Last week I talked about how fast is fast enough, and that one of the easiest ways to save fuel was by simply going slower. Well rejoice! Apparently all of America heeded my advice, and American drivers, on average, drive below the posted speed limit.
Ok, obviously this has nothing to do with me. According to Tele Atlas, the mapping unit of GPS maker TomTom, anonymously collected data from millions of GPS devices shows that most Americans are driving under the speed limit. So why don’t I get that feeling when I am on the highway?
According to an Autocar UK story, Tele Atlas says that no state tops 70 mph as an average highway speed. The fastest highway in the country is the stretch of I-15 between Utah and Nevada, with average speeds of 77.67 mph, even though the speed limit is 80 mph. This baffles me. I-15 is a road that pretty much runs through mostly desert. Why wouldn’t you go the speed limit?
Are you looking for a community, environmental project for your family? Keep America Beautiful is launching its 2009 Great American Cleanup today with its campaign “Green Starts Here”.
The Great American Cleanup begins today with a national launch event in Waveland, Miss., which will help restore a hurricane-ravaged town along the Gulf Coast. It will continue through May 31 with additional national events being held in New York City on Earth Day and Nashville on May 14.
Millions of volunteers will work to rid streets, waterways and public spaces of litter and illegal dumpsites. Communities will green up parks, schoolyards and other public spaces and hold recycling drives and educational events.
By Melissa Elliott •
December 18, 2008
The Animal Legal Defense Fund has released a new report showing that while animal welfare laws have made great progress in recent years, five states lag far behind.
Maybe you’ve never heard of Moringa oleifera, a tree native to parts of Asia and possibly the Middle East and Africa. Up until this past week, I hadn’t either. But after reading about the amazing nutritional punch packed by this tree, I can’t wait to try growing one.
According to the Wichita, Kansas-based Trees for Life, Moringa leaves have — gram for gram — seven times as much vitamin C as oranges, four times as much calcium as milk (and twice as much protein), four times as much vitamin A as carrots and three times as much potassium as bananas.
By Joshua S Hill •
June 22, 2008
If you have visited Planet Save for any length of time you will no doubt have seen me talk about the increasing amount of ‘dead zones’ cropping up across our planets watery surface. In particular, the Gulf of Mexico is home to what is believed to be the largest dead zone in the world: an area larger than Rhode Island that is almost totally devoid of oxygen in the water.
This particular dead zone has formed, in part, thanks to farm runoff that has made its way down the Mississippi River, all the way from Iowa and Wisconsin. Chemicals used on the farms are washed in to local waterways, which all eventually end in the Mississippi which thus makes its way down and out past New Orleans in to the Gulf of Mexico.
Newton, Mississippi, today becomes home to the state’s first retail E85 (85 percent ethanol, 15 percent gasoline) fuel station. But wait, there’s more. Ford’s Fuel, which has set a grand opening for today, is also an ice cream museum.
Whaaaaat?
That’s right, Mississippi’s first flex-fuel filling station is built on the site of Newton’s old Ford’s Ice Cream factory, which was established in 1928. The new facility — a green one at that — will feature not only E85 fuel pumps, but an ice-cream parlor and a museum dedicated to the town’s long-time local ice-cream history.
