Gorgeous Green Roofs, Promising Green Businesses and a Bird-Saving Child Inventor

I wanted to try something here that I picked up from my friend Chris Baskind, a social media maven, blogger and long-time radio hand who used to work in Florida with Flush Limbaugh, "before he became an obnoxious, over-the-top ahole" (presumably before he needed Viagra as well). Chris was posting 5 cool links from the Intertubes he found before 5 a.m. (yes, he's partially insane). This was on EcoTech Daily, cool site but doesn't seem to be up right now. (Turns out my hip, NYU-teaching colleague Lili Zarghami has been doing something similar over at Redbook.)

Anyway, I thought these links were really cool, so enjoy:

Glorious Green Roofs

I love me some green roofs! Not only are they functional (natural cooling, carbon sinks, oxygen producers, habitat providers, food growers), but they are beautiful, and great for chillaxing, whether you live in the city or the 'burbs. I've been meaning to put together a gallery of gorgeous green roofs for some time (sort of like mei draft snakes), but the venerable Huffington Post Green beat me to the punch, with their cool collection of user-submitted images (you can even vote for your fave with their nifty integrated poll tool!).

No, I wasn't invited to HuffPo's inauguration party either, so don't feel bad if you didn't get to see how bad Val Kilmer looks these days. (The life of a G list [Green] blogger who doesn't write for HuffPo or Treehugger]).

Smart Kid Saves Birds

One of our most popular stories ever was the bit about the glass wall of death around a California burb that was killing birds by the thousands. Glass can be a real pane in the neck for flying creatures, who are already over stressed from development, pesticides, invasive species and global warming (not to mention jet engines).

So one Canada boy had the idea of making a film for windows that's coated with UV paint, which birds can see but we can't, warning them that there's something solid. It's like what they use to make the lanes look psychedelic for Cosmic Bowling on Friday night. Wow, I'm not smarter than an 8th grader!

25 Promising Green Businesses

Business Pundit has just put out a great list of 25 promising green businesses. There are some familiar brands (Tesla, Zipcar, Organic Valley, White Wave), but also several up and comers that are generally below the green radar (Calera cement, Eaton, Makani Power, Feelgoodz, Integrity Block and others).

Cool list, with innovation.

Lead Paint Makers Put Hurt on Rhode Island

We've covered the years-long fight between Rhode Island and lead paint companies, and the companies have been held not liable. Now, the paint makers are demanding the state reimburse them for at least $242,000 in legal fees. The companies could have been forced to spend billions cleaning up homes contaminated by lead paint.

So existing lead paint still remains a problem in Rhode Island and many other places.

Oh, and Huffpo Green just came out with a weird little item about a NYC woman who bit a bus driver because the transport wasn't a hybrid. That'll show them!