Green News
It's not good enough to keep an eye on your own carbon footprint nowadays: if you've got a virtual identity on Second Life or any other dark corner of the web, you need to ensure that he or she is living responsibly too! After a shocking bit of research showing that each Second Life avatar consumes as much electricity as a real life Brazilian, Big Green Switch has started a campaign to help SL residents offset their carbon footprints.
Here's how it works - a SL user purchases our set of 10 beautiful exclusive trees for 3000 Linden Dollars (L$) and 100% of the money goes into a dedicated Big Green Switch offsetting fund. Periodically, the fund is converted into UK Sterling and invested in tree planting schemes via the UK's Tree Appeal organisation. SL land owners can also carbon offset their sim for a further L$1000.
[Via Virtual Economics]
Carbon Neutral Living
The Rt Rev James Jones, Bishop of Liverpool, has a suggestion for his congregation as they prepare to make the usual chocolate and alcohol sacrifices for Lent: give up carbon. The Christian thing to do is to help those in need, and by living a greener lifestyle we begin to stem the tide of suffering inflicted on some of the world's poorest people.
Bishop Jones has teamed up with Christian humanitarian group Tearfund as a response to what he heard from youth groups in Liverpool, which was that helping save the Earth - or at least the people on it - was their top priority. Together they suggest the usual small but useful measures: change to energy saving lightbulbs, recycle, use fewer plastic bags, give the dishwasher a day off and do whatever else you can to generally reduce your carbon footprint. After 40 days, it might even become a lifelong habit; you never know.
Oh, and a word to the Greek Orthodox community: if you're going for the full 40 days of semi-vegan goodness, the Lent fast for us starts on March 10th.
Carbon Neutral Living
Gadgets are never going to be the most eco-conscious addition to our lives, but slowly technology companies are getting wise to the fact that not only is green living necessary, it's also fashionable, and woe betide the company that loses its cool factor.
For whatever reason, quite a few companies - Nokia featuring among the most recently notable - have decided to show off their green credentials. In his keynote speech announcing the instantly controversial MacBook Air, Steve Jobs made sure to point out that the case was manufactured from recyclable aluminium, and no mercury, arsenic or brominated flame retardants were involved in the process. But there were two quieter eco-friendly nods that also caught Shiny attention.
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Carbon Neutral Living
Despite celebrating the world's gadgetry next week at CES and containing the blindingly brightly lit Las Vegas, Nevada has taken steps towards producing more green energy.
The 14-megawatt Nellis solar energy system has the distinction being the US's largest "solar photovoltaic system", at least until California's whopping 80-megawatt project is completed. Here come the numbers: 72,000 panels arranged over 140 acres aim to produce 30 million kilowatt-hours of clean electricity, powering one quarter of the Nellis Air Force Base it is installed at. That's 25% of the energy needed by some 12,000 residents, all of which sounds pretty positive to me (before us Shiny Shinies covering CES board that carbon-spewing jet, of course).
Carbon Neutral Living
I live next door to the House of 10,000 Lights. And round the corner is the House of 1,000,000 Lights. It's scary. There are globes, and trains, and reindeer. *Sob*. Someone needs to tell these people about solar power... apart from the environmental considerations, their electricity bill ought to look a lot slimmer!
These solar powered fairy lights are $29.95 (£15) for a string of 50, which is actually cheaper than the non-solar LEDs we have wrapped around artfully arranged twigs in the living room at the moment (you try living with a designer; sparkly twigs is the least of it). They charge automatically during the day to give you eight or nine hours of pretty glowing light during the night. Sparkly fun with a conscience; how wonderfully Christmassy is that?
Alexandra Roumbas is Deputy Editor of Shiny Shiny, where a version of this post first appeared. Remember kids, everything - including gadgetry - in moderation!
A couple of days ago I was lucky enough to be one of several hundred green activists, academics and hangers on (that’ll be me then) who caught the first Eurostar train out of the new gleaming and incredibly beautiful St Pancras station.
Not only was it the first train to depart from north London as opposed to Waterloo, it also marks a new era for Eurostar in that the company claims the train was the first ever to be carbon neutral. So what does this mean in practice?
When most companies claims to be carbon-neutral there isn't really a huge amount the likes of you and I can do to check up on them. It is slightly different for Eurostar in that while much of their claim has to be taken on trust, there are a few things passengers can do to check the green creds for themselves.
Firstly the trip was really little more than a PR stunt. Eurostar has been trying to green its service for many months now. What happened on Wednesday was that it used the high profile launch of its new service to underline its current green credentials and suggest where it is going in the future.
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Green News
Today is a big day for green travel: Eurostar's first ever fully carbon-neutral journey across the to Paris has just left St Pancras station in London, and Ashley Norris is blogging the trip for us, live from the train. Read on to find out what's happening...
"The brand new station concourse is filling up, the punters are jostling towards the platform and the first Eurostar train to Paris is set to rocket out of St Pancras station in about twenty minutes time. Yet on board isn’t the usual mixture of local dignitaries, politicians in search of a photo opp and railway enthusiasts. Many of the, ahem, VIP crew for the first journey are green activists, campaigners and of course bloggers (which is where I sneaked in) here to judge for themselves the environmental credentials of Eurostar's new cross channel carbon-neutral service.
It has widely accepted for some time now that the journey between London and Paris by train produces a tenth of the carbon dioxide as one using a plane (11kg as opposed to 122 by plane). But Eurostar claims that thanks to some core changes in its service passengers can enjoy a completely carbon neutral trip."
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