Posts Tagged green
Spill, baby; spill!
Posted by Carl Pappenheim in Opinions on 13th May 2010
“What happens,” asks one shrewd Internet commentator, “when hurricane season starts in the Gulf of Mexico and lightning strikes the oil slick? FIRE-ICANE!” The movie is, no doubt, already in production. Yet the gallows humour masks an extremely uncomfortable truth – Deepwater Horizon is not an act of God but a disaster we have created.
Yeah, ‘we’. It’s a funny thing, responsibility. The Horizon isn’t actually owned by BP which means the explosion itself may not legally be their fault but the technicality is that as the owner of the oil rushing out of the wells they are the ones obliged to retrieve it. They have a plan, too.
Being Green – Behind The Scenes
Powwownow provides a service which is environmentally friendly in the sense that it encourages people to communicate over distance rather than contributing to CO2 emissions by travelling.
But our green commitment extends to our day-to-day operations as well. Like any company, we generate a significant amount of cardboard waste and paper waste. None of this goes to a landfill. It is collected by our recycling company, FirstMile, along with drinks cans, food tins, glass bottles & jars, drinks cartons, and even plastic bottles & bags. Printer components such as exhausted toner cartridges and image drums are notoriously hazardous for the environment, so we’re careful to only use printers whose manufacturers offer a free recycling service for used parts, which we post back to them rather than throwing them away.
Department of Energy and Complete Codswallop
[Image courtesy of fluffysam]
How’s this for hypocrisy? It turns out that, despite all their preaching about everyone doing their bit to tackle climate change, the Department for Energy and Climate Change have been flying all over the UK on journeys that could quite easily have been done by train.
Apparently, their staff took just under 1,200 domestic flights, including 26 return flights to Manchester. A journey that can be done in two and a half hours by train or a little longer by coach. Surely they could have lift-shared at the very least?
Climate change in your pocket
Posted by Powwownowgreen in Opinions on 17th February 2010
The Skeptical Science iPhone App
If you’re a climate change believer there’s a chance that you’ve come up some pretty stubborn climate change sceptics, eager to denounce your opinion because they’re sure that climate change is fiction devised by some mad scientists with an agenda.
I wouldn’t be so short-sighted to say that the sceptics are wrong, but wouldn’t it be nice to have a bit of scientific evidence at hand for when you’re not as confident about the science as you would like to be? For example, when you’re in the pub and climate change sceptics who think they’re smarter than the scientists because they’ve read a few blogs or column inches surround you. Well, this is where the Skeptical Science app could help you out.
Why the big conspiracy?
Posted by Powwownowgreen in Opinions on 28th January 2010
[image courtesy of Daniel Bos]
One of the delights of the internet is that no matter how obscure your interests, you’re likely to find somebody out there with the same interests as you. Whether river dancing, Eastern European gangster movies or plate spinning floats your boat, you’ll have no problem finding someone else out there who’s into it, too. It’s just one of the reasons the internet is so great.
Of course it also means that those with more controversial views can find others with the same beliefs. A view that they may have seemed ludicrous to them when it first popped into their heads suddenly gains extra weight once they find other people with views in line with their own, no matter how extraordinary. Their views are reinforced and soon a mass of ‘believers’ form.
The snow may be melting away, but the relevance of climate change remains
Posted by Powwownowgreen in Opinions on 14th January 2010
[Image courtesy of Marquisa]
The recent ‘big freeze’ that has struck the UK and large parts of the northern hemisphere has pushed global warming right back into the spotlight (if it was ever out of it) and, perhaps unsurprisingly, the climate change sceptics are quick to use it as evidence of the ‘myth’ of global warming. Surely one of the most prolonged cold periods in recent British history surely suggests that the earth is not getting warmer? Well, according to this rather interesting Greenpeace blog, it has no relevance whatsoever. As they point out:
Does there have to be a green tax on everything?
Posted by Powwownowgreen in Opinions on 3rd December 2009
That’s how it seems sometimes. If I want to exercise my right as a purchaser and buy the green/ethical/morally upright option, I have to pay extra. Someone somewhere is taxing me for my beliefs.
Maybe I’m being too sensitive about this. After all, if I go into my local supermarket, I’m presented with normal coffee or fair trade coffee. I accept that fair trade coffee will be more expensive, but I don’t mind buying it because (a) I can afford the extra few pennies and (b) a decent price is paid to the farmer. In short, it makes me feel good. I like to think that Western consumers like me are doing our bit to divert wealth from multinational companies to small producers.
The real cost of air travel
Posted by Powwownowteam in Opinions on 12th November 2009
Here at Powwownow, we don’t mind a bit of honest competition. But recent advertising from the people at Flybe.com seemed a little less than truthful. So we felt we ought to take a little direct action with our own ad, published today in the London Metro.
OK, so it’s a little cheeky of us to take their ad and throw it back at them. But we felt there was something important missing in their claim that face to face meetings – and particularly face-to-face meetings that involve air travel – are ‘better’ than conference calling.
The Little Guy versus the Big Problem
Posted by Powwownowgreen in Opinions on 8th October 2009
Do you ever wonder, given the sheer scale of the climate change problem, what difference we can make as an individual?
I’m sure I’m not alone in saying that I do. But the constant efforts by little people and big people alike continue to encourage me. Seeing the semi-constant Twitter messaging and online buzz about Copenhagen, for example, tells me that we can achieve something big through lots of small efforts – because there is belief that change is possible.
Educating the masses – WWF style
Posted by Powwownowgreen in Opinions on 22nd September 2009
I was delighted to see the other day that the WWF had released a document onto the web to explain the importance of the forthcoming Copenhagen Summit meeting.
As you may or may not know, it is an event that is crucial to our futures: as the guide says, it is an opportunity to agree on an actionable way forward to reduce CO2 emissions. This is something we have not done and something we must do – and part of the challenge is educating people by spreading content like this on the web. Bravo WWF.
