Sustainable Living

It’s Earth Week, so what better time to be reminded of all the fun ways we can reuse common household items to create fun, stylish light fixtures? Following are some of my favorite reuse ideas for DIY lighting projects, and how you might create a similar fixture using Elemental LED products. Cassette Tape Lamps Created Learn More

Urban gardening is gaining popularity, and for good reason. Growing your own food is one of the best ways to lead a more sustainable lifestyle. But in Singapore, they’ve taken urban gardening to new heights, literally. The city has recently unveiled staggering vertical gardens, which consist of 18 tree-like structures ranging from 82 to 164 Learn More

Anything that can be made from recycled materials always catches my eye, especially these days. My nonprofit organization, RuckusRoots, is currently running a recycled art program called TRASHformation at Nightingale Middle School in Los Angeles. We are constantly looking for new ideas, and so I was thrilled to spot this inventive and very eco-friendly DIY Learn More

Last weekend I went to Vegas, but instead of gambling, I spent my time installing some sustainable art for a new bike company…and I got to use some of Elemental LED’s RGB LED lights to make the whole thing sing. Here’s what happened: Last month, my eco-art organization, RuckusRoots, was asked to create a booth Learn More

We’ve been touting it for a long time, but there have been those who doubt it: LED lights are better for the environment than compact fluorescent lights.   A new report from the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and UK-based N14 Energy Limited found that LED lighting is already more environmentally friendly than CFL Learn More

Labor Day: typically filled with camping, barbeques and poolside parties, this holiday signifies the end of summer, but not the end of sustainability. Following are some of my favorite pieces of LED lighting gear, which will make any Labor Day gathering full of energy efficient fun. Hand Crank LED Flashlight Coghlan’s Dynamo Flashlight is as Learn More

Droughts, heat waves, fires and food shortages: these are just some of the hazards facing our nation and the rest of the world in recent months. Now, more than ever, it’s important to live sustainably, cutting back on everything from water to electricity. Besides low crop yields, droughts and heat waves cause an increased usage Learn More

The powers that be just increased BART by about 1.4% and MUNI increased their monthly passes by $2.  While this is not a huge increase, it got me thinking about how these prices compare to gas prices and how cost effective it is to take public transportation. I ride my bike to work every day Learn More

July 4th is upon us and it is time to celebrate with BBQs, picnics and, of course, fireworks.  I remember loving the smell of fireworks as a kid and to this day the smell whisks me back to my childhood.  However, what I did not realize is that what I smelled was toxic chemicals that Learn More

My sister Stephanie is a contemporary Jane Goodall, a real life Indiana Jones. She’s a PhD-holding primatologist who, when not teaching Anthropology to ungrateful university students, is jetting off to exotic locales to study monkeys and apes. Her latest field site is on the remote island of Borneo in Indonesia. There, she studies the effects Learn More