If you are interested in using the network of green-conscious individuals on the internet to empower your community, then you may want to check out the Eco-mmunity Map. The Map allows you to make map markers for the resources in your community that can help people live a more environmentally-friendly lifestyle.

For instance, a new Eco-mmunity member just added a marker for a company called “Smart House, LLC” [www.sundancechannel.com]. This company specializes in planning and constructing energy-efficient modular housing. If you know somebody in your home town who wishes they could expand their house or are looking to get a new affordable house of their own, then you could use the “send to a friend” feature to share this interesting information with your friend. The “send to a friend” feature is a really great way for you to share a new marker with all your friends.

Another great and simple way to use Eco-mmunity Map is to do a little research on your home town. Is there an all-natural grocery store that has a lot of organic and healthy products in your neighborhood? Make a marker for it and you will be surprised how many people will take advantage of it.

What about public parks? Make a map marker for each one of your favorite camping grounds or hiking trails.

How about green utilities? Did you find out about a local wind farm and now you are buying your electricity from them? Make a map marker with the contact information for the wind farm company in question and send it to your friends so they too can use electricity that is good for the planet.

Thanks for checking out THE GREEN BLOG, we hope you enjoyed the read. As usual, we welcome any comments you might have.

Brita cares about cleaning the environment as much as it cares about providing great products for making your home a healthier place to live. They have been serving consumers who look for high quality water filtration systems. Not content to stop at providing clean water to millions of people, Brita sponsors events that bring the community together under the common cause of improving awareness of environmental issues and also to solve some problems by supporting charities and other philanthropic ventures.

Brita is holding a series of “Climate Rides,” whereby bicyclists race together in honor of environmentalism. Bicycles are a great example of energy conservation (and money conservation). There are a few climate rides scheduled in cities along the east coast, check out the Eco-mmunity Map Marker Group for
“Brita Climate Ride” [www.sundancechannel.com]] for complete listings.

Check out this new video spot from GlobalGiving Green, one of the wonderful Eco-mmunity Action Partners who makes it easy for people to support non-profit charities. We hope you enjoy this playful video.

If this video helped inspire you to make a difference, then make sure to check out the GlobalGiving Green Map Marker Group [www.sundancechannel.com] on Eco-mmunity Map. If you click the little button “play slideshow” you will be able to view all of the different geographic locations where the charities are doing their work. If you find one of the charities to be interesting, we encourage you to click the “website” button found in the marker. This will take you directly to the Global Giving Website where you can easily lend your support to a noble cause that is visibly improving the lives of people and the environments they live in.

Donating money and volunteering time are two noble paths to improving the world and yourself. If you have the will, you can magnify your contributions immensely by picking the right charity to support. Global Giving Green excels in the ability to discern the charities whose missions make the greatest positive impact.

Sundance Channel’s Eco-mmunity proudly partners with Global Giving Green on the quest to create a healthy, just and compassionate world. Today, Global Giving Green joins Eco-mmunity as an “Action Partner.” We believe this partnership grants Eco-mmunity members an excellent method for improving the world.

Provide Safety For Children Living
Near Lead Battery Factories

If you want to get a quick overview of where all these charities are in the world, then make sure to check them out in the GlobalGiving Green Map Marker Group [www.sundancechannel.com]. If you are interested in getting more info on one of the charities, just click the “website” link in the top right corner of the map marker you are currently looking at.

Help Low-Income Families Get On
The Solar Grid

Thanks for joining us in THE GREEN Blog. As always, we encourage you to become a Sundance Channel member and to comment on as many blog posts as you like.

April is the month of rebirth in nature. Take one look outside and you can probably see all the new buds biding their time before bursting forth flowers and leaves. This backdrop seems quite appropriate for the “What’s The Big Idea?” contest, where people just like you can submit an idea to save the planet from climate change. Make sure to take a good look at the rules of the contest, as submitting your idea correctly will insure a chance of winning the $10,000 prize!

If you want to get started right away, here is a link to the “What’s The Big Idea?” contest.

As you may be able to guess from the title of the contest, there are some similarities between it and the Sundance Channel original show BIG IDEAS FOR A SMALL PLANET. All of the innovators who are featured in the show would be great examples of the kinds of ideas or businesses which might be selected as the winning idea in the contest. We encourage you to take a tour of the BIG IDEAS innovators on the Eco-mmunity Map, as they may inspire you with your very own idea that you can then enter into the contest.

Check out the BIG IDEAS FOR A SMALL PLANET map marker group now.

The Eco-mmunity is all about helping people change the world around them. Turn an abandoned lot into a garden for your community. Tired of tap water that smells terrible, use Eco-mmunity to rally your community and send letters to a state representative (and copies to a local paper), and sit back and watch as change happens.

How can an individual’s actions change their carbon footprint? There are many ways to do this on Eco-mmunity Map. Every time an Eco-mmunity member creates a marker on the map, there is a greater chance that another person who searches the map will find the marker and will learn about and possibly support a green force in the world. Add a marker for everything green in your world.

You can change the world with determination. While there is no reward without toil, at least the work of adding to the Eco-mmunity Map can connect you to your community and provide a few laughs from reading other people’s map markers.

If you are looking for a more traditional route of helping the environment, then check out the “Take Action Now” webpage of Eco-mmunity. If you want to help save resources and avoid the annoyance of endless Junk Mail, then check out GreenDimes. If you are interested in getting something to wear for your contribution, then check out TONIC’s designer t-shirts, each one supports a different charity.

Very soon we will be adding new functionality and features to Eco-mmunity. Expect to find these mysterious new features sometime in the spring and during the second season of THE GREEN.

Sundance Channel’s Eco-mmunity Map has just gotten better. A new feature called “Marker Slideshows” has gone live on the Eco-mmunity Map. This feature creates a slideshow out of any list of markers. You can generate a list of markers by going to one of Eco-mmunity’s preselected groups or you can search the map with keywords and display the search results as a slideshow. To get to the preselected marker slideshows, click the “Map Marker Group” tab on the main map page.

We encourage everyone to experiment with map searches and to check out how cool the slideshows can be. You can also use the map marker groups as a source of inspiration when you are thinking about what map marker to add to Eco-mmunity map. For instance, if you live nearby an gourmet organic restaurant, then you should make a green business marker for it. Then Eco-mmunity editors can put that marker into the “select green foods” map marker group.

To get you started, here are some easy links to get started with the new slideshow feature. You will have to click the play slideshow button that appears next to the marker list screen in the lower right side of the Eco-mmunity map screen.

Green Holiday Gifts [www.sundancechannel.com]

Select Green Foods [www.sundancechannel.com]

New and Noteworthy [www.sundancechannel.com]