I was recently given a Sunshine Award by Julie at EasyEcoToGo. It’s been pretty gray and dreary here lately and this was just the thing to brighten up my winter days.  Thank you for brightening up my day!  Also, it’s nice knowing that I brought a little sunshine to someone else.

The rules are pretty simple:

•Link back to the person who gave you the award.

•Give the award to 12 other bloggers who bring you some sunshine.

My Zero Waste

Green and Crunchy

Urban Homestead

Metro Hippie

Recipe Diaries

Tap It Talk

Terri Bennett

EcoSpheric Blog

365 Ways to go Green

Green LA Girl

Franke James

No Impact Man

There are plenty more, but here you go!

1. Turn off the lights when you leave the room.
2. Unplug things when you are not using them.
3. Turn off the television.
4. Open shades instead of turning on lights.
5. Change to CF or LED lights
6. Instead of leaving your computer on all the time, turn it off or at least the monitor
7. Line dry your clothing
8. Cleaning the coils on your refrigerator.
9. Put large jugs of water in your freezer. 
10. Keep the heat down if you have electric energy.
11. Turn outdoor motion lights off if you do not need them or turn down the sensitivity.
12. Try using a Solar Cooker once
13. Install solar panels
14. When cooking, use a lid to keep the heat in.
15. Install a Tankless water heater
16. Buy a hand can opener instead of wasting electricity on the plugin version
17. Put wrap on your windows to conserve energy
18. Stay away from high power usage TV models
19. Use power strips and turn off the entire strip when not in use.
20. Buy a solar power battery charger
21. Turn off your computer right now… but only after reading a few more posts on GuyGoesGreen and leaving a comment below! 

‘Tis the season to be jolly and Guygoesgreen is starting to get into the mood.  Here in Fargo, snow is on the ground, the Christmas tree is up and it looks like Christmas puked in our living room.  To celebrate the Christmas spirit, I thought I would share what some of my fellow bloggers are writing about in regards to having a green Christmas:

Blank and Gold Go Green gives some tips on how to have a green holiday season.

Urban Homesteader offers 13 ways to reuse Christmas cards.

Here are some Eco Friendly Christmas gift ideas.

Here is an idea for making your own eco-friendly Christmas ornaments.

Detailed here is a Christmas tree in Copenhagen with LED lights powered by bicycle.

If you have any great links or information on having a green Christmas, please let me know in the comment area below.

I thought it would be appropriate to post a few blog links on how other people spent their Thanksgiving and what green Thanksgiving means to them:

Green and Crunchy – Vegan turkey day sans turkey and great pictures of great food

Treehugger is looking for photos of your Thanksgiving celebration.

Julia at Color Me Green writes about heritage turkeys and a weekend project

Dwelling Melville writes about their Thanksgiving and trying to make a change locally

For those of you who are in the US, how was your Thanksgiving?

This week my challenge is to reduce food waste in our household.  While researching this task, I found some eye opening statistics on the way America consumes food.

• Americans waste 96 BILLION pounds of food every year, although some argue that this is old data and underestimated.
• If only 25% of 96 billion pounds of food were recovered, we could feed 20 million people… this would MORE than enough to feed every hungry child in America.  That is also the entire nation of Mozambique that could be fed.  We could feed entire nations with this waste.
• Americans throw away 25% of the food we prepare
• We produce twice as much food as needed per person
• Landfills account for the largest human related source of methane, which is a greenhouse gas 21 times more potent than carbon dioxide.
• The food we throw away costs households money.
• Food disposal costs the US about 1 billion dollars.
• An average household of four throws away $590/year in food.
• Wasted food may also have wasted packaging, transportation costs, agricultural costs and other secondary environmental impacts.

These are some fairly staggering statistics and I think the purpose of this week’s challenge has changed slightly for me.  I went into this with the thought that I would be trying to find a way to help the environment, but I think this also needs to include a way that we are getting unused food to people who can use it.  

Now that I know the WHY of food waste conservation, I will need to figure out the how. We will do what we can to buy only what we will need, reduce the waste of our food purchases and get appropriate food items to those who can use it.  In the comments area below, please let me know if you have any ideas or experiences in regards to non-wasteful food usage, composting and creative ways to preserve food or experience with food pantries.

This week, guygoesgreen has been focusing on water conservation around the house.  I may not be the greenest guy in the world, but I am learning and already making a positive impact on the world around me.  Today, I am going to highlight some interesting links that I found relating to water.

Tapit – I just recently found this site.   Tapit is a grassroots sort of operation where they are trying to build a network of café’s and locations where people can refill their water bottles.  The network is still relatively small, but I love the idea of helping people find locations to fill water.  This can help reduce the number of plastic bottles that end up in the landfill.

H2OUSE – This gives users a graphical interface where users can select different areas of the house to learn how they can save water.

100 Ways to conserve water – This is a detailed list of things you can do to save water.  There are 100.  J

Enjoy the links, and please let me know if you have any great water resources in the comments area below.

As I near the end of my first weekly task, I am beginning to wonder if the internet ever runs out of information.  This week my task is to start following specific sites and also to find new blogs or sites to share with my wife.  I am beginning to experience information overload and need your help.  Can you help me find 3-5 green blogs or sites that I should pass along to my wife?

Beyond the sites she wants me to find, she also asked me to follow The Daily Green, Tree Hugger, and worldwatch.org.  She will be proud, as I have been keeping up with these sites every day.  These environmentally friendly sites have certainly been giving me plenty of information and I am learning all sorts of interesting green information.  Everything from news about green legislation to how to make paper from garbage… I am being learned in the ways of hippiedom.

After I complete all of the “required” reading, I have been looking around the internet for other interesting and unique green sites.  Among the plethora of green information I have waded through, there have been a few sites that have seemed to stand out for me.  These are not necessarily the sites I will pass along to meet my requirements, but have certainly been interesting.  First, I found Franke James and found it to be a very fun green and eco-friendly site.  Franke James is an author/artist/photographer who won me over with her visual essays that I would label as children’s book for grownups.  Pictures are always a bonus!  Check out Paradise Unpaved for a good example of her work. 

I also found Go Green Street.  This site provides a variety of useful information that is organized in a manner that is very easy to navigate.   The easy navigation and great content make this site one that I will continue to visit.  Lastly, I found EnviroGadget.  I love toys and this will be a site I will continue to watch.  I noticed on the front page, they listed a solar/crank powered radio flashlight that I already own and bring ice fishing with me.  Very handy little item.

I have found a few interesting sites that give me a variety of information, but I want to make sure I am getting the best bang for my buck.  Check out the sites that I have mentioned and let me know in the comments section below if you have a great green or eco-friendly site/blog that you would recommend.  Your help is greatly appreciated!

I have to be honest that Ashley did not give me the most difficult task to complete this week.  My only task is to spend time on the internet finding interesting things on the internet.  For anyone that knows me, this is not really any different than what I usually do.  I am, however, still on a search for the 3-5 blogs that I need to send back to my wife Ashley.  Can you help me find the green blogs I am looking for?

If you read my previous post, part of my task is to start following The Daily Green, Tree Hugger, and worldwatch.org.  I now have these sites in my RSS reader and have been paying attention to the information that has come across.  Of note, and oddly humorous to me,  US consumers now find gas efficiency to be more important than the number of cup holders when purchasing a vehicle.  Apparently, four years ago this was not the case.  I also learned that Halloween paint sometimes contains toxic chemicals.  And here I was just about to have some Pumpkin Brown face paint soup. 

The second part of my task is to find 3-5 good sites or blogs for me to follow and recommend to Ashley.  If you know of any good green websites for me to follow, please leave a comment with the URL or contact me directly at ben@guygoesgreen.com

Today starts a whole new experiences for me.  For those who have not read any of my previous posts, Ashley my wife is going to assign me a green task to complete every week.  This is the first week and her task is for me to follow a few specific web sites and also to find a few new environmentally friendly sites for her to follow.

She wants me to begin following three specific sites.  These sites are The Daily Green, Tree Hugger, and worldwatch.org.  I am open to this experience and all, but never would have thought, in a million years, that I would follow a site called www.treehugger.com.  Never.  Well, I have taken a quick peek at these sites and hope they will bring me tons of earthy, greeny news.

For the second part, I am going to need to provide Ashley with 3-5 sites for her to follow that she may have interest in.  So, please leave a comment below of your green blog or a green blog that you think might be of interest to me.  If you would like to contact me directly to let me know about your earth friendly site, feel free to contact me at ben@guygoesgreen.com.  I will keep you all posted on the progress and please contact me if you have any questions or comments.

This Sunday, my wife is going to start turning me green.  Every week, she is going to assign me a green or environmentally friendly task to complete.  I have already asked what green means  to you and made an admission that I am a bit selfish and set in my ways.  I am looking forward to my first assignment, but am going to spend a little time today to cheat and see what I have in store by looking at other green blogs.

A quick blog search of Google gives me a sneak peak of what might be in store for this guy:

• At Green Blog, they are telling me that Norway announced that it intends to reduce emissions by 40% by 2020.  Being 50% Norwegian, I applaud the mother land.
• Treehugger definitely has an interesting article.  The just of it is that we are all procrastinating in regards to carbon-dioxide emissions and it will destroy the oceans.  What I really liked about this is that they used an image from the Alien vs World movie, which I can relate to.  Well, I can’t relate to aliens or Sagornia Weaver, but I think you know what I mean.  Also, they used an example where a student procrastinates studying for a test.  I can relate to that also.
• I learned about Best Green Blogs, which appears to be a listing of all the best Green Blogs.  Unfortunately, I am not on this list…. yet.
• On the Little Green Blog, I learned that Oct 19 to the 25th is Energy Saving Week.  They seem to give some practical tips a person could use to help save energy.  Also noted, they say you should ‘get a water butt’ and save rain in it.  A water butt?  Although I get that it is a rain barrel, does it really need to be called a water butt?  Call 1900mixalot cuz baby got water back?

So, I did learn a bit tonight and please leave a comment if you have any comments or suggestions.