Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Yahoo Green

I just idly clicked on a Yahoo headline (about Canadian businesses turning their summer AC up to 79 degrees and encouraging business people to ditch the suits and dress more casually, to save energy) and discovered that Yahoo has a new homepage option: Yahoo Green. It's a nicer homepage than their standard one (which contains depressing violent headlines and a ton of ads) plus it has lots of links to interesting articles about climate change. Personally, I think the air conditioning idea is a splendid one (Japan is already doing it) and I wish that American businesses would do the same thing. Not only is it good for the environment, and would save them money -- which in my mind makes it a total no-brainer -- I think it's nicer to shop without getting goose pimples. I hate having to carry a sweater or jacket in the car on a ninety degree day in case I'm going into the grocery store, not to mention that you feel SOOOO much hotter if you go back outside, having adjusted to an artificially cold environment. Steve and I watched Who Killed the Electric Car? the other day and it was very interesting. I was always under the impression that it was a battery problem (the cars couldn't go far enough on one charge to allow an average person drive the amount they need to in one day) but it isn't and, as Steve said, once consumers buy a product, if they don't think it is good enough, the technology rises to the occasion. Look at how small phones have gotten and all the features they have! Apparently, although most of the electric cars were pulled off the streets when their leases came up, those which were sold to consumers are still around (which the documentary fails to mention). I think the newest trend is converting hybrids to be plugged in to household current. Steve has done a lot of research on biodiesel and has made the commitment to buy a car and convert it. Our gas bill is our current highest "this could be smaller if we worked harder" bill and so that provides a lot of incentive! You can find plenty of biodisel-ready and already converted cars on eBay, so if you're interested, check there. You can get conversion kits as well as information about the technology that makes it tick at greasecar.com. I might have him make a list of the sites he's doing his research on if people are interested in learning more; let me know.


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