Tracking 'green' news as it grows, with Twitter

People use Twitter to warn of natural dangers including earthquakes and hurricanes. Other environmentally related uses for the micro-blogging tool include measuring energy use at home and rigging up plants to "tell" Twitter when they're thirsty.

For a green-news junkie overwhelmed by dozens or even hundreds of RSS feeds, Twitter can be an entertaining and mobile filter. Writers at blogs and traditional publications increasingly use it to broadcast 140-character alerts of stories and observations, which can provide an early and more casual take on their blog posts and formal articles.

Plus, you can interact with the authors via replies and direct messages that can be more immediate than an e-mail or comment on a full-length story.

Here are some of the "green" feeds we keep up with on Twitter. Some simply provide instant links to freshly published stories, while others mix in commentary and personality. Check out who they're following to find even more feeds.

• To start, find CNET's Green Tech posts here.
• Think of the never-dull Grist as The Onion for green news, only with more truth than truthiness.
• Preston Koerner of Jetson Green focuses on green building, and compiled this exhaustive list of green Twitter feeds.
• The EcoGeek team tracks green tech.
• Green Options is a network of a variety of green-themed blogs.
• GreenBiz.com is a hub for green business news.

• Inhabitat's bloggers share a fine eye for ecologically appropriate design.
• Sustainablog from Jeff McIntire-Strasburg is one of the longest-running green blogs.
• The Greenwash Brigade from American Public Media's Public Insight Network investigates sketchy-sounding green corporate claims.
• Green Wombat is the work of Fortune writer Todd Woody.
• DotEarth comes from Andy Revkin of The New York Times.
• TheOilDrum covers energy and "peak oil" issues.
• Global Warming and ScienceNews mention related stories around the Web every week or so.
• Ecorazzi: Think Us Weekly meets An Inconvenient Truth, launched by Michael Destries.
• Worldchanging's writers keep up with cutting-edge trends in sustainability.


Green lifestyle pointers and DIY tips come in more than a few flavors:

• Siel, aka GreenLAGirl, writes the Emerald City blog for the Los Angeles Times and still keeps up her original blog of her tips and adventures around town.
• Surveys show that people become more concerned about greening their lives when they become parents. Eco Child's Play speaks to them.
• Beth Terry's well-researched Fake Plastic Fish blog chronicles her quest to reduce her use of plastic.
• Green Map guides, in hundreds of cities, chart local green resources.
• Pointers for crafts enthusiasts come via Craft and Make magazines and Crafting a Greener World.
• The Green Guide from National Geographic offers household-greening tips. So do LighterFootstep and GreenTweet. Earth911 is a go-to guide for recycling and more.


Micro-bloggers from green nonprofit groups and businesses share their inside perspective:

• AIDG "tweets" often from Haiti, where the Boston nonprofit helps communities with renewable energy and more. The abbreviation stands for a mouthful: Appropriate Infrastructure Design Group.

• Enviroblog from the Environmental Working Group details toxic ingredients in everyday products.

• NRDCSwitchboard comes from the Natural Resources Defense Council, which prints the excellent On Earth magazine. The National Wildlife Federation and Sierra Magazine use Twitter, too. Greenpeace activists are ever-active.
• The World Resources Institute think tank is based in Washington, D.C.
• Can you build a green home for $100,000? Philadelphia developer Chad Ludeman takes up the challenge with the 100kHouse.
• Max Gladwell, whose blog blends social media with green living, describes on Treehugger how to add your "tweets" to a GreenStream channel to make them easier to find.
• Strategist and GreenBiz founder Joel Makower just began using Twitter in September.
• Social entrepreneur and GreenSkeptic Scott Edward Anderson challenges conventional assumptions about green tech.
• CleanTech.org says it's "where entrepreneurs and investors meet to commercialize clean technologies.
• CleanTech is updated by Denis DuBois, an expert on marketing for sustainable energy.
• Marc Alt, a sustainability consultant, also develops environmental conferences.
• Sopogy is among the solar start-ups with a Twitter presence.

• The Greensearch search engine donates part of ad profits to environmental groups.
• The GreenCollarGuy, from Green Collar Media, and GreenJobs specialize in sustainable employment.

Of course, you'll find some of the same voices on rival services to Twitter, but it happens to be the most popular. Feel free to chime in with more suggestions in the comments.

See also: The greening of social networking, Wikipedia's Wales launches Wikia Green, Growing green friends, Will social networking stop greenwashers?

[Max Gladwell]

Great list. Thanks for including us.

If you use Twellow (http://www.twellow.com//category_users/cat_id/107), you can see the top "green" Tweeps. http://www.twitter.com/wholefoods is #1. http://www.twitter.com/maxgladwell is #7. Great way to find relevant people or companies to follow.

[pink2yoo]

having Twitter available makes me real happy, thanx,jeri [e-mail]

[amber725]

very informative.. i find twitter really helpful though.. Im still earning its features and it looks good.


<a href="http://www/gagazine.com">Pregnant Moms</a>

[greentalk]

This is a wonderful list , but I noticed that you did not list any mom bloggers who are very influential in the blogshere. . Lynn Miller of Organic Mania started a Green Mom carnival and enlisted a terrific list of mom bloggers and some moms of the Earth as well. (Beth Terry of Fake Plastic Fish is in our group.)

A good list of some of our carnival members is on http://greenbeandreams.blogspot.com, who will be hosting Oct's carnival. Some of the "mom" bloggers have their twitter addresses on their sites or you can search their names at Twitter. I am proud to be part of this group since I have found them all to be so talented and knowledgeable.

In addition, you can check out our carnival at http://blogcarnival.com/bc/cprof_4540.html Anyone can add articles to the carnival (male or female.)

Anna www.green-talk.com

[greentalk]

Oh, I did not see Eco's Play under Green LA girl's logo. Great blog but I still think there is alot of wonderful mom blogs out there and could be better represented.

Anna www.green-talk.com

[OrganicMania]

It?s terrific to see you include my friend Beth?s Fake Plastic Fish blog in your round-up of Green Tweeters, but regrettably your list under represents the leadership of women and Green Moms in particular on Twitter and in the Green Blogosphere. Women control $.85 of every dollar in the marketplace. And Moms exert huge influence over the next generation and their adoption of eco-friendly habits. Those are two good reasons why It is important to recognize the work that women are doing to help preserve and protect the planet.

As Anna commented, I started a Green Moms Carnival to focus women?s voices around one environmentally conscious theme per month, starting with Global Warming. (You can find the kick-off carnival on global warming at OrganicMania). Some of us, like LaMarguerite, blog nearly daily about global warming, while most of us tackle a variety of topics related to practical tips for going green. Look out for the next edition this Monday at Green Bean Dreams, where we focus on avoiding holiday commercialism. (And Beth of Fake Plastic Fish will be hosting in April!)

Anyone is welcome to join us ? you just need to be a ?Mother of the Earth? or as some of our contributors have put it, ?a son of a mother!? Simply check the calendar at OrganicMania or blogcarnival.com to find out the topic and host for the coming month, and send your contribution to greenmomscarnival at gmail dot com. The carnival runs the first Monday of each month and submissions are due the last Monday of the month prior. It?s too late to participate in this Monday?s carnival, but feel free to join in next month when we?ll talk about Gratitude and Favorite Green Things over at Best of Mother Earth. You can see the master list of upcoming topics and archives of past carnivals over at OrganicMania.

I welcome new followers at http://twitter.com/organicmania, and nearly all of the founding members of the Green Moms Carnival are on Twitter too.

--Lynn from OrganicMania.com

[idealbite]

This list is a great jumping off point. Twitter is a natural fit for us at Ideal Bite (www.idealbite.com) Just last week we started posting to Twitter, and we have already begun following many of you (www.twitter.com/idealbite).

Ideal Bite offers bite-sized ideas for light green living ? ideas for real people who lead busy lives and want to make small changes that add up to big results. Our Daily Tips cover everything from biodynamic wine to eco-pet products to organic cosmetics. The secret sauce? A spoonful of ?incremental environmentalism? combined with a keeping-it-real attitude.

The mission of Ideal Bite is to create a more sustainable world by connecting enlightened companies with responsible consumers who are ready to make small changes that add up. Ideal Bite is a sassier shade of green.

Hope to have a chance to follow all of you on Twitter.

[EcoKindDesign]

Hi!
Just want to mention a few you missed!

EcoKind Design green interior decorating: www.ecokinddesign.com
Celebrate Green! holiday and family traditions book: www.celebrategreen.com
Green Halloween: www.greenhalloween.com

I know there are more. Check out my tweet people to find them!

Bright blessings,
Amy Woidtke
green interior decorator: Love Nest and Un-office Stylist

[GreenJobs]

CNET that's for mentioning GreenJobs on Twitter. We find Twitter a great way to connect. Our followers are interested in learning more about green jobs and Twitter is a great compliment to our social networking site http://www.sustainableenerrgyjobs.com

[lastgascar]

Very nice list. Please feel free to add our twitter feed for LastGasCar to your next revision!

http://twitter.com/lastgascar

[tbhurst]

A decent list - I've been able to add a few more to my Twitter stream (including the Green Tech stream), so thanks. Now it's time for some shameless self-promotion.

@ecopolitologist covers the politics of energy and the environment. The Twitter feed is a mix of direct feeds from http://ecopolitology.org and http://redgreenandblue.org, as well as some personal/professional Tweets about what I'm reading/working on, where I'm traveling, and other random musings about environmental politics, my garden, and occasionally, the Boston Red Sox.

[GoGreenGLI]

I would also like to add one more link here. This is a repository of all Green Services.. at http://www.greenlineindex.com

[farleysmaster]

For people interested in green politics in the UK, twitter.com/GreenFeed is a useful Green Blog aggregator.

[Jessica in SF]

Elsa - this is an awesome list! I'm way overwhelmed by my RSS reader (have been for the past year - ugh) and just love Twitter. I am following some of these already but you definitely caught some new, neat orgs/people for me to add to help keep me up to date on all things eco. Thanks!

Cheers,
Jessica Kositz

[zerochampion]

Very useful. I humbly would add my feed - http://twitter.com/Zerochamp - mixture of green news, blogs and random thoughts and experiences from the UK