By Jeffrey Frame •
March 24, 2009
Germany has hit upon a plan that for the moment is keeping domestic sales afloat by giving away 2,500 Euros or $3,143 to new car buyers that trade in an old car. The government has said that this will not only give the German auto industry a boost in sales but will also put more fuel-efficient cars on the road while removing older more polluting cars.
Germany’s plan reflects a choice other countries face as well. As global car sales and exports plummet around the world each country has to decide on its own strategy to keep their auto manufacturers afloat. But this raises a question: is it better to support traditional car companies that produce cars based on fossil fuel sources or give support to up-and-coming electric and hydrogen powered car companies. Also, are these new incentives aimed to just keep the main German carmakers in business or will they stipulate that their main automakers BMW and Daimler begin producing electric cars to meet their goal of 1 million electric cars by 2020?
By Jeffrey Frame •
March 24, 2009
Two companies, one from France and one from Napa, California, use wind power to transport wine.
Have you ever considered how your wine from abroad is transported? How much carbon does it take for one bottle of imported wine to reach your local grocery store, especially from a faraway vineyard in Australia? How can those bottles shipped from so far away be so cheap? Are we externalizing the cost to the environment for future generations to pick up the tab? What about all of those other products we buy from abroad? Could there be another way that doesn’t involve burning so much coal?
By Jeffrey Frame •
March 23, 2009
World class adventurer, National Geographic Emerging Explorer, and a descendant of the legendary Rothschild banking family, David de Rothschild, will attempt to do what no one has done before, sail half-way around the world from California to Australia on a catamaran made 90% of recycled plastic waste powered only by the wind and the sun.
However this is not the first journey to be made across the Pacific using plastic waste. Last year a raft made of 15,000 bottles called the Junk successfully made a similar journey from California to Hawaii in 87 days in order to promote awareness of the global plastic waste problem.
