Have you ever stumbled into your bathroom at 6am and wondered, "I really wish I knew how much water I've used this month?"  But then you quietly resigned to brushing your teeth, feeling undereducated and lacking of knowledge.

Your day has come. Enter The Earth Mirror, the mirror designed to show you the amount of water you use daily, monthly, and yearly. Think of it as Big Brother with a green streak. As water in the sink runs, LED lights indicate how much is being used. Set it so that once usage gets to a certain point, Big Brother mirror denies use. Here's hoping you don't have any bathroom fires in your future.

Looking for a little extra guilt with your morning shave? As your water use varies, icons of polar bears on melting ice, children with buckets of water, and colorful mountain ranges appear, accompanied by facts regarding the impact of uneven water distribution (see image below).

What a way to start your day. 

Ok, so the blog entries have been a little tech-heavy as of late. I may own a Motorola Razr and only have one TV (a small tube model at that!), but I'm a girl who loves a good gadget. 

So, in case you've been living in a cave made out of PCs, you are aware that Apple announced it's latest potentially game-changing product: the iPad. Now as someone who lives in the Mac world by day and the PC world by night (like some sort of boring superhero), I can appreciate the benefits of each, but have retired my Woz poster above my bed.

What (ok, one of the myriad of things) makes Apple so successful is their ability not only to tap into the vein of a particular, yet fiercely loyal population, but to create a need within this group. So they have brought us the iPad, which today Steve Jobs has touted as the "missing link" between smartphones and laptops. 

And, it seems, this social awareness extends to eco-counsciousness. The iPad is free of Arsenic, Mercury, PVC, and BFR (brominated flame retardant), as well as being "highly recyclable", which MNN assumes means that it's built to be easily taken apart at the end of its life.

Starting at $499, they certainly fall into what most Mac-users would deem "affordable". The first versions will be available in 60 days and the 3G version will be available in 90 days. 

The Annual Consumer Electronics Show recently wrapped up in Las Vegas. So what was the shining star amongst the bright lights on the strip?  Home Energy Monitoring Systems took the spotlight, fueled by government incentives and an ongoing pursuit to reduce household costs. 

While there are several iterations of the system now, the buzz is all around the model that Direct Energy, Whirlpool Corporation, Best Buy, Lennox International, and OpenPeak have all collaborated to create. With iPhone-like usability, the Open Peak 7 has an app store and integrates energy management with other useful features: VoIP phone functionality, dynamic speakers, and full media content including music, photos, and video.

According to their site, OpenPeak and it's partners will be launching a 1-year pilot program in Houston, Texas around April or May to determine a range of things about home energy use, such as how to help households minimize energy use, how the smart grid and home owners work together, and more importantly, how households use home energy monitors. 

But don't expect OpenPeak to continue it's reign much longer. Of course, just this week, Apple filed an application entitled Intelligent Power Monitoring, which is intended to manage power use of connected items, and make energy-conscious suggestions. According to Apple's applications:

Some personal computers sometimes are being left on simply to serve as power supplies for the charging of the aforementioned portable devices via connections, such as USB connections, that provide power in addition to data (rather than charging those devices from the household electric service using their dedicated chargers), even though the power supply of a personal computer is much larger than is needed for such a function, and as such draws much more power than such a function would otherwise demand. As the price of electricity increases, such uses of power can cost users more. 

But if your home is outfitted with smart meters, you can get started today for free, thanks to Google's PowerMeter and Microsoft's Hohm. 

Screenshot of the GoodGuide iPhone app

Let's be honest. I'm a fan clever marketing. 

But tricky or deceptive, well, that's a different story. And sometimes it is hard to determine the difference.

Apparently, Dara O'Rourke agreed, and founded GoodGuide, a year-old website that purports to "provide the world's largest and most reliable source of information on the health, environmental, and social impacts of the products in your home," rating each on a scale of 1 to 10.

We all mean well, and want to live--and shop--that way. But sometimes a product isn't exactly what it claims to be, and trying to see through all the greenwashing is getting more and more difficult every year. 

In the shower, have you ever paused mid-lather, to think, "What's in this 'herbal' shampoo?" How about that 'natural' green tea soda? And you may want to think twice about that 'diet' frozen dinner you've got stashed at your office. 

The site pulls information from more than a decade of the U.C. Berkeley professor's research to help consumers navigate the supermarket. 

For proof of their progressiveness, check out the GoodGuide iPhone app, which allows you to scan barcodes for instant ratings. The best part? It's all free.  

No iPhone? There's a text-messaging option, too.

Of the 60,000-plus products and companies currently in the GoodGuide database, about 11,000 are related to food. But that number is quickly growing: O'Rourke and his team add about 1,000 items a week. The goal is to get to 70,000, which should encompass every product in your basic grocery store. 

A recent study found that investing in the protection of nature can produce huge financial returns, often more lucrative than an investment in gold.

This is the first attempt to evaluate the economic value of "ecosystem services", the freebies of the natural world, such as purifying drinking water or protecting coasts from storms.

While individual environmentalists have suggested this phenomenon in the past, this recent comprehensive survey reviewed over 1,100 different studies, covering various regions and ecosystems for a global view. The result? "And we find that with protected areas, for example, no matter how you slice the figures up you come up with a ratio of benefits to costs that's between 25-to-one and 100-to-one," said study leader Pavan Sukhdev, a Deutsche Bank economist.

Putting that into hard numbers helps to understand why this study is so important...and hopefully enlightening. Sukhdev explains the financial possibilities. "If we were to expand marine protection from less than 1% to 30%, say, what would that cost? Establishing reserves, policing them and so on, would cost about $40-50 billion per year - and the annual benefit would be about $4-5 trillion."

The benefits would come from increasing fish catches and tourism revenue and, in the case of reefs,  protecting shorelines from storms.

Other examples given in the report include:

• A Costa Rican study showing that areas of intact forest increase the yield of coffee farms by 20% because they shelter pollinating insects

• A grassland conservation area in New Zealand that supplies the Otago region with free water that would cost $100 million annually to bring in from elsewhere

• In Vietnam, planting and protecting nearly 12,000 hectares of mangroves cost the government $1.1 million, but saved annual expenditures on dyke maintenance of $7.3 million

Image: http://seacat.files.wordpress.com

There's a lot of garbage in the news. No, really. Actual garbage. Within the past year or so, various sources have been reporting about what has been deemed the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Located in a gyre (system of rotating ocean currents) in the Pacific Ocean, the Patch gets press. And rightly so. It is the world's largest landfill, unofficially.

Home to millions of pieces of garbage (overwhelmingly plastic), the Patch occupies an expanse of ocean about the twice size of Texas, though it's official "borders" are somewhat difficult to determine. Here are some other fun patchy facts:

• 90% of all garbage floating in the ocean is plastic
• This plastic will photodegrade (break down from sun exposure) into tiny pieces but need thousands of years to fully biodegrade
• Every square mile of ocean hosts 46,000 pieces of floating plastic
• 80% of ocean trash originates on land
• Of the more than 200 billion pounds of plastic produced annually, 10% ends up in the ocean
• More than a million birds and marine animals die each year from consuming or becoming caught in plastic and other debris

As these pieces of plastic break down smaller and smaller, they work their way into the food chain...and into our diets. As smaller fish consume the bits (often inadvertently), the larger fish consume the smaller fish. Which are, of course, eaten by humans in turn. Even worse, these small bits of plastic (called nurdles) often soak up other dangerous compounds and toxins in the ocean, those usually rendered harmless by dissipation in water. But when concentrated in the nurdles, they are once again a threat.

 Check out the video below:

When it comes to water conservation and landscaping, it seems we've crossed every bridge. We've developed successful efficient irrigation products: MP Rotators, Solar Sync, weather sensors, micro irrigation, and so many others. Drought resistant plants and xeriscaping have started cropping up all over in water-restricted areas. And homeowners are rolling out the green carpet with the controversial synthetic turf.

Is America's love affair with a lush lawn turned into a dysfunctional relationship? After decades of beautiful bliss, is it time to part ways? But we look so good together! Well, while they say you can't change another person, some scientists believe you can, in fact, change a lawn.

A few ambitious scientists are attempting to reinvent the wheel..er...yard. With sites on a superlawn, they are developing a potentially drought-proof grass...that looks good, too. But they also have to keep in mind the various weather conditions across the United State, pest and fungi resistance, grow at a slow pace (for those who don't feel like mowing daily), and genetic viability. Some say these scientists, these titans of turf, are crazy. But as UC Riverside turfgrass specialist Jim Baird has said, "...it doesn't hurt to dream."

Will their grassy dreams go up in smoke? Check out the entire LA Times article here.

 (Extra special thanks to Kristina Cervantes for the article!)

The Group of 20 (G-20) lands this week not only on U.S. soil, but on the old stomping grounds of yours truly. President Barack Obama, in a fairly surprising move, chose Pittsburgh as the meeting place for the world's 20 most powerful leaders (representing 85% of the global economy).

Why? Well, aside from his ties to the Rooney family and choosing the Steelers (accurately) to win Superbowl XLIII, the President feels Pittsburgh is "an area that has seen its share of economic woes in the past, but because of foresight and investment is now renewed, giving birth to renewed industries that are creating the jobs of the future," according to White House Spokesperson Robert Gibbs.

These "renewed industries" and "jobs of the future" refer to, in part, Pittsburgh's replacement of an environmentally unsound and unsustainable industry base (mining, steel mills) with a multitude of "greener" jobs. Obama would like to present this "bold move" by the city as a sort of micro-example for the world, that shutting down plants for non-renewable resources does not have to mean a down economy and thousands of lost jobs. In fact, the average "green collar" job earns 10% to 20% more than it's blue collar iteration.

But is all of the G-20 on board with Barack? You might be surprised to see who does have a green agenda...and who doesn't (I'm looking at you, Canada).

Check out MNN's great article here.

Jennifer Hall-Massey claims contaminated water has caused her 7-year-old son, Ryan, to require extensive dental work. Photo: New York Times

This past Saturday, September 12, the New York Times published a lengthy expose article on the hundreds of thousand of unreported violations of the Clean Water Act. And although the legislation was passed in 1972, the Times only focused on the period of 2002 to 2007...to find over 500,000 violations. Both small business and large are guilty, some of minor infractions such as failing to report emissions, but 60 percent were “significant noncompliance” — meaning their violations were the most serious kind, like dumping cancer-causing chemicals or failing to measure or report when they pollute.

Here are some of the facts:

• An estimated one in 10 Americans has been exposed to drinking water that contains dangerous chemicals or fails to meet a federal health benchmark in other ways
• An estimated 19.5 million Americans fall ill each year from drinking water contaminated with parasites, bacteria or viruses
• More than 23 million people received drinking water from municipal systems that violated a health-based standard
• 40 percent of the nation’s community water systems violated the Safe Drinking Water Act
• Chemicals, inorganic toxins, and heavy metals can accumulate in the body for years or decades before they cause problems. Some of the most frequently detected contaminants have been linked to cancer, birth defects and neurological disorders
• The number of facilities violating the Clean Water Act grew more than 16 percent from 2004 to 2007 (2008/2009 data not available at this time)
• Fewer than 3 percent of Clean Water Act violations resulted in fines or other significant punishments by state officials

One town just outside of Charleston, West Virginia, has started a lawsuit aimed at the local coal companies mining in the area, and owners of many "slurry ponds". For years, they have suffered from extreme dental problems, burning rashes after taking baths, stomach ulcers, a higher occurance of brain tumors, among many other ailments.

But, despite their tap water testing positively for the exact profile of pollutants that are pumped out by the neighboring coal companies daily, causes of cancer and the other ailments are not completely understood and a direct link is amiguous.

Other reasons for non-report are the usual: Underfunding, powerful lobbyists, politicians with agendas, and overwhelming bureaucracy. For those few idealistic environment lawmakers who join the cause, the battle is a study in uphill drudgery, leaving many casualities. 

For this article, the Times created some incredibly useful tools for checking the pollution in your area.

National Database of Water Pollution Violations

Interactive Version of Community Violations

State Enforcement Records

Read the whole artice here.

The Estuary at River Erme. Courtesy FlickrAnother day, another source for alternative energy. This time, scientists are working on harnessing the energy produced by the mixing of fresh and salt water, particularly that which occurs in an estuary. The mixing generates 2.2 kJ of energy per liter of fresh water that flows into the sea.

According to PhysOrg.com:

The EDL capacitor is made of two porous carbon electrodes immersed in salt water. The electrodes are then connected to a power supply so that one becomes negatively charged and the other positively charged. Since salt water consists of positively charged sodium ions and negatively charged chloride ions, the positive electrode attracts the chloride ions and the negative electrode attracts the sodium ions. With the help of the electrostatic force keeping the oppositely charged ions near their respective electrodes, the EDL capacitor can store a charge.

To extract the charge, fresh water is pumped into the device, causing the sodium and chloride ions to diffuse away from the electrodes against the electrostatic force. In other words, the work done by the fresh water to extract the salt water is converted into electrostatic energy, appearing as an increase in voltage between the electrodes. Overall, the system transforms mechanical work (the mixing of the salt and fresh water) into electrostatic energy that can be extracted as usable power. The only energy required by the system is the initial power source to jumpstart the capacitor, and power to pump fresh and salt water into the device.

Scientists intend to ramp up the scale for industrial use and expect that the costs would rival that of wind power. But head researcher, Doriano Brogioli, sees this method as a complement to wind and solar power, for those areas that may not have access. He states, "In other places, it can be better to use solar energy with a concentration device, for example, or small wind turbines, biofuels, or whatever else, perhaps including fossil fuels or nuclear power. In this sense, my method is an ‘alternative’ to other ‘alternative’ energy sources.”