Green is the new Blackle

I've got sustainable living on the brain because tomorrow is Earth Day, and also because I spent part of my weekend helping my sister construct a crank-powered flashlight that can be charged by a child using a sit-and-spin for school. Nice. So, here's a hodge-podge list of all things green on the web right now. (See an earlier post for more enviro-friendly sites.)

• Yahoo! Green: Yahoo's information portal on all things relating to an environmentally-conscious lifestyle. Includes environmental news headlines, blogs, and online tools to calculate your carbon footprint and help you improve the environmental impact of your everyday life.


• Instructables: Instructables is an online forum for sharing unique, and oftentimes outlandish, DIY projects. Described as a "show-and-tell" of DIY projects, it allows people to view, learn how to build, and collaborate on their own and other people's mix-media projects. The reason I include this site on this green list, is because of the way it allows us to explore new uses for old materials - bringing recycling and re-use to a new level of imagination and interactivity.


• Lighter Footstep: This site is a web-based magazine showcasing articles and forums on sustainable living. Also check out ecoTumble, sister site to Living Footstep, that serves as an online "scrapbook" of links, trvia, and tidbits to do with living green.


• Energy Star: Energy Star is a government program sponsored by the US departments of Energy and Environmental Protection to add incentive for US consumers to buy energy-efficient products. Their home on the web is a wealth of information on energy efficiency ratings for consumer products, plans on how to build an energy-efficient home, and a list of rebates and incentives on environmentally-friendly consumer products that you can cash in on.