thegreenguy

Who are your green online communities?

Next week's Energy Saving Week, and on Monday I'm joining the EST (the organisers) at a round-table talk with big-wigs from businesses, NGOs and religious groups. I'll be chatting to them about the wired green web, so I wanted to hear from you - which online green communities do you hang out in? Do you post comments on blogs such as Treehugger and Hippyshopper? Do you live in forums like Friends of the Earths' and New Builder's? Or are you on Facebook 24/7 lapping up the I Am Green and Greenbook apps? Let me know in the comments and I'll spread the word next week with some influential men and women.

Digital switch, TV reuse and me

Sorry for all the 'me-me-me', but for housekeeping's sake here's a link to a piece in last weekend's Telegraph quoting me blabbing away about reusing and recycling your telly if you're switching to digital. For all those Whitehaveners - try giving your old TVs away or flogging them before going down recycle road.

Me on The Compost Heap (an interview)

The ever industrious Jason of Ethical Jobs - who seems to launch a new green site every week and makes me feel lazy - has run an interview with me on his new eco interviews blog, The Compost Heap. There's also with one with Chris, a chap who runs a recycling firm.

My fling with Eco Wool insulation

Saw your own breath this morning? Yep, it's nippy out, which is why I headed over to B&Q last weekend to pile up on insulation bric-a-brac for the house. The Heater Wars have already begun at Chez Vaughan, with my wife and I alternately turning it on and off, so I've decided to try and trap as much heat as possible. I'll extrapolate on the radiator foil, thermostatic valves, foam stuff and other such scintillating hot products soon, but for now I want to talk loft insulation. Specifically, the eight bags I bought of B&Q's new cheapo green option, Eco Wool.

Thousands due at St Pauls' climate rally this lunch

I've just got back from the preparations for this lunch's Cut the Carbon rally at St Pauls church in London - and it looks good. There'll be 2,000+ people attending, according to organisers Christian Aid. If you're in the vicinity - that's all office monkeys in zone one, me included - then pop along at 12.45 to hear a samba band and bunch of speakers talking at 1pm. The cause: making sure the gov's Climate Bill is a tough one, with an 80 per cent CO2 cut by 2050, rather than the current out-moded 60 per cent aim.

Top 10 organic, Fairtrade and vegan chocolates

I've got a piece over on the Guardian today on the top ten ethical chocolates in the UK - i.e. the best-tasting ones with the most scrupulous commitments to Fairtrade, organic standards and the environment. Obviously, any such list is going to be subjective, so let me know what your favourite ethical chocs are in the comments. One chocolatier that narrowly missed out on the list was Chocaid, which donates money to Save the Children. Update: Seventypercent.com has a very interesting response to my article  here. If you ever eat chocolate, it's worth reading.

Electrisave gets reborn as... wait for it... Owl

Ah, you gotta love branding exercises. Some clever people have decided the Electrisave - a nice, literal, fairly memorable product name - should now be called the Owl. Check out its new site here. There is one thing to celebrate, and that's improved distribution - you can now buy it at B&Q.

Help London 'do a Modbury' and ban plastic bags

Live in London? Here's your chance to tell your council if you'd like plastic bags banned across the capital or - alternatively - heavily taxed like they are in Ireland. Click here to find out more, and here to submit your views directly. Personally, the over-consumption of plastic bags doesn't keep me awake at night in the same way as bigger carbon cutting tricks do. Still, most do use oil - some are corn starch - and I don't think anyone apart from the dude in American Beauty would consider bags swirling down our streets 'beautiful'. You can read more about Modbury, the Devon town that kicked off the bag-banning trend, here. [via Tom Taylor's ever useful Delicious links]

CNET goes green

For those mates and work colleagues who were wondering what rabbit hole I'd disappeared down... I can now stop being enigmatic and reveal I'm working over at CNET Networks UK. I can tell you absolutely zip about the details, but can say that we're launching a UK green consumer lifestyle site that I'm really, really excited about. I'm biased, of course, but I think this is a site that'll - in the long term - genuinely shake up the green web. Watch this space!

Closed for holiday - back soon

I'm off to Greece this weekend for a fortnight, so the blog'll be a little quiet. For anyone wondering - we are flying and we had to go to Greece anyway for family reasons. We worked out an itninerary (via Man in Seat 61) for doing the whole shebang by train and boat, which involved a brilliant-sounding Transylvanian section. Sadly, it also involved manically rushing around and spending only one night in every city. I've given up on carbon offsetting, but I'll be doing some DIY offsetting this autumn by properly insulating our new house.