Be sure to run by your local video store (when you're in the neighborhood, naturally) and pick up this week's Austin Chronicle Green Issue. An excellent resource on local green issues and developments, it touches on everything from the grassroots to the high tech, city utilities and food, green building and green travel.

Making its debut in this issue is the Austin Chronicle Green Guide, a compendium of resource listings for green goods and services. The best part? The Guide's online and it's meant to grow.

The Green Issue also launches the Kill-a-Watt Challenge, a citywide competition in energy efficiency.

Kill-a-Watt Challenge [pits] individuals, neighborhoods, and businesses against one another to see who can reduce their energy use the most during Austin's most energy-intensive time of the year: summer.

How does it work?

Austin Energy will compare the number of kilowatts you use each month this summer (June through September) to the number you used during the same months last year. Every month, whoever drops their energy use the most over last year – proportional to the amount they were using to begin with – wins prizes. (And glory: We'll be celebrating winners' achievements here at the challenge Web site, so prepare to share the secrets to your success.) At the end of the challenge, after Austin has single-handedly saved the planet, we'll be giving even bigger rewards to those with the most impressive four-month energy savings.