Green Options

After nearly destroying a forest and obliterating a species, one corporation does a 180 and becomes an EcoHero.
The story begins in the 1830’s, when the South Carolina Canal and Railroad Company (SCCRC) bought a 100,000 acre plot of longleaf pine forest near Dorchester, South Carolina. Timber from the forest was an essential element in SCCRC’s expansion, development and continued operation. Not only did timber provide material for cross-ties, trestles and bridges, but most of the then steam powered locomotives burned wood to heat their boilers. This meant a nonstop and insatiable demand for timber which the forest was unable to support.

Following the destruction and carnage of the civil war, more timber was needed to repair the railroads of the South. Reconstruction was successful; too successful in fact, and SCCRC developed new lines, became overextended and ran into financial trouble. In 1893, the railroad was reorganized as Southern Railway. Most of the mature timber was gone by this time, and nearly all but 14,000 acres of the original 100,000 acre forest had been parceled out and sold off. Red-cockaded woodpeckers, who depend on longleaf pine forests for their survival, were also close to extinction.
Southern Railway’s 180
In 1920, the railway began replanting longleaf and loblolly pines for pulpwood production. Soon afterward, it began to construct a demonstration area for local landowners who were interested in reforesting their land. Southern Railway also opened up its land to forestry students from Universities all across the South.

Thousands of protesters near the East German town of Gorleben chained themselves to railroad tracks, setup barricades and blocked roads in order to stop a shipment of approximately 123 tonnes of nuclear waste to a nearby waste storage facility. Sources say the protesters managed to delay the arrival of the waste by 12 to 14 hours.

The German government dispatched nearly 16,000 police, including riot police, in order to clear train tracks and roads and remove an estimated 15,000 protesters. Police worked through the night dispersing protesters with truncheons and quelling flaming barricades with fire hoses. One of the most formidable barricades to be cleared was a road block 2 km away from Gorleben, in which protesters parked 37 tractors and constructed two large cement pyramids, chaining four protesters to each pyramid.

Pay no attention to the latest financial news. It’s time to buy a new Mercedes!
This is the message that Europe’s largest economy hopes will catch on among its citizens as Europe slides into recession. Two of Germany’s biggest manufacturers, Daimler AG and BMW are reportedly experiencing their worst slump in sales since 2005. This has prompted Daimler to announce that it will close its Mercedes-Benz factory in Sindelfingen Germany, for five weeks. Hoping to avoid a calamity, the German government has passed a new set of tax breaks for cars which meet specific emissions standards. 

“With this package we’re helping the car industry and its workers and at the same time we’re doing something to protect the climate,” says German Economy Minister Michael Glos. The plan includes two years of tax exemption for Euro 5 and Euro 6 emissions standard vehicles and one year of exemption for Euro 4 emissions standard vehicles. (With Euro 1,2 and 3 cars no longer legal to purchase, the German government has effectively subsidized car buying).

Okay, time to get up and get some exercise. Turn off that computer, DVD player, Playstation and TV and get out there! But wait . . . are they really off? According to Madrid based company Good for You, Good for the Planet, the answer is no.

Good for You, Good for the Planet’s Jorge Alonso Garcia says that nearly “100%” of electronic devices remain on standby mode after they’ve been turned off. “This is so that they can be quickly turned on again,” he explains.
So What Does the Device Do?
100%Off, the device designed by Good for You, is a microprocessor which uses algorithms to detect a decline in the flow of electricity being sent to an electronic device or appliance. Once 100%Off has detected a decline, it completely shuts the device or appliance off. (The amount of time 100% off waits before a complete shutdown of the device is configurable through programming.)

In essence, 100%Off stops the flow of electricity to a device while the device is still plugged in. Unplugging a device is easy, but do your really want to risk a hernia and move that 800lb entertainment center away from the wall to pull out the plug every night? Good for You is betting that the answer is again, no.