GE Money has just launched a new credit card offering aimed at making it easy for consumers to reduce their carbon footprint. You can find information about the card at http://www.myearthrewards.com
Feel guilty about fueling up that gas guzzler or buying that box of incandescent bulbs? Would you feel better if, instead of frequent flier miles or cash, your credit card’s rewards program allowed you to offset your role in global warming?
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Enlarge This ImageFor every $100 spent on an Earth Rewards Platinum MasterCard, G.E. offers $1 in carbon offsets.
General Electric is betting you will. Today, G.E. will introduce the GE Money Earth Rewards Platinum MasterCard, which allows cardholders to forgo a 1 percent cash rebate on purchases and earmark that amount for projects that reduce greenhouse gases. In months when they feel short of money, cardholders can opt to contribute half and take half in cash.
So I saw this spam, and since its devoid of any inkling of macroeconomics, I just had to suggest an alternative. Instead of expending futile effort to try to make gas get cheaper, how about we all try to make gas as expensive as possible so that alternative energy sources look all the more attractive. Come on! Let’s see if we can help get gasoline up to 6 or 7 dollars a gallon! Yeah!
Now all we need to do is figure out how to buy oil futures and start bidding them up. That’ll be sweet. Anyhoo:
Here’s the idea:
For the rest of 2007, DON’T purchase ANY gasoline from the two
biggest companies (which now are one), EXXON and MOBIL. If they are
not selling any gas, they will be inclined to reduce their prices. If
they reduce their prices, the other companies will have to follow
suit.
But to have an impact, we need to reach literally millions of Exxon
and Mobil gas buyers. It’s really simple to do! Now, don’t wimp out
at this point…. keep reading and I’ll explain how simple it is to
reach millions of people.
I am sending this note to 30 people. If each of us sends it to at
least ten more (30 x 10 =3D 300) … and those 300 send it to at
least ten more (300 x 10 =3D 3,000)…and so on, by the time the
message reaches the sixth group of people, we will have reached over
THREE MILLION consumers. If those three million get excited and pass
this on to ten friends each, then 30 million people will have been
contacted! If it goes one level further, you guessed it….. THREE
HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE!!!
My friend Kristen forwarded this to me. Pretty cool looking, and practical. Think how awesome Michigan Ave would look if the fronts of all the buildings were covered with plant life.
PingMag - The Tokyo-based magazine about “Design and Making Things” » Archive » Vertical Garden: The art of organic architecture
Patrick Blanc overgrows the vertical surfaces of buildings in the most beautiful way. What he creates is far away from any fancy horticultural show, his Vertical Garden could rather be called eco-art, or greener architecture consisting of a variety of plants trailing gently up any interior or outside wall. Imagine the Hanging Gardens of ancient Babylon but this time on modern concrete buildings. But Patrick is not just simpy putting green on the walls which last for a day or two: set up with a highly scientific background he studies the many ways plants adapt to extreme situations at the CNRS, the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in Paris since 1982. Let’s have a closer look at these organic wallpapers of botanist Patrick Blanc today.
I’ve recently been playing pick-up soccer, with the Windy City Wanderers, a great group of football enthusiasts in Chicago. Thus far they play on Sunday afternoons up at Foster Fields. The group will be adding Wednesday and Friday games in the city, and I am working with the organizer to get a regular Thursday night game going in Oak Park.
There are people of all skill levels from all around the world. The folks in the group are great and have an awesome sense of comradery. I’m having a really fun time playing. I highly recommend it to anyone looking to play some soccer without all the over-competitiveness of the Chicago soccer leagues!
This group is for anyone and everyone who wants to play soccer with a great, friendly group of people. We have everyone from total beginners to very advanced, and everyone gets to play with people of their own skill level. We also have social events happening every week, ranging from beer and food at the pub, to post game BBQs!
We’re now into our second season, and have experienced massive growth. With over 100 members turning up to our first game, it’s only going to get bigger. Our female membership has grown three fold! If you enjoy soccer in any capacity, you should come and check us out. No one every regrets it!
Hey. A little off-topic, I know. I hoping to leverage our page rank and get this out there in googleland.
I’m looking for folks in the Oak Park and Forest Park area to play some pick-up soccer over the summer and into the fall. I myself am an intermediate player, and I’ve lined up a few beginners, and a few long time players. If you are interested in playing some soccer, feel free to shoot me an email at mattie@urbanecoinc.com. I only have a few people this week, but we’ll be kicking around at Rehm Park at 6P on Wednesday.
How many speeding cars does it take to power a lightbulb? For Mark Oberholzer, a runner-up in the 2006 Metropolis Next Generation Design Competition, this might not be such an absurd question. His project proposed integrating turbines into the barriers between highway lanes that would harness the wind generated by passing cars to create energy. “Opposing streams of traffic create really incredible potential in terms of a guaranteed wind source,” Oberholzer says.His research is aptly timed—wind is rapidly gaining attention as a sustainable power source with serious potential to feed America’s insatiable appetite for energy. General Electric, a leader in the industry, is experiencing unprecedented demand for its turbines, and although North America has been slower to adopt the technology than Europe, its wind industry is growing at an average rate of about 17 percent each year. “The United States is catching up very quickly,” GE Energy’s Robert Gleitz says. “I think if the country continues to install around the rate of three or three-and-a-half gigawatts per year, it will become one of the leading countries in wind.” In response to the corresponding need for trained professionals, the School of Engineering Technology and Applied Science in Toronto’s Centennial College launched the Centennial Energy Institute last October to educate students in developing and maintaining systems for power generation using the resources of the landscape.
This post over at Fast Company was sent to me by a colleague. It hit’s at the trendiness of green these days. I’ve been thinking about this issue myself, and I’ve decided to set my cynicism aside. Well for the most part. I think there are two players here. The first are folks that are actually doing something to make there products more environmentally friendly. That could me using renewable materials, building for easy disassembly or recycling, and any number of other things we all know can help to conserve resources. The second group are simply using “green” the same way they use “new and improved” or “now will less fat” blah blah.
Clearly, group two are pure evil and will someday find themselves in the same circle of hell with spammers, telemarketers and direct mailers.
But, I’m just going to think about first group. These are the folks that I’ve decided to be happy about. Why? Because whether these companies are making green products out of a genuine concern for the environment or not, they are still doing some good.
Ran across this product post on GroovyGreen. Unfortunately, it has given me an idea for yet another project. Why buy one of these when I can make one myself. I have a fairly high roof over my back deck. I figure I can string up some containers for water and let them heat in the sun all day, then voila! Hot showers for the whole family. Or at the very least hot outdoor baths for Maxie. Fun!
First up is a “Professional Solar Garden Shower System” called the Solar Fizz. This portable showering unit uses reflector tubes to capture solar energy and heat water to 70 degrees Celsius. Each tube can hold 15 liters — with a complete system capable of providing hot water for an entire family. Each of the units displayed on the website is claimed to be portable; but even the 15 liter version might be a little unwieldy if you plan on roughing it somewhere. The only problem is that the technology is limited to a few countries in Europe and Asia. They’re looking for distributors in North America; no any of you eco-entrepreneurs out there — have a look! Outdoor showers are the bomb-diggity — especially pollution-free, hot showers.
Check out this hot photoshoot of the Asus EcoBook. Part of me thinks that the “eco” credential is a little fishy, but another part of me thinks this is totally sweet. In reality, if you want an “eco” laptop try finding a good secondhand machine first. I’m using a 12″ ibook that has a new battery and it works just fine for my needs. You can find good used Macs at cherokeedata.com, and PCs are all over the place.
We’ve just spent the morning fondling an Asus EcoBook — the first laptop to feature real bamboo panelling. Yes, bamboo — the stuff that’s gobbled up by pandas and used to construct beach houses in the Maldives.Making a laptop out of wood doesn’t sound all that sane a project, but we should probably get accustomed to this sort of thing — Asus has already delivered the first leather-bound laptops, and Tulip does a range of crazy laptop skins for its Ego range.
The EcoBook, due to launch next year, is designed to communicate Asus’ eco-friendly message. Like it or loathe it, you should check out the world exclusive pictures over the next few pages. -RR
