When GURU talks about “clean energy,” we mean it (”dirty minds,” too, but that’s for another time). And not just the kind you find in a certain organic energy drink. We told you about Bixi back in May, now we’re on board with the Zipcar. As much as we (and most gung-ho cyclists) would like to believe a bike can take you anywhere, some trips need four wheels: heading out to Ikea, spending a weekend in the country, taking your turn with your office car pool.

That’s where Zipcar comes in. “The car for people who don’t want one” is how they put it. By signing up through their site, you get hourly or daily access to cars across the United States, in Vancouver and Toronto in Canada, and all the way in London, England. No huge car payments, no monthly parking bill – even gas and insurance are included.

As with Bixi, you get a special card that allows you to unlock and lock your vehicle. And like Bixi, you’re doing more than saving money and getting around, you’re helping out the environment (but there’s no need to be smug about it!).

Zipcar’s so committed to eco-friendliness they encouraged people from 13 Zipcar-zealous cities to go on a Low-Car Diet by swapping their car keys for running shoes, bikes and rollerblades. You can check out their photos, videos and testimonials here.

The results of last year’s challenge?

Now if only some us more coddled urbanites would get around to actually earning our driver’s licenses, we’d be set…

(photos c/o zipcar.com)

For most Montrealers, getting back in touch with nature means sprawling out on the mountain with a bottle of white. But Kimm Marie Fuller and a team of volunteers are reclaiming green space in a different way – by creating some of their own. Community gardening collective Greening Duluth spent the weekend doing just what their name suggests, de-paving the parking lot and building a garden outside Duluth’s Mennonite House of Friendship. (They’re still looking for people to come get their hands dirty this Tuesday evening. Hint, hint.)

“Plants mean air,” says Fuller, watering can in hand. “They help cool down the city; they counteract the heat from the pavement and the tar roofs.”

Like many of the volunteers, she lives nearby and will reap the benefits of her beautifying all season – a cool stretch of green space steps away from the crowded sidewalks and noxious fumes of St. Laurent. But she’s also hoping other streets and neighbourhoods follow suit in ditching the cityscape’s asphalt default.

Other Plateau-related projects include urban agriculture workshops, green roof building and guerilla gardening using homemade seed bombs. Because once the tourists hit Tam Tams this summer, we’ll all be thankful for a little bit of green.

Words by Eve Thomas / Photos by Rhiannon Brock

According to green masterminds at the University of Warwick, this slick machine is powered by chocolate, steered by carrots, has bodywork made from potatoes, and can still do 125mph around corners, becoming the first racing car designed and made from sustainable and renewable materials.

Source: University of Warwick