A strange confluence of events lead to the Green Festival, the Dalai Lama's visit and the Georgetown Art Attack to all hit the same weekend. The gorgeous weather inspired us to hit up the Green Festival at the WA State convention ctr.

We were overwhelmed by the number of vendors in the exhibit area, over 300 is what we read somewhere. Here are the highlights:

Computer Reuse & Recycling - What to do w/ all the extra hardware we computer geeks accumulate? Really the best thing to do is to find a needy relative or friend who needs to upgrade their rig. Reuse>Recycling. If you do opt to recycle, in the age of identity theft, you need to be careful who gets your old hard-drives. InterConnection provides lots of options including drop-off, pick-up or mail-in and better yet - all data is securely wiped from hard drives for free using DoD standards.

• Get your Chocolate On! - ZOMG the assortment of organic chocolate on display was mind-boggling, and it was goooood. If you're reading this before the show ends on 4/13 and you love your chocolate - RUN do not walk - to that show-floor and gorge yourself on free samples. We particularly enjoyed the 3400 Phinney Chocolate Factory's Hazelnut Crunch and NiB Brittle.

Travel with an Edge - Do you love travel,  adventures AND have a social conscience? You might want to check out Reality Tours. They offer a variety of educational, socially responsible tour programs that address political, economic, environmental, social and cultural issues around the world.

Kwytza Chopstick Art - These guys recycle chopsticks and turn them into great looking accessories. We picked up a large folding basket for the fruit in our kitchen.

Green Design - We wished we'd been able to come to this show before we started the home remodeling. Turns out that there are some new outfits that combine modern/contemporary design with green/sustainable materials. Sara blogged about them.

Funny Stuff we didn't try - Ever have the urge to give a notepad full of paper made from recycled elephant poop? No neither did we - but it's a cool idea. Likewise the eco-friendly "martial aids" from Good Clean Love. I will say the woman working the booth got a little uptight when I just wanted to take a picture of the booth sign so I could remember the name of the company - relax lady, you're in the love business!

OK this took balls! I love it. (via Boing Boing) 

Yes Men crash oil expo, propose turning corpses into fuel

Cory Doctorow: Master pranksters The Yes Men crashed the Gas and Oil Exposition 2007 in Calgary this week, impersonating a rep from the National Petroleum Council at a keynote in which they proposed to convert people who died from climate change disasters into fuel.

 After noting that current energy policies will likely lead to "huge global calamities" and disrupt oil supplies, Wolff told the audience "that in the worst case scenario, the oil industry could "keep fuel flowing" by transforming the billions of people who die into oil," said a Yes Men press release.

Yes Man Mike Bonnano, posing as an Exxon representative named Florian Osenberg, added that "With more fossil fuels comes a greater chance of disaster, but that means more feedstock for Vivoleum. Fuel will continue to flow for those of us left."

The impostors led growingly suspicious attendees in lighting Vivoleum candles made, they said, from a former Exxon janitor who died from cleaning a toxic spill. When shown a mock video of the janitor professing his desire to be turned in death into candles, a conference organizer pulled Bonanno and Bichlbaum from the stage.

As security guards led Bonanno from the room, Bichlbaum told reporters that "Without oil we could no longer produce or transport food, and most of humanity would starve. That would be a tragedy, but at least all those bodies could be turned into fuel for the rest of us."

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Check out this Beer bottle solar water heater.

[via Boing Boing]

David Pescovitz: Ma Yanjun, a farmer in China's Shaanxi province, reportedly built a DIY solar water heater out of 66 beer bottles. According to Weird Asia News, water flowing through the bottles is heated by the sun and then routed into the bathroom for showers. Apparently, ten other families in his village. Qiqiao, have since built similar systems. From Weird Asia News:

This is about as sexy a hybrid as I've ever seen. Only a concept car, but still perhaps a sign of things to come. From Toyota of course.

Link to Autopia

You have to tip your hat to a power company that rewards its customers for using less of its product. Puget Sound Energy is currently up to $1100 in instant rebates to customers who implement more energy efficient solutions in their house - everything from using Compact Fluorescent light-bulbs to insulating your house. I'll be taking advantage of their offer to schedule a free no-obligation weatherization estimate visit to my home. Visit their web-site or call their hotline at 800-562-1482 for more info.

We've been talking about getting a new car for a few months, and we'd just read about the Green Car Company here in Kirkland that specializes in eco-friendly vehicles (out of the 200 Smart Cars sold in the US, 80 of them were sold here).

We went mostly for the education - to understand the pros and cons of choosing a Smart Car vs. Electric vs. Bio-Diesel. But while we were there we couldn't resist taking a Smart Car out on a test-drive. It was a hoot, they're fun to drive with a lil pep. They have a tiptronic transmission so you can toggle between manual & automatic and they can turn on a dime. They get about 50 MPG, but they're not cheap - they start around $25K. Anyways, if we weren't seriously trying to start a family now we'd consider it but it's not practical for us right now - nevertheless it was fun to drive and we got lots of stares and pointing fingers wherever we drove.

If you've ever been curious to find out how much CO2 you put into the air, here's a web-site that can give you a very general or more exact calculation based primarily on your house, your car and how frequently you travel by air.

With this information in hand, if you're so inclined you can invest in programs like Climate Trust and NetGreen that are devoted to planting trees and other initiatives to off-set Carbon emissions. 

Based on the web-site we generate roughly 30 tons of CO2 a year, which currently would require $300 of annual contributions to off-set. I think this is a great way to get started.

The latest issue of Seattle Metropolitan has a great series of green articles this month, including 30 ways to save your health, the planet & money too and a feature on a new housing development partnership called Urbansight, that specializes in stylish, sustainable, eco-housing in Seattle.