You don’t need 8 bottles of water a day, that was always a scam. Look, since the economy is tanking anyway, let’s just put the bottled-water people out of business while we’re at it. If you can’t get worked up about the problem of plastic persisting in the environment and the food chain, think of the money you could save. For anyone lucky enough to be tapped into the Scituate Reservoir, buying water is a complete waste of money. The annual Water Quality Report from Providence Water arrived in today’s mail. Based on 2007 testing, things look pretty good. (I wish that under ‘Substances that Might be in Drinking Water’ they had addressed the issue of hormones, mood stabilizers, etc., traces of which have appeared in water supplies elsewhere. And the person responsible for writing the following sentence — “During 2007, Providence Water had an exceedance of the lead action level.” — should be beaten about the head. Of course, maybe he or she was exposed to high levels of lead as a child.)

The Alan Weisman book The World Without Us includes a chapter called ‘Polymers are Forever’ which describes the North Pacific Garbage Gyre. Some thing called VBS.TV has finally gotten a film crew out to this place. These intrepid investigators (more Scooby-Doo than 60-Minutes) with admirable ambitions if limited articulation sailed out with Captain Charles Moore to examine ‘Garbage Island’. (Video after break. Also, Lewis Black on hydration and those douchebags who need to wear a bottle in a sling to walk 3 blocks.)

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More tonight, but a good start yesterday –

PROVIDENCE — The Rhode Island Senate last night passed a series of energy bills designed to encourage and embrace renewable energy projects, both large and small, in order to make the state less dependent on electricity produced by traditional fossil fuels.

The House of Representatives approved one of its own and started debate on another. But in this corner of the State House, the debate escalated into allegations the bill had been stuffed “chock-full” with so many “treats” that it had been turned into the legislative equivalent of a piñata, and then rammed through a House committee without the opportunity for public comment on the potential added costs to ratepayers.

The 7th Annual RI Sustainable Living Festival & Clean Energy Expo!

Saturday, June 7th, 10 am to 8 pm and Sunday, June 8th 10 am to 6pm RAIN OR SHINE at the Apeiron Institute for Sustainable Living in Western Coventry. Festival parking at Western Coventry School on Route 117 near 102.

Sustainability workshops featuring a pre-festival mini conference on Sustainable Cities and Towns; eco-mall; all day children’s program; alternative energy vehicles; exhibits; guided environmental house tours; and much more!

Music from Cheryl Wheeler, The Nields, Gandalf Murphy & The Slambovian Circus of Dreams, Diamond Eyed Jack: A Tribute to the Grateful Dead, Forever Young: A Tribute to the Music of Neil Young & many others.

Tickets on sale now visit www.livingfest.org or call 228-7930.

This is a huge step — Rhode Island is about to truly become a national leader in the movement towards a ‘green economy’.

The Senate Corporations Committee just passed bills 2850, 2851, and 2852, which would require National Grid to procure and distribute large sums of renewable electricity, and which would substantially broaden the ability of households, businesses, and municipalities to make use of “net-metering” — basically allowing them to recoup the full value of the electricity the generate.

The House versions of those bills are likely to pass the House Environment Committee tomorrow night, and become law within weeks.

Great first meeting last week:

Organizers expected to see about 70 people attend their first meeting last Thursday to form a new Rhode Island chapter of the U.S. Green Building Counci l, designed to promote green building standards throughout the state.

More than 100 architects, lawyers, engineers, government officials and scientists showed up and kept talking, even after the meeting was scheduled to conclude at 6 p.m.

“People clapped after every presentation. I had coffee and water to serve, but nobody got up. People were very enthusiastic,” said Connie McGreavy, who headed a steering committee that set up the meeting at the New England Institute of Technology.

Liberal elf and Princeton economist Paul Krugman sez that almost 80 percent of us drive to work alone, thus stupidly hastening the demise of our planet and the collapse of our economy.

So where are all the WWII-referencing posterz about how driving alone is driving with Chavez, or OPEC? Not exactly the same thing, granted.

So what’s a better analogy? (more…)

As the JwJ National Conference continues, I’ll be moderating a ‘Green Jobs’ panel today at 1:30, in the Westin’s Newport Room.

For the full agenda, head on over here.

I was poking around on the Daily Dose site and came across a short write up about Michael Pollan’s newest book, In Defense of Food. Well, in defense of Michael Pollan, I’ll say that the book is worth reading. Not a bad time of year to read it, either, since one of his suggestions to people who are trying to figure out how to eat well is to grow some portion of their own food. I think he really means it, too.

I was fortunate enough to hang out with him for a bit when he was in Rhode Island in February to give a talk at Brown about some of the main points in his book. What happened, actually, was that he paid a visit to City Farm, up the road from Rhode Island Hospital, where I’ve been a work-study employee from Providence College over the last couple of years. Needless to say, I was pretty psyched, but the best part was that he was excited, too. He spent a while, actually, just poking around the farm and the community garden across the street, asking questions, just kind of taking it in.

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We’ll have asparagus this week. It’s kind of a big deal.

Wintertime Farmers’ Market

Saturday from 12-3pm @AS22o

Plus a lot of greens from Simmons Farm and Red Planet. Like, a lot of greens.

Do this.  Though, fyi-  better to raise money when people are drunker than they are at 9am:

2008 Earth Day Breakfast of Champions Awardees Unveiled

Honorees selected for their work to build a green economy.

Clean Water Action, Environment Rhode Island and Ocean State Action have unveiled their 2008 Earth Day Breakfast of Champions Awardees. The theme of this year’s sixth annual Breakfast of Champions event is Rhode Islanders working for a greener economy. The event, which is open to the public with a suggested $40 donation, will be held Friday 24, 2008 at 9:00 a.m. at the Aspray Boathouse in Pawtuxet Village.

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UPDATE: Footage, courtesy of the Greenwash Gorillas themselves… even as this was a pretty amazing spectacle, the footage kind of makes me want to give Tom a big hug. While I understand the criticisms of Friedman’s work, I wonder if this was an effective way to get the message across, or whether this merely reflects poorly on the University… thoughts? Could the pie-throwers have raised their dissent during the Q&A with as much flair?

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman had just begun his Earth Day lecture at Brown last night, when Molly Little ‘08.5 and a colleague let him know what they thought of his work. The Brown Daily Herald reports:

A female audience member ran on stage last night and threw a green pie at New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman […]. The woman had been sitting in the south side of the auditorium’s front row when she pulled the pie out of a Brown Bookstore plastic bag that had been tucked in a red backpack and leapt out of her seat.

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Looks like NK is converting its government computiz to more energy efficient systems. Apparently, this freaky Earth-lovin’ is also good on the wallet:

By making the move, the town of 26,000 residents estimates it will save more than $20,000 per year in energy costs.

Kudos, and remember, don’t go spending it all on carbon!

Also, wait, Tom Friedman gets pied in the face at Brown on Earth Day, while Dell, of The World Is Flat’s Dell Theory of Conflict Resolution fame, installs green computers in North Kingstown?

I guess it all means that mastering the global supply chain is very different from avoiding the global pie chain.

This will be my hippie-dippy earth day contribution. No one who has read a description of the North Pacific garbage gyre (two vortices really) remains unchanged. ‘Polymers are Forever’ by Alan Weisman first appeared as an article in Orion Magazine. It was later incorporated into his excellent book The World Without Us and maybe you saw him on The Daily Show. So, get the plastic shopping bags out of your life anyway.  Just get a couple of totes and leave them in your car. It’s easy. Now, how am I supposed to buy shampoo?

The event runs from Thurs through Saturday and includes movies, food, lectures, panels, gallery openings, and more. The agenda’s online here:

At Brown is Green: Strategies for Shaping a Sustainable Future, we will bring together a wide range of leaders, from CEOs to politicians to grassroots community activists, in order to assemble and cultivate the connections between the many differing approaches, perspectives, and industries that are working on environmental sustainability.

From Clean Water Action:

TONIGHT, April 22^nd, following Earth Day Lobby Day at the State House, Clean Water Action and the Environment Council of Rhode Island are hosting EARTH in jeoPARTY, an Earth Day Party at Local 121 in downtown Providence.

There will be pizza from Nice Slice, beer from Trinity and prizes a plenty. The Pennsylvania Primary results are coming in that night also, and there will be a screen set up for viewing—don’t worry, we didn’t forget you!

Lobstermen speculate that mosquito pesticide is killing business…I’d rather be triple-E free. Move to Maine if you want to be lobster fishermen.