7/29/2010 (Evanston, IL) -- Minute Navigator, LLC welcomes you to our new video series - Today's Green Minute.
Today's Green Minute - Episode 8: Minnie's Chickens
Everybody’s getting into raising chickens! I haven’t yet heard a satisfying explanation for why "chickening" is soaring, but it’s a social phenomenon that –I'm guessing here – has something to do with a natural desire to get closer to the production of one’s own food. …Makes sense.
A PR rep for a book publisher sent me a press release for this story, and even though I rarely do stories about individual products, the social relevance of this one caught my eye: Minnie Rose Lovgreen was a Seattle chicken farmer, who, in her 60 years of practice, became an expert at the art and science of raising chickens. At the age of 86, she dictated to a friend what became a charming book called Minnie Rose Lovgreen’s Recipe for Raising Chickens.
As interest in chicken farming soars, the book has outlived Minnie as a classic instruction on the very current practice of “chickening.”
The Book can be found here:
Minnie Rose Lovegreen's Recipe for Raising Chickens at Amazon.com
To see if your municipality allows chickens, go to: http://www.municode.com/Library/Library.aspx
More information about starting your own backyard coop can be found here:
http://www.Grist.org
- Jim Parks
7/15/2010 (Evanston, IL) -- Minute Navigator, LLC welcomes you to our new video series - Today's Green Minute.
Today's Green Minute - Episode 7: Green Comics
D’ya love comics? I’m crazy about ‘em. They’ve always given me a stripped-down and colorful window into the National Psyche…so this episode is devoted to a guy named Neil Wagner and his terrific comic strip, “What On Earth.”
It’s special because Wagner has set himself the insane task of getting LAUGHS out of global warming. Yes, GLOBAL WARMING! I would think that’s impossible, but Wagner’s done it, and he’s displayed deep feelings for humanity and an artist’s eye for cool comic design along the way. Wagner’s comic -- and its accompanying blog -- is found on NPR’s ScienceFriday.com. I would so love to see this exceptional strip playing on websites EVERYWHERE!
The Comics can be found here:
http://www.sciencefriday.com/blog/
Neil Wagner's Blog:
http://www.sciencefriday.com/blog/index.php?/authors/14-Neil-Wagner
- Jim Parks
7/1/2010 (Evanston, IL) -- Minute Navigator, LLC welcomes you to our new video series - Today's Green Minute.
Today's Green Minute - Episode 6: Whale Mecca
If there is one positive outcome from the horrible mess in the Gulf of Mexico, it is that a sizable segment of the population that couldn’t have cared less about the environment is suddenly keenly aware of the interactions of soil, wind, and water that sustain us. Perhaps we’ve all become a bit more aware.
This episode was produced well before the disaster, but it has a special poignancy now that we’ve witnessed this slow-motion impact on Mother Earth.
That’s why I hope that the whale and dolphin superhighway on the other side of the earth can stay unaffected by the Western Hemisphere pollution. Who doesn’t love it that whales and dolphins zoom along on a secret superhighway between the Indian and Pacific oceans?
When I chose this story, I didn’t know how challenging it would be for our graphics guys. (They seem to have done superlatively!) With so many man-made threats to their survival (the whales and dolphins, not the graphics guys) this episode comes with a wish that this disaster will make us good stewards of the oceans before it’s too late -- and that our cetacean cousins will be able to roam the seas freely in unpolluted seas.
To learn more about how you can help save the whales, visit:
www.savethewhalesagain.com
www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/oceans/whaling/
- Jim Parks
6/17/2010 (Evanston, IL) -- Minute Navigator, LLC welcomes you to our new video series - Today's Green Minute.
Today's Green Minute - Episode 5: App for That
App For That - The Apple iPhone has become a major success because of the rise of "Apps" – programs that take the phone far beyond a tool for simply voice communication. Take a minute and learn about an App that can help you find the perfect recycling center near you for those out of date electronics, dead batteries – even old paint. Whatever you don't want to end up in a landfill. Just type in what want to recycle, and it will tell you where to take it, when the facility is open, and how to get there. This is App technology at its best: useful, easy, and very green (…and let’s not forget FREE!). For more stories on green innovation and the environment, visit TodaysGreenMinute.com.
- Jim Parks
6/3/2010 (Evanston, IL) -- Minute Navigator, LLC welcomes you to our new video series - Today's Green Minute.
Today's Green Minute - Episode 4: Green Brides
I’ve never been a fan of big, opulent weddings – just ask my wife – but when I learned about how many pounds of garbage and CO2 a wedding produces, I had to write this story on the work of Kate Harrison, who, as an environmentalist and educator, decided to create a web resource for brides who maintain a social responsibility – even on “their special day.” This story illustrates how buying local and presenting green alternatives in an easy-to-follow fashion can reduce the wasteful attitudes that are stressing our planet.
- Jim Parks
5/19/2010 (Evanston, IL) -- Minute Navigator, LLC welcomes you to our new video series - Today's Green Minute.
Today's Green Minute - Episode 3: CLONING THE EXTINCT
We've only scratched the surface of the secrets hidden within the coils of DNA, but little by little, scientists are teasing out its inner workings. This episode of Today’s Green Minute deals with the work of a scientist who has been able to clone mice that have been frozen for years. Previously, once a cell was frozen, its DNA was unreadable, but this work has changed all that -- and the implications are staggering: by reading DNA from frozen wooly mammoth cells, we may someday bring back species that we once thought were lost forever!
- Jim Parks
5/6/2010 (Evanston, IL) -- Minute Navigator, LLC welcomes you to our new video series - Today's Green Minute.
Today's Green Minute - Episode 2: Missouri Hockey Puck
This script is very close to my heart because it was the pilot for the entire Today’s Green Minute series. It tells the story of how the University of Missouri has developed a hockey puck-like object, made from corn (of which Missouri has an abundance) that can hold an enormous amount of methane. A methane-propelled car would be an obvious application, and if the methane it stores comes from a landfill, the hockey puck brings about an environmental triple play: 1. cars burn cleaner, 2. old corncobs are used productively, and
3. methane can be burned instead of petroleum.
More info can be found at…
4/22/2010 (Evanston, IL) -- Minute Navigator, LLC announces the launch of its new video series - Today's Green Minute - just in time for Earth Day.
The series' first episode, Cell Phones & Gorillas, is a look at the mining operations that threaten the habitat of lowland gorillas, and premiered on YouTube on April 22nd, 2010. Subsequent episodes are scheduled to appear in two-week intervals.
Today's Green Minute is based on the syndicated column and audio podcast by Jim Parks, the longtime host of HGTV's New Spaces. "I was researching the green-build movement for a magazine article I was writing when I discovered the wealth of innovation out there," says Parks. "I was inspired by all the good ideas coming from every corner of the world, so I began collecting stories."
Today's Green Minute's transition to video is a natural, continues Parks. "Now we can fill the screen with dazzling, flying, colorful images that move the story along and give us a unique visual style. In fact, some of the episodes are very funny: you'll see gorillas applauding when people recycle their cellphones."
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Today's Green Minute is sponsored by Minute Navigator (specializing in low-cost video for websites) and produced by Brella Productions (a full service corporate communications company specializing in custom video, multimedia and web production services). See what we're up to at www.MinuteNavigator.com & www.Brella.com (With solar panels on the roof, we are a "Run By The Sun" production facility... more information on our Green initiatives check out http://www.brella.com/experience_green.htm).