Our friends over at Dream in Green have started a fundraising campaign. For such a new non-profit, they have accomplished a great deal, including the kick-off of the Green Schools Challenge. This organization is educating the public and our youth about carbon emissions and providing a format to improve. Help them help more people!

Donate to Dream in Green

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On Friday, I attended the launch party for a new non-profit organization, Dream in Green. It was held at the new Karu restaurant and Y (bar). During this inaugural celebration, Dream in Green was also kicking off their first project, Green Schools Challenge.

From their press release:

Dream in Green, Miami’s new non-profit organization dedicated to promoting conservation, environmental sustainability and renewable energy, launched the “Green Schools Challenge” at Miami’s first zero carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions event, where the organization offset nearly 10,000 pounds of CO2 with 7,000 kilowatt hours of solar power credits. The Green Schools Challenge was developed in partnership with the City of Miami and seeks to involve K-12 students in energy conservation, waste reduction and recycling and offsetting greenhouse gas emissions.

I’m very excited about Dream in Green in general, and especially about the Green Schools Challenge. MAST Academy and Palmetto Senior High School have already signed up. These schools will work with Dream in Green to eco-ize their schools and educate their students on enviro-concepts. Simple concepts such as turning off lights when a room is not in use, and shutting down computers and printers in the afternoons will be implemented. Trees will be planted and the opportunity for classroom-related projects are endless.

This inaugural event was touted as Miami’s first carbon neutral event. We’ve talked about carbon neutrality here before. There are multiple ways of attacking this. Dream in Green purchased credits from Sterling Planet. With this purchase, they basically purchased local, Florida generated solar power to offset the carbon created by the event.

For more information: Dream in Green (website), Green Schools Challenge (pdf)

Thoughts on Karu & Y

Karu & Y have been holding invitation only events through August and September to prepare for their official October 10 public opening. We arrived from I-95, and were shocked to cross over actual tracks and see this incredible building that seemed like an oasis. On the eco-side of things, I was impressed that they had the dual flush toilets installed and motion-water sensors to both turn on and off the water faucets (normally it just turns the faucet on, leaving the off up to a timer). On the downside, it was way too cold in there. For more on the location, visit All Purpose Dark’s review of the Karu & Y. 

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Stuck on the Palmetto recently visited the Plantation Preserve Golf Course & Club in Broward County (map). He goes on to describe how the course is environmentally friendly, using special turfgrass that requires less irrigation and fertilization, is Audubon certified, and incorporates a linear park.

I covered this topic almost a year ago over at eco.psfk, however hadn’t heard of any local courses to which this concept applies. Do any readers know of any other local eco-friendly golf courses?

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The song Big Yellow Taxi, most recently heard from the Counting Crows, has inspired this post. Originally written and performed by Joni Mitchell in 1970, this song has as much significance today as it did over 35 years ago.

Let’s go through some portions of the lyrics:

They paved paradise and put up a parking lot
With a pink hotel, a boutique, and a swingin’ hot spot
Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you got ’til it’s gone
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot

This sounds like Miami, especially with the pink hotel, boutique and hot spot! You’ll read about it in the papers, hear about it at commission meetings, and see it every day on your way to work: The developers vs. the environment. We’ve got no where to grow with the ocean on one side and the Everglades on the other. I do believe that we can grow the city in a smarter way. I know people are working on it. But I also believe that if even more people realized, "that you don’t know what you got ’til it’s gone," we’d be on a better road to the future.

More lyrics:

They took all the trees, and put em in a tree museum
And they charged the people a dollar and a half to see them

I visited Fairchild for the first time recently, on the last day of the Chihuly exhibit. Fairchild has the world’s largest and most diverse palm collection. If that’s not a tree museum, I don’t know what is. And I paid a lot more than a dollar and a half to get in. But that’s not Fairchild’s fault. They are part of the solution. As stated in last week’s Miami Today interview with Michael Maunder, Director of the gardens, "We have some of the rarest plants in the world here in our collection - rarer than pandas and more difficult to breed, some of them." Some plants that supported a specific species of butterflies, for example, were all destroyed in the wild…so then what happens to the butterflies?

Lyrics:

Hey farmer, farmer, put away your DDT
I don’t care about spots on my apples,
Leave me the birds and the bees
Please

DDT, a pesticide now banned, is just one example. This section is really talking about organic. Now, up to even a year or so ago, I didn’t really care about organic. Here’s the thing. Pesticides are on our food. They also are in our farm land, which affects our water. They are extremely toxic to the people administering the chemicals. They also kill everything…and then we won’t know what we’ve got til it’s gone. When you buy organic, your veggies aren’t going to be flawless. That doesn’t mean that anything is wrong with them. In fact, flawless food should make you wonder what it took to get the food so perfect. Do you remember how good tomatoes used to taste? And how they taste now? Leave me the birds and the bees.

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I ended my day yesterday in guilt. I bought a regular ol’ greeting card, right after I gave the world so many other options to avoid doing so. I should have bought the card on Monday, looked around, found something made at least with recycled paper. Instead, 5:00pm on Tuesday, I was at Target, cursing myself for not having bought one sooner. It should have been in the mail already.

But should I feel guilty? I mean, I looked through the entire section of Mother’s Day cards, and none seemed to be marked for eco-friendliness. Should it be so hard to do the right thing?

This leads me to my big question: Should we, as consumers, be driving ourselves crazy searching for perfect eco-friendly, sustainable, organic, locally made, healthy products? Or should our mainstream stores take on more responsibility to provide these products to us, so that more people have the option of doing the right thing?

At first glance, it’s a chicken or the egg kind of situation. What should come first, demand from consumers, or a push from merchandisers? Some retail phenomenons definitely get their push from the industry, this just doesn’t happen to be one of them. Of course, big retailers are finally starting to wake up to the growing market…but it’s been a long time coming, and it still goes slow.

It gets me thinking about my good ol’ days at UF, studying marketing. This graph shows how people typically accept new products, services, technologies, etc. The first group (2.5% of the people), are the innovators, then the early adopters (13.5%), followed by the early majority (34%).

I would say that the green movement is reaching it’s early majority phase, which is what has finally woken up these stores. There is no longer risk in green products, people are not only buying them, they are demanding them.

But we are only in the baby stages of green consumerism and retailing. Target may offer Method and Seventh Generation products, but my eco-friendly greeting cards are nowhere to be found.

So should I feel guilty that I looked for a product, couldn’t find it, and ran out of time to do the right thing? Well, I do. And while we’re at it, I forgot to BYOB and wound up using probably 10 brand new plastic shopping bags, as well.

The thing is, I’m a very conscientious consumer, but I still mess up. I want to live in a world that I, along with every other person, don’t have to work so hard to do the right thing. I want to pay for plastic bags at stores (you’ll be sure I won’t forget my own bags more than once). I want to reach for a product and know that I didn’t just kill a tree, or use up some of the only clean water that is left. I want to know that by using this product I won’t be creating more trash to bury into a big hole in the ground. I want my product to have traveled as few miles as possible to reach it’s destination, and whenever possible, buy local. And I don’t want to have to go to the ends of the earth to find these products.

I know that I should feel bad. I messed up. But I want the retailers and manufacturers to feel bad too. It shouldn’t be this hard to be good.

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This weekend, two comic strips highlighted green issues.

This first one, Baldo, by Cantú and Castellanos, has a girl saying grace. One of her requests is "…make us ever more mindful of the needs of others and the needs of our planet…"

The second, For Better or For Worse, by Lynn Johnston, rang really true to me.

The dad goes out to the landfill and says, "Amazing. You can see how spoiled a society is…by what it throws away."

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A couple of green bloggers, CityHippy and green LA girl, have been running the Starbucks Challenge for a while, and they have just introduced Round 4. I hope Miami can participate…even me, the non-coffee drinker.

CityHippy tells us, the whole idea is based on the fact that "Starbucks says it’ll French-press a cup of fair trade coffee for any customer who specifically asks for a fair trade cup."

The challenge works by going into any Starbucks and asking for a cup of fair-trade coffee. It didn’t always work. Starbucks admitted they had a "break-down in service".

So now you need to put Starbucks to the test! CityHippy explains how the Starbucks Challenge works:

1. Visit your local Starbucks this month and ask: "Could I get a cup of fair trade coffee?"
2. Tell us what happened next. Ideally, the barista should immediately offer you a French-pressed cup of Cafe Estima — Starbucks’ only fair trade certified blend.
3. If your barista gives you a blank look, and you’re feeling courageous, try asking specifically for a French-press of the Cafe Estima blend. If the barista says it’ll cost you extra, say that HQ told you that you should be able to pay just for the size you asked for. And as always, be nice to the baristas

   BLOGGERS: simply blog about what happened and tag it with "starbuckschallenge" (all one word) on del.icio.us (put the Starbucks location in the "extended" description). We’ll pull all articles into a feed. If you do not know about del.icio.us, then just email either City Hippy or green LA girl.

   NON-BLOGGERS: tell us what happened by writing a comment on either City Hippy or green LA girl, or send an email to City Hippy or green LA girl, and we’ll do the rest. (Or email us/comment here at greenerMiami and we’ll take care of it for you.)

   Win a prize!
   On June 1, City Hippy and green LA girl will award prizes:

   1 to the person who takes the most challenges and 1 to the person with the most interesting, entertaining, educational, insightful, or funny report.

   The prizes? An enviro-friendly, reusable, and chic workplace dish set (right, a $39 value!) will go to the person who takes the most challenges. A 2 lb bag of fair trade coffee from Just Coffee will go to the person with the most interesting report.

   Challenge results
   On June 1, City Hippy and green LA girl will contact Starbucks, either commending them on their progress on barista education efforts about fair trade, or asking them to, um, work on that.

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GreenerMiami wants to get to know local businesses & individuals.

1) We are seeking South Florida companies that consider themselves "green".

2) We would like to find products that are 100% local. This means that all of the materials to make the product are from "nearby" (that could mean 100 miles or the State of Florida).

3) We’d also like to meet local treehuggers, individuals who care about the environment and are doing something about it.

If you fall into any of these categories, please contact us using the "Email Me" link on the upper right side of our webpage. We’d like to meet up, conduct an interview, and publish it online.

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Ben & Jerry’s Double Dip: Lead with your values and make money too, was written in 1997, but I only just discovered it.

This book is a fun and interesting read - I highly recommend it.

Ben and Jerry talk about the beginning of their business, how they got started, and how they made decisions on the direction of their business.  They also talk about a concept called Social Responsibility which will talk a lot about here in GreenerMiami in the future.  I’m not really a Ben & Jerry’s customer, in fact, I can’t even think of the last time I had their ice cream.  But this book made me want to be associated with them. 

Read the full story

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