Greenpeace just released the sixth edition of its "Guide to Greener Electronics" for December 2007. With Nintendo at the bottom, Sony Ericsson, Samsung and Sony top the list of greenest electronics and most improvements.

The guide is updated every three months, which encourages manufacturers to make quick changes. Plus, the guide is a useful and up-to-date resource for consumers – especially around the holiday season.

Greenpeace does not rank the electronics companies on energy use, which is a large issue that could withstand improvement. Instead, it focuses on the lifecycle of the products – how the companies clean up their products by eliminating hazardous substances, and how they take back and recycle their products once they've become obsolete. Because lets face it – not everyone wants to play old-school Mario Brothers forever.

Coal is a tricky situation – it's cheap and widely available, but it's oh so dirty. However, until a reliable (in any weather condition) and easily accessed renewable source of energy comes about, we'll be forced to stick with coal for a while longer.

Thankfully, Google, the megahouse search engine firm that has now branched out to spend its loads of money very wisely by investing in and researching in clean energy, is now focused on creating a source of electricity that is cheaper than coal. It's looking primarily to solar thermal power, wind power and enhanced geothermal systems. It hopes to produce one gigawatt of renewable energy (enough to power San Francisco) within years instead of decades.

The BBC mentions that Google is interested in high-altitude wind power, which shows huge promise and has gained a lot of attention recently.

Architects aim for the buildings to make use of natural daylight, use solar panels and maybe even wind turbines for sustainable power. Greenery and nature trails will surround the structures that will collect and reuse storm water.

Planners hope the parks will encourage new jobs and boost the local economies while promoting environmental stewardship. Although more building and sprawl is hardly what we need, if it is inevitable, it may as well be as green as possible. And we do need to do more to encourage the growth of more businesses that focus on improving the environment. If the parks truly want to push the limit, they should consider incorporating public transportation for their employees so huge parking lots are unnecessary and employees can limit their emissions of greenhouse gases.

The FTC hasn't reviewed this area in nearly a decade, when the business of paying to reduce your carbon footprint hadn't really started.

The FTC is having a workshop on January 8th, the first step in a process to recommend guidelines on what companies should do and say regarding carbon offsets. Getting consensus on what is a carbon offset or REC and how it should be advertised is important to weed out those who are playing fast and loose with the terms and to increase consumer confidence.

Kites the size of football fields, attached to ships by cables, can catch winds almost 50 percent stronger than sea-level wind. While they don't work in head winds and require crews to tend to the kites, these still could put quite a dent in the carbon dioxide released from cargo and cruise ships.

Some companies testing the waters include Germany's SkySails and California-based KiteShip Corp. To give the new product a run for its money, SkySails has readied a 460-foot cargo ship with the kites, and plans for it to journey from Denmark to Houston in mid-December.

But they certainly aren't the only ones eyeing high-altitude wind power. This year's $500,000 MacArthur Fellowship went to Saul Griffith, an MIT grad, high-tech inventor and entrepreneur, whose new company, Makani Power, is researching and designing ways to capture wind that blows much higher than the normal 300-foot wind turbines. On the weekends, he can be found racing his catamaran around San Francisco Bay with extra power from giant kites.

But wait, new LED Christmas light strands use 90% less electricity than traditional tungsten lights, supposedly last much longer and the whole strand isn't blown if one bulb goes down. Some even have lifetime warranties.

Even Manhattan's Rockefeller Center is lighting its Christmas tree with LED lights that run on solar power.

This is a failsafe way to get on the big guy's nice list this year.