Did you know your microwave uses up more power when you're not using it than when you are? Yes, the microwave draws a lot of energy when you start nuking something, but the vast majority of the time, the machine's sitting idle while slowly sipping energy to light up its display. According to Umbra at Grist, that slow, daily sip ends up being about 80% of the energy your appliance consumes!

A few weeks ago, my husband Michael forwarded me the NY Times article, "Therapists Report Increase in Green Disputes" As awareness of environmental concerns has grown, therapists say they are seeing a rise in bickering between couples and family members over the extent to which they should change their lives to save the planet.

1. Spread the handmade love. Why buy a single Valentine for one person when you can get bargain package deals on Etsy for all your lovers?

My balcony garden makes me proud though all it produces is chard, since I've managed to serial kill all the herbs. The sunny SoCal weather has my chard plants -- which I planted in May -- feeding me through the winter, but I have a problem: I want more chard! This is what I have now (I just harvested): And this is what I want (except with mostly chard):

Thousands of tourists flock Santa Monica every year to enjoy the pretty beach, go on a solar-powered ferris wheel ride on the pier, and of course, shop. But while most shoppers head straight to the mostly-chain stores on Third Street Promenade and Main Street, Santa Monica's home to a bevy of pre-loved fashion stores that offer cute, eco-friendly shopping opportunities for every budget.

If Vertigo or Star Trek IV are among the films you love, you're lucky California has a lot of parks. Scenes from those and many other movies were filmed in iconic spots in California state parks -- which is why you should care about the strain Californian parks are under right now.

I avoid buying plastic products. Plastics contribute to the degradation of the world’s oceans, harm wildlife, and threaten human health. But in certain situations, I think that durable plastics can actually be the better alternative to biodegradable materials like cardboard. No, I didn’t suddenly take a job lobbying for the American Chemistry Council.

There's something about a full box of produce that creates kitchen anxieties, for most people, at least. Yes, there are the intrepid, experienced cooks who sign up for Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) programs -- which gets them a weekly, bargain-priced box of fresh produce directly from their local farms -- then concoct original, gourmet recipes to use up each week's loot. These cooks often start drool-worthy blogs.

Does the cold winter weather have you staying in to knit warm woolen mittens and scarves? If so, you may be going through the same conundrums I'm dealing with. DIY knitting can be a very eco-friendly hobby, but knitters who want to keep their handmade goods environmentally-friendly and cruelty-free will likely find wool yarn shopping challenging, to say the least.

CES, the International Consumer Electronics Show, is a huge geek shindig held yearly in Las Vegas. There are 2500 exibitors talking about over 20,000 new products. There were keynotes from the likes of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, Ford President Alan Mulally, and Nokia President Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo. There were celebrities like Lady Gaga, Drew Carey, author James Patterson and techie Guy Kawasaki.

When I started thinking about the last decade from an environmentalist’s perspective, I could really only remember the last five -- because 2005's when I started blogging, and of course when BlogHer officially came into being!

Do you have a cough right now or know someone who does? Then I want to talk to you. In December, I caught a cold and towards the end of it was hacking pretty badly. Now, I realize that you don’t want to suppress a productive cough. But this cough was bad enough to keep me up at night, robbing me of much needed rest. So I polished off two plastic bottles of cough/cold medicine: the remainder of a bottle of Nyquil that I bought years ago (yeah, it still worked) as well as the last couple of doses of yummy Prometh cough syrup with Codeine. And by yummy, I mean I held my hose and chugged it down, trying to bypass my taste buds as much as possible.