Inc.com's Top 50 Green Companies

Inc.com posted "The Green Advantage", an article "Introducing the Green 50, a collection of entrepreneurial companies that are showing what it means to run good businesses, attack the most pressing problems of our time--and make serious cash along the way." Let's check them out and support them!

via hugg

A Simple Economic Case for Solar Homes

Sandiegodave100 at the MotleyFool.com makes a fantastic and simple economic case for getting solar for his home and vehicle energy source. Basically, if you can finance a sufficient solar system to power your home and charge an electric car for your transportation, you negate your power and fuel bills which will essentially cover the monthly costs of financing the project (sans the sweet, sweet $100k Tesla electric car, of course) with potentially a little money to spare!
To simplify:
Solar home = free power + zero carbon emissions

Via Treehugger

Slate Magazine's "Carbon Diet"

Slate magazine and Treehugger have teamed up to put forth a green challenge: lose 20% of your CO2 weight in 8 weeks. They have a quiz to get you started and then all kinds of fun tips to get your diet underway! They have a few prizes as well, think of how great it would be if all Americans shed 20% of thier CO2! Let's get moving guys!

via Treehugger

Environmentally Friendly Healthcare

In the heathcare industry, I am not proud to say, we create an inordinate amount of both biohazard waste as well as paper and plastic waste that is very poorly recycled. In a recent quest to improve our systems, I have come across two on-line organizations, Healthcare Without Harm, and Hospitals for a Healthy Environment, that provide a great deal of information on decreasing the impact of our current healthcare system. A lot of what we need to do comes down to increasing our effort in sorting the various biohazard wastes and plastics and paper wastes at the point of use, decreasing packaging, and convincing the administration that cheaper in the short run is not better in the long run. In the ridiculous push to cut costs at every corner, many hospitals have gone back to good ol' styrofoam for plates and cups and use in incredible amount of disposable items including utensils and even instruments for minor procedures. The vast majority of this waste is not recycled and in the usual fashion of administrators, their short-sightedness in cutting short term costs actually ends up increasing waste disposal costs in the long term. These two websites have various resources to learn about easy changes that can be made within a hospital as well as system-wide changes that can greatly reduce the use of toxic substances as well as improve disposal. At my two hospitals, French Hospital Medical Center and Arroyo Grande Community Hospital, our owner corporation CHW has instituted a few changes, including phasing out IV tubing and bags with potentially toxic phalates. We still have a long way to go. We do have an Environmental Action Committee that's getting things rolling but you won't believe how hard it is even to get local organic foods served in the cafeteria!