummm...green?" Well, there's a reason for this my friends. The reason is that I had to choose a color, and I went with green to go with my profound love of our friend Gaea.

Along those lines, in thinking about things to post that might be interesting, I came up with a theory that if I put my mind to it, (and you, the public chips in, hint, hint) I (we) can come up with an environmental tip that is worth posting every two weeks or so.

This might not work out, then again it might. We'll see, it all depends on whether I (we) can come up with things to write.

So, to kick it off, I shall follow on the wisdom of my elders, and post the thing that I have been told is the MOST important thing to do to cut down YOUR carbon footprint: Insulate your house.

From what I understand, it's really just that simple. If you want to make the biggest dollar/CO₂ reduction possible, make your house a fortress of insulation. No drafts equals less heater and less air-conditioner. And, since in 2006 59% of non-petroleum U.S. energy came from coal¹, this is a very real way to cut down your impact.

My plan this winter is to cover the windows with Cyran wrap, and see if I can get it to tighten up by hitting it with a blow dryer.

¹ Source: http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/pdf/pages/sec1_8.pdf