But I still have to celebrate Apple’s relentless pursuit of excellence and mark today’s launch with an exploration of perhaps iPhone’s most intriguing innovations: “Green apps.”

From the silly, to the almost useful; here’s what I found.

Green Light $0.99

There are plenty of flashlight apps out there. But Green Light turns your iPhone or iPod into an energy efficient light bulb. Kind of silly, but kind of fun.

iPhorest $4.99

iPhorest isn’t selling a killer app.  They’re promoting a living one. You can grow a virtual tree in the palm of your hand and share it with the world, all while helping to plant real trees.

Go Green Free

I downloaded the Go Green app, and now I get a FREE green trip every time I fire it up.  It’s alright, but today’s tip was kind of obtuse: “Start a program where you buy in bulk and share the extras with friends and family.” Isn’t this the basic principle behind Costco?

Get Green $0.99

Go Green’s competitor. But their differentiator worth the 99 cent investment is that they send you daily tips via smart technology that are relevant to the holiday or season. So, presumably, it won’t tell you to recyle your Christmas tree during Hanukah or on the 4th of July.

Green Wars $0.99

Perhaps the most complicated, “I-don’t-have-a-life,” green app out there, is Green Wars. It asks you to buy and sell fictitious green products and curb the market on green consumerism. OrangaTank based it on the “Classic DOS and T1-83 game Drug/Dope Wars,” which actually sounds a hell of a lot more fun.

The Green Book LITE Free

This is a free preview of the The Green Book: “The Everday Guide to Saving the Planet One Simple Step at a Time.”  It includes energy-saving tips you can follow at home as well as green-living anecdotes from William McDonough, Cameron Diaz, and Will Ferrell. Seriously.

MeterRead $2.99

Just mirror your current meter settings by dialing it into the MeterRead interface, and the app will update you on projected energy use and cost savings available through some simple energy management tips. Pretty cool app, and at $2.99, you could pay for it in a week with the energy you’ll save.

Gorgeously Green Survival Guide $0.99

Developed by New York Times bestselling author Sophie Uliano, the Gorgeously Green Survival Guide is a quick reference eco-guide for the woman on the go. Whatever.

GreenSpot $1.99

This is basically a green news wire for your iPhone. It delivers daily news, views, and podcasts on sustainability and green living from the major news organizations, bloggers, syndicates, etc.

Green News Reader $0.99

The app that’s trying to scoop GreenSpot, but for a buck less.

3rdWhale Free

For the eco-shopper, 3rdWhale helps you find green and sustainable businesses quickly and easily. But here’s a NEWS FLASH that the two preceding apps may have missed: 3rdWhale is combining forces with Creative Citizen, the wiki for green living, to create the ultimate green app.

Greenpeace Tissue Guide Free

Even your comode isn’t sacred in Greenpeace’s eyes. Their free app explains that Americans can save more than 400,000 trees if each family replaced just one roll of virgin toilet paper in their home with a roll of recycled toilet paper. If it’s brown, flush it down. If it’s yellow, let it mellow. If it’s Greenpeace, use just one piece.

Carbon Footprint $0.99

This app allows you to track fuel usage for multiple cars. You enter the data, and it spews out the stats on your carbon impact. But then what? I know a Boeing engineer that will dig this for Father’s Day.

greenMeter $5.99

If calculating and analyzing your carbon footprint is sissy boy stuff, then you’ll dig greenMeter. It computes your vehicle’s power and fuel usage characteristics, and evaluates your driving style to increase efficiency, reduce fuel consumption and cost, and lower your environmental impact: An anally green statistician’s dream.

iamgreen $1.99

This offers an interesting combination of increasing your phone’s battery life, with some energy-saving tips, and an international competition on who is the überous greenie of all.

NOW, THE GREATEST GREEN APP OF ALL

Cow Fart CO2 $0.99

That’s right, it measures your carbon footprint in cow farts. Now I can add “Bovine Flatulence” to my other international standards of measurement.

God bless America and all of its innovation.

CoolPeopleCare.org demonstrates easy ways you can save the world in five minutes or less.

BestGreenBlogs.com is the web’s largest directory of green and sustainable themed weblogs.

Ecopreneurist.com is part of Green Options Media, a network of environmentally-focused blogs covering a broad spectrum of information for making sustainable choices.

LazyEnvironmentalist.com offers easy, stylish and super convenient ways to green your lifestyle

RealClimate.org is a commentary site on climate science by working climate scientists for the interested public and journalists.

TreeHugger.com Owned by Discovery, this site is a media outlet dedicated to driving sustainability mainstream.

Grist.org where news about green issues and sustainable living isn’t predictable, demoralizing, or dull.

GreenLivingIdeas.com provides ideas, tips, and information to help you improve the environmental sustainability of every aspect of your life: home energy, green building and remodeling, cars, food, waste recycling—and everything in between.

DoTheGreenThing.com is a not-for-profit public service that inspires people to lead a greener life, with the help of brilliant videos and inspiring stories etc. from creative people and community members around the world.

EcoGeek.org publishes up to ten stories daily about innovations that are saving the planet.

Celsias.com offers tools to help people combat climate change, and bring the green community, companies and organisations closer together.

TheNaturalStep.org is a non profit organization founded with the vision of creating a sustainable society.

TinyChoices.com is a colorful blog about all things green.

Conservation.org has a mission to conserve the Earth’s living heritage – our global biodiversity – and to demonstrate that human societies are able to live harmoniously with nature.

ExperienceBiOH.com Brought to you by the BiOH polyols business — a maker of soy-based ingredients for foam, The BiOH experience offers resources for you to learn and participate in helping communities and the environment.

TwilightEarth.com is dedicated to saving the the environment through schared news, deiscuss, advocacy and activism.

MoreEco.com offers a single entry point to some of the finest green online retailers whilst rewarding you for your ethical shopping habits and helping to reduce your carbon footprint.

EcoTrendSpotter.com provides readers and shoppers with the latest eco, organic, green products.

RecycleFund.com A site dedicated to easy and earth-friendly fundraising for your organization by recycling empty printer cartridges and cell phones.

HyperLocavore.ning.com Join hyperlocavore to find or start a yardshare in your town. CSAs and community gardens fill up fast. Food is expensive! Grow together!

Inhabit.com is a weblog devoted to the future of design, tracking the innovations in technology, practices and materials that are pushing architecture and home design towards a smarter and more sustainable future.

Green.com is a unique online world where people can safely gather, learn, and interact with each other.

Please feel free to share this poll with everyone you know to drive votes for your favorite green website.

Plug Out Boy feat. Green Monday from Green Thing on Vimeo.

You can subscribe to DoTheGreenThing.com by clicking here: subscribe@dothegreenthing.com. Their emails are always fun, and the creative that comes with them is immensely inspirational.

Here are the rest.

2. Congress Passes Renewable Energy Credits

Federal tax credits for the solar and wind industries are set to expire at the end of ’08. Gasp!

3. Offshore Drilling Debate

“Drill, baby, drill.” Are coastal waters safe now that the democrats are in office and gas prices have plummeted?

4. Failure of Warner-Lieberman

The first national carbon cap-and-trade legislation gets whacked in Congress.

5. New Rules Put a Freeze on Coal Plants

Coal industry to clean up or shut up.

6. Ethanol Bubble Bursts

Doesn’t look like America will be replacing oil fields with ethanol-producing corn fields anytime soon.

7. Polar Bear Listed

The first animal listed as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act due to global warming. “Swim, baby, swim.”

8. Indonesia Warms to Avoid Deforestation

Cool idea: California open to helping Indonesia save its rainforests.

9. First Co2 Auction

Utilities coughed up $38.5 million for the right to emit 12.5 million tons of Co2.

10. Word of the Year: “Hypermiling”

Do you know what the Oxford American Dictionary word-of-the-year means?

Their campaign theme is reflected in all aspects of the work, right down to the website that is remarkably minimalist. Presumably they only used what they needed, although it feels like they’re missing some great opportunities for customer engagement. Perhaps the site gets more robust in summer, when it appears the outreach is most visible. I’ll let the campaign do the rest of the talking, because that’s all you need out of this post.

Nemo Gould is a fascinating artist in San Francisco whose remarkable sculptures are mostly crafted from found materials. He’s the “Rodin of Rubbish” having spent the summer of ’07 as Artist-in-Residence at the San Francisco dump.

His work is the most tangible form of green messaging I’ve found.

I stumbled across Nemo at the Maker Fair in San Mateo, CA, and was immediately taken by his incredible sculptures.  I felt like a little kid, because his stuff is way too cool.

The Octovarius, for instance, is made from an old steam trunk, violin, chair parts, tobacco pipes, taxidermy eyes, steak serving platters, motor, semi truck exhaust guard, and cold cathode light tubes.  Most of his sculptures are kinetic, and in Octovarious, the tentacles move independently.

What impressed me the most about Nemo’s work is in the powerful way it demonstrates a conservation and recycling message; the ultimate hands-on environmental marketing experience…at least in the art world.  If I was Waste Management, I’d commission Nemo to create every piece of art in my corporate office, and then send him on a North American tour. (No, I don’t represent Mr. Gould, and they might want to check with him first.)

Quite simply, Nemo proves their is surprising beauty and innovative use in the things we discard. Here’s a look at a few more of his creations that he’s brought to life…or brought back to life.