Greenpeace Influences Apple

Here’s more proof that trying to make a difference does work. Greenpeace, who scolded Apple for not being green, has been effective in getting Apple to change its way.

Steve Jobs, the man behind Apple, has released a statement that Apple is going to be greener.

Apple has been criticized by some environmental organizations for not being a leader in removing toxic chemicals from its new products, and for not aggressively or properly recycling its old products. Upon investigating Apple’s current practices and progress towards these goals, I was surprised to learn that in many cases Apple is ahead of, or will soon be ahead of, most of its competitors in these areas. Whatever other improvements we need to make, it is certainly clear that we have failed to communicate the things that we are doing well.

Try Living Without Oil Before You Have To

Peak oil is coming, probably soon than you think. We sort of all know this, but we never really talk about it. What are we going to do when it actually happens? Will we be caught totally unawares?

A new alternate reality game (read: online story-driven community-based game) aims to make people think about this unthinkable topic. World Without Oil is being funded by a number of media companies and being produced by a team of experienced game makers. Their goal? To simulate a global oil shock, applying “collective intelligence” to the problem in advance, and create a record that can help people anticipate the future. The means to accomplish all this is player-contributed blogs, videos, etc.

Tell us your story. Fuel prices are sky high and the ripple effects are pulling at the seams of our society. Everyone’s life has taken a hit – but how much of a hit are you taking? How much pain are you in? No one will know if you don’t add your voice to the collective shout. And who knows? If enough people speak up, maybe the force of collective truth will help prevent this crisis from ever happening again.

For more information, start at the official homepage.

Whistler Buses Go Hydro

The government of BC (the Canadian province, not the era) is planning to outfit mountain city Whistler with a whole scad of hydro-powered buses. Diesel vehicles are the current norm, but the new buses will run entirely on fuel cells, which produce no harmful emissions.

Small numbers of fuel-cell- powered buses have been used in demonstration projects in cities in Europe and the United States over the past decade.

But the Whistler project, which is forecast to have 20 of the city’s 30 or so buses running on hydrogen power, will be the largest fuel-cell-powered fleet in the world and the first project to make such vehicles the backbone of a public transit system.

The Red Scarf Project

I don’t know how many knitters are out there reading this site, but there was recent project that just wrapped up called “The Red Scarf Project.”  It was a project set up by the Orphan Foundation of America that asked volunteers to make various unisex scarves for parentless “college-bound youth.”  They received a lot of scarves and many different people participated including Lion’s Brand Wool, which sponsored a 5th grade class’s knitting needles and wool.

You can read about it at  http://www.orphan.org/red_scarf_project.xhtml or http://nownormaknits2.typepad.com/now_norma_knits_2/2007/04/i_was_in_error.html

 In the end 15, 097 scarves were made.  So many that some are being kept for next year’s event.  They are planning to make the deadline earlier though.  It will likely be in September or October of 2007.