Still stumped for gift ideas? How about that faithfull fallback — the book.

Here a few books we had in mind for this season...

“True Green Kids” by Kim McKay and Jenny Bonnin

What color is your house?

Is it a big brick or block building that’s reddish-brownish? Or maybe your house is white or blue with a black or brown roof. Is there a gray cement sidewalk leading up to your front door? Perhaps you live in a techno-looking silver apartment building.

So what color is your house? No matter what color it is, it can be green if you read “True Green Kids” by Kim McKay and Jenny Bonnin.

You know that someday, you and your friends are going to be in charge of this planet we live on. And as a future caretaker of Earth, you’ve got to do everything you can to keep it a safe, healthy, clean place to be. But cleaning up the world is a big job, and you hardly know where to start. This book can help.

If you’ve never tried being green, the easiest place to start is in your room. Add some green and growing houseplants to your windowsill. They’ll help keep the air in your bedroom clean (but don’t forget to water them!) Hold a clothes swap with your friends. Ask for rechargeable batteries for your next birthday. Surf the ‘net to find green websites, then be sure to turn your computer off to save money and electricity.

Not so hard, right?  So let’s step outside…

Volunteer to hang wet clothes out to dry in the sun (clotheslines don’t produce greenhouse gases, but electric dryers do). Find a place for a garden and grow your own food. If you don’t have a back yard, try growing food in pots on your windowsill or balcony. Learn to compost or make a worm farm. Pay attention to nature by making a daily visit to one certain spot outdoors and journaling what you observe.

See? This is kind of fun…

Make a movie or write a play about being green. Send letters to local politicians with suggestions for taking care of the world. Ask “Do I really need that?” before you buy anything. Recycle paper, and make sure your school has a recycling bin. Turn off the lights (and replace old light bulbs with those new squiggly ones). Take green vacations. Use your brain creatively when giving gifts. Reduce, reuse, recycle, rethink.

Did you ever notice how a job sometimes gets so overwhelming that you hardly know where to begin? “True Green Kids” is a nice antidote to that. It helps your child get going with easy-at-first, then progressively more complex ideas for going green.

What makes it stand out from the pack of similar books is the experience of the authors. Kim McKay and Jenny Bonnin are deeply involved in green organizations world-wide. This, and the huge variety of unique ways they include for helping save the planet, makes “True Green Kids” timely and fun.

If your 9-to-15-year-old is looking for simple ways to make a difference, or is in search of unusual ideas for going green, this is a book to turn to. For them, “True Green Kids” is golden.

Get it at Google Books

“A Child’s Introduction to the Environment” by Michael Driscoll & Professor Dennis Driscoll, illustrated by Meredith Hamilton

Someday, years from now when you’re grown, you’re going to be given a very, VERY large gift.

There won’t be any need to unwrap it and you won’t need to wait til your birthday to get it. But just so you know, you won’t be able to keep it, either.

Someday, you’ll be given the gift of the Earth, and it will be yours to take care of until you pass it along to someone else. So why not start now by reading “A Child’s Introduction to The Environment” by Michael Driscoll & Professor Dennis Driscoll, illustrated by Meredith Hamilton?

Next time you go outside to play or go to school, pay attention to what you see, hear, and smell.  Do you see trees or flowers?  Can you hear birds, or water lapping at sand?  Do you smell fresh air?  All those things are part of the environment, and even though you’re a kid, you can help our planet stay healthy.

Did you know that millions of species of plants and animals share the Earth with you?  Some of them live on land, but lots of them live in lakes, rivers, and the ocean.  If we work to recycle, conserve, and keep the Earth’s water and land clean, those animals and plants will continue to live.  Until then, scientists say that up to 50 species of plants and animals become extinct every single day.

So you’re just a kid.  What can you do?  

There are lots of things!  How much energy does your family use? Think about ways to use less.  When you recycle, do you remember that your outgrown clothes and old toys can also be re-used by someone else?  Riding your bike instead of asking Mom or Dad for a ride can save lots of energy.  You can learn to grow vegetables, even if you only have a small space to plant seeds.  You can get to know the animals and plants that surround your house or apartment.  And you can read this book for lots more information and ways you can help take care of our planet.

Without a doubt, your child was motivated by Earth Day recently and with spring’s arrival, it’s a good time to keep that conservation momentum going. “A Child’s Introduction to The Environment” can help.

Using easy-to-understand language and kid-friendly topics, authors Michael Driscoll & Professor Dennis Driscoll show kids how our environment works in water, on land, and atmospherically.  Because there’s so much for a kid to learn, this is a busy book with lots of I-didn’t-know-that side bars; fun-to-do experiments; stickers, a poster, and a reusable lunch bag; tips on conserving energy; a useful glossary; and cool illustrations by Meredith Hamilton.

While I think a 7-year-old can probably grasp what’s in this book, I think an older (10-to-13-year-old) sibling will get more out of it.  But don’t let that stop you. Get “A Child’s Introduction to the Environment” and keep it around.  With the ideas in here and spring’s arrival, why on Earth would you not?

Available at Amazon

"Gorgeously Green" by Sophie Uliano

Every time you turn around, someone mentions "going green".  All that talk is making you positively blue. You already recycle.  You buy organic, you re-use grocery bags, and saving gas is a no-brainer.
But as much as you want to be environmentally-conscious, there are some things you're simply not prepared to do.  You are not, for instance, going to "go gray".  Manicures and pedicures are sacred things, you won't give up chocolate, and you absolutely need body lotion or you'll feel like the Sahara Desert in high heels. 
Relax - preferably in a tub filled with Earth-friendly body salts - and read "Gorgeously Green" by Sophie Uliano.  You can be in the pink of health, keep your finances in the red, and still be "green".

Okay, so you're convinced. Ready to start?

First, Uliano says, become aware and remember that you can't go green overnight.  Vow to do one positive thing each day and pat yourself on the back if you do two or more.  For a lot of people, a green lifestyle starts with baby steps, and there's nothing wrong with that.
Next, take a look at the products your family uses.  Gather the jars and bottles together and take a stab at reading the ingredients.  Would you believe that many of those chemicals are carcinogenic?  Uliano recommends that you immediately throw out anything that contains ingredients listed in her "Red Zone", and she offers safe websites where you can find replacements for your makeup, body lotions, cleaning supplies, and baby products.

Choose your clothing wisely, Uliano says.  Cloth made from plant products is much healthier to wear and better for the environment to buy.  Shop wisely and when you do, bunch several trips into one to save gas. Better yet, bike or walk to errands. Buy organic or make your own compost and plant a vegetable garden. Teach your children ecological mindfulness, and don't be afraid to be a pest when you notice a corporation that's being wasteful.

Think it's hard to become earth-friendly?  "Gorgeously Green" is loaded with thousands of ideas, some of which are easy and some of which will take a lot of arguing with your family to enforce.
Author Sophie Uliano offers tips, hints, websites, checklists, and ideas for feeling better about your carbon footprint, and although there are some conflicting recommendations (Microwave or not? Take a day to drive all over town in search for recycled Christmas cards?), readers will surely find something do-able now and plenty of good goals for later.

One caveat: while "Gorgeously Green" is extremely useful, I fear that some readers might get a little overwhelmed by the multitude of suggestions. Uliano stresses that you can incorporate ideas as they fit in your life and that you can't leap in with both feet today, but in her zeal to pack in tips, she didn't say that enough. 

Still, if you're paralyzed by indecision, this book will give you plenty of jumping-off points, so pick up a copy. For you, "Gorgeously Green" is just peachy.

 Go get it at Amazon

Build it better. Build it faster. Build it greener.

Living in the Sierras, surrounded by some of nature's most spectacular achievements, it's easy to count the reasons to build a greener home: Lake Tahoe, the Truckee River, June Lake, the Ponderosa pines, the clear, clean water, the fresh mountain air and on and on. Modular construction can make incorporating green building principles easier than with traditional building. Plus, it's cost-effective, can save time, and offers a variety of ways to lower the environmental impact of building a custom home both on and off-site.

The World is changing, but it’s fairly hard to notice “life-impacting” changes in our lives and communities every day. If you read the national and international news large, obvious changes occur every day. Our society often moves along without noticing the small changes which in effect can become the big changes we really need to be paying attention to. Many of us have now been introduced to the concept of sustainability which comes down to our current generations actions on the planet not forfeiting future generations’ ability to have a “quality of life”. In other words, we should be trying to live off the interest and not the principle. Sustainability is not about doing without; it’s about doing more with less with the ability to maintain or further improve our quality of life.

In the last few decades our region has been seeing noticeable changes that have gone from small to large in the environment and the economy which now require our attention and action toward sustainability. Now that we are becoming acutely aware of these issues and their impacts we are moving forward to plan and implement strategies that help us become more sustainable in all aspects of our lives. One notable example of sustainability occurring in our region is green building which involves designing and constructing the built environment to be environmentally friendly and economically beneficial to building owners, users and the society as a whole. Green buildings are especially important to this region because of the region’s beauty, environmental sensitivity and amount of construction and supporting infrastructure and the associated impacts.          

The Obama Administration has made the economy and jobs a high priority for the next four years. And the color of the new jobs targeted for creation is green. Green jobs not only help the environment, but can also significantly help the US economy. Our area has plenty of opportunity to benefit from a new green economy with an infusion of hundreds of new green jobs while keeping energy dollars in our local economies and pockets.

Two major areas that will employ people in green jobs are in energy efficiency and renewable energy. This paper is designed to give a brief overview of energy efficiency and its benefits, the types of energy efficiency jobs and careers already in motion, how we can train for jobs and careers in EE, upcoming opportunities that can help expand the opportunity for these jobs and careers and the resources available locally to get the education and training you need to prepare for these job opportunities.
This paper is meant to help people get started on the path to a green job or career in energy efficiency and contains a lot of essential information, but may not be completely exhaustive of everything you need to know to go down this path. Please take the time to do additional research and make sure you carefully choose the path that is right for you. This paper briefly touches on renewable energy which will be covered in more detail at a later date as more information becomes available.
Energy Efficiency