Why 350? Scientists say that 350 parts per million CO2 in the atmosphere is the safe limit for humanity – we are currently at 387. The intent is to use community photos collected from around the world to advocate for a reduction in CO2 emissions.

Jennifer Mathis, the founder of The Little Green Bag Project, is has created Lowcountry 350 – an opportunity for all of us to participate in this global event. On Saturday, October 24, head down to the Mount Pleasant Memorial Waterfront Park via alternative travel (walk, run, bike, skate, swim, row – just don’t drive!) for the Lowcountry 350 Climate Action Day Photo <- RSVP on the Facebook page. The event starts at 3 p.m., and the photo will be taken at 3:50 p.m. Hope to see you there!

Here in the Charleston-area, it can be tough to go about your day without a car, but it can be done. Here are a couple things that can help:

• Check out the local CARTA routes
• Visit Craigslist for carpooling options
• Charleston Moves has some great information for local bikers

Check out the World Carfree Day Wiki for more information and opportunities to get involved.

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!

Be sure to checkout the Global Warming Guy website too – thanks Brian!

When I spoke to the store managers last week, they said they would look into it – but clearly nothing has changed. People are concerned, which is evident by the blogosphere reaction here, here, and here. I am concerned too. Apparently I’m going to have to contact Limited Brands headquarters if I want to see some real action. I’ll keep you posted.

In the mean time, I hope to get down to King Street to see how bad the open door situation is there. I promise there are more posts and photos to come.

There’s a ton of information out there on carbon offset providers – enough to make your head spin. I went with CarbonFund.org because they are a nonprofit, they fund amazing projects, and they gave me the option choose where my money would go (I put it all into renewable energy projects.) To offset my vehicle, it cost about $50. So now I feel a little better about things until I can purchase a hybrid, and my summer road tripping got a little greener.

If you’re interested in going carbon-free, here are a few vendors:

• www.carbonfund.org
• www.carboncounter.org
• www.terrapass.com

I went back the next day with my kids in tow, and the doors were open again. I asked both store managers if they knew their doors were open. Of course they did, and even mentioned that they were asked to prop them open. Really? It turns out they have the same boss…and the stores have the same owner: Limited Brands, Inc – LTD.

The bottom line is that Limited Brands management is telling store/shift managers to leave exterior doors open on hot days in order to entice shoppers into the store. In an era of eco-aware investors, this is a risky practice for a publicly-traded company. At least they aren’t one of these companies touting how green they’ve become.

Oops, wait a minute – they are…

Speaking on his company’s social responsibility, the CEO of Limited Brands, Les Wexner, is quoted on their website as saying, “I believe companies like ours should be a source for good. For us. For our communities. For the world.” Well, Les, you’ve certainly got the “For us.” part down – a few extra sales at the expense of the planet. Nice Les.

But Les isn’t the only Limited Brands executive getting in on the green. Tom Hellman, Executive VP of Compliance Services, hosts a three minute video focusing on how environmental stewardship is a core value of Limited Brands. Granted, they have made major changes in how their catalogs are made, but only after some severe internet-based activism. But now they need to fix this issue too. After all, energy is the first thing on their own list of environmental actions – and they need to know that leaving doors open in summer is wasting energy faster than their new lighting can save it.

We need to do something to encourage these businesses to stop this ignorant and worthless practice – at the Town Center, on King Street, and everywhere else in the Lowcountry. Leaving doors open with the AC running can account for up to 25% of energy used in a business, and that’s a lot of money. If businesses don’t want to do it for the planet, maybe they’ll do it for the cash.

Either way, we need to address this issue – like they did up in Ontario. In the mean time, if you catch a store with their doors open on a hot day, please ask them to close them (or close them yourself!)

If you can make it (right now I don’t have a sitter!), this is great opportunity to join the rest of the world in an effort to save our planet.  I hope to see you there!

• What: South Carolina “Change the Climate” Concert
• Who: Analog Moon, Josh Roberts, and Danielle Howle.
• Where: Music Farm, 32 Ann St., Charleston, S.C. 29403
• When: Saturday, July 7th, 8:00 PM

Hope to see you there!

I’m not convinced. The theory that we can use ethanol as a viable fuel alternative has problems. I blogged about this last year, and was shocked by some of these facts:

• If we used all the corn produced in the United States to produce ethanol, it would provide only 7 percent of our total vehicle fuel use.
• If every car in America was fully powered by ethanol, it would take 97 percent of U.S. soil to grow enough corn to support it.
• About 30 percent more fossil energy is required to produce a gallon of ethanol than you actually get out in ethanol.
• Corn causes more soil erosion in the United States than any other crop.
• Corn uses more nitrogen fertilizer than any other single crop, and it’s the prime cause of the dead zone down in the Gulf of Mexico.
• Corn also uses more insecticides and herbicides than any other crop.
• Each acre of corn drains 500,000 gallons of water over three months.

The thought of wasting all these resources creating an ethanol infrastructure that will never solve our problems is crazy. Where is SC going to get all the corn? As mentioned in this article, we are a corndeficit state – meaning we consume more corn than we grow. So where is International Bio Energy going to get the corn for their ethanol plant?

The corn would be bought from domestic suppliers, including South Carolina farmers, Starnes said, and also from overseas.

Talk about NOT going local. My gut tells me this effort is an energy net-loss. Bringing in corn from other states and countries can’t be cheap, and neither can shipping off the ethanol after refinement. This does not seem to be a viable model, and doesn’t seem to have local interests in mind.

However, I did read something positive in that article. At the very bottom, Southeast BioDiesel is mentioned because they are building a plant on the old navy base that will convert used cooking oil from local restaurants into a non-toxic fuel alternative. I’m not sure biodiesel is any better than ethanol as a viable, long-term solution, but at least their model solves a local waste problem by reusing cooking oil.

I really want to see people, government, and businesses actually working to reduce our dependence on driving, not oil. With no viable alternative fuel in sight, and peak oil looming, it is clear to this blogger that we need to drive less. We need to change our habits, not what we put into our gas tanks – and articles like this touting miracle fuel alternatives (OK, I’m being dramatic) only distract us from working on real change.