Sexy Hydrogen Fuel Cell Cars

Fuel Cell Car Kit

Hydrogen Fuel Cell powered Scorpion...bum side

Hydrogen Fuel Cell Scorpion

Sometimes one comes across an image so striking, itbecomes a near obsession. That has been the case for us GSpotters with the Fuel Cell Car Kit from Fat Brain Toys. I mean, once we realized that for less than $130 bucks, we could create a vehicle that essentially runs off water, we were hooked.

How serendipitous then, to be perusing TheCool Hunter.net and see a sleek driveable version of our obsession, Ronn Motor Company's Scorpion, in all it's black and green sexy glory. The car uses a 'hydrogen on demand' technology, which generates water from a holding tank, turns it into hydrogen and then injects it into the car's system. Not only does this approach allow fuel mileage to increase by between 20 to 40%, it also reduces carbon emissions to nearly zero.

This eco-beast will be availble in 2009 for about $150,000.

I found you, Ms New Bootie

Whatever this means to Kim Kardashian, it's all good to us GSpotters.  The more bootylicious ladies rocking green promo tees, the better.  May it be so.

Green Universities

In a Princeton Review survey this year of 10,300 college applicants, 63% said that a college’s commitment to the environment could affect their decision to go there.

A great article in today's NY Times called The Campus - Green, Greener, Greenest goes through the attributes that create an eco-laudable college environment. It's actually quite awesome to see the current college aged generation demanding what we should all expect from large campus environments: energy efficiency, alternative energy, water solutions, eco-education, etc. all incorporated into the traditional amenities.

This article is actually well timed for this GSpotter who is looking into sustainable MBA programs, that not only teach green curriculum, but also walk the talk on campus with sustainable facilities and campus wide consciousness. Sites like Beyond Grey Pinstripes are very helpful in outlining those school doing a good job producing thoughtful business savvy graduates.

The Change We Seek: Las Vegas, Los Angeles, San Francisco

Saturday, July 26:

We left Las Vegas on Thursday after observing what appeared to be a bizarrely quintessential American Dream complete with money, power, and sex, all in the most unlikely natural landscape: the desert. Redeeming the weirdness was our waitress at a delicious Mexican restaurant who told us about her experience carpooling with her two children from Michigan to Las Vegas earlier in the year along with a stranger to save gas money. This reminded us of the great benefit of a company like Zimride, which ensures you know enough about the person you will be carpooling with to create a mutual trust even before you meet them. Because it employs the social networking profile system, you can go as far as choosing a person to ride with who likes your type of music.

The drive from Las Vegas to LA was tough: the driver’s smacking themselves to stay awake, the filmmakers frantically logging and cutting footage for the next day which included an 8:30 call time with ABC World News. The ABC producers requested not only an interview with our team, but also 20 minutes worth of clips from our trip. With 9 million viewers, Ben and Trevor decided it was worth the discomfort of staying up most of the night compiling footage.

Friday’s interview went smashingly, and we then picked up Margaret’s friend and Zimrider Lien to talk about the vast quality of life improvement that comes from carpooling, as opposed to driving alone, to her job at the Getty Museum. We all then went to a delicious dinner and met two Zimriders Casey and Craig who will be traveling to San Francisco with The Change We Seek.

Saturday morning, the team said goodbye to green gal, Margaret, as she flew (air travel now seems so boring now) back to NYC to return to her “real life” of eco-journalist. After a few SF interviews, the rest of the team will be doing the same Sunday evening: Trevor and Ben to movie making in LA; Cristina to studying Economics in her final year at the University of Seville, Spain; and John to scaling Zimride from his new Palo Alto office with partner Logan.

But, the time spent crossing the US and meeting young green entrepreneurs will not soon be forgotten, nor will the footage be misplaced. In fact, we all look forward to reliving the experiences vis-a-vis a bomber documentary to be released next year and submitted to film festivals, as well as further adventures, local and cross continental, carpooling. As long as communities are formed in vehicles, among new friends with common goals and destinations, The Change We Seek will forever continue.

The Change We Seek: Denver, Moab, Las Vegas

Wednesday, July 23:

Denver was awesome: interviews with 1)Marriott, 2)a conservative young law student at University Colorado, and 3)a biodiesel dude. After hearing a corporate POV, we then heard from a 24 year old, politically conservative Tyler Martinez, who gave us a great flip-side opinion on the green debate. He believes in Change, but because he isn’t convinced of man-made Global Warming, he thinks people shouldn’t be told to make change, instead they should want to do it on their own.

On the way out of Denver on I70 we stopped by Golden, CO to meet Ryan from Blue Sun Biodiesel company cultivating agricultural oil for diesel energy. Just as Mr Diesel designed the diesel engine to run off peanut oil but was later beat out by cheaper petroleum oil, now that gas prices are so out of control, biodiesel is a cheaper and greener option. Also to note, as we were leaving, Ryan noted how tired we were and offered that we could stay at his house that night. A sincerely kind and generous offer, but we had to get to Utah.

We arrived at Moab by night, the drive there dramatic as hell. In the morning we stopped by Arches National Park, with its gorgeous rocky mountains of burnt orange and red, impressing us all.

Now we are off to Las Vegas, the complete opposite of this pristine natural wonder: an artificial man made spectacle for an evening of debauchery and fun. We are hoping to snag some great interviews with people on the strip and if they think about all of the energy use?

The Change We Seek: Chicago, Iowa, Omaha, Lincoln

Monday, July 21

We left the Windy City yesterday in the late afternoon after Ben and Trevor finagled some incredible shots driving under Chicago’s El train. Using a camera mounted on the car’s hood, they were able to capture the essence of our daily activities (driving) and then make us check to make sure we had sufficient equipment insurance.

On the beach at Lake Michigan, we scooped up Zimrider Joe who was Couchsurfing for the week in Chicago. Couchsurfing offers travelers a free place to stay and like Zimride, creates trust between previously perfect strangers using online profile information and social networking platforms.

Joe is from Lincoln, NE and knew Iowa and Nebraska as well as our previous Zimrider Mike knew upstate NY. And so he expertly guided us to the World’s Largest Truck Stop on I80 in Iowa, complete with an arcade, movie theater, food court, etc. There, we interviewed truckers and fellow travelers on gas prices (some big a** trucks need about $1200 dollars worth of gas each time), the environment, and Change. Everyone spoke about Change.

We arrived in Omaha at 3am, under a mega dark, elongated cloud that Ben insisted was a tornado, and drove to the home of a good friend of Trevor. Jim was kind enough to put us up, and in the morning we met the with the Omaha Metro Rideshare planners who told us about carpooling solutions coming from local government.

We are now off to Denver to stay at a Marriott, for the third time in the trip as they are one of our fab sponsors, and in the morning we have an exclusive interview with them about their green initiatives.

Zimming down the road...

"The Change We Seek" Carpool Across America: Detroit, Kalamazoo, Chi-town

Cristina drives the Honda

Trevor doing what he does: filming thinking about The Dark Knight

Sunday, July 20th:

Driving into downtown Chicago last night at 2am felt fantastic for reasons that go way beyond the obvious. Here are a few of the others in no particular order:
1) We picked up Zimrider Simon from the Detroit Metro Airport and allowed him to save him a ton of money by not having to fly to Chicago. He in turn, gave us an Austin, Texas perspective with a London twist as he lives in the former and is from the latter.
2)We finally went to the movies in Detroit to see The Dark Knight (INCREDIBLE!!) which was filmed in Chicago, making our arrival feel like we were actually in Gotham City. The overwhelming sens that we were kind of in the movie actually prompted Trevor to accurately copy The Joker (RIP Heath Ledger, whose electrifyingly scary performance deserves a posthumous Oscar for shizz) and freak Margaret out.
3)The ladies will finally get a chance to shop consciously at hot sustainable fashion boutique, Pivot, and speak with the owner Jessa who is supporting green fashion and local environmental initiatives.
4)Whilst in Chicago aka Gotham City we will be going to Barack Obama's National Headquarters which feels like we are going to Wayne Mansion/ The Batcave.

Cheers to the Chi, and getting back on the road to hit Omaha, Nebraska a little earlier than 2am...

Entry 4 "The Change We Seek" Carpool Across America

Group Shot in front of the Buffalo, NY

Saturday July 19th:
We made it! To Canada, that is. Last night at the very tired hour of 10pm as we were approaching Detroit in hopes of reaching the new Dark Knight film at 10:30pm (Trevor can't contain his urge to Batgasm, nor talk about the latest Batman film every 22 minutes) we actually crossed the damn border to be greeted by a customs official. In his Canadian ayccent (don't you know you're in Canada, ay) he told us we had to cross back into the US, prompting Ben to have a mild panic attach, Cristina to explain why she was driving with such bad American navigators ("I just found them on the road...") and delaying our Detroit arrival a bit. Ah well, the joys of roadtripping with a faulty GPS system.

Earlier in the day, back in Cleveland after interviewing the green collar job folks, we picked up another Zimrider and college buddy, Matt Dietz. With Matt in the Prius, we hit up the Cleveland area Barack Obama headquarters in what seemed to be a financially depressed area. From the looks of it, the Obama campaign was emotionally and financially invigorating the area with young professionals and community volunteers alike, working to register voters and spread the Obama message. In fact, we interviewed a nurse, Veronica, who as a single mother was volunteering her time and efforts to canvass the neighborhood on behalf of Senator Obama and Change. In her free time, which she could be spending with her son, or making money with a side job, she stressed to us on camera and off, how she was volunteering to avoid the regret she'd feel post-election if she wasn't part of the movement.

With her sacrifice in mind, we drove west on I90 and passed signs to Toledo, where Spanish company Gamesa is greenvigorating the local economy with massive wind projects. At a gas station to pee and get drinks, we overheard the most interesting conversations between pissed off drivers and the station's attendants. "It's $3.88 per gallon down the road and here it's $3.98. Why are you guys trying to cheat us?" and "I have a $10 but please fill up only $5 dollars worth so I have $5 left tomorrow. " Poor workers; their minimum wage jobs have nothing to do with the pricing nor decision making, and yet they take all the abuse. In fact, one attendant looked so used to being a verbal punching bag, that he asked to come with us on the trip. He said he couldn't just leave, he had rent to pay, so we left and continued on down the road towards Detroit via Canada (?!)

Zimming down the road...

Entry 3 "The Change We Seek" Carpool Across America

John with the Buffalo City Carpool Day Proclamation

Margaret and Taylor Marshall at RPM in Ithaca, NY

Abandoned Central Station in Buffalo, NY

Friday, July 18th:

Yesterday, after a solid 6 hours of sleep, we all left Jen and Arthur, John's sis and bro in law's lovely home by the Finger Lakes of Ithaca to meet Rob Young. Prof Young was John Zimmer’s green mentor and professor from Cornell who is currently working at University Oregon on alternative energy solutions and nano-technology applications. Following a smashing interview, we headed to RPM Ecosystems where Marv Marshall and his daughter Taylor explained their patented process for cultivating rapid growth, super strong trees. whose success rate of of 90% (as opposed to 20% for other trees) is hlepng to restore the Mississppi River Basin Area post-Katrina.

After the nursery, we got back on the road to get to Buffalo, in time to meet legislative assistant Jason Kaza, friend of Zimride passenger Michael (London School of Economics grad and Rochester High School History teacher.) In front of a magnificent room with great accoustics and Margaret frantically asking if she could rap the gavel and begging everyone to address her as "Madam Chairwoman", Jason presented John with a resolution. The plaque offically declared July 17th, 2008 Buffalo, NY Carpool Day and thanked Zimride for all their hard work in promoting alternative transportation.

Next Jason took us the city's cavernous and bizarrely abandoned Central Train Station, which Trevor kept saying was perfect for “I Am Legend II” (his mind works in a movie kind of way.) The strangely unused facility with SO much potential instigated a lively conversation among the group about our generation’s lack of community which mass transit automatically creates and how important car sharing will be for rebuilding that community feel.

We had some Buffalo wings, like the real ones, for dinner, and drove three more hours to Cleveland where we arrived loopy as all hell from exhaustion (John, completely delirious from lack of sleep) where Marriott Hotel had 3 complimentary rooms waiting for us, a list of their green initiatives in tow, and goody bags (plastic, but beggars can't be choosers) with snacks and sustenance.

This morning, Friday July 18th, Margaret, Trevor, and Ben let John and Cristina rest whilst they drove into Cleveland to meet up with A Piece of Cleveland who goes to home demolition sites, takes the would-be landfill material and reuses it for beautiful modern furniture. Major shout out to Chris, Ezra, and Aaron (and PJ who we didn't meet) for their great work.

Our meeting was arranged by Kelly from Hard Hatted Women, an organization training women with green collar skills, who work with companies like A Piece of Cleveland, to raise out of positions of economic dispair. Great interviews with her people at one of their demolition sites, whose wood will be recycled for other homes and furniture.

Now we are picking up another Zimrider and hitting the road to Detroit to see what the Motor City has to offer 5 idealistic kids...

Entry 2 Carpooling Across America " The Change We Seek"

Our Zimride Car: Thank you Vermont Clothing Company and ZipCar for your sponsorship!

Cristina and the Prius

We left NYC today, after picking up Zimrider Jesse who was on his way to Ithaca and needed a lift, braved mad congestion and an oddly high number of police cars patrolling Bryant Park (hotbed for terrorism?) and got on the highway. Jesse's stories about being part of a major layoff by a mulitnational retailer kicked off a coversation about the state of our economy, prompting us to think about the fossil fuel based economy and Indy-Mac and Freddie Mac and Fannie May and.... ah the humanity! As we all pndered these woeful issues, John Zimmer fearlessly navigated the caravan (the trailing crew trevor and Ben in the Honda Accord lapping our efficient wake) into Ithaca, NY our evening's destination.

In downtown Ithaca, we picked up another Zimrider, Mike Brown, whose energy and zest for life is downright contagious. Mike has been a 9th grade history teacher in Rochester, NY for the past 3 years and one can only imagine the impact he has had on his students, considering just the impact he has had on our documentary Zimriding crew, already.

With Mike, Jesse, and the fearless five in tow (Cristina, John, Ben, Trevor, and Margaret) we all arrived at John's sister Jen's lovely house where she and her husband Arthur had made a delicious meal and set up tons of beds for the tired crew.

Off tomorrow to a rapid growth forest, a subway system time forgot, a city wide day of carpool as declared by the Buffalo City Council, and more good times.

Carpooling Across America "The Change We Seek"

Zimride

Freaking fantastic last few days here with team "The Change We Seek" a documentary that we will be Gspotting along with for the next 10 days. Who would have known that so much work goes into making a documentary, and driving cross country; and trying to do it all for free.

We started Sunday night with a bang up interview with Huffington Post
green writer and noteworthy green media mafia member, Olivia Zaleski.
As we were all trying to find our own filming groove, we were
simultaneously hearing gems from Ms Zaleski regarding her personal
genesis to being a green writer, public response to the work she is
doing at the Huff Post ( 4 million unique visitors a month so, that
means a lot of eyes on her words).

The team that will be driving the whole time includes Trevor White, a
filmmaker who went to Cornell with both John Zimmer (our film's hero
and founder of Zimride carsharing company) and Ben Lapides, the quick witted cinematographer and schedule master. Next we have Cristina, John's incredibly kind and beautiful Spanish girlfriend working diligently on her English. And finally, myself, Margaret Teich, a sapling of a green writer working on growing into a full fledged tree.

The next day found us ironing out details, having last minute contact
with our sponsors, like the Vermont Clothing Company who are generously
contributing a shit ton of ''The Change We seek'' organic cotton
apparel and car decals. And then it was onto a fabulous dinner at Bobo with
the team, a few extra friends and Tim White, Trevor's brother esteemed filmmaker himself.

Bobo is a sustainable restaurant in the West vVillage (w10th st and 7th
Ave) where Owner Carlos Suarez and sustainability director Emma
Allen (who went to Asheville High School with Margaret, totally
flipping the latter out!) cooked and explained respectively the otherworldy delicious fare. The food served at Bobo is mostly from small organic farms in New York state and the menu changes frequently to accomodate the local growing season. Delicious meal, and all the better considering everything from the water on the table to the restaurant's collaboration a local public school with teaching school children about natural agriculture was mindful and awesome.

On Tuesday morning, brother Tim joined the team at The Riverhouse, a luxury sustainable condominium complex in Battery Park City where famous folks like Leo DiCaprio and Tyra Banks have energy efficient, healthy indoor air quality apartments.

We went to The Riverhouse to interview Josh Dorfman, the CEO of
Vivavi, an eco friendly furniture company whose store front is in the
green condo complex. Josh is also the host and author of the Lazy
Environmentalist, formerly on Sirius Satellite Radio, now going into
production on The Sundance Channel. After Josh told us his take on everything from travel-induced epiphanies and eating dog food (organic) as well as ''unexpected green'' we interviewed Vivavi's New Projects Director Aron Kressner, who delved into the deeper philosophies of being a conscious entrepreneur in our generation.

Today, Wednesday, we begin the car-part of the journey, in our Prius kindly donated by ZipCar and drive to Ithaca, NY to see where the magic friendship began at Cornell for the three boys on the team.

Lil' Green Folks: Eco Daycare

FIO360 eco daycare center in Atlanta

Early Eco Care is all the rage in Atlanta. Well, at least for eco-friendly daycare center FIO360. Decked out with non-toxic cleaning agents, gel free diapers, a plastics-free facility with bamboo floors, Solatube skylights and non-toxic art supplies, FIO360 incorporates sustainability education into the curriculum as well as facilities.

If this toddler-topia sounds to good to be true, its the price provides the catch:$1,529 for a month for preschoolers and $1,708 a month for infants. Yikes.

This is definitely the direction of the future, though. Shout out to Atlanta for making it happen.

BeGoodDesigns: Recycled Shoes Are Fantastic

Let's imagine a world where tires are recycled into phat, comfy, stylish thong sandals, using fair-trade labor standards. Let's take it further and say that the manufacturing is done in Uruguay, a badass lil nation which was the first Latin American country to recognize same-sex civil unions at a national level and where folks drink Yerba Mate.

No need to imagine it because BeGoodDesigns has said dream shoes from said dream country. Check out eco online retailer Fashion-Conscience.com to cop your own pair.

Putting The ECO back in ECOnomy

HSBC North American headquarters in Mettawa, Illinois

What if folks worked more by being at work less? I'm sure everyone has thought about how much more productive they'd be with a 4 day week, but now HSBC is taking that fantasy and turning it into policy.

The British Bank HSBC has set up their North American headquarters in Mettawa, Illinois (population 500.) The new building has been under contruction for the last 5 years, cost about $100 million, and is going for Gold LEED certification complete with a green roof, energy efficiency, grey water management, etc.

But the real kicker showing HSBC's commitment to sustainability is their work week: HSBC employees are allowed to work as many as two days a week at home to enable them to save time and money on commuting. Nearly 20 percent of the workers sometimes work at home.

Now that's ECOnomic incentive.

Phillipina Betty La Fea Works In Green Fashion

If anyone has access to TV channels from the Philippines, please let us know if this is for real: I Love Betty La Fea (Ugly Betty here in the States), takes place at a Green Fashion Agency?!

I Love Betty La Fea on ABS-CBN has Betty working at Eco Moda Agency. Now we GSpotters don't speak Tagalog, but Spanish is heavily integrated into the Phillipine vernacular, and Eco=Eco and Moda=Fashion so...

Prince Charles' Aston Martin Runs on Wine.... Yessir

I'm Royal, ya'll. Just fill me 'er up with a 1973 Chiraz

I mean, this article is just PhatAss: Prince Charles has an Aston Martin. No shock there. The shocker here is what's fueling his whip: English Wine.

When folks are making biofuels out of anything these days, doesn't MidEast oil just seem so passé?

3G iPhone: Greener Apple

Although they are the most bad Apple company around (hello product design, store layout, hotties staffing the Genius Bar), they aren't always the greenest Apple in the bunch.


But lo-and-behold it all, their new 3G iPhones come in biodegradable potato starch packaging. Solid, Steve Jobs!

PaperFoam even makes starch CD jewel cases

Dutch company PaperFoam has developed a technology to inject a mixture of starch and water into a mold, and create an affordable and perfectly comparable paper-like package. The process is not reliant upon oil, and so the prices do not depend on fluctuating oil prices. Now that's some novel s**t.