In a digital world, it’s only natural that just about everyone who’s spent any time single in the last ten years or so has tried an online dating service at one time or another. I’ve done it myself, and I have to tell you… it’s horrible. I don’t know if you know this, but they will let absolutely anyone onto the Internet. Can you imagine? It’s true!

Okay, kidding aside—there are dating sites that are religion based. There are sites around a common pursuit or hobby. And now, there’s also a dating site for the eco-minded; if you’re serious about finding that special someone with whom you can share candlelit organic dinners and long walks along the beach to pick up litter, check out EcoDater. From the site:

EcoDater is an eco-friendly online dating site for green single men and women who care about living a natural, holistic lifestyle. We are environmentalists, vegans and vegetarians, organic farmers, outdoor enthusiasts, eco travelers and many other practitioners of green living.

I love the idea, truly. I think the market is ripe for a site like this, and I hope it helps like-minded folks connect. On the other hand, given the misadventures that often result in the world of blind dating, the cynic in me wonders what sort of problems might crop up. Like… she thought he was a vegan, but it turns out he’s merely vegetarian and thoughtlessly ate cheese on their date! The horror!

Well, I do think it’s fascinating. But I’m also really glad I’m married.

Maybe it’s the cynic in me, but as much as I’m happy to learn about ways to green up my family’s life, sometimes I just start wondering when it stops being “green” and starts being “the marketing bandwagon du jour.”

On the one hand, I can appreciate that even a marketing plan based on less-than-noble motives may, indeed, result in products that are better for our earth. And at the end of the day I don’t really care why a company chose to make decisions which are—ultimately—much more environmentally responsible than before. On the other hand, though, where’s the line? Does it matter?

I received a pitch in my email this morning about Michelin Energy Saver A/S tires, and the thrust of the marketing is about these being the most “green” choice. I don’t know about you, but when I think green I’m rarely thinking about… tires. Do I need to put these on a yuppie hybrid car for them to work? Is this more or less eco-conscious than buying organic produce?

My head hurts.

It’s a funny thing; ask just about anyone what they think the most likely biggest barrier to living more green might be, and they’ll probably tell you it’s cost. I would love, for example, to buy nothing but organic foods for my family… but at this point in our lives, it’s simply too expensive for me to do so. (I do, however, try to stay organic on the Dirty Dozen foods.) Similarly, I tend to think of vacation time being less green than “regular” life, for most folks, because once you’ve paid for a hotel room or whatever, it’s not like you’re paying for every drop of water or degree of thermostat-bump on the air conditioning. And we’ve already discussed my camping garbage guilt.

So imagine my surprise to come across this article on waste consciousness that claims “road warriors are turning into eco-warriors.”

Check it out:

The faltering economy – not the fragile environment – is the biggest motivator for frequent travelers who have become “more conscious of waste” according to a survey commissioned by Element Hotels, which is launching The Element Eco-Travel Index, an annual index of green travel habits among frequent travelers. [...]

According to The Element Eco-Travel Index, nearly 78 percent of respondents said they are paying more attention to wasteful habits like “leaving the lights on, leaving the TV on, [or] leaving the faucet running.” But more than 41 percent say their vigilance about squandering resources is “due to the economy, while just 28 percent claim it’s “due to the environment.”

It’s a little ironic, I suppose, that the economy is more of a motivation to be green than, you know, preserving our earth. But the end result is still a huge positive—people being more mindful. I’ll take it!

I have to start this off by admitting that I’ve never been much for fancy jewelry; I’m just as happy with cheap costume stuff, in general, as I am with something expensive. Diamonds may be a girl’s best friend, but this girl has an easier time wearing something I don’t have to freak out about losing or whatever.

But there’s a lot of talk in eco-circles about the environmental (and humanitarian) impact of things like diamonds. The “green” thing to do is buy lab-grown diamonds, or recycle existing ones. Reading about this makes me feel somewhat smug, because my wedding band belonged to my great-grandmother. Here I thought I was being cheap sentimental in wearing her band, but it turns out, actually I was recycling the diamonds!

This trend is, of course, opening up the market for companies like Green ORO to step in with jewelry made from conflict-free diamonds and recycled metals, which is very cool.

And then there’s also things like designer Linda Loudermilk’s “Water is a Human Right” line, wherein you can pick up this quirky water necklace and know that a portion of your proceeds goes to the YEW Foundation to support clean water initiatives. If that’s not jewelry with a greener purpose, I don’t know what is.

This stuff certainly makes me think about greening my (occasional) jewelry purchases, that’s for sure.

I work from home, so I like to think of myself as being fairly eco-friendly when it comes to the amount of driving I do. In fact, my husband sees the every-3,000-mile oil change as something of a religion, and just this weekend he told me that in checking my car, he’d discovered that I’ve only driven 2,400 miles in the last eight months.

(For what it’s worth, I then told him I was pretty sure I’d driven 1,400 of those taking the kids to and from the orthodontist. My son is the king of the broken wire. Ahem.)

So I’m off the hook when it comes to reducing dependence on automobiles, right? Well… maybe not. I was just reading the car-free blog challenge issued over at BlogHer, and it’s gotten me thinking. Even with as little driving as I do, it’s not as though I utilize alternate transportation methods. I never take the bus. We don’t live close enough to anything useful (like the grocery store) for me to bike easily. Or maybe I’m just being a wimp.

Could you go without a car for a week? Reading through the links on the post above, I’m sort of wondering if it only “works” for folks in big cities. But maybe I just need to think a little more creatively. Or bike a little further.

Have you heard this term before, localvore? It’s about committing to eating food grown in one’s local food shed. There are plenty of health and evolutionary reasons to do it, of course, but environmentally speaking, it has huge advantages. Smaller carbon footprint, obviously, as the food needn’t travel so far to get to you. Support for smaller, natural and organic farms, for another.

I love this time, as spring segues into summer, when it comes to food. There’s all sorts of wonderful, local produce that’s readily available, not to mention the food we’re growing in our own backyard! But typically as the season winds down and we get back into fall and winter, I’ll go back to buying imported produce at the supermarket, because “otherwise we couldn’t eat anything but apples.” (Yes, that’s an exaggeration.) This year, I’m extending my commitment to being a localvore by freezing many of our favorites.

For the next few months, I’ll be loading up at our local farmer’s market, and in our garden, and freezing the excess to use this winter. I always thought I’d have to learn how to can to preserve many of my favorites (like tomatoes), but berries freeze beautifully just as they are, and many veggies freeze well after a quick blanch (including tomatoes). Come fall, my freezer will be full, and I can continue eating locally, even after our favorites have gone out of season.

I can’t wait. Local strawberries in December? Bring it on.

I was feeling proud of myself about all of the food my family has planted this year, which usually signals that it’s time for something to go wrong. (No, this isn’t being pessimistic. It’s realistic.) So, first I found myself dealing with various critters eating our plants, and then this weekend something else happened.

Our strawberries are ripening. And as much as my children wanted to pluck them immediately at the first sign of red, I cautioned them to wait a bit longer. I told them they wouldn’t taste good, and needed more time to ripen. So we waited. And waited.

And then this weekend several were undeniably ripe, so we picked them with great anticipation.

And they tasted… sour.

I’m perplexed. They were beautiful, but they weren’t sweet. Is it the variety? Something about the way we grew them? Did they need some time to sit and further ripen after picking? (That seems impossible, given how red they were.) I just have no idea.

So much for the joys and sustainability of growing our own berries. Blech.

Next weekend we’ll head to a local farm, where we can pick our own berries. It’s a little more green than buying at the supermarket, and they’ll taste a heck of a lot better than the ones we’re growing here at home. And this way the squirrels can eat ours, I guess, and we can call it kindness to the local wildlife. Or something.

… just ask the bugs!

I promised myself two things this year, when it came to our gardening efforts. First, that I would planet enough that we could eat fresh veggies for the bulk of the summer and even have surplus to freeze and/or can; and second, that I would keep the garden organic.

That means no commercial growth solutions (and I have used that thing that rhymes with, um, Piracle-Mow, in the past), no chemical pesticides. While I’ve not had a problem with the first item (owing, in part, to having found some nice organic fertilizer options), my garden is currently bursting forth and Houston, we have a problem. Specifically: We have bugs. Lots of them.

I’m already planting basil alongside the tomatoes (to help keep tomato-loving bugs repelled) and scattering eggshells around the base of the plants the slugs love (they’re too sharp for the slugs to cross), but we also have beetles and flies and who knows what else.

So I’m spending a little bit of quality time doing some research. I’m digging this Natural Pest Control overview from Green Living Ideas, and because I love a good chart, I’m also liking this Organic Pest Control Guide from Extremely Green. And I’m feeling confident that I can rescue our plants and still keep our garden green. That’s a nice way to start off the week!

Yesterday on Twitter (you are following us on Twitter, right?) we got to wondering (out loud, and in 140 characters, naturally) what would be the most environmentally-friendly coffee to pursue.

This is one of those iddy biddy things you may not think about. But many of us start the day with a cup (or three) of coffee, and it matters. It matters because there’s a lot of ecological damage that happens when rainforests are clear-cut to make room for more coffee fields, and it matters because paper cups from coffee shops are filling up the trash. So what’s a java lover to do?

Obviously, brewing at home and using your own reusable drinking vessels is a good start, but seeking out beans grown in a sustainable, earth-friendly manner is part of it, too. I really like this piece at Eat. Drink. Better. explaining the various terms and what they mean. Like, did you know that the USDA allows a product to label itself “organic” even if it’s only 30% organic? I sure didn’t.

When it comes to greener coffee, organic or not is only a part of the story. You also want to consider whether it was shade-grown (which allows for less deforestation and less disturbance of the local ecosystems) and Fair Trade (which keeps farmers from having to grow more and more just to make a decent wage), as well. There are many factors to consider, is my point, and the above-referenced article covers them in an informative and easy to understand way.

Now I’m sort of wondering about the ecological impact of the tea I drink, too, but I think I need to finish this cup of coffee before I can start thinking about that.

It’s finally here—today is Earth Day!

How will you celebrate?

Maybe you’d like to send a few free Earth Day e-cards to those you love; I promise they have just an iddy biddy carbon footprint, and no trees were harmed in their creation.

Or maybe you’d like to try some recycled tinfoil (yes, really), but you’ve noticed it’s pretty pricey, at the store. Reynolds is willing to let you try it for free, so you can decide if you like it (or if you just want to save some money).

Need some other ideas of green resources and/or steps you can take today? Msnbc has a great round-up of suggestions—I particularly like 70 Park Avenue Hotel’s new Eco-Step Challenge. (If ever you needed an excuse to hit NYC….)

Of course, surely you already have your Idbids gear, but if not, it’s always a good time to shop the Idbids Store for all sorts of earth-friendly Idbids merchandise.

Let’s all keep working towards making it Earth Day, every day!