What do you think?

The following is a special guest post by an awesome Junior Greenist.

These products smell like lotion and lavender. They feel like face soap. I like to use them so I don’t get acne and I do get beautiful skin. It is important to me that these are all natural so they don’t harm me or the environment. I expected beautiful skin. The result was beautiful, smooth, shiny, and natural skin. I recommend Good For You Girls.

By Sophie, age 8

If you’re anything like me, you love watching the Oscars every year for the pageantry, the recognition of good movies, and — let’s face it — the fashion. Just once I’d like to swan around on a red carpet in a ridiculously gorgeous dress, hobnobbing with celebrities and thanking all the little people. I’m a girl; that’s how we roll.

Anyway, while most of the attention is placed on what the actresses are wearing, you may have noticed the woman in blue sitting next to James Cameron. That woman is his wife, Suzy Amis Cameron, and she was wearing the most eco-friendly dress of the night.

The dress was designed by a Michigan State University student named Jillian Granz, who won an eco-dress design contest that raised money for an eco-friendly elementary school. Amis created the contest herself and promised to wear the winning dress on Oscar night. The rules were that the dress had to be made of sustainable fabrics and constructed using earth-friendly methods.

Cameron called the color of Amis’ dress “Avatar blue” because it matches the skin tone of the Na’vi characters in his movie. The dress is made from ahimsa, also known as “peace silk,” which is spun from cocoons without killing the worm inside.

Given the green message behind Avatar, it’s appropriate that Cameron’s date wore this dress. (It would have been a little weird for Cameron himself to wear it.) I liked it when I saw it while watching the Oscars, but now that I know it’s so eco-friendly, I like it even more. What do you think?

Mark your calendars for EarthHour, March 27th!

Take a minute to vote for your favorite Ideas for Change.

Grist says cocaine addicts make a major contribution to global warming.

Fake Plastic Fish talks about plastic and pop culture.

Rob has 4 AMAZING recipes using leftovers.

Tiny Choices needs some gardening advice.

The Daily Green takes a look at an American Express program that pays volunteers $5/hour.

Inhabitat reports on a car that runs on coffee grounds, which is brilliant, but I’m guessing the exhaust fumes would create some mean cravings and further fuel my coffee addiction.

Our good green buddy The Good Human is nominated for a Best of Green award!  Vote early and vote often (seriously, you can).

But what I love discovering even more is places that are fully committed to green products, like Green Depot. I was in NYC this past week and while walking around town one day, I just happened to walk by Green Depot on Bowery in Manhattan, so I had to stop in for a look. Inside I found every green product you could imagine: cleaning products, paint, candles, baby bedding, flooring, furniture. You name it, if you can make it in a sustainable manner, it was probably there.

The store has only been open for about a year, but the Brooklyn company got its start about five years ago as a supplier of green building materials. Right now, the flagship Manhattan shop appears to the only all-encompassing lifestyle store, but there are still Green Depot building supply stores all around the northeast. For those of us who aren’t so fortunate to have either kind of location nearby, there’s a website you can order from.

While I’m completely bummed that this awesome store isn’t accessible to everyone, maybe by supporting its website, we can help Green Depot to grow its business and expand around the country. (I can always dream, right?)

I’ve never fully climbed aboard the biofuel bandwagon. There are just far too many hurdles to . If you rely on corn or sugarcane to produce ethanol fuel additives, food prices will skyrocket – we saw a glimpse of that back in 2007. The biggest problem, however, is ramping up production. A 2009 report estimated that biofuels made up just over 2 million tons of oil equivalent for transport in the European Union while conventional fossil fuels made up more than 310 million tons. The more environmentally sensible way of making biofuels is the so called ‘biomass-to-liquid’ approach, which involves using the left over bits of crop plants to make ‘green gasoline’. This type of biofuel made up about 2,000 tons of the 310 million tons of fuel used in the EU in 2009. As wonderful an idea as it is, biomass fuels are not currently a viable alternative.

I’m happy to be a skeptic, but less comfortable as a cynic. Thus, I decided to check in on to see what the biofuel gang was up to, and even from a skeptic’s viewpoint things are getting interesting. James Dumesic, an engineer at the University of Wisconsin, and his colleagues described a technique that can convert a chemical found in beer, coffee and chocolate directly into liquid hydrocarbons that could be used for fuel.

-valerolactone (GVL) is an aromatic organic liquid that has been proposed to be useful as a fuel additive that can be blended with gasoline. It is reported to be as efficient as ethanol as a fuel additive, but that’s not what we’re talking aboit today.

Dumesic’s paper, published in the most recent issue of Science, describes a method of converting GVL efficiently to a state that can be used directly as transportation fuels without blending. Dumesic’s group describes an improved method to create GVL from two acids which are formed when other acids are used to break down cellulose – plentiful in biomass – into sugars. In effect, what Dumesic has made the whole process more efficient. Rather than making a biofuel that can serve as a fuel additive – reducing the amount of gasoline used in your car – they have developed a process of making a biofuel that can replace the gasoline used in your car.

And that’s not all! The carbon dioxide produced as a byproduct of the process is released as a pure, pressurised steam that Dumesic claims “can potentially be captured and then treated or sequestered to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions from the process”. Green and clean.

The problem? Well there are a few, but the biggest is still production. You aren’t going to see Dumesic’s biofuel at the pump any time soon. Virent, Dumesic’s spin-off company, was producing one liter of their previous generation biofuel a day in 2009. Even with the more efficient process, their output isn’t likely to get to significant levels any time soon. Still and all, it is baby steps isn’t it?

Image credit

Often times, my posts here at The Greenists are inspired by a word or phrase I hear in passing and wonder what it means. I then do a little basic research and a little while later, voila — I’ve got myself a post. Of course, this means a lot of my writing here comes off as Green Topics for Dummies, but hey — I’m a dummy about a lot of stuff, and we can all use a little basic knowledge sometimes. Right? We’ll go with that.

Anyway, I don’t remember where I heard a reference to ecovillages (though I can assure you it was NOT the 1996 Pauly Shore gem known as Bio-Dome), but hear it I did, and so set out to find out what they really are.

Essentially, ecovillages are small communities of people who share common spiritual, economic, and ecological values. Often they see the modern lifestyles embraced by much of the world, including factory farming, consumerism and urban sprawl, as a threat to the natural order of life. Ecovillages are an alternative to modern living, and the goal is often to minimize ecological impact as much as possible.

Today, there are ecovillages in more than 70 countries on six continents. You may be thinking that the inhabitants of these villages live in tents or mud huts or something along those lines, but that’s not actually the case. Most ecovillages include housing — it’s just sustainable housing, built around efficiency, sustainability and community. You can rent or buy a place, just like regular neighborhoods.

In short, ecovillages are not as out-there as you might think. They include schools, churches, and pedestrian-friendly infrastructures. Many are located just outside major cities, with easy access to public transportation. You could think of them as homeowners associations with earth-friendliness as their central goal.

Governments across the world are starting to see the examples set by these ecovillages, and they’re starting to give out grant money so these ecovillages can serve as models for low-impact development. One ecovillage in Wales recently was given £350,000 to build more sustainable buildings.

What do you think of ecovillages? Does anyone out there live in one or near one? What do you think we can learn from ecovillages? Would you like to see more of them, or is this a little too extreme for you? Please share.

Inhabitat finds shoes made from recycled TVs.

And Greenopolis finds shoes that come in an envelope, ready to be assembled.

Enviroblog asks if you’ve ever checked your home for chemicals.

Grist ponders the junk food tax.

EarthFirst (who has a great new site design!) wonders if it’s time to free Willy.

One Green Generation has 10 ways cloths can save the planet.

Nature Moms wants to know if your child can identify popular fruits and veggies.

Chiot’s Run gives us a primer on the shelf life of seeds.

Tiny Choices gives the best green tip ever – don’t clean!

If you’re anything like me, you often look at solar panels, tankless water heaters, and other home greenification products with a mix of admiration and sadness. The admiration is obviously in response to the marketplace including more and more earth-friendly items all the time, but the sadness sets in when I realize I can’t afford any of that stuff. Going green is great, but it’s often expensive up front. Of course, solar panels and tankless water heaters pay for themselves over time, but the up-front cost is still prohibitive for many people.

But what if there was a way you could green up your home now and pay for it later? If you live in a community with a Property Assessed Clean Energy, there is. PACE programs allow homeowners to borrow money for efficiency upgrades, then pay it back over a span of up to 20 years. You repay the loan by adding a little extra onto your property tax bill.

The program works like this: A city, county, or other municipality creates a district to issue bonds. Investors buy the bonds, which raises money to lend to property owners. It was launched in Berkeley, Calif., in 2008, and has since expanded to include many more cities and states. To find out if you can take advantage of the PACE program where you live, consult this list (scroll down a bit to see the list of participating cities, counties and states).

What do you think of this idea? Would you borrow money from your municipality to make your home more energy-efficient? If so, what kind of improvements would you make?