I’m happy to say that our hometown Seattle Mariners are doing their part in efforts to take responsibility for the carbon emissions related to their operations. This takes into account travel (for teams, umpires, fans and all people involved), electrical and natural gas resources used in operating the stadium, and all waste produced from the game.

To celebrate Earth Day on Tuesday the Mariners are going to partner with Cedar Grove Composting to stage the first ever carbon neutral Major League Baseball game. To accomplish this, the Mariners are going to purchase carbon offsets from NativeEnergy to account for the 230 short tons of carbon-dioxide produced at a Major League Baseball game.

As we all know carbon offsets are not the answer. Well, the Mariners agree with that too. Mariners chairman and CEO Howard Lincoln says., “we know that just buying carbon offsets isn’t enough”. The Mariners lead the charge in sustainability and conservation in Major League Baseball. They’re one of two teams who composts their food waste. They compost about 100 tons of food waste per season. Last year alone the Mariners recycled “342 tons of plastic bottles, paper, cardboard, cans and glass”. They have also made steps to reduce their consumption of electricity and natural gas (18 and 36 percent respectively).

Apparently there are also going to be many local and national organizations on hand to provide information about conservation and environmental responsibility. We won’t be able to make it to the game on Tuesday, but would love to hear about it from anyone who does make it out to the ball game.

image courtesy of kixandthecity.com

Last night Phoenix Suns guard Steve Nash debuted his new shoes. This time his Nike’s were a little different. They were made from scraps from other basketball shoes. I know that Nike has long been the bad guy in the world of footwear due to labor and environmental practices, but let’s give credit where credit is due. Nike has recently made a move towards more global responsibility and is now making the Nike Trash Talk which is the shoe model made from scrap material that is based off of their already popular Nike Zoom BB II model.

Nike footwear designer, Kasey Jarvis said: ‘I was really looking for a ‘here and now’ solution to footwear waste, and creating a performance product using waste materials felt like a very innovative solution. Using Nike’s Considered design ethos I was able to create a shoe that stands up to the stringent on-court performance requirements but is also more environmentally friendly.’

Steve Nash has been involved with environmental issues for a long time. It’s really great to see that he is taking that concern to his shoe company and that they are utilizing the waste that they create, and are making it usable. Nash said, “Any opportunity to promote the environment and preserve our planet is a step in the right direction.” If you’d like to get your hands on these, they will go on sale on April 22nd.

Nike still has a lot work to do to clean up it’s international labor and environmental practices.

Los Angeles-based design company Stolen, Inc. was researching a project they were working on and came across some staggering information.

came across “Life Expectancy at Birth.” Andorra was the highest with 83.51 years, and all the way at the bottom was Mozambique with 31.1 years

They decided to do something about it. They’ve created a line of tshirts to educate and raise funds. It’s called StatAttak. Stolen will be setting aside 20% of the money from the sale of the shirts to build an orphanage in Mozambique.

Since Mozambique was the country that inspired all of this, the Sons of Stolen are putting 20% of the money from the sale of the shirts towards building an orphanage in Mozambique. Instead of giving the money to a charity, we will go to Mozambique with a group of volunteers from the design industry and build an orphanage from the ground up. We hope that this will help us better understand Africa and that a personal interaction with the local population will inspire everyone involved to keep working towards solutions to the many problems facing that continent.

Not only is this a great opportunity to make a change in the world, the shirts are also beautiful. Mollie and I will both be sporting StatAttak tshirts.

Wednesday morning it was announced that the popular eco-site treehugger was acquired by Discovery Communications. This is really exciting for the folks over at treehugger. It will give them and their content a lot of exposure. According to the press release, Discovery plans on using the site in conjunction with it’s ‘Planet Green’ programming.
In related news, Jasmine over at Worsted Witch will be writing full time over there (starting in a couple of weeks). So congratulations to her.

Introducing to you our very talented guest writer for today, Kendall! You may already know Kendall as my husband. For those of you who don’t know him, I will tell you that he is a great man and the type of person that makes you better just by being around him. For this, and many other reasons, I am happy that he is joining us today. As an avid sports fan he shares both his extensive wisdom and passionate rants over at VIGILANTE SPORTS. While he writes about all things sports, he has a special place for Cubs and Mariners baseball, Michigan college football, and the Chicago Bears. Today we happily welcome him as a guest writer to One/Change.

I’ve not been without a TV in my home ever. When I was growing up I had a TV in my bedroom. A couple of weeks ago my wife and I decided to do an experiment to see what it would be like to remove the TV from our home. How would our interactions change? Would it be the pure bliss that we have heard about from people who don’t own a TV?

Well, let me start with this. Mollie and I don’t really watch a lot of TV. The TV is mainly used for watching DVDs and sporting events. There are a few shows that we’ve gotten into (we both like LOST, and I’m a sucker for Survivor), but other than that the TV isn’t really on. We knew going in that it probably wouldn’t be a huge change, but we wanted to see.

So what happened? Well, 2 weeks ago last Sunday we took the TV down to the storage unit in our basement and locked it up. It had been a pretty focal part of our living room, so we stacked books where it had been. At first it wasn’t a very big deal. We didn’t feel like we were missing anything because it was normal for us to go days without turning it on. There’s something about a long day of work, and a desire to just veg-out that made me long for our TV. Early on in the experiment I found out that I have turned to TV for an easy way to check out of the world. I don’t really like that, and spent the rest of the 2 weeks thinking about that and developing other ways to relax, sans television. I feel the need to confess that we did watch a couple movies on my computer during the experiment. But that really isn’t what the experiment was about.

I’d say that the biggest change was not watching baseball games on TV. Mollie and I both really enjoy following the Cubs and the Mariners, so this was a stretch for both of us. But this past weekend I went to the Mariners game on Saturday with a friend and then on Sunday Mollie and I went together. We decided that if they were in town and we wanted to watch the game, that we could just hop a bus, or walk to Safeco Field, and take in the game in person (bleacher seats are only $7).

So what have I learned from this experiment?

• My wife and I talk more when there isn’t a TV in the house. When it’s easy to just turn on the TV to watch a game, or a movie we’re more likely to do that than talk and listen to each other. This has been the biggest takeaway for me.
• Not having a TV forces me to be more creative. I have to think about what I want to spend my time doing? Going to the park? Going for a walk? Reading? Thinking?
• I really do enjoy watching sports on TV. I miss watching baseball.
• It wouldn’t be as big of a sacrifice as I thought to get rid of our TV.

As of right now (we’re 2 days past our original 2 week time period) the TV is still in the basement. There isn’t anything tugging at me to bring it up. I’m sure we will, but it does feel nice to have it not be something that MUST happen. I think the experiment has caused me to see television for what it is, a luxury item. I don’t need it. I do enjoy parts of having it (mainly watching sports, I can watch movies on my computer). I think the experiment was a success.

If something in you twinged, or tickled when you started reading this, I’d say think about making some sort of change to your TV habits. If you’re someone who watches a lot of TV and couldn’t even consider putting in the basement, maybe try to ration your TV watching. Or cover your TV with a blanket or a scarf to remove it’s prominence in your living space. If you already don’t watch too much TV, consider removing it for a short period of time. See how it makes you feel. What you like and dislike about it. It’s really helped me see my relationship with television more clearly.

I want to take a moment to advocate
for the use of environmentally friendly printing for your business
printing needs. Most of the marketing collateral that is produced is
done so on non-recyclable paper and using inks that are toxic (not
only to the earth but to the printers as well). It�s an easy decision
to gloss over or let someone else make the decision. It may initially
cost a little bit more than conventional printing, but in the long run
it will end up costing more to our earth. Please, at least just ask and
see what the cost difference would be, and then make your decision.

You can find out more about Printing Responsibly here.

So you’ve seen the little orange link on all of these sites around the internet. What does it mean? What does it do? It’s a link for an RSS feed.

What’s that you might ask. Well the long and the short of it is that it’s a technology that you can use to subscribe to regularly published content. You can read news stories, blog posts, movie reviews, etc. from all of your favorite websites in one central location.

That central location is called your RSS Reader. There’s a wide variety of RSS Readers to choose from: NewsGator, Bloglines, and even the free, open-source email client Mozilla Thunderbird has RSS support. Each one of these readers have their own specific set up directions which you can find on their respective sites. Many of these will be easier than setting up a new email account.

Using RSS feeds will probably change the way you use the internet. I know that it’s changed the way that I use it. It makes getting content from a lot of different sources really easy and centrally located. And that is really helpful for me.

So without further ado, click here or copy this link and paste it into the RSS reader that you’ve selected. Also, if you’d like to read more about RSS, here’s a good primer. If you have any questions let us know and we’ll try and help.