I don't know whether Al Gore and his movie deserve credit or if it's just a mass movement at this point, but there does seem to be a much greater recognition recently of the importance of the impact people have on the earth. Certainly this is very true in the United States, where people consume more of everything than in other parts of the world, although I believe China has just passed the US in oil consumption. Green Options is a website that has come along at the right time.Green Options: Greening the Good Life is a kind of portal for everything green -- news and stories about energy use, hybrid and electric cars, the high tech industry, wind power, the environment and more. There are a number of contributors to the site, so it's very up to date in terms of content.
As far as the organization of the site goes, it's not overly complex. There is a blog, discussion forums, the Green Life Guide, the Green Report and the Home page. Each section has a clean design and is reasonably easy to use and nicely illustrated with images and graphics. to The blog is collaborative, with short, readable summaries of longer pieces which are posted 3 - 7 times per day so far (6-10 posts per day is the goal, but 3-7 seems more in line with what's actually happening). The full article is available through the headline link, and has comments by readers visible. This article about the Chicago Auto Show is a good example of what you can find on the blog.
The site's discussion forums have a wide range of topics like solar energy, home and garden, and recycling. Some appear to be pretty new with very little activity while others have a little more activity. I'm sure as the site gains in popularity, this area will pick up and become more widely used.
The Green Life Guide is designed to help you apply some of the ideas on the site to lessen your impact on the environment. Each section is set up as a wiki, so it can be edited. The solar panel section has lots of information, although I'm not sure I could use it to put solar panels on my home.
The Green Report is a news headline page, with items that should be relevant to the purpose of the site. This may be done through an RSS feed or other automated system, which might explain why there's an article about the Duke men's basketball team ending their five game losing streak. It doesn't seem to have anything to do with green issues, but maybe one of the staff members is a Duke fan.
Overall, I think the Green Options site is nicely designed and has a good balance of content. I will definitely bookmark the site and revisit it weekly. I'll also add the blog to my RSS reader, but where's the subscribe button? That should be prominently displayed near the top of that screen and it's nowhere to be found. There is an RSS feed for the site, but it's not easy to find.
One other nice feature of the site is that it uses a Creative Commons license for the content, so you can share and remix the materials with attribution. That's a great thing for bloggers who might want to link to or excerpt from the site.
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