Bookmans Picks for Best Environmental Blogs
From electric car charging stations to eco-friendly lighting, from recycling to reusing, from partnering with environmentally active community agencies to sponsoring climate-friendly events, Bookmans strives to do right by the big blue ball we call Earth. That’s what you do when environmentalism is one of your core values. Another thing you do is to read up on how to continue progressing in green ways. We’ve unscientifically collected the best environmental blogs based on web metrics we made up and subjective determinations of strength of content. In other words, here’s some blogs we like to read.
TreeHugger. TreeHugger is the granddaddy longlegs of all enviro-blogs so we’ll let them promote themselves. According to their about page, Treehugger is the leading media outlet dedicated to driving sustainability mainstream. Partial to a modern aesthetic, they strive to be a one-stop shop for green news, solutions and product information. We especially enjoy following them on social media because they are prolific posters.
Inhabitat. With an interest in design innovations that enhance sustainability, efficiency and interactivity in the home, Inhabitat draws attention to objects and spaces that are BOTH eco-friendly AND stylish. We appreciate Inhabitat’s belief that, “all design should be inherently ‘Green’. Good design is not about color, style or trends–but instead about thoughtfully considering the user, the experience, the social context and the impact of an object on the surrounding environment.” We also find it easier to keep up with them via social media.
No Impact Man. The No Impact Man lifestyle experiment formed the basis of the No Impact Man book, film and non-profit project. Launched 2007, this blog chronicles the year of environmentally living Colin Beavan undertook with his family. It’s not updated often anymore, but it’s a great story. If you like this sort of start-to-finish experiment blogs, we also suggest reading about the Little Brown Dress experiment.
Grist. “You know how some people make lemonade out of lemons? At Grist, we’re making lemonade out of looming climate apocalypse.” Naturally, we appreciate the injection of fun into our giant environmental foot print guilt. Each day, Grist uses their Clarity-o-Meter to draw out the real meaning behind green stories and to connect big issues like climate change to daily life.
EcoGeek. Hank Green says he spends most of his time thinking about how our brains can save our planet. His blog EcoGeek is for armchair engineers of all types who are interested in how science can inform our behaviors to benefit the earth. Hank thinks we can stay happy without destroying the environment. If you’re up for the brainwork, check out EcoGeek.
Environmental Graffiti. Environmental Graffiti claims an eclectic mix of the most bizarre, funny and interesting environmental news on the planet. From extreme sports, conservation, art or freaky nature Environmental Graffiti aims to save the planet and make the environment sexy. They don’t always hit our green buttons, but they are always entertaining as they bring environmental news for environmentalists who don’t take themselves too seriously.
Mindful Mama. Blogger Micaela aims to inspire people to live a green and healthy life. She doesn’t claim to have all the answers but she tries to be mindful of her choices and do her best. She started blogging as a way to make sense of the confusing information about green and healthy living that she was confronted with as a parent. Instead of being just about the environment, it is about being mindful of all the small decisions we make every day.
Green Issues. Singapore-based Agy does DIY with recyclable items and refashioning, which is the DIY of changing an old piece of clothing into something new and more wearable. Her belief that we have become a consumerist, throwaway society is behind her efforts to spread the message that you don’t have to buy something new and you shouldn’t throw something away without thinking about what it could be turned into. She advocates the purchase of “preloved goods” so naturally we like what we read from her.
Mother Jones. We’d be remiss if we didn’t mention Mother Jones, the nonprofit news organization that specializes in investigative, political and social justice reporting. They have a dedicated section to the environment and aren’t afraid to drop a four-letter word now and again. We know they cause knee-jerk reactions in some folks but we aren’t afraid of controversy.
Hugg. Here’s where we violate the rules of our list. Hugg isn’t a blog, but a tool. Also, it was created by TreeHugger, who is already on the list. We don’t care because we like it anyway and we aren’t always the best rule followers. Hugg is like Digg but for eco issues.
Bookmans.com includes many posts about the environment, “green” events and our eco-conscious partners. We are also beginning to build boards highlighting some fun reuse/repurpose projects on Pinterest including our Made From Books and Comic-al Crafts boards. We’d love to hear from you about your favorite environmental blogs and activities.
Post author Rebecca Ballenger is a wannabe Internet practitioner, subtly charming public school advocate and amateur communicator who asks too many questions and writes mostly about books at RebL Nation.
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You should also consider some energy blogs addressing environmental issues.
https://www.acsengineering.com
Yes, we absolutely should. Perhaps during our next Earth Month push.
One voice from the wilderness is too weak to be listened to. My voice, for example, is not clear enough, strong enough, loud enough or adequately established so as to be heard. How can any person in a position of influence among our most wealthy and powerful leaders possibly be expected to receive a ‘best available science message’ until we and others who are similarly situated speak out, as if with one voice, about what could be somehow real, according to the best available science and ‘lights’ we possess?
Declining fertility rates virtually everywhere on Earth need not blind us to the undeniable, ongoing annual increases of absolute global human population numbers. Human numbers have exploded by more than 5 billion on earth in the past three score and ten years. This population growth ‘trajectory’ is patently unsustainable on a planet with the size, finite resources and frangible ecology of Earth. Please consider how the growth of human numbers worldwide is caused by the spectacular production and distribution of food for human consumption. With each passing year more people are being fed and more people are going hungry.
For years we have been encouraged to “think globally.” Let us hope that it is not too late to begin “acting globally.” There is not time to waste because untethered overproduction, overconsumption and overpopulation activities of the human species are on the verge of causing a global ecological wreckage of the planet we inhabit by turning Earth’s land surface into mountains of human detritus and its seas into sewers.
As things stand, the leading self-righteous elders in the world on our watch are charting a course to the future that will wreak havoc on what is surely sacred and normalize what is plainly profane … come what may. And these self-proclaimed ‘masters of the universe’ erroneously believe that they can have some faraway island or mega-yacht to which an escape from the global ecological wreckage would be possible. More evidence of immaculate hubris, I suppose.
Those few with power would like the status quo to remain as is; whereas, the many, too many, without power want necessary change and a “course correction” while a ‘window of opportunity’ remains open. Note to us all: the window is closing steadily in our time. When unbridled production, consumption and propagation activities of the human species are occurring synergistically, expanding rampantly and effectively overspreading earth, perhaps this moment in space-time is an occasion to do something that is different and somehow right … for a change.
No one knows what is possible once we begin somehow to do things differently from the ways that we are doing things now here on our planet. At the moment we know that silence has overcome science; that greed has vanquished fairness and equity; that ignorance and stupidity have almost obliterated common sense and reason; that hubris has virtually annihilated humanness. Like it or not, ready or not, we are presented with enormous challenges.
Let us hope that our most able responses to the human-induced and -driven existential ecological threats looming ominously before humanity do not come too late to make a difference that makes a difference. There is much to do. Human limits, global planetary limitations and time constraints are the factors to which we are called upon to respond ably with all deliberate speed.
If only the world worked the way we want it to! That all-too-human creatures with feet of clay were actually self-proclaimed ‘masters of the universe’ in more ways than “name only.” By evading extant scientific knowledge about our distinctly human creatureliness and the biophysical limitations of the planet we inhabit; by widely sharing and consensually validating utterly false, hubristic thinking regarding our seemingly god-like super-human capabilities and Earth as a maternal presence … imagined as an eternally expressive teat; by denying that earth is relatively small and finite with a frangible environment, it may be that the human community is not able to evade the consequences of our patently unsustainable behavior. Can we rise above our apparent incapacity to respond ably or not? Can we do so in a short time-frame so we avoid insurmountable “doomsday scenarios”?
Note the exquisite talents demonstrated by the savants among us or the teachers, poets, artists from whom there emanates universally shared, humane values, principles and practices for living or the leaders who have not sold out their souls for the poisoned fruits of power, gluttony, greed, wrath, pride, envy and effortless ease. The global challenges presented to our generation of elders are likely different from the threats to human well being that had to be confronted by our ancestors. But that does not mean, even for a moment, that their challenges were either more or less difficult from the ones we face.
If our ancestors had not acknowledged, addressed and overcome the challenges before them, I dare say that we would not be here now. It does not appear that our generation of elders has so much as begun to struggle in a meaningful way with the global challenges before us. We collectively have been running away from our responsibilities and duties to the family of humanity and Earth’s well being in general.
Our children and their children after them will say that we have failed them. Their true statement, perhaps spoken some day soon as a refrain, is not acceptable and cannot become our enduring legacy to life on this planet and to the planet, itself. We cannot luxuriate in our willful ignorance and self-serving hysterical blindness any longer.
The moment to step up, take hold, and move forward courageously is at hand. The time has come to accept the challenges already dimly visible in the offing. Let us speak out as if we are a million voices because so many of us remaining electively mute make us complicit in the destruction of Earth and life as we know it. Are better, more responsible courses of action available to us? If so, other ways of going forward need to be discovered, discussed and implemented, fast.
Steven Earl Salmony, Ph.D., M.P.A.
The AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population
Established 2001
Chapel Hill, NC
USA
I think desmogblog should be included as well they deal with the pr side of of fossi fuel denialism