What are you working on eliminating? Oil-based gas, plastic bags, food from far off continents? Bottled water, dirty electricity, resource-intensive meat? Let us know in the new Go Green Poll.

Results from the last Go Green Poll, Summer is here – what sustainable action are you focused on?, can be viewed after the jump >>

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

When Whipple Road was given a make-over, we thought this important vein in Mount Pleasant would have state of the art design. Sharrows for cyclists, a wide pedestrian path, etc. I gotta say, we’re a bit disappointed. The lanes are just wide enough so that SUVs can whiz past cyclists straddling the asphalt/concrete line. The sidewalk is right next to speeding traffic. Badly engineered ramps and crossings fill with giant puddles when it rains.

I know the goal of the project was to add a center turn lane and stoplight, but you’d think a more progressive attitude for pedestrians and cyclists would be present. It’s clear this project was not about how people use the road, but how the machines do.

I want our city to become sustainable in every way, including about ability to leave our cars parked. It’s National Bike Month, so get out there and pedal around this amazing city. Support local groups like Charleston Moves, and read Nikki Seibert’s blog. Learn the cycling laws in our area, and get out there an explore.

Check out these great stats from this blog post:

• More than half of cars trips made by Americans would take less than 20 minutes on a bike, but ninety percent of all trips of between one and three miles or less are taken by car.  Likewise, fifty-nine percent of trips less than one mile are made by car.
• Increasing the bicycle and pedestrian share of trips between one and three miles from the current level of 4 percent to about 10 percent would avoid approximately 21 billions miles of driving.
• In 2007, less than half of all Americans met the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) recommendation of at least 30 minutes of modest physical activity on most days.
• Americans spend some $33 billion a year on weight-loss products and services.
  
• Modest increases in bicycling and walking for short trips could provide enough exercise for 50 million inactive Americans to meet recommended activity levels, erasing a sizable chunk of America’s activity deficit.

Wow, we can do better! How can we get our city to be more progressive?

We often talk about “voting with our dollars” when it comes to green purchasing, but it’s often difficult to see the impact of these small actions. Carrotmob solves that problem by organizing people who care about the environment, and using their collective buying power to negotiate with businesses who want to “green up”. Carrotmob Charleston has decided to focus its attention on Queen Street Grocery, who has pledged to reinvest 33% of their sales on April 11 towards improving their energy efficiency. That rocks!

The Carrotmob movement started in San Francisco, and is spreading around the world. The program is successful on many levels: Encouraging green behavior in businesses, fostering community involvement, supporting local business, and drawing attention to environmental issues.

The idea was brought to the attention of Green Drinks Charleston, who saw an opportunity and ran with it. Thanks to their support, along with Carolina’s Eco-Unit, the event is taking place on Saturday, April 11th. All you need to do is show up and buy something – pretty simple!

The Farmers Market in Marion Square also kicks off on Saturday, so there’s plenty of reasons to hit the peninsula and get your green on.

Here’s one of the first of many local videos:

charleston carrotmob is in full effect from Justin Nathanson on Vimeo.

With that huge bill still in my hand, I quickly scribbled a list of ways to cut back. Some are good habits we’ve been bad at keeping, and others are just common sense. There are plenty of energy conservation lists online (here, here, and here), but I wanted to share the things we are doing in our little world. Here’s the five did right away:

• Hand wash more dishes
• Turn off the entertainment center power strip
• Turn off iMac, even though it likes to be on
• Power down PC, turn off monitor and speakers
• Turn off lights! Turn off lights! Turn off lights!

Here’s the rest of that quick list…

• Line dry more this Spring
• Unplug baby monitor wall wart when not in use
• Keep thermostat colder/hotter to save
• Get LED lights
• Install solar hot water heater (we can dream, right?)
• Unplug the TV
• Unplug the kid’s jambox
• Turn off ceiling fans (might make A/C less efficient)
• Turn off the kids glowing egg (dont’ ask)

So, what are you doing? Let us know below…

Energy efficient mortgages sound interesting, as they help bundle in sustainable add-ons to the home during the loan process. This allows home buyers to quality for larger loans, which means better, more efficient homes.  If you want to learn more, head down to Yo Burrito on Wednesday, February 11th at 6:30 p.m. for Charleston’s Green Happy Hour™.

The SC Says NO movement is bringing environmentally-minded organizations, business, and residents together from around the state to advocate for cleaner energy sources. You can help by signing the online petition urging state regulators, the Governer, and the Santee Cooper Board of Directors to exercise their authority and discontinue plans for this coal plant. 

Sign the petition »

Having voluntarily made the switch, I was able to enlist my old lights in an energy savings experiment. I put the same number of regular and LED lights outside on the bushes, and inside on the tree. Then I used my Kill A Watt usage monitor to get some data on exactly how much energy and money each set of 480 bulbs would burn every 24 hours.

The bottom line: My LED lights used 85% less energy than the traditional lights, and cost only 5¢ per day to operate. This saved me $10.75 over the 5-week period (LEDs cost $1.95; Incadescent cost $12.70) Not bad! 

This experiment proved to me that LED lights truly are more efficient, and got me excited about the future. A big chunk of U.S. energy is used on lighting, and if we could systematically reduce that by 85%-95% the impacts are clear. I think we’ll be seeing a lot more LED technology in the near future – even the tree in Francis Marian Park had LED lights this year!

So if you want to green up your holidays, definitely check out LED lights…I’m happy I did! If you want to check your own energy usage, you can pick up a Kill A Watt EZ at Amazon.com, or do the calculations yourself. You can also purchase LED lights online, and definitely check the local big box stores for deals this time of year.

In addition to this amazing new resource, the actual meetups themselves have gone high tech. You can now enjoy the alternative energy goodness from the comfort of your own home, using the online service GoToMeeting. The next web event is November 19 at 6:45 p.m., and will feature a discussion on geothermal energy. Keep up the good work Ian!

Since Fall is a great time to be green, that’s the theme of the latest Go Green Poll. Let us know what Fall-spawned green activity you’re looking forward to – the poll is to your right in our sidebar. You can also check out both polls after the jump.

Here’s the previous poll in case you missed it.

One of the biggest uses of stuff is driving! The cars, gas, parts, emissions, roads, parking lots, accessories – it’s a nightmare of consumerism, and a giant resource hog. Driving less is one of the top 5 things you can do to reduce your impact on the planet, but one of the hardest concepts to approach. Help has arrived…

Charleston resident Nikki Seibert has set up The Road Less Traveled, a blog capturing her experiment with car-free living. Many of the posts are about her bicycle-based adventures, but she also touches on carpooling, riding the bus, and alternative travel facts.

When I decided to sell my car and start riding my bike and taking the bus, I got a wide range of responses, many of which wanted to know how I was planning on doing it (or why, for that matter). This blog is going to help you understand what it really means to be car-free, why everyone should consider it, and how it can realistically be done.

Be sure to check out The Road Less Traveled. Cheers to Nikki for sharing her life with the rest of us!