Are You Experiencing Green Fatigue?
August 14, 2007
With the much needed increase in media exposure and discussion of green issues, a new problem has come to light. That of “green fatigue”. By that I mean are people getting tired of hearing the green message? Whilst it’s easy and quick to make small changes to your lifestyle and help the environment, is the constant stream of green messages reducing their effect?
Which environmental issues are the important ones? Who is telling the truth? What do their claims actually mean? What is “green”?
Green encompasses everything from turning lights off to recycling and reducing your carbon footprint. What is a high level of being green and what a low? Which companies are independent and which are not? How do you know that planting a tree in Africa is actually a good thing? How do you know what a business claims are its green credentials are actually true and/or worthwhile?
It’s a very difficult balance to get right and there is currently no easy answer to any of these questions. Retailers are spending millions promoting their green credentials (Marks & Spencer in the UK are reportedly investing £200m to become a “greener business”), but is it a genuine effort to become green, or a marketing ploy to attract savvy consumers such as yourself? Can profit and shareholder driven companies actually be beneficial to the planet? Or at the least, less harmful?
With all the talk about green energy, carbon footprint labels, even green stocks and shares and green washing powder it’s easy to be confused or miss the point. For example, due to strict EU laws, most washing detergents in the EU aren’t (too) bad for the environment and much better than they used to be. Turning your machine down to 30 degrees celcius will have a much bigger impact than changing your washing powder. It’s all about direction and magnitude. Not all of our 100 ways to save the planet have equal effort or equal reward, but small efforts moving in the right direction will lead to bigger rewards.
The almost constant promotion of a company’s green credentials are not equal. Carbon offsetting (I have my own issues with that - to be discussed later!) is not the same as reducing energy consumption. Just because a company laudes the fact it now has 100 electric or hybrid vehicles doesn’t mean it has sound environmental policies in other areas. What is its position on recycling? What steps is it taking to not use energy at all (reduce) and reuse?
“Green fatigue” may affect some of us, but I actually view this as a good thing. I look forward to the day when you can’t move for green messages, where every company is doing all it can to reduce its impact on the environment, and who cares how much they shout about it? If people like YOU keep supporting companies that do respect and support the place in which they live, then maybe one day we will get there.
Do you agree or disagree? Please let us know by leaving a comment below. If you’d prefer you can contact us privately.
Organ and Blood Donation Awareness
July 18, 2007
Of course, it’s a personal choice if you wish to donate your organs, but if you decide to you could be helping some of the 1,700 people in Australia, 50,000 people in Latin America, more that 170,000 people in Europe and the United States, and over 2 million people in China who are in need of an organ transplant. Without one, these people will probably die, and at the very least have a better standard of life.
In the UK it’s easy to become a donor and join some of the people who have enabled 3,000 people to have a new lease of life. Go here if you’re in the US, else try these worldwide links.
Giving blood is also a way of providing help to others. Again, in the UK it’s easy, just visit the blood donation website and sign up, and in the US go here.
Smoking Ban May Increase Global Warming
June 29, 2007
Whilst personally I can’t wait until the smoking ban comes into force in England (July 1st 2007), it may have a series of unintended consequence according to this BBC article.
As well as potentially causing people to take up smoking (all their friends are outside), increasing passive smoking in children (due to more smoking in the home), and increasing chef’s wages (as pubs turn to food to keep customers), the ban may also have an impact on gloabl warming.
A lot of money is being spent by pub chains on outdoor smoking areas. With the wonderful British climate being as it is, this means for at least half the year it is cold and wet, so the installation of gas powered patio heaters is essential to some. However, according to Friends of the Earth using a gas-fired heater for just one hour can waste enough energy to make 400 cups of tea.
With multiple heaters and thousands of pubs, that’s a lot of “wasted” energy!
[Via: BBC]
Taking Liberties
June 9, 2007
Taking Liberties looks like an interesting book that has now been made into a film, on a limited release across the UK. According to the website:
“Freedom of Speech. Right to Privacy. Innocent Until Proven Guilty. Prohibition from Torture. TAKING LIBERTIES will reveal how these liberties have been systematically destroyed by New Labour, and the freedoms of the British people stolen from under their noses amidst a climate of fear created by the media and government itself.”
It’s out now.
Can’t see the video? Click here.
Move House The Green Way
June 8, 2007
Moving home can create a huge amount of waste as packaging materials get bought and then thrown away. EarthFriendlyMoving try to offer eco-friendly moving supplies.
They offer a Recycled Ecological Packing Solution, or RecoPack for short, that provides recycled plastic containers that are rented from them so can be re-used by other movers. They also only cost a US$ a box per week, and are available in 5 sizes.
They also provide recycled packing paper, made in a honeycomb structure to replace plastic bubble-wrap. Also, instead of foam “popcorn”, they provide RecoCubes, which are made from recycled paper sludge that can be used as compost after use. All items are deliverd by bio-fueled trucks. Check out their top 10 reasons for moving in an environmentally friendly way. Hopefully they can be successful and expand further than Southern California.
[Via Springwise]
Be Nice To Each Other
May 3, 2007
It’s easily said that the world will be be a better place if people were nicer to each other. Sure, you could be nice, but what’s in it for you? Well some people have tried to find out.
By writing letters to 100 companies and spending $39, The $39 Experiment attempted to see what companies would send you for free just by being nice to them. I won’t spoil the ending for you, but suffice to say Another $39 Experiment is soon to begin.
Team Nice are trying to go further by cheering up Londoners. Set up by Lisa Akers, 100 niceties-tokens are handed out to people seen being nice, each with unique details on. The person who receives it can log on to the token website and enter details about where they were given it. Once they have done it they can pass it on to someone else who they see being nice.
Go on, be nice to someone today. You know you want to!
[Partially via MoneySavingExpert]
Make Your Online Business More Accessible To The Blind
April 25, 2007
The BBC recently reported about RoboBraille.org, a free service that converts your documents in braille.
A Danish company, RoboBraille provides (free to all non-commercial users) a conversion service by email. You send them files in plain text, rich text, html or Word by e-mail and then shortly you receive back your information as an MP3 audio file or as electronic Braille.
Electronic Braille “can be read by a tactile display - a device connected to the computer with a series of pins that are raised or lowered to represent the Braille characters - or sent to a Braille printer”. The following can currently be done:
- Translate documents into contracted Braille
- Translate documents into speech
- Translate text into visual Braille
- Convert text documents between different character sets
- Convert Braille documents to specific Braille character sets
- Partition documents into smaller parts
Shortly about to add PDF document conversion, the company currently processes about 400 conversions a day, but can handle 14,000. Take a look for free conversion to braille.
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