Green Options

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I admit it, I am addicted to the internet. However, this addiction isn’t all bad -  my hard earned internet savvy has paid off time and time again in the form of referrals and new clients. Without even having to overtly advertise, I have gotten many inquiries about my services and quite a few good clients from my online activities. I’ve also made a lot of friends in my field and networked with other designers that I can bounce ideas off of and partner with on creative pursuits, all online. Yes, the internet is a glorious thing.

One of my favorite things about using the internet to promote my business is that it’s green and inexpensive (if not free). So online marketing and social networking is a great way to get your name out there without using any paper or creating any trash. A good way to start your foray into the world of online marketing is to first establish a web site for your business. This will often be your potential customers’ first impression of your company, so it will be an important investment in both time and money. Once you have a web site, networking through social media sites is a great way to promote it and drive traffic to your site. Online marketing is a strategy that’s becoming more and more popular among entrepreneurs, and thankfully it is one with minimal impact on the planet.

Despite being banned by the government of Burma (also Myanmar), Google has said that it will donate up to $1 million USD to assist victims of Cyclone Nargis.

Google has offered to match donations made to UNICEF and Direct Relief International for all donations made at Google’s Support disaster relief in Myanmar page, up to one million dollars.

Internet users in Burma reported that access to Google and Gmail had been blocked by the strict military junta governing the country in the summer of 2006. By this time, Yahoo and Hotmail had already made the censored IT blacklist.

If you think the virtual, online world helps reduce energy consumption in the real world (a topic we’ve touched on before here at Green Options Media), think again: a new study by management consulting firm McKinsey & Company provides scary insights into how Internet computing is devouring more and more power and spewing out more and more greenhouse gases.

Based on data from the Uptime Institute, a technology consulting company based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, the McKinsey report finds that, between 2000 and 2006, the amount of energy needed to power data centers doubled, and that consumption is likely to double again by 2012. In the U.S. alone, we would need to build 10 new power plants by 2010 just to meet the growing energy needs of this country’s data centers.

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 — Ontario Bans Lawn and Garden Pesticides

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.

When the Internet extended its wiry tentacles to the small town that I grew up in, I had no idea what it was. I pictured it being a room full of wires and lights, like a super computer android version of a phone operator.

As I matured, I realized it wasn’t that at all, but a more mystic existence of floating pockets of digital information in constant flux, existing in digital clouds that were suspended just above the atmosphere.

Of course, neither of those images is or was correct. But as it turns out, I was closer to the target with my first guess. Massive server rooms take up space and energy all over the world, storing the information and websites we web junkies feed on for survival. Luckily, they are starting to go green.

Digital Realty Trust, Inc., a technology real estate company, has taken a bold step into the green world by renovating a 90-year-old printing facility in Chicago. They have turned the plant into the world’s first LEED gold-certified data center. Not only is this a paradigm shift for future data centers—it may change the way LEED building companies approach renovations.

The internet is saving 10 times the energy required to run an internet-linked computer.

Remember when renting a movie required a trip to the video store or checking a bank balance required a visit to the bank? Now, anything from used books to driving maps are just a click away. Telecommuting is common and taxes can be submitted electronically to the IRS. The internet is shaping our lifestyles, allowing us to save energy.

A recent study by the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE) discovered that every kilowatt-hour of electricity used to power communications and information technologies is resulting in a 10 fold increase in energy savings.

“Acceleration of information and computer technology across the US landscape post 1995 is driving much of the nation’s energy-productivity gain,” says John Laitner of the ACEEE and coauthor of the study. “Had we continued at the historic rate of prior years, we would today be using the energy equivalent of 1 billion barrels of oil more [per year] than we were” in the early 1990s.

Inspired by the diverse kingdom also known as our biosphere, researchers are developing a new way to efficiently meet the demands of web users. The inspiration is derived from a very intricate yet communicative dance that honeybees do when they’ve found a hot spot of premium nectar. Since these bees have no central commander and highly inconsistent resources, they do a dance to communicate to each other how to efficiently collect a lot of nectar in little time. This “swarm intelligence” has been used as an inspiring model by researcher at the Georgia Institute of Technology to “improve the efficiency of internet servers faced with similar demand challenges”.

The efficiency development model helps servers that used to be assigned to only one task to now multitask and move between tasks as needed. In other words, the servers can now meet the fluctuating demand that the internet has more quickly. This model reduces the chance that a website gets overwhelmed with demand and locks up. It is also said to increase efficiency and service by 20 percent.

Georgia Tech professor Craig Tovey was struck with a curiosity of honeybee behavior in the early 80s. He realized through conversations with a colleague from the University of Oxford that “bees and servers had strikingly similar barriers to efficiency.” Bees have very inconsistent resources. Sometimes there is an abundance of nectar to collect and sometimes there is very little. Year after year the supply is different and the location of the nectar oasis’s change. Yet somehow, they always seem to maintain a fairly consistent supply of nectar in the hive. Tovey saw this as a stimulating intricacy in the natural environment that yielded very effective results. Tovey among other colleagues conducted research for decades on how they work and how to use their brilliance in our built environment.

The greatest breakthrough was the discovery of the waggle dance. Australian zoologist Karl con Frisch won a Nobel Prize for this. When bees that hit an oasis return to the hive, they do a dance at the hive floor, wagging their tail back and forth. Each movement of the dance indicates location, scent, sound and gives other foragers clues about where the oasis of nectar is.

THE TEN PROJECT

www.thetenproject.org

THE PROJECT’S AIM

To distribute a game in 2010 to every single ten-year-old living in the ten most influential mega-cities of the future, to inspire them to create a ten-year plan for redesigning their world into one that will be sustainable and worth inheriting in 2020.

THE GAME’S AIM

As the game Monopoly prepared previous generations for capitalism, this game aims to make lucrative sustainability second nature to the children of a new world [...]

For those of you who are stumped about gifts this holiday there is probably a reason. You ask yourself- what do we actually need? Amidst all of the news of poverty and destruction, most of us find ourselves in the upper economy and hopefully and simply grateful for what we have already. Our culture has created an opportunity to jot objects on our wish list that we think we need or really want. Now don’t get me wrong, there is beauty in giving a gift to someone you care about whom you know will appreciate it. But, if you want to maintain your spirit of giving this year yet do it in an alternative fashion, why not try giving together with someone you care about to someone who will appreciate it?

For the past five + years my family has been practicing different ways of sharing gifts for the holidays. We made gifts a couple of years. Then we decided to pool our funds and purchase one big gift for someone in the family that would inspire their lifestyle, creativity, and passion… This year we decided that no one really need anything and we would prefer to do something together as a family to improve the lives and economies of others- invest in a micro-fund.

Microfinance creates social lending networks that gives us lenders the opportunity to connect directly with borrowers who normally wouldn’t get the support of a bank. This allows people in poor countries and rural areas who don’t have access to traditional banks or don’t have the credentials necessary for a bank loan, to start a business. The neat things it that in all circumstances (weather your money is controlled by the organization through which you lend or you choose who your money goes to) you can more or less track your loan. This type of investment has already made profound impacts on developing nations as it funds businesses that support their local economies. Instead of weaving baskets to be sold in the global market, people are able to start water distribution businesses to improve quality of life in their own communities.

Big news Planetsavekateers, I’m outta here.

I’m leaving Green Options and Planetsave, though not to join Tom and John in their fight against the thetans.

I would like to say it’s to spend more time with my family, but that just makes me sound like a scandal ridden Bush official.

While I probably will get to spend more time with my family now, I’m leaving the company to work on my green home project and a few other side projects. My tenure at Green Options and Planetsave has been one of the most interesting, exciting, and invigorating times I’ve had. It ranks as one of my favorite startups (out of my current total of four) and I’m walking away with a greatly expanded network of friends and contacts, a ton of great experience in green publishing, and an awesome project to jump to.

What would have been called “The GO Home Project” is coming with me. I am buying the entire project from Green Options and taking it independent. I’m still working on a name for it (send it on if you have a good one) and will be building a site for it once that’s nailed down, but we’ll be starting up right away on sheagunther.org.

The short of it is is that me and my family are moving into two tipis to live for a year before building the coolest greenest house on the planet. We have 52 acres in North Yarmouth, Maine; the leading green architect in the state; a partnership with Smart HomeOwner Magazine, and a whole lot of great energy pushing it forward. Both me and my wife Heather will be blogging about living in the tipis and I will be set up in a smaller third tipi as my office. I’m sure I’ll have many a five minute snowshoe commutes to work this winter. We’re going to do our best to create a guide and recorded history of our life and work so as to inspire others to do choose the same green building path.

It’s been a great past year building Green Options and past few months working on the new Planetsave, but I’m super excited about all the fun stuff I’ll be able to take on now that my time is freed up from GO/PS work.

Here’s a few places you’ll be able to follow along on my adventures…

- SheaGunther.org - This is my home site, where I started blogging before I knew what blogging was (back in 2001) and current home of Musings of an Eco-Entrepreneur, the most kickass in-stasis eco-entrepreneur blog on the web. It’s been dormant since we launched Green Options but I’ll be doing a relaunch with a new theme in the next week or two. We’ll be blogging about living in the tipis and I’ll have a separate page for my links/musings drops . If you grew to like my blogs here on Planetsave, you’ll want to head over there.

- Treehugger- Graham Hill was kind enough to set up me up with a writing spot at Treehugger. I have to work out the exact details with their uber editor Michael but I couldn’t be more excited. I’ve been a huge fan of Treehugger since back in the day (back in the day in the green blogosphere means two+ years ago) and have always wanted to write there. They have such a great group of editors, writers, and an amazing reach- about 25X more daily readers than what Green Options is pulling these days.

- Yet to be named website for the Green Home Project. We’ will be documenting the crap out of our experience building the coolest greenest house on the planet on our yet to be named website. Sheagunther.org is a good place to go to keep up while I figure out what this new thing will be called.

- Stumblegods.com- It’s not really officially launched yet, but my buddy Michael (editor and founder of Groovy Green, founder and publisher of Ecorazzi, chief editor guy at Ecotality Life) and I will be sharing our insights about the power of StumbleUpon at our new site Stumble Gods. Our thumbs move masses baby.

- Ecotality Life- I’ve been working as a consultant with the awesome and talented Brooke Lowry over at Ecotality on the relaunch of their blog. We’ll be getting Ecotality Life up in the next week, in the meantime check out the current site. Ecotality Life will be relaunched with a focus on green gadgets and green business and investing and should be a good read.

- Email: sheagunther@gmail.com, Skype: shea_gunther

It’s been rad, I’ll miss a lot of the people at Green Options and Planetsave. I’ve gotta give it up to my main man Jan, the founder of Planetsave (he sold it to Green Options this Spring and works on both GO and PS stuff) and pimp dad advertising sales guru man. HIC! He’ll be assisted by the talented Noelle d’Estries (Michael’s sister) who will bring her savvy news sense (have you seen the Green Report, that’s all her) and keen wit to the table trying to fill the void that my voluminous ego will leave behind.

Keep up the good fight. Keep on saving the world.

EnviroStats! is a great site that pulls different eco-statistics from various points on the web. Every green blogger should have it in their RSS feeds. Here’s a few stats I pulled from it recently…

• 45 billion pairs of wooden chopsticks were tossed in China in 2006, 25 million trees were cut to make ‘em

• 50,000,000,000 square feet of drywall was produced in the US in 2006, creating 51,000,000 tons of greenhouse gas

• The US spent $50,000,000,000 on bottled water in 2006

• American buildings are responsible for 48% of all US greenhouse gas emissions

Swing over to EnviroStats! to grab their feed and read more green stats.