I just found this short-lived series on building and cultivating green homes by Inhabitat. They've got a fairly good entry about green lighting. It goes beyond just energy efficient products to simply going "au natural" like installing skylights and not staying up so late at night. Check out Philip's Simplicity LED light bulb. It's gorgeous and modern.

For many who tuned into MTV’s Real World in its early days, they remember cast members such as Pedro Zamora, an AIDS activist, asking for a dose of privacy on his first date with his eventual life partner. The end of that season’s broadcast created a significant media moment with Zamora’s passing just hours afterward. Memories such as this felt visceral and honest. You can even say real, unprecedented and unscripted. Leap into 2008, sixteen years after the show’s debut, and the cultural content of The Real World has become ordinary cultural miasma. As a contrast to this, the interior design concept of the Hollywood season has evolved.

The show casts and targets teenagers and young adults. As many viewers mature, a new set comes of age to replace them. Like the David Wooderson character in Dazed and Confused says,” That's what I love about these high school girls, man. I get older, they stay the same age.” 

Show producers have stuck to a formula of casting young attractive people whom are directionless and rather limited in experience but with an overabundance of aggression. There are cast binge drinking problems and female members experiencing the angst of unrequited affection for fellow beefcakes. To many viewers, nothing unusual has happened this last season. It’s the same dysfunctional behavior happening in the foreground.

In an attempt to evolve into a real model of cultural growth, production designers enlisted multiple companies to help develop a green interior concept for the Hollywood home. The lighting industry’s TCP Inc. provided advice along with hundreds of energy-efficient compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs for the set. More...

Some people have complained that California is overregulated and tied up in red string. But a rising national green consciousness validates one aspect of California regulation: product safety.  In 1986, Californians voted into law Proposition 65: The Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act.  Prop 65, as it is better known, requires businesses to inform the state’s public about significant amounts of toxic chemicals in products purchased for the home and workplace or released into the environment.  The EPA’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) annually publishes an updated list of chemicals known to cause cancer or birth defects.  Prop 65 also forbids the release of these chemicals into sources of drinking water.  Businesses are required to note the amounts used and post warnings at sites and on products.  It was a proposition that anticipated such product safety alarm triggers as last year’s consumer fears about toys manufactured in China containing lead paint.

By law, 1STOPLighting, Amazon and other lighting merchants are required to give the Prop 65 warning for products that have lead content, namely crystal products. Many manufacturers use lead crystal for chandeliers.  In the manufacturing process, they add lead oxide to molten glass to produce a product with higher brilliance.  Other common things like Christmas tree lights contain lead in their PVC insulation.  For the public, lead exposure may hinder a child’s cognitive development and other health problems. But adults, not children, are responsible for the installation, cleaning and disposal of these materials.  Please wear gloves or wash your hands after handling these products.

Product Safety isn’t just a matter of allowing consumers to make informed decisions about their health. In a larger green context, your personal health belongs to a larger exposure chain.  Chemical Body Burden is the accumulation of synthetic chemicals and metals in individual bodies.More...