BijanBlog

The beauty of brown in the bay area

  Summer in the bay area 
  Originally uploaded by bsabet.

In the late spring and summer, the bay area turns brown. The green grass fades and the brown takes over.

When I first moved to the bay area in the early 90's, one of my friends who grew up in SF told me that I would learn to appreciate the beauty of brown. At first I didn't get it. To me it just felt like nature was sleeping. It felt even a grim in a way. I was coming from the northeast where late spring/summer means rain which means green grass and lush plants everywhere.  Lauren didn't get the brown beauty either at the time.

By the time we returned to Boston in 2001, we got it. We understood.

I'm in the bay area this week. This afternoon as I was driving from Palo Alto to SF along 280 I had to pull the car over and take this photo.

Brown is beautiful.

Method

We recently started buying cleaning products from Method

Lauren made the the discovery and i'm glad she did.

Great quality, non-toxic, recyclable materials, biodegradeable and no animal testing.
Nice design & packaging too -  I think even my friend Josh would approve :)

I think its cool that they have "advocates" on their site

Highly recommend it.

GreenDimes

We just signed up for GreenDimes

It's a very simple service that does two things

-removes junk mail by 75-90%
-plants a tree every month on your behalf (you get to decide which continent you want your trees planted)

costs $36/year

no brainer

RelightNY

Alex Blum, CEO of KickApps, has a post today about a really cool web site powered by KickApps widgets.

RelightNY was started by a group of teenagers that care about the environment and global warming. It's a  is a nonprofit dedicated to the cause of changing every light bulb in Manhattan to energy-efficient CFL light bulbs.

They already have some great sponsors lined up. It's wonderful to see kids working hard in something they believe in. When I was in high school I was hacking away on electric guitar, working on my frontside handplant on my skateboard and playing sports. I wasn't thinking about the environment.

I'm going to show this to my kids when I get home tonight.

Here's an overview about RelightNY

(disclaimer: we are investors in KickApps Corporation)

Big Business sides with the environment

Okay that is obviously wishful thinking.

But today several large corporations including GE, Dupont and others have sided with environmental groups  pushing for mandatory federal emissions controls. I know there is a cynical interpretation here but I'm going to take this as a positive.

Memorable quote from the todays Mercury News:

``Action is not only justified, it's critical -- greenhouse-gas emissions are rising at an unprecedented rate,'' said Peter Darbee, CEO of San Francisco-based PG&E, which provides energy to 5 percent of the U.S. market.

GW is still against federal controls. Make your voice heard.