Green Options

As today’s blue collar workers lament the loss of jobs to illegal immigrants or offshoring, a whole new movement is afoot that very well may provide the solution to unemployment woes. As we experience the total revolution of our economy as we know it, an entirely new set of jobs are being created; green collar jobs. In fact, not since the Industrial Age has the global economy experienced the onsite of such a dramatic transformation!

Video blogger Jeff Korhan, in his “Black Friday” video blog, had an interesting perspective on the new green trends. It is hard to remember when PCs were “new and different”, but Jeff reminds us of when people didn’t quite trust them yet, and still used a typewriter when it absolutely had to be done right.

Ah, the internet, what an amazing tool you are for helping businesses grow. Or even exist. You allow so much more to happen for so many more people than in the past.  And yet, there’s only so much you can do online, if you deal in physical products. They need to be stored somewhere. Packed. Shipped. Returned. All necessary, and yet for most entrepreneurs, something they’d rather not deal with. You’ve come up with a product line that more and more people love, and it’s making you more and more hate what fulfilling on that demand has begun to entail.

You find yourself needing a warehouse, or needing a bigger one then you have. Maybe you don’t need a warehouse, but managing all the nittie gritties is extra hassle you’d rather not have. Or perhaps your customers aren’t just local anymore, and your carbon footprint is getting larger because of the shipping. What to do?

If you’re a company that’s looking for additional ways to green beyond the obvious, I suggest you look at how you ship internationally. Have you ever looked at where it  goes? If not, do it soon. If it’s with one of the big three, It is far from a straight line. It first goes to a central hub. Even if that’s flying backwards further into the US. Then It goes overseas, but most likely to another hub. Then if it’s lucky, it gets to go to the intended destination.

UPS can talk all it wants about eliminating left turns on their driving routes, but if you’re adding 2-3 legs to the flight getting it there, that makes for a long, carbon intensive trip. And it doesn’t have to be that way.

My colleague Jennifer Lance recently wrote that both of the major parties would be trying to “out-green” each other for this summer’s national conventions. Republicans and Democrats alike have made efforts to green (or appear to green) what is, for all intents and purposes, a very non-green affair. But Democrats want this August’s convention in Denver to serve as a blueprint for not only how to make a convention greener, but how to make the host city greener long after the convention has ended.

“We are hoping that everything we are doing for greening (the convention) has some legacy value,” said Parry Burnap, “greening” director for the host committee. The committee has launched plans for local river clean-ups, tree-planting and tree care events, and is sourcing its food from local and organic sources. Other programs aimed at leaving a legacy include (after the jump)…

Here’s another one who thinks nuclear power is the energy panacea we all need, and that renewable energy production is, as he states, "a rape of nature." Strong words and I just had to talk about it. The story comes from Science Daily, and there’s also a link to Nuclear Waste Storage that pretty well explains the problem, and takes a good look at the controversial Yucca Mountain storage facility in

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