Während wir uns hier in Deutschland schon dahingehend eingraben, dass Obama die außenpolitischen Interessen der USA vehement durchfighten wird, gibt es auf Umweltseite Grund zur Hoffnung. Der heutige Guardian deutet die verschlüsselte Kommunikation von Obama jedenfalls dahingehend, dass er in Sachen erneuerbarer Energien wirklich was ändern wird.
Auch wenn das alles reine Interpretation ist: Ein klares Signal der Hoffnung.
We are still looking for eco-friendly t-shirts.
The story so far:
One of the best give aways to the Qype community are our t-shirts (the green ones).
We have checked with several suppliers, with different results:
- One supplier who was recommended to us by our users proved to not really do wholesale. Costs were four times too high.
- One supplier can currently deliver only black or white. No problem. But then the quality of the fabric proved to be too light. We don’t want to give people t-shirts they can’t wear.
So we are still scanning the market.
It still feels strange to me to pay someone for some kind of offsetting scheme. Reminds me of medieval times (does anyone know how to say “Ablass” in english?)
I have been relatively successful in reducing the number of flights during the past months, but by far not enough.
But as the carbon emissions of a return flight HAM-LHR can appearantly be offset for less than 5 Euro, we have decided to do it as well. Was one more click on the BA homepage. Did not hurt.
But I still believe that to reduce is better than to offset.
Tags: flyless
I found this on a bottle of Pret Orange Juice.
In case you can’t see the image: ‘We believe air freighting fruit and veg is completely over the top. It’s unnecessary and with the exception of fresh basil leaves, we don’t do it.’ – I hope this attitude catches on.
At last weeks DLD08 conference in Munich, Thiery Antinory from Lufthansa had a 5 minute session. Contents: A very vague statement that Lufthansa is doing their part to reduce carbon emissions. The only precise statements where: He stressed to the present executives that Lufthansa is the only major airline to offer executive jet service to more than 1000 airports. Finally he selected the best suggestion from the DLD07, which was: “Let me drive in my car to the gate”.
Both extremely disappointing for me.
He could have said: Lufthansa is trying to limit carbon emissions by introducing more turboprop planes. Or that Lufthansa was rethinking the via the hub and spoke system which forces everyone to switch planes at Munich and Frankfurt and therefore to have to ineffecient climb phases for each connection. In that later respect, many low cost carriers offer more convenient and energy efficient connections.
I like Google. Most of the time.
But I really don’t understand most press articles about Google. Take a look at today’s article in FTD and many newspapers or blogs. Everyone is upbeat about Google’s initiatives to develop alternative energy sources. I think this is great. But:
1. Why not publish the energy consumption of Google’s server farms in the first place? Why not start a discussion about all the website’s energy consumption (including ours)?
2. What do you need a Boing 767 for? Page and Brin are investors in the Tesla electric car. Which is good. They have Mr. Climate Change Al Gore on to their advisory board. Also nice. But, they also own a Boeing 767. Which gets favourably mentioned in the FTD because of their great relationship with Nasa. What on earth do you need a 280 ton private jet for? I can understand the need for a business jet. You need to have a way to get around your empire. And I hate waiting in line for the security checks too. But a 767? The only reason I can see is the good old “mine is bigger than yours” Of course they have to be outdone by the arab sheikh who just has ordered his A 380.
3. And, most disturbing for me: Why is space travel one of the hobbies of ultra hip web entrepreneurs such as Esther Dyson (I really like you Esther, but…), Jeff Bezos and also Larry Page and Sergei Brin? Space travel to me is simply the maximum amount of carbon dioxide a single person can possibly produce.
It seems like the ultimate status symbols today are still linked to the ultimate in waste of energy or maximum pollution.
has been compiled by Klaus Eck, I encourage you having a look.
Some comments:
I do like treehugger a lot. Pleases the eye as well. Great structure: Get Informed, Interact, Take action.
I recommend having a look at EcoGeek. Despite it’s name, you will be presented with a regular stream of nice posts.
For a perspective from New York, it is worth looking at Noimpactman.
My personal favourite, not on Klaus’ List, is still: ethicalliving. This blog from the people at the Guardian newspaper is definitely worth subscribing to.
Just received a nasty comment (anonymous) about unnecessary air travel to conferences. This exactly the point. I have not yet been to great conferences like reboot, SIME, leWeb, Picnic. But the few successful conferences I have attended just demonstrate the point that you can not replicate the experience via video conferencing. In fact, I need to attend more conferences. Meeting great people is too important.
As I have said before in this blog: I do not drive an SUV, we are not using much energy at home. But I will stop feeling guilty about travelling to meet great people.
Finally. It hast taken me longer than I wanted. And I just read today that only 2% of all German households are using electric energy from renewables. We will be one of them now.
Even the smallest regional commuter planes now come as jet. I recently had the pleasure to fly with a Dash 8 Q300. Did you know that the fuel consumption per passenger kilometer is considerably lower than on a comparable jet plane?
Also, as these planes cruise at a lower altitude, I assume that the additional effect of emissions at high altitude will be lower.
Propeller planes have two disadvantages: Their maximum speed is only about 500 km /hr as opposed to 900 km / hr for jets. However, for anything under a distance of 1,5 hrs this amounts to only about 10% more travel time. The other disadvantage is the higher level of cabin noise. Guess what: with the latest in Noise cancelling headphones, this does not matter.
A I am a product driven entrepreneur, based in Hamburg, Germany. I founded Qype, currently help building Avocadostore, and some other things.
You are currently browsing the archives for the English category.