Hey everybody, did you see the new White House website? Very cool – so much change. For you sustainability wonks, there are a lot of good bits on the energy & environment section – let’s hope President Obama can see these goals through. You can keep up with all the Change on the White House blog.
Are you confident in our new President’s commitment to green energy and sustainability, or do you think it will be forgotten as foreign policy and economic crises pile up?
That’s the world population of cars now, and it could double in the next 20 years. This is according to Daniel Sperling, author of the book Two Billion Cars: Driving Toward Sustainability. Sperling was interviewed yesterday on one of my favorite radio shows, Fresh Air.
It’s a really interesting conversation about the history of technology advancements and market forces that have influenced the makeup of the car population now, and how we might slow its growth and make electric, hybrid, and hydrogren vehicles take up a larger share in the future.
Car sharing gets a lot of love, of course, but some of his other answers are surprising. He points out the shortcoming of mass transit and promotes bike sharing, paratransit, and other ways to change what he terms “the transportation monoculture.”
You should take a listen, even if you’re not a policy wonk – these Big Picture questions address important facets of all our lives.
(AP photo via anthonares.net)
You see this? The Times of London did a story exploring how much greenhouse gasses are created from doing a Google search and other web activities. Apparently two searches release the same amount of gas as it takes to boil a kettle of water. Servers and big computer machines apparently need a lot of power.
Unsurprisingly, Google took issue with the story, pointing out the apparent efficiency of their servers and claiming a search uses as much energy as a human body does in ten seconds, much less than boiling a half kettle of water.
I think a persuasive point they could have expanded on is that doing the amount of research a Google search does in pre-Google times would have taken many car trips to many libraries to look through stacks of paper.
Of course, back then, we didn’t have to update our status to the world every second, which probably could make a few kettles worth of tea.
Not sure how to keep the little tykes busy this holiday season? Check out Green Parent Chicago’s helpful list of ideas on ways to keep the kids entertained- away from the tube. Ever think you’d go snowshoeing in the city? Well, there’s a first time for everything!
Procrastinating cooks throughout the city might want to know where to go for last minute turkeys and fixings for the holiday. I checked it out – here are Thanksgiving Day hours for Chicago grocery stores:
I pretty much looked at websites and talked to some store managers, so double-checking is advised.
As always, I-GO cars are available throughout the day all over Chicago for lugging around turkeys and cranberries and sweet potatoes (or going out to the suburbs to eat your mom’s or grandma’s…). I’m gonna jump in one to go get my own sweet potatoes for some Thanksgiving hashbrowns:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xShyedT9Ny4&hl=en&fs=1]
Merry Turkey Day everyone.
(photo from Google’s sweet LIFE photo archive)
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