Monthly Archives: April 2007

Australian Website Hosting Company Goes Carbon Neutral

I find the idea of going carbon neutral quite interesting. It’s certainly gaining in popularity. I just hope it’s doing as much as its proponents say.

Webcity Web Hosting Australia has just gone carbon neutral, going through the Greenfleet program. Essentially, that means they’re having trees planted to completely offset the carbon production related to their carbon emissions.

This is a big company in Australia, so I’m quite pleased to see this happen. Be nice to watch more companies choose to think about the mark they leave on this world.

Should the Schools Get Involved?

I read over on Tree Hugger that The Children’s Environmental Literacy Foundation is helping to bring environmental curricula to K-12 schools. Right now they’re pretty much in New York State, but it would certainly be nice to see it expand.

Of course, not everyone will be happy about this. There will be people such as my father-in-law who will go on about “eco-nazis” taking over the schools. You probably know the rant.

It’s important to have children learn early to think about the environment. I don’t mean teach them to go nuts on the subject, but topics such as recycling, cleaning up after ourselves and not using more than necessary are certainly quite relevant. Over time these can be developed further.

Reading through their site, I learned something I hadn’t known. Vermont has written sustainability into their educational standards already. Pretty wonderful to see states working on that already. Be nice to see other states follow suit.

One of the wonderful things about teaching children at a young age to respect our environment is how well they tend to take to it. The things they learn young can stick with them for life. I especially like this quote:

This new way of thinking challenges educators, administrators and the entire community to enrich education from an early age with sustainability knowledge, beliefs and “habits of the heart”.

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New Colony Collapse Disorder Theory

Just saw this one on my local news and had to look it up.

A new theory on colony collapse disorder blames cell phones. It’s a fascinating idea, but one I really hope isn’t true. Just imagine how difficult it would be to fix this problem!

This is one hypothesis that hasn’t been proven yet, but the idea has possibilities. Apparently bees get lost when exposed to signals from cell phones.

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Avoiding Food Waste

Americans waste a lot of food. It has been estimated that as much as 1.3 pounds of food per person per day goes to waste. Wasting less food is better not only for the environment but for your pocketbook.

Of course, some food waste is unavoidable, especially if you have picky eaters in your family. Sometimes you just can’t get a child to eat something you thought he or she would enjoy. But many other forms of food waste can be handled better.

Start off with how you handle your grocery shopping. Think not only about how much you’re buying, but how soon it will go bad. Being realistic about what you and your family will consume in a reasonable period will cut back on what you waste.

Food storage can make a big difference. Some fruits can stay out for weeks and not have a problem. Others go bad in days, even in the refrigerator. The same goes for vegetables.

Meats, of course, need refrigeration, but they can also freeze quite nicely. If you separate your meat out into the quantities you will need for cooking later, you can buy meat in bulk, and freeze only the excess. Continue reading →

Here Come Printable Solar Cells

G24 Innovations in Cardiff, U.K. is about to start printing solar cells on flexible, film-like materials. These aren’t as efficient as silicon cells, but can work with lower light levels, even indoors.

That’s just really wonderful to hear. Silicon is expensive and fairly scarce. These cells can essentially recycle the light indoors if you use them on countertops and such. Just think of all the unused and underused surfaces that could be covered with these to produce electricity.

No doubt it will be a while before you start seeing much of these, especially here in the United States, but as more companies start printing solar cells they could become quite a bit more common.

Of course, it may be some time before the prices get to where they’re easily acceptable. I don’t know what it’s going to cost yet, but as the technology improves there is certainly hope for it to be affordable for most people.

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