Tag: Environment

A Knight Funds War (on Carbon Emissions)

That odd billoniare Sir Richard Branson has decided to fight carbon emissions while sending spaceships to space and air planes to air. Branson has made millions off of air travel (the worst way to travel environmentally speaking) and other things and now he wants to use those millions to help all of us.

Sir Richard Branson brought his talent for publicity to bear on climate change yesterday, offering a $25m (£13m) prize to anyone who invents an economical way of removing carbon from the atmosphere.

The Virgin group chairman said: “We have no super-hero. We have only our own ingenuity to fall back on.”

The CBC has a news clip on the story (direct link to WMV file).

Ancient Solution, Modern Problem

Alexander Moseson wrote:

A scientist is resurrecting 4500 year old technology from the pyramids to create a sustainable, environmentally friendly concrete. It produces 90% less CO2 than the standard Portland Cement, which is the second largest producer of CO2 behind fossil fuels. This could have huge applications in modern society, but even better, they hope to use it to provide cheap or free housing to developing communities all over the world.

(Alex is a graduate student working on the project.) Thanks for sharing Alex!

iTunes = Green and Vista = Pollution?

Two interesting takes on software popped up on the interweb recently. I find it interesting the potential that using software has for reducing pollution thanks to digitization.

First, we have a blogger arguing that iTunes saves the environment because less people are buying CDs (and the CDs don’t need to be shipped).
“Steve Jobs also announced that Apple is currently selling 5,000,000 songs per day. This is about 416,000 CD’s per day. By buying your music from the Apple Store, you are helping to prevent a stack of CD’s 2.6 miles high from having to be manufactured PER DAY.”

Apple uses DRM (Digital Rights Management, which is bad), and so does Microsoft Vista. Vista, the new windows, will harm the environment thanks to DRM (see why it’s bad?).
“There will be thousands of tonnes of dumped monitors, video cards, and whole computers that are perfectly capable of running Vista — except for the fact they lack the paranoid lock down mechanisms Vista forces you to use. That’s an offensive cost to the environment. Future archaeologists will be able to identify a “Vista Upgrade Layer” when they go through our landfill sites”

Be lazy and don’t upgrade to the awful Windows Vista.

Organization to Help Green PCs

The Green Advisory Service has set out to help PC firms do less environmental damage. In the UK a PC left on overnight can cost upwards of £53 in electricity. The cost of running a PC is not cheap for the pocketbook or for the environment and this is what the Green Advisory Service will help change.

“Organisations are increasingly focused on their environmental profile and are beginning to recognise the reputation and cost advantages of a green approach,” said Heidi-Lynn Mitchell, product services director for Computacenter.

This is partly thanks to a major European Union directive – The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment directive (WEEE).”