Hippy Green

I love when readers submit stories and I received an email this morning from Fred who writes:

Check out this US Carbon Footprint Map, an interactive United States Carbon Footprint Map, illustrating Greenest States to Cities. This site has all sorts of stats on individual State & City energy consumptions, demographics and more down to your local US City level.

This is a great link to go with our think carbon post today. This is a pretty pimp site that shows some cool stats. These stats are great because it shows the carbon footprint of each state as well as compare it to the per capital population of the state.

This is a great reference and thank you Fred for contacting us and letting us know. I always love hearing feedback/comments from readers. (positive or negative, their all great to me!) I especially like to see users submitting or suggesting stories. I know my buddy Steve is always submitting stories on del.icio.us you can to just use the tag hippygreen and anyone and see it.

Again please feel free to submit stories directly.

Today is a great day to rethink your carbon foot print. I have posted previously about your carbon foot print and gave ideas, but here is a way to take the Low Carbon Diet. Yes, you can work on your Body&Soul by lowering your footprint!

Now the article is from the UK, so if your in other parts of the world (USA?) you can buy fresh produce from farmer markets rather then shipping them abroad, or eat in season. Please comment on ways you are cutting down on your carbon footprint.

The past friday Goveneror of New Jersey, Jon Corzine (D) signed a bill to bypass the Bush administration and passed the Global Warming Response Act, which requires teh cut of greenhouse gases in New Jersey by 16 percent by 2020 and 80 percent by 2050.

Other states are joining in on hitting the goal of a 80 percent cut in greenhouse gases within each state, but these goals are targets that each state has set rather then a requirement. New Jersey is leading the charge followed by California who has similar target goals, but is not a hard mandate.

This Act tries to cut emissions mainly in cars by enhancing public transportation, car-pooling, and using rail roads instead of trucks.

Jon Corzine is hoping this bill is a WAKE UP message to Washington telling them, DO SOMETHING NOW about greenhouse gases, and yet all I can think about is HOW FAR WE ARE FROM MISSING THE BOAT!

So we are exicted because we are CUTTING emissions, okay thats great, but Toyota is going completely hybrid by 2020. Lets set the bar HIGH and do the same. Lets tell GM, Ford, and Daimler Chrysler that you have to be completely hybrid by 2015! This can be as simple as putting some battires and a regenerative braking system in place! We already have a car company who is rasing the bar but will only have an outreach to the upper class and not middle America.

Jon, I am with you on sticking it to Washington and trying to go green, but we need the technology behind it to invest and fund these projects that will give a larger piece of the pie. If you really want to see some changes taking place, contact Google! Google has enough cash to buy GM! Think about that as a possibility…

In case you missed the green news of google, Google is going solar and will continue with this path towards green by going carbon neutral by the end of 2007! In order to do this Google is committed to invest in a new green ideas (listen up BUSH!).

Google will be creating an additional 50 MW of renewable energy by 2012 as well as investing in technology that encourages cleaner energy rather then just buying carbon offset. Google understands that carbon offset is not a complete solution, but can still help the environment and invest in reducing the global carbon emissions.

Google will also be investing in plug-in hybrid cards as well as the co-founder of Climate Savers Computing, a industry plant o increase computer efficiencies can cut carbon emissions by 54 million tons a year by 2010.

With such big plans I am glad Google is behind going green and will no “do evil” (even though they may in other areas, adsense anyone?). Google has posted more details about going green.

Amanda over at PetSmart Charities recently emailed Hippy Green and wanted to spread the word on how readers can help animals by donating ink cartridges.

Most of us use printer cartridges pretty frequently. Well those cartridges cannot only help the environment but animals as well. PetSmart Charities is trying to help save the lives of homeless pet one pet at a time. In the process they are also recycling which is great for the environment. PetSmart Charities program is called Recycle for Life. By donating your used ink cartridges you are donating between $2-15 to save homeless pets. PetSmart carries pre-paid mailer bags for you to grab at your inconvience and send in your ink cartridges as well as used cell phones. This is a great program and the more we get people to donate their ink cartridges the better the environment will be and the better off the animals will be!! So help—Go to your local PetSmart store and pick up some mailer bags! For more information visit www.petsmartcharities.org or email awerber [at symbol] petsmartcharities [period] org

If you are working for an organization or company that is benefiting the environment and want to be featured on Hippy Green, please contact us and we will be happy to get the word out.

Continuing with yesterdays post on 20 tips to reduc your home’s carbon footprint, here is another ways to reduce your footprint.

Most peoples carbon footprint comes from their car. Daily driving of combustion engines continues to grow our carbon footprint. Planning your trips and cutting down on travel can lower your carbon footprint (sounds easy? Lets do it!). I know since I sold my STI this past July, I have been without a car. Now don’t get me wrong I still drive, but I share a car or borrow one. Their are many downsides with not having a car, but here are 10 reasons to ditch a car.

If you are not feeling up to the challenge of ditching a car, why not take the 10 mile pledge. I know when I had my car I would just go in run my errands without thinking of what I need exactly, knowing that I could always run back out if I forgot something. By eliminating this extra trip and writing a list of stuff I need to do and pickup I could lower my carbon footprint. The article also suggest that you have a car-free day every month. This is a great alternative and also allows you to relax at home and reset. Getting up early Saturdays and doing all your errands can allow you to relax the rest of the week and could allow you to have a car free Sunday every weekend.

Driving is just 1 way to reduce your carbon footprint, what are you doing to lower your footprint?

I have started to realize that people have been tagging websites with hippygreen on del.icio.us. I figured I need to start using them in some of the blogs and get more people to post links to del.icio.us with the tag hippygreen.

I got this link from Steve Cavrak via kyero. They posted 20 tips to lowing your home’s carbon footprint, below are some highlights that I found useful.

Your home carbon footprint can be pretty big dependent on the size of your house and different types of energy used in it. Adding a solar hot water heater can reduce the electricity needed to heat water, but even a quick fix like lowering your hot water heater by a few degrees can make a huge difference.

Use energy-efficient light bulbs. Changing to a energy efficient light bulb can be as simple as picking one up when one dies. This way you are not hit with a huge cost of replacing working ones, but also save electricity and lower your carbon footprint over time. Antics posted about the hazard with your energy footprint a while back showing how CF bulbs and the proper disposal methods for these types of light bulbs.

Some of the other tips require a bit more work then changing a light bulb, but you should start to think more your carbon footprint and how a little change can make a big difference.