Musicians including Ben Brewer, Feist, and The Citizens Band are putting their money where their mouths are with respect to making the music industry a greener place to be. And they’re doing so (perhaps ingeniously) by using music as a gateway for youth interested in helping the environment. Green Owl, a new label out of New York City run by Brewer, fellow Appletrees member Ellenike Abreu, and Steven Clicken, released its first LP, The Green Owl Comp in April. The two-disc CD/DVD is a benefit record for the Energy Action Coalition, a nonprofit that supports the youth clean-energy movement. All proceeds will go to the coalition.

Photography Courtesy of Aptera

It looks something like a spaceship or a Star Wars X-wing, but these days, it seems like everything “green” does. Aptera founder Steve Fambro invites the ready, willing, and able (and shorter than 6′5″) to board the Aptera Typ-1, a car that allegedly gets 230 miles to the gallon. Fambro’s theory is that a car with minimal drag and an aerodynamic shape would cut down on those fuel bills, but it can be designed to be comfortable, safe, and user-friendly. Manufacturing for the car — which will tentatively cost nearly $27,000 for an electric-only version, and nearly $30,000 for a plug-in hybrid — starts at the end of this year. Something to keep in mind: anything more than two people and a baby could become a problem.

Photography by Todd Plitt ellabakercenter.org

Now that sustainability is finally recognized as more than just a white yuppie thing or a silly dork trend, the Oakland-based Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, founded by the ever-visionary Van Jones, has launched a new campaign called “Green for All”. It aims high — a national movement designed to secure $1 billion in federal funding for “green collar” job training by 2012 — and it’s already making waves. The House of Representatives passed the Green Jobs Act of 2007 to help the ecological revolution reach neglected inner cities, and the city of Oakland set aside $250,000 to create a Green Job Corps. It’s about time: viable green jobs, from manufacturing biofuel and installing solar panels to weatherizing homes and maintaining wind farms, represent a new sector in the economy, and there’s plenty of chronically unemployed folks — laid-off workers from outsourced industries, urban youth, returning veterans, rehabilitated ex-cons — able to provide the human power to make “green” go.