It that time of the year once again where people all over the world will come together to show their support for our planet. For one hour, everyone should switch off all lights and electronic devices. For one our, we should all contribute in this movement for change.

It’s not complicated. First you get with a bunch of your buddies and you choose one or more things you all like to do. Second, once you reach earth hour, you switch off all lights and electronic devices in your home and just light up some candles. Then enjoy the moment! It’s quite amazing the fun you can have without consuming energy. I particularly like the board game called Settlers of Catan. Check it out and maybe you can try it for yourself for this year’s earth hour. And if you’re not a big fan of board games, get someone to play some tunes on the acoustic guitar bonfire style!

This Earth Hour, let your support for clean energy shine by switching off your lights from 8:30 to 9:30 pm on Saturday, March 26. Pledge your support at www.EarthHourCanada.org

2,400 to 3,000 sheets per person per year. That’s how many sheets of paper towels we humans use every year. The impact… 3,000 tons of paper towel waste every day in the United-States alone. In more details, 17 trees are cut down and 20,000 gallons of water is consumed for every thousand tons. That is HUGE when you think about it. It’s only a little sheet of paper you say every time you rip one away from its roll.

To fight for this cause, PeopleTowels and Inhabitat came together and launched the Stop the Paper Towels! Design Contest. Basically, they are asking competitors to design something that will open people’s eyes on the situation and encourage the world to cut paper towel waste. The winner will have it’s design printed on a 9×9 inches 100% organic, Fair Trade cotton hand towel plus $500 and 10% royalties on every towel sold.

Click here for more details.

Here at Talkgreen, we are very conscious of what people think and we welcome you to send us tips or comments at info [at] talkgreen [dot] ca.

The Age of Stupid is the new movie from Director Franny Armstrong (McLibel) and producer John Battsek (One Day In September). Pete Postlethwaite stars as a man living alone in the devastated future world of 2055, looking at old footage from 2008 and asking: why didn’t we stop climate change when we had the chance? It was released in UK cinemas on 20 March 2009, and will be followed by other countries.

Visit ageofstupid.net for more info.

This boat set a new world record for traveling around the world-and it did it on 100% eco-friendly fuels.

Photo: Flickr

Yesterday I posted a video about the “This Is Reality” campaing trying to inform the public about the negetive effects of coal.

Today Reality started airing our latest ad. It’s called “Air Freshener” and we’re very excited to say it’s directed by Academy Award winners Joel and Ethan Coen.

The ad directly calls out the coal industry on their ridiculous claims that coal is clean, as only the Coen brothers can.

Now we go behind the scene of in the making of “Clean Coal Clean”.

Saturday March 28, 2009 will be the third edition of Earth hour. What started in Sydney in 2007 is now a world wide phenomenon.

It is really easy to participate in Earth Hour. Here are the three steps:

1. Turn off all non-essential lights on Saturday, March 28 at 8:30 pm.
2. Encourage family, friends and local businesses to participate.
3. Sign-up.

Earth Hour is a symbolic event. Turning off our lights for an hour won’t stop climate change but it does demonstrate that our individual action is important and adds up to make a big difference. More importantly, it sends a very powerful message to government and world leaders that people want policies and regulations put in place that can achieve meaningful emission reduction to help fight climate change.

Now that my final exams are over I can finally get back to writing more stuff.

Since I’m just out of exams I think it would be a great time to write about how students that usually are eco-conscious are  giving less or even no attention at all to the way they consume during this period of time.

You have to admit that when your in an exam period you just don’t have the time to cook yourself diner or even make yourself a proper lunch to bring along to your study group. So what is the easy thing to do?

What most of us do is go to the closest subway or fast food restaurant and grab something that’s cheap to be able to go back to studying as quickly as possible. I would even say that eating at the University’s cafeteria is not even an option for me since you pay more for the same fast food you can find just outside of campus. If your a guy like me who’s in the gym at least 4 days a week you have to have something big to fill you stomach. That’s one more reason why the University’s cafeteria is simply not an option. If you think of all the paper wraps and plastic bags and plastic utensils that are used in fast food restaurants, it’s truly not the best way to ease off on the environment.

So that’s the round up on food. Now let’s talk about paper. If you take a look at the picture at the top of this article, you’ll see the amount of wasted paper that is created during a two week study period. It’s completely unbelievable. In normal times I try to never use paper. Every chance I get I use my laptop to do my school work and I give my final product to my teachers via email. But when you have 2 different math courses in the same semester, you just can’t do that. If you’re asking yourself why, you should know that the only way to do good in math is to practise. If anyone can tell me what could be a better way to do this I would be glad to put my paper aside and go with it. I would be the fist to spread the word on a more eco friendly way to study math. If you take the 200 plus sheets of paper used in my 2 weeks of studying multiplied by all the students in all the University’s, that’s a whole bunch of trees that c0uld be spared.

So if you have any suggestion on a more eco-friendly way to study, please feel free to share with all of us.

Hitchsters is an easy-to-use website that conveniently connects travelers going to and from airports so that they can share a ride (and thus split the fare). The Hitchsters.com matching system makes riding in a car to the airport more affordable, more convenient, safer, and more environmentally-friendly.

This idea is especially great because of the fact that traveling by airplane is nothing close to eco-friendly. Hitchsters.com launched this week in the San Francisco Bay Area and they plan to expand to other cities in the near future.

Hitchsters.com helps match people looking to ride-share on the way to or from the airport (SFO, OAK & SJC) and hooks them up with a high-quality, yet inexpensive car service. By doing so a person saves on average $21/ride and reduces their carbon footprint by 30 lbs compared to taking a cab alone.

Hitchsters.com are trying to get the word out to help people save some money and save the environment a bit too. They’ve already launched in NYC and were honored last year by Time Magazine when they were named one of the “50 Best Websites of 2007″.

How it works (form Hitchsters.com website):

Log in to your MyHitchsters account, enter your trip itinerary, and select your saved location. (Not there? Add a new one to your MyHitchsters profile).

When matched, you will be notified with a text message and e-mail containing the first name and cell phone of your co-rider (nothing else is shared). As an additional safety feature, we preserve the phone numbers of all of the successful matches.

A partnering car service calls each party to arrange the ride.

If you are sharing a ride to the airport, then you will only be matched with someone else who is leaving from your area to go to the same airport. If you are sharing a ride from the airport, you will only be matched with someone who is on the same flight (no worries about late flights) and going to the same area you are.

After your trip, you will have an opportunity to evaluate your co-rider, and the limo company, with a “thumbs-up” or “thumbs-down” rating.