Handmade paper from the Himalayas is an ancient craft of Nepal. The paper in this product is made of Daphne Bark from managed forest in the hills of Nepal. The product is manufactured by crafts-persons in the medieval town of Bhaktapur. Proceeds from the sales are used for community development activities under a Community Development Programme initiated by UNICEF/Nepal.Price:
“This year’s report examines GE’s partnerships with our employees, business partners and communities—in jointly tackling the world’s most complex and pressing problems”"This year’s report examines GE’s partnerships with our employees, business partners and communities—in jointly tackling the world’s most complex and pressing problems," said Jeff Immelt, chairman and CEO of GE. "Based on our commitments to integrity, performance and learning, GE is renewing our company coming out of this economic reset."
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General Electric is poised to order "tens of thousands" of electric cars, probably the "largest order in history," according to CEO Jeff Immelt in a London speech. The specifics of that are supposed to be made clear this week, but Immelt said that half of GE's sales force, some 23,000 people, could be in plug-in cars, probably Nissan Leafs. I can't wait -- I live a mile from GE's world headquarters, so it will be nice to see all the electric cars around, and maybe it will be an impetus for EV charging here in Fairfield, Connecticut. This is all the more reason to have charging at the town railroad station, right?
While we're waiting for GE's shoe to drop, the company is blogging about EVs, including a recent post identifying what it calls "the 10 best cities for electric cars." How do you determine that? If you're GE, you use data from the Census Bureau and study the commuting habits of people in the 25 biggest metropolitan areas. You look for the percentage of commuters who drive to work and live within 50 miles of the job, and you also factor in how the region is set up to handle the needs of car commuters.
The irony here is that these rankings tend to favor communities that have done the least to build public transportation networks. They've fussed over light rail plans, or simply have a culture that worships the private automobile. New York City doesn't make the list because it's one of the very few cities where more than half the residents don't own cars, and a majority use public transportation. So it's very green, but not EV-friendly as GE reckoned it. Indeed, it's a challenge to own any kind of car in New York.
Here's the list, which is very Texas-friendly:
Dallas. The city has 2.7 million commuters who live within 50 miles of the city center. An incredible 91.5 percent of commuters currently drive to work. And no wonder, because the city faces "indefinite delays" in building several key components of the light rail system (including the vital link to the airport). Dallas was named one of America's top nine congested cities by the Department of Transportation in 2007. Houston. Anyone who's visited Houston knows that it's outer rings, lined with big-box stores and even bigger mega-churches, go on forever. So it's not surprising that it has an amazing 2.4 million commuters within 50 miles of downtown, 90 percent of whom drive to work. Houston is transit-challenged, too. The METRORail system, which opened in 2004, is supposed to be completed by 2012, but it has been mired in controversies. Currently it has only 34,000 daily riders, which isn't many in a city with almost 2.5 million commuters.Detroit. The Motor City is named that for a reason. More than 92.5 percent of its 1.6 million commuters drive to work (usually alone, one assumes). Detroit has a monorail system, but it makes a very circumscribed loop around the core downtown, the result of disagreements between then-mayor Coleman Young and the Reagan Administration. Now the city is talking about light rail, but it's not a comprehensive system, and it may be a while.St. Louis. Another car-loving city, St. Louis' 1.2 million commuters are 91.2 percent dependent on driving to work. St. Louis does have the MetroLink light rail system, but you can't always get there from here.Atlanta. The scene of congestion so bad that the city temporarily lost federal highway funding, Atlanta struggles with public transit. Some 87 percent of its commuters drive in from suburbs like Lawrenceville and Canton. The MARTA system provides relief for some.The other five EV-friendly cities are Miami (88.14 percent car dependent, 2.1 million car commuters); Phoenix (88.15 percent dependent, 1.6 million car commuters); Tampa (89.82 percent dependent, one million car commuters); Cincinnati (90 percent dependent, 922,000 car commuters); and Sacramento (87.3 percent dependent, 800,000 car commuters).
This hand blown glass hummingbird feeder from Bird Brain is an elegant addition to any backyard birder's yard. $19.99 at doitbest com
Also See:
> How to Plant a Bird Garden
> Interview with John Flicker, of the National Audubon Society
> The Imperial Pigeon and Other Newly Discovered Species
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It's getting easier all the time to run your home on green energy: More than half of all electricity consumers in the U.S. have the option of purchasing some kind of green power product from their electricity provider. Find out how you can buy green power by visiting the Department of Energy (DOE) Website, which offers a state-by-state list of green energy providers, as well as information on making your own green energy, such as installing solar power, and tips on conservation.
Also visit your own utility's Website to check out its green energy options. Its site should also indicate how you might be eligible to install a solar or wind generator and operate in parallel with their electric grid. If your utility doesn't offer these options, use the Contact Us link on its site to let it know you want to power green.
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BooksMusicFood & KitchenCarsGadgetsMovies & TV Toys More Amazon blogsBlogs at AmazonAmazon DailyBabyAmazon GreenVideo GamesAbout this blog| RSS feedAmazon GreenMusings on making every day Earth Day« Celebrate Earth Day by Protecting O |Main| New ENERGY STAR® Televisions »The Real Cost of Your Everyday Appliances and Devicesby Editor on July 14, 2010\ABS\Auto Blog Samurai\data\Green Home Green Office Eco Products Eco Gifts\Amazon Green Blog\ "6a00e54ed05fc28833013480867eef970c-800wi-6")
Image Credit: TreeHugger and GEFound this on TreeHugger.com by Jaymi Heimbuch:
"GE and Pentagram's Lisa Strausfeld have come up with a fantastic way to visualize how good or bad our appliances and devices are when it comes to using up our home's energy. We know that homes suck up about 20% of all energy in the US, but the question is where that energy is funneled off to once it reaches our homes, and how much it's costing us to run that ceiling fan or that electric blanket. The interactive tool tells you how much energy that appliance or device uses in watts, dollars, or gallons of gas, as well as what one kilowatt hour yields for that device, and even better, it will rank each device so that you can see at a glance which you want to unplug.One of the recommendations in the article is to find out what the worst offenders are in your home is to pick up a wattage calculator and plug in your devices to see how much power is being used when it is on or in standby mode.
Happy calculating!
~Amazon Green Scene
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Comments:October 2010SunMonTueWedThuFriSat 12345678910111213141516171819202122232425262728293031 ArchivesOctober 2010August 2010July 2010TopicsEnvironmentScienceTelevision© 2009, Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.BooksMusicFood & KitchenCarsGadgetsMovies & TV Toys More Amazon blogsBlogs at AmazonAmazon DailyBabyAmazon GreenVideo GamesAbout this blog| RSS feedAmazon GreenMusings on making every day Earth Day« Green Your Dorm Room with ENERGY ST |MainBuying Greener Electronics with EPEATby Editor on October 11, 2010Sarah O'Brien of EPEAT shares the results of EPEAT's 2009 environmental benefits reporting.
My job is to help business purchasers and consumers use the EPEAT “green IT” ratings system to select more environmentally sustainable electronic products. They’ve been doing so in growing numbers around the world since EPEAT’s launch in 2006 – and last year the trend continued, with more business purchasers and individual consumers using EPEAT to choose greener, more sustainable products.
More manufacturers are participating as well. EPEAT started 2009 with 30 manufacturers registering 975 products, and ended the year with 37 manufacturers registering more than 1400 products in the US and many more internationally. Currently (September 2010), more than 50 manufacturers register more than 2500 unique products in the 41 countries EPEAT covers.
That progress is great, but it’s the results, in terms of the environmental improvement motivated by that purchasing, that matters. So I was thrilled to finish calculating the environmental benefits related to EPEAT purchasing in 2009 for our annual benefits reporting[1]:
EPEAT registered notebooks, desktops, and monitors purchased worldwide in 2009 will, over their life, compared to the purchase of products not meeting system criteria:
Reduce use of toxic materials, including mercury, by 1537 metric tons, equivalent to the weight of nearly 800,000 bricks Eliminate use of enough mercury to fill 372,000 average household fever thermometers Eliminate over 29,000 metric tons of solid waste, equivalent to more than 14,500 U.S. households’ annual solid waste generationReduce hazardous waste disposal by 72,000 metric tonsIn addition, because EPEAT requires registered products to meet the latest ENERGY STAR® specifications, these products will consume less energy throughout their useful life than nonqualified products, resulting in:
Savings of over 10 billion kWh of electricity — enough to power 900,000 U.S. homes for a year Reduction of over 2 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions — equivalent to taking nearly 1.4 million U.S. passenger cars off the road for a year Avoidance of 44 million metric tons of air emissions (including greenhouse gas emissions) and over 93,000 metric tons of water pollutant emissionsAs a nonprofit organization, EPEAT’s mission is to advance environmental improvement, so all our marketing activities around EPEAT are aimed at creating change for the better. This level of benefits confirms EPEAT ‘s effectiveness at channeling purchaser demand toward products with reduced impact on the planet.
By choosing EPEAT rated products (preferably those rated at the Silver or Gold which demonstrate really major improvements in product design and delivery) , consumers can reward manufacturers for the vitally important work of creating and supporting greener products. We’re grateful to Amazon for making EPEAT information available, and encourage you to use it to send a clear message to manufacturers of support for greener product choices when you buy your next IT equipment!
To learn more, you can download the Executive Summary of the 2009 Environmental Benefits report at www.epeat.net/docs/EPEATEBReport2009ExecSumm.pdf , find out much more about EPEAT at www.epeat.net , or view a recent online discussion forum on green electronics set up by The World radio show at http://www.world-science.org/forum/green-electronics-epeat-united-pepper/ .
EPEAT’s approach to environmental assessment — rating based on public standards, tiered rankings that encourage competition and continuous improvement, ongoing independent verification, and easy access to a single registry to compare and select among qualified products — continues to engage dozens of manufacturers of all sizes and differing nationalities, and thousands of purchasers worldwide in the process of creating and rewarding more sustainable products. We hope you’ll participate and keep the momentum going!
We'd like to congratulate EPEAT on their accomplishments and thank Sarah O'Brien for this post! Check out Amazon's Green Electronics Store for more EPEAT qualified products.
-Amazon Green
[1] Because EPEAT’s underlying standard (IEEE 1680.1) was designed to reduce duplicative effort, some of EPEAT’s environmental criteria align with other requirements, such as ENERGY STAR® specifications and the EU’s RoHS regulations. Thus not all the changes in product design and delivery that qualify products for EPEAT registration result from EPEAT alone. However, each EPEAT registered product purchased results in environmental impact benefits specific to the products purchased – those are the benefits measured in this annual report.
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Comments:October 2010SunMonTueWedThuFriSat 12345678910111213141516171819202122232425262728293031 ArchivesOctober 2010August 2010July 2010TopicsEnvironmentScienceTelevision© 2009, Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
