Earth Blog

Oceana’s online adoption center is open all year for virtual adoptions but this year they are introducing a selection of five exciting marine creatures for the gift-giving season: the puffin, blue whale, ray, clownfish, and octopus.  These five new creatures double the options at the center and Oceana has not discontinued perennial favorites: the sea turtle and polar bear.

“Adopting an ocean animal at Oceana.org makes a fantastic gift for a loved one,” said Matt Littlejohn, the Vice President of Strategic Marketing and Communications, “It is a great way to both protect the world’s oceans and give a gift that means something.” For an amusing anecdote about dolphins please see Littljohn’s bio here.

Shopping green became easier this week thanks to the magic of the Internet and the launch of Vine.com: a new online superstore dedicated to organic, sustainable, and for some metropolitan areas the option of ordering local goods.

Marc Lore and Vinit Bharara are the founders of Quidsi, an e-commerce company that owns and operate six other e-commerce sites in addition to Vine.com. Their sites all have simple one or two word names like wag.com (for pets and their owners) and casa.com (stylish household goods) and Diapers.com (“We deliver everything but the baby!”).  Amazon acquired Quidsi in 2011 though it remains independently operated.

Today the latest statistics and trends from bridal registries were released by XO Group Inc, the masterminds between the top two wedding sites Weddingchannel.com and theKnot.com.

This is the 4th-annual The Knot Market Intelligence Bridal Registry Study that has been conducted and according to the press release it is considered “the most definitive report” on wedding registry research. Last year approximately 12,000 couples had their wish lists tracked so analysts could pick apart wedding registry decisions, influences, product, and retailer choices. The fraught decisions that could make or break a couple’s relationship especially if the wrong china pattern is selected.

A research team from UC Berkley and Stanford have published a new study that says Freecycle and similar online communities aren’t just a place to score free necessities but a place to become a better citizen. In contrast sites like Craigslist, where money is often exchanged for goods, don’t encourage philanthropy quite so much.

“What we found is that a site like Freecycle is uniquely good at generating pro-group sentiments like group identification and solidarity,” said Robb Willer, assistant professor of sociology and psychology at UC Berkeley and the study’s co-author. “The more people receive gifts through these systems, the more they come to identify as members of the group and view the group as cohesive and high in solidarity, more so than Craigslist members. These pro-group feelings in turn motivate members to give to the group.”

There is just twenty days until Christmas; have you been thinking about our Green Holiday tips? Have you started your shopping? If you haven’t there are plenty of green buying guides and ideas popping up all over the Internet to help a confused consumer get through the gift-giving season.