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The following ten stories, organized by region, made international headlines from April 27 to May 4 for their impact on the environment and society. For more stories that changed the world, see our archive, here.
North American Environmental News
Canada has proven once again that it is way ahead of the rest of world with its progressive government. Ontario has banned the use and sale of lawn and garden pesticides for homeowners. Quebec instituted a similar ban on 20 some pesticide products back in 2006.
The new ban is set to take effect by spring of 2009. Home Depot has already agreed to stop selling the pesticides by the end of 2008! This is a huge victory for anti-toxic supporters all over the continent. If only someone in the United States government could take such affirmative action we could all be spared. Ontario will basically phase out some 80 different chemicals and over 300 products that contain them.
Continue reading this article at the Environmental Blog. Join the discussion about this article at Care2.
Today’s Register features an amusing series of screenshots illustrating how computer companies and Web hosts are falling over one another in the race to put on a green face for their customers. One of my favorite comments in the post: “So, do windmill makers use servers on their web sites to advertise the greenocity of their windmills?”
By Carol Gulyas •
April 8, 2008
Today’s Chicago Tribune made a big fuss about a new water-cooled supercomputer at the University of Illinois. Yes, it will do massively more research, and yes, it will help researchers solve even more problems. But what really seems newsworthy, and which the reporter left to the last line of the article, is that the new IBM HydroCluster will use 40% less energy and 80% fewer air conditioners than air-cooled [...]
Taiwanese company ASUSTeK Computer, this week, unveiled a laptop computer encased in bamboo rather than plastic. The Eco Book, on display at the CeBIT conference in Hanover, Germany, is set to go into production this June.
By Amy Stodghill •
October 29, 2007
Before hitting the print button on your e-mail, ask yourself why you are printing at all. By printing less you’ll save on paper and save ink, which is not only good for the environment, but good on your wallet.
Forward it. Instead of printing the page to give to someone to read, click the forward button. You can also include a line in your e-mail signature to remind others to not print,
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By EcoGeek Blog •
August 17, 2007
Dear EcoGeek,
My parents are always bugging me about computer usage and how the computers are sucking up energy. I want to know what I can do so that my computer doesn’t waste so much energy? I totally wanna go green and save the Earth from Global Warming!
- Lukas
Hey Lukas,
You probably won’t be surprised to discover that I spend quite a bit of time thinking about this very question. First, you should let your parents
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By Alex Ho •
July 24, 2007
Western Digital launched a new line of environmentally conscious hard drives on monday that can use 40% less energy. The GreenPower drives can save more than $10 per drive per year in electricity costs. WD estimates that for a datacenter with 10,000 hard drives, this can add up to $100,000 in annual energy costs and reduce CO2 emissions by 600 metric tons. Obviously, a datacenter of that size would not switch out all
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Editor's note: This week, A Siegel at the Ecotality blog takes a look at a new initiative from some major players in the home computing industry. This post was originally published on June 12, 2007.
Most people are unaware just how many kilowatt hours their computers burn and how many pounds of CO2 they help pump into the atmosphere. Interested in learning about this, there is no better place to start than
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Steve Jobs (the CEO of Apple) may be known as a marketing genius, but it certainly took him a little while to realize that green is the new black. Quite certainly in response to Greenpeace's Green My Apple campaign (which I discussed previously on Green Options), Jobs has come forward saying that a greener Apple is on the horizon.
Apple recently
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By Amy Stodghill •
March 9, 2007
Dell has expanded its Plant a Tree for Me program. You can now purchase carbon offset credits for your computer even if you don't buy a Dell.
Launched in January, the Plant a Tree for Me program asks Dell customers to voluntarily donate a couple of bucks at check-out to offset their computer purchase. That money is then given to the Conservation Fund and Carbonfund to plant trees
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By Amy Stodghill •
March 5, 2007
The IT industry has come together to make data centers more energy efficient.
Leading computer hardware and software giants have created a consortium called the Green Grid to address their power problem. A recent report revealed that data centers, the backbone of the IT industry, are huge energy suckers. The consortium intends to look at this pressing issue and find ways to solve it.
