We've been thrilled by the recent pick up in blog comments and discussions going on at Green Options: we're glad many of you feel comfortable participating in discussions here. Ninety-nine percent of those comment have been constructive, thoughtful and informed. The other one percent… well, we're making some changes to address spam (which has picked up also) and uncivil behavior.

After deleting a ton of spam yesterday, I asked our developers to turn on moderation for comments submitted by users not registered at GO. This does not mean that you won't be able to add your voice to the discussion without becoming a member; rather, it means that those comments will have to be approved before appearing on the site. The content team will be checking the moderation queue frequently, so it shouldn't be too long before your comment appears.

On the issue of civility: let's face it — people find it way too easy to be rude or obnoxious online. We're not speaking face-to-face; we probably haven't even met the person with whom we're having a conversation. From our perspective, though, knock-down, drag-out flame wars add nothing to a given debate, and certainly don't add any value to Green Options. So, feel free to engage in spirited argument, but, if an exchange devolves to name-calling, insults, obscenity directed at another user, etc., we will remove those comments (or, if we're feeling cheeky, we'll disemvowel them). We don't want to stifle discussion; rather, we want to encourage it. We believe that a community is built by people who treat each other with courtesy, even when they disagree. We want all GO users to know that they can offer their opinions and knowledge without being bullied, insulted or otherwise mistreated.

We value your participation at Green Options, and are always interested in your ideas for making the site the place you want to discuss sustainability and green living. Let us know if you have questions or concerns.

David did an awfully good job of keeping you guys posted while we met and greeted visitors to our booth at the Chicago Greenfest. While we all took time out to see speakers and meet with other green business people, a major part of our time over the weekend involved asking people to use the carbon calculator we had available to figure up the CO2 emissions they created by traveling to the event.

Why would people do that? So we could offset those emissions, of course.

Turns out that offering free offsets (specifically wind energy credits provided by Renewable Choice Energy, a company Shea helped found) worked pretty well as a draw: we had hundreds of people visit, and their emissions tallied up to almost 74,000 pounds. As we told people visiting the booth, their travel was the biggest source of CO2 emissions for the event — GreenFest itself offset the electricity used at Chicago's McCormick Center, and that came in at over 17,000 pounds. Needless to say, we were happy to help neutralize some of the carbon footprint of Greenfest…

We also got some great photos. Super-intern Liam handled most of the photo duties for us, and we'll get some of those posted. In the meantime, here's one that appeared on Treehugger yesterday: the cute woman on the left is Leonora Oppenheim, one of my compadres at Treehugger. The guy who looks like a well-fed English professor with thinning hair… OK, that's me… We're standing in the festival's Fair Trade Pavilion, right in front of the Kallari Association's booth. The Fair Trade chocolate they were promoting was incredible — David got a whole bag of it…

Needless to say, we had a great time — we hope those of you who attended will share your stories.

We all had a busy Earth Day weekend; that was especially true for our Tip o' the Day editor Rebecca Carter: she did most of the work setting up Miami's Earth Fest. At least one day off from her duties here was definitely in order, so we'll take a break from the Tip today, but get right back to it tomorrow…

And please remember: Rebecca's always on the lookout for new tips. Please submit your to the Discussion Forum we've created for them, and she'll make sure you get credit for your contribution.

For those of you needing your Tip fix, don't forget our archives are overflowing with great green tips.

UPDATE: Rebecca enjoyed her day off so much that she requested another one… and we're happy to oblige.  She'll definitely be back tomorrow…

You may be wondering "What's up with the blog — there are usually more than two posts up by now!"  Yes, there are.  We've been working through a migration to a new host for Green Options, and part of that meant asking our writers to hold off posting until we could complete the move.

So, we'll have posts up today — just not at the usual early times.  Come back by… you'll find the usual mix of great posts from our writers.

OK, several of you caught us: yesterday's posts were our attempts at some April Fools merriment. No, whales will not be hunted to make biodiesel, oil rigs will not seek LEED certification, Patrick is still walking to work, and we're definitely not bringing on Steve Milloy as a writer. No buy-outs by ExxonMobil or BP, no new SUVs, none of that…

We hope you enjoyed our attempts at a little fun… back to business now!

Next Thursday, we'll launch another regular feature at the Green Options blog: Green Myth-Busting. Myths abound about environmentalism, sustainability and green living, and we want to make sure that those of you considering your green options have the facts you need to make informed choices.

Normally, we'd announce a feature like this with it's first installment, but we're jumping out ahead of this one because we'd like to give you the opportunity to let us know about "green myths" you've encountered. Our writers have already started discussing some topics, but we also want to hear from you: what myths are out there about the green life that you'd like to see addressed? Or, perhaps you've heard something about recycling, composting, renewable energy, etc., that doesn't quite sound right, but you're not sure. Send it along — we'll check it out.

We're coming up on our two-month birthday (next week, in fact), and we'd like to celebrate by adding a few more writers to our already talented stable. If you're passionate and knowledgeable about green living, and write well, you may be just the person we want. We're looking specifically for the following:

• A Los Angeles-area resident to cover the many green things happening there.
• A "green teen" — an active and passionate pre-teen to teenager who can cover green activities and development by/for that age group.
• A "green senior" — replace "pre-teen" and "teenager" with "senior citizen" or "elder" in the above description.
• A green entrepreneur — Amy's doing great with the wide world of green business; now we want to add an "insider" to the mix. We'd prefer someone who's running a business, not just thinking about one.
• UPDATE: One more… I knew something wasn't right here! We're also looking for a writer to jump into Ryan Thibodaux's Red, Green and Blue spot — a progressive environmentalist who likes to argue politics… and does it well. Ryan's not leaving… just moving on to other areas.
• Another UPDATE: We'd also like a Chicago-based writer… just too much good stuff going on there…

We'd want each of these writers to contribute weekly at a minimum. While each writer at GO has a primary "beat," there's always room for branching out.

Finally, we'd like to build a pool of young, hungry journalists (or journalism students in their 3rd or 4th year) that would be interested in doing longer-form pieces… perhaps even some investigative journalism. We anticipate publishing pieces like these monthly, but would be willing to do it more often for the right stories.

Think you might be the right person for one of these positions? Email me, or send me a private message — please note the position for which you're applying in the subject line. Please introduce yourself, and submit or point to a few writing samples. You don't have to have previous blogging experience, but some knowledge of web publishing software is always a plus.

All of these are independent contractor positions. We pay per post/article, and have just implemented a bonus structure for writers.

Green Options is happy to announce that you can now find us at Squidoo: The Offical Green Options lens is now live!

You may be scratching your head and thinking "Squidoo? Lens? Huh?" That's OK: Squidoo is a publishing platform created by super marketer Seth Godin. It's a place where anyone (yes, anyone) can build a small web site (a "lens") focused on topics, ideas, products, etc., about which they're passionate and knowledgeable. Lenses are designed to be "pointer": that is, a lensmaster creates his/her lens to point to other things on the web relevant to his/her topic. Several of us are Squids — my Green Blogosphere lens, and Shea's Green Blogathon lens are both up for Lens of the Year, in fact… mine is currently at #33, and Shea's is #51.

This is only our first lens — we've got others that we want to build. Got one of your own? Let us know in the comments! If you don't, why not… build one! It really is easy… and, then, of course, let us know.

Finally, we do have some advertising and Amazon items for sale. All money raised through our lenses will go to Dos Margaritas, "a cocktail of conservation & sustainable development through education & micro-finance programs for South America."

We've got a couple of good questions that have shown up in the Discussion Forum over the past day:

1) GO member attacat asks about using biodegradable trash bags/bin liners:

The bin liners that are commonly used are made of synthetic polymers like polyethylene and polypropylene, and these are not considered biodegradable. Eventually, these plastics will break down, but only after being submitted to decades of heat and light.

Green Your Office proposes a new technology called d2w totally degradable plastics. Apparently, these refuse sacks will “degrade turning harmlessly into CO2 and water”. I may be missing something here, but isn’t CO2 one of the main gases that the greenhouse effect has been blamed on? Are biodegradable bin liners actually harmful to the environment as well?

Got an answer to this one? Is the amount of CO2 produced by these products negligible when compared to the impact of plastic?

2) GO member tamilee is likely not the only person with this question:

Where can I find home solar power systems and how they work explained in the simplest terms possible? I'm looking for a solar power for dummies website or book. I have been interested in solar power for decades but whenever I try to learn about it there is so much jargon used I just get lost.

There is a Complete Idiot's Guide to Solar Power to Your Home; the second edition will be released in May. Any thoughts on this book, or other recommendations?

As always, please answer these questions in forum where they were posted…

Well, it seems we're all getting a little media attention lately. I had my turn last week; this week, David gets to shine in an interview with Entrepreneur 27, a site devoted to promoting entrepreneurship in the tech sector and featuring young business leaders. We like to think our boss qualifies there (and I'm not just saying that because he's my boss…). Here's a sneak peak at the interview…

Where do you see Green Options a year from now?

We have many projects in the pipeline, most of which I can’t talk openly about yet, but suffice it to say that web 2.0 media is only a starting point for Green Options. There is so much information out there that is waiting to be formatted and marketed correctly in order to make it accessible to the rest of society. Hopefully, 2008 will see GO providing a wider variety of innovative tools to accomplish that goal. There are angles to take that can make a solid case for sustainable living to people of every persuasion and perspective (except maybe Dick Cheney), including those who feel belittled or condescended by preachy rhetoric. Those people need to be included in the process to create change on the scale necessary, and that starts with making information accessible to a wider range of audiences.

Check out the rest at Entrepreneur 27.