What is Together?

Launched in the U.K. in 2007, Together is a partnership made of companies like Timberland, Target, and Nestle teamed up with nonprofits, and U.S. cities like Seattle, Miami, and Las Vegas. The objective is to help consumers find practical ways of adopting a green lifestyle to reduce their energy consumption. All of the campaign partners have agreed to promote only products or services that demonstrate measurable energy savings. The Togetherizer, that was launched just one day ago, is designed to show how the Together campaign is reducing carbon emissions, as verified by Environmental Resources Management much.

Sattler Eco & Fair Labor

http://www.sattlerclothing.com 

According to Eco-Libris, approx 20 million trees are being cut down every year to produce the books sold in the U.S. alone. For example, if a publisher sells one million copies of a 250-page book, it will take over 12,000 trees to produce just that one book. The Green Press Initiative estimates that nearly 40% of the materials found in landfills are paper products that produce methane as it degrades – a greenhouse gas with 21x the heat trapping power of carbon dioxide.

What to do? 2 options

Eco-Libris is essentially a carbon credit clearinghouse for your textbooks. You enter how many books you want to “balance out with Eco-Libris, pay for it online, and a tree will be planted for each of those books.” Eco-Libris then works with a planting partner in a developing country to plant a tree in a location that is sustainable and beneficial for the community. You even get a sticker for your books that is “designed for you to put on the cover of the books you balance out, to show your commitment to sustainability and responsible use of natural resources.”

Eco-Libris encourages users to do more “We would like to see more (and eventually all) books printed in an environmentally friendly manner on recycled paper. If virgin paper is being used, then it should only be from certified forests. You can help make this happen by writing publishers and encouraging them to do the right thing.”

Enter Chegg

Save money, plant a tree. Chegg can save you tons of much needed cash by renting your textbooks and Chegg plants a tree for every book rented.

“Chegg textbook rentals help college students save hundreds of dollars on buying new or used college textbooks each semester. With millions of new & used books, finding the textbook you need at discounted prices is easy, not to mention our fast delivery and easy book returns. In addition to renting cheap textbooks, Chegg is committed to preserving our forests by planting a tree for every textbook rented. Save big and be green by renting textbooks!”

And they give you a pre-paid return label.

A little bit more about Chegg for you Iowa State University fans.

“Chegg.com (formerly known as cheggpost.com) was first launched at Iowa State University (ISU) by a group of students to purchase and resell used textbooks. Since thriving at ISU, Chegg has blossomed to include more than 35 colleges and has expanded its categories to include furniture, event tickets, housing, computers and electronics”

An old-school screenshot of cheggpost courtesy of Dustyd.net

Just read this really interesting post from the greendaily about dead zones that are popping up all over the planet. The author, Patrick Metzger, talks about a phenomenon that I wasn’t even familiar with. He really does a great job explaining it without losing you in the details. I posted the article below - enjoy the read.

“Climate change may make your next cocktail party more expensive. A “dead zone” of low-oxygen water in the Pacific Ocean off of Oregon is getting bigger and deader, and scientists are blaming global warming. Over an area of 1160 square miles, pretty much everything on the sea floor that couldn’t “swim or scuttle away” , including some of your favorite hors d’oeuvres, is dead from lack of oxygen.

The seasonal dead zone was first discovered by fishermen in 2002, but since then it’s expanded enormously, moving into waters off Washington in the north and California in the south. The working theory is that hotter land temperatures on the North American continent are creating stronger winds over the ocean. These winds are responsible for bringing plankton to the surface, where it’s normally eaten by other sea life. However, in greater volume it dies, sinks to the bottom and sucks all the oxygen out of the sea.

The Pacific dead zone joins other oceanic graveyards around the world, including one off of Lousiana that this year grew to 8500 square miles, about the size of New Jersey (that one’s not caused by climate change, but we can still take credit for it - fertilizer runoff from American farms is the culprit.)

So what does this mean to you? Well, as a consumer, it means that some of your favorite maritime delicacies like shrimp and crab will cost more or be just plain unavailable in the future. As a resident of the planet, it’s a whole lot scarier. Vast oceanic dead zones are popping up all around the globe, just as more seafood is needed to feed the 7 billion and counting hungry people on the planet. It can be hell at the top of the food chain.”

WHY?

According to an article in the L.A. Times, U.S. representatives are insisting that specific carbon reduction targets be removed from draft guidelines for the successor document to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.

WHY?

The guidelines would call for industrialized countries to achieve a 25% to 40% reduction in carbon emissions from 1990 levels by 2020. United Nations climate chief Tvo de Boer said this level of reduction was “critical to halting the runaway train of man-made global warming and stimulating investment in technologies to bring emissions under control” EU countries have already agreed to accept a 20% cut in emissions by 2020 and is warm to the idea of a 50% reduction by 2050. Chief U.S. negotiator Harlan L. Watson expressed the opinion that stating a specific target for carbon reduction levels is “something that we don’t feel will be helpful as a starting point.”

WHY?

Okay, so a better starting point would be….?

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass) arrived in Bali on Sunday and expressed the opinion that for any significant change to occur developing countries such as China, India and Brazil would need to take more aggressive steps to reduce emissions.

WHY?

So…we don’t want to be tied to any specific targets but would like to see developing countries stick to aggressive reduction plans?

…Sometimes I just don’t get it. Two years - just wait for two more years - that is the word around Bali. With the U.S. elections just around the corner. the feeling in the air is that all of this might be dramatically altered with the agenda of the next U.S. President. We can only hope. Vote Green.

MSNBC Warming World Interactive Map

Friends of the Earth International recently posted on their website a free downloadable PDF report containing nine testimonies from community members around the globe who have dramatic first-hand experience of the devastating impacts of climate change. The report was released ahead of the UN Climate talks taking place as we speak in Bali. The nine testimonies chronicle specific environmental changes and how they are impacting the lives of the local area. According to CENSAT Director Tatiana Roa Avendano said: “We are on the brink of a global climatic catastrophe and poor, vulnerable communities - who are the least responsible for climate change - are already being hit by its impacts including displacement, disease, the destruction of livelihoods and ecosystems. Industrialised countries must accept responsibility for deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions within the coming fifteen years.. The costs of climate adaptation in developing countries will amount to many billions of dollars per year.”

Read Article

Wal-Mart, which buys green supplies for its own operations, will now be approaching suppliers with bigger orders as it becomes the buyer for the Clinton Climate Initiative. The partnership will take advantage of Wal-Mart’s purchasing experience and scale and allow Wal-Mart to come to suppliers with bigger orders for deeper discounts. The collaboration is expected to include 1,100 U.S. cities and a climate organization that represents 40 of the world’s largest cities. News of the partnership was announced Nov. 1, 2007 to coincide with a Seattle climate summit of the U.S. Conference of Mayors and the Clinton Climate Initiative. The aim of the effort is to save cities money on environmentally friendly supplies by buying bulk and to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels to produce electricity. Read article