Yahoo! has announced it's going carbon neutral in 2007. We want to do our part to combat climate change. We're investing in greenhouse gas reduction projects around the world that will make our impact on the environment essentially neutral. To read more about what this means, visit Yahoo! for Good (link below). We want your ideas on how we can reach our goal. In what innovative or creative offset projects do you think we should invest?
Yahoo! for Good: http://brand.yahoo.com/forgood/environme…
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Oh boy, do I ever have lots of suggestions! I guess these suggestions apply not only to Yahoo, but any company. Yahoo can lead the way by example, though.
1. Reduce.
a. More efficient coding means less servers needed to handle the growing http request load. Less servers = less infrastructure and routers and vips, etc. = less electricity used. (Added bonus: also means less $$ spent on hardware!) Set up an internal green coding council to publish internal guidelines for more efficient coding. Use smaller, more compact programming languages. Use threading in a compiled language like Java or C++ instead of the process model of interpretted languages like perl or PHP.
b. Only buy new hardware for server farms or development that has a "green" certification, like Energy-star compliant devices.
c. Encourage compression for disk storage, and especially for backup storage and log files. Less disk space needed = less disk drives to buy = less electricity to run the disks.
d. Heavily insulate all buildings/rooms that contain server farms. This will mean the air conditioning bill will go down. Put in a system that takes filtered outside air for the server room cooling instead of air conditioning if the outside temperature is colder than the air conditioning output. I've always wondered by companies have air conditioning in the server room in the middle of winter...
e. Put future server farms in more northerly locations where the temperature is cooler or more even in the first place. That means lower air conditioning and heating bills. Seattle? Chicago? Bangor? Canada? The bonus is that land is cheaper there too than Silicon Valley, as are employee salaries of people that might work there.
f. Encourage employees to use public transportation and carpooling. Subsidies for tokens, special carpool parking spots.
g. LCD displays instead of CRT displays for all Yahoo employees and server farms.
h. Encourage employees to use the stairs instead of the elevators.
i. Put LED lights in as many places as you can afford instead of incandescent or flourescent.
j. Put in motion detectors so that lights turn off when they are not in use. (Except in areas where they must always be on, by law.)
k. Pave future employee parking lots with bricks, cobblestones, or concrete. Lower manufacturing costs, and reduces dependence on tar and oil products.
l. If you have cafeterias in your buildings, reconfigure the HVAC so that you can reuse the heat from the ovens and stoves in the cafeterias for building heating in the winter time instead of just venting it to the outside. Of course, you need to put in a heat exchanger so that the cooking fumes, etc. do make their way into the buildings, only the heat.
m. Put in double-pane windows on all yahoo buildings. This reduces noise as well as keeping in the heat in or out (as appropriate for the season).
n. Designate some days as work-at-home days for those people that can work at home, and turn down the heating or cooling in the office (as appropriate) on those days. These days should also be designated "no regular meeting" days where only one-time or emergency meetings happen.
o. When making corporate buying decisions for tangible things like pens, light bulbs, office supplies, etc., factor in the cost of the packaging for those items. Prefer the items that are sold in bulk with less packaging, and especially avoid individually wrapped items.
p. Install awnings/shades for windows to reduce the amount of sunlight that hits the windows and that may enter in the buildings in the summer.
q. Encourage less face-to-face sales calls to reduce the energy used during travel. If sales calls or presentations can be done over the phone, or video, or webex, do so. If your sales organization is not segmented geographically, consider doing so to reduce the distances that sales reps need to travel in order to talk to their prospects.
2. Reuse and recycle
a. Set up some printers and/or copiers on each floor that have old paper in them already printed on one side. Instead of throwing out or shredding this used paper, put it back in into the trays of these "recycle printers" for printing stuff that is not so important. Only supply new growth (farmed wood) paper in the printer rooms.
b. Encourage coffee mugs at the coffee stations. Charge a small amount per paper cup, but you get coffee for free if you bring your own mug.
c. Encourage employees to use metal utensils and real plates in the cafeterias and lunch rooms, instead of disposables.
d. Make sure all old hardware is recycled. Old drives may be fine even if the laptop has died. For example, there may be ways to use the drives in cheap RAIDs, especially for non-production or offline machines.
e. When deciding which company to buy new servers and networking hardware from, factor in the energy cost of manufacturing that hardware. Also factor in the ease of recycling that hardware. Cars are now being designed to be more easily dismantled and recycled. Why not computer hardware?
f. Put collectors on the top of each building to passively collect and store rainwater in large tanks high up in the buildings. This water can be used for various gray-water (non-drinking water) purposes: the gravity fed water can be used as for emergency fire sprinkler systems even if the electricity supply or water pressure is lost. The water can also be used to flush toilets and urinals. It can be used in the sprinkler systems for the lawns, and in any decorative fountains there might be on your campuses, and even to fill any swimming pools if you have them in on-campus fitness centers. A reduction in the amount of water used from the local water utility will mean they have to use less energy to pump the water through the pipes to your offices. If the building is high enough, the water flowing down from the tank can be fed through a generator to generate a small amount of electricity that can be added to the corporate grid.
3. Use alternate energy
a. Cover the roofs of each Yahoo building with solar panels or solar water heating. Check out Nanosolar's printable solar panels (link below). They are not available yet, but they promise to be much cheaper than the traditional panels of today.
b. Fill the back-up generators with biodiesel instead of regular diesel. Better yet, look into being a tester for stationary fuel cells as backup generators instead. (link below)
c. Prefer green projects or companies when considering investments for the corporate reserves.
d. Set up some windmills on the Yahoo campuses. Put big Yahoo logos on them so you can use them as advertising. Also, rent them to the cell phone providers as a cell tower -- that way, someone else will pay for them.
e. Buy electricity from green energy providers.
f. If you have corporate shuttles, see if Yahoo can sign up as a demonstration site for fuel cell busses for those shuttles. See the link below for info on ISE Corporation's fuel cell busses.
g. When making corporate charitable donations, donate to replanting organizations and efforts. More plants = more CO2 captured from the atmosphere.
h. If you have cafeterias in your buildings, only buy food products from sustainable farming sources in order to encourage it.
i. If you have corporate security, and the security folks need vehicles, buy or lease hybrids or maybe even get into some fuel cell testing programs. Actually, that goes for any company-owned vehicles.
j. Hire an energy-czar to implement all my suggestions. ;-)
Well, there are lots more suggestions, but that's all I have time to write right now...
1. Reduce.
a. More efficient coding means less servers needed to handle the growing http request load. Less servers = less infrastructure and routers and vips, etc. = less electricity used. (Added bonus: also means less $$ spent on hardware!) Set up an internal green coding council to publish internal guidelines for more efficient coding. Use smaller, more compact programming languages. Use threading in a compiled language like Java or C++ instead of the process model of interpretted languages like perl or PHP.
b. Only buy new hardware for server farms or development that has a "green" certification, like Energy-star compliant devices.
c. Encourage compression for disk storage, and especially for backup storage and log files. Less disk space needed = less disk drives to buy = less electricity to run the disks.
d. Heavily insulate all buildings/rooms that contain server farms. This will mean the air conditioning bill will go down. Put in a system that takes filtered outside air for the server room cooling instead of air conditioning if the outside temperature is colder than the air conditioning output. I've always wondered by companies have air conditioning in the server room in the middle of winter...
e. Put future server farms in more northerly locations where the temperature is cooler or more even in the first place. That means lower air conditioning and heating bills. Seattle? Chicago? Bangor? Canada? The bonus is that land is cheaper there too than Silicon Valley, as are employee salaries of people that might work there.
f. Encourage employees to use public transportation and carpooling. Subsidies for tokens, special carpool parking spots.
g. LCD displays instead of CRT displays for all Yahoo employees and server farms.
h. Encourage employees to use the stairs instead of the elevators.
i. Put LED lights in as many places as you can afford instead of incandescent or flourescent.
j. Put in motion detectors so that lights turn off when they are not in use. (Except in areas where they must always be on, by law.)
k. Pave future employee parking lots with bricks, cobblestones, or concrete. Lower manufacturing costs, and reduces dependence on tar and oil products.
l. If you have cafeterias in your buildings, reconfigure the HVAC so that you can reuse the heat from the ovens and stoves in the cafeterias for building heating in the winter time instead of just venting it to the outside. Of course, you need to put in a heat exchanger so that the cooking fumes, etc. do make their way into the buildings, only the heat.
m. Put in double-pane windows on all yahoo buildings. This reduces noise as well as keeping in the heat in or out (as appropriate for the season).
n. Designate some days as work-at-home days for those people that can work at home, and turn down the heating or cooling in the office (as appropriate) on those days. These days should also be designated "no regular meeting" days where only one-time or emergency meetings happen.
o. When making corporate buying decisions for tangible things like pens, light bulbs, office supplies, etc., factor in the cost of the packaging for those items. Prefer the items that are sold in bulk with less packaging, and especially avoid individually wrapped items.
p. Install awnings/shades for windows to reduce the amount of sunlight that hits the windows and that may enter in the buildings in the summer.
q. Encourage less face-to-face sales calls to reduce the energy used during travel. If sales calls or presentations can be done over the phone, or video, or webex, do so. If your sales organization is not segmented geographically, consider doing so to reduce the distances that sales reps need to travel in order to talk to their prospects.
2. Reuse and recycle
a. Set up some printers and/or copiers on each floor that have old paper in them already printed on one side. Instead of throwing out or shredding this used paper, put it back in into the trays of these "recycle printers" for printing stuff that is not so important. Only supply new growth (farmed wood) paper in the printer rooms.
b. Encourage coffee mugs at the coffee stations. Charge a small amount per paper cup, but you get coffee for free if you bring your own mug.
c. Encourage employees to use metal utensils and real plates in the cafeterias and lunch rooms, instead of disposables.
d. Make sure all old hardware is recycled. Old drives may be fine even if the laptop has died. For example, there may be ways to use the drives in cheap RAIDs, especially for non-production or offline machines.
e. When deciding which company to buy new servers and networking hardware from, factor in the energy cost of manufacturing that hardware. Also factor in the ease of recycling that hardware. Cars are now being designed to be more easily dismantled and recycled. Why not computer hardware?
f. Put collectors on the top of each building to passively collect and store rainwater in large tanks high up in the buildings. This water can be used for various gray-water (non-drinking water) purposes: the gravity fed water can be used as for emergency fire sprinkler systems even if the electricity supply or water pressure is lost. The water can also be used to flush toilets and urinals. It can be used in the sprinkler systems for the lawns, and in any decorative fountains there might be on your campuses, and even to fill any swimming pools if you have them in on-campus fitness centers. A reduction in the amount of water used from the local water utility will mean they have to use less energy to pump the water through the pipes to your offices. If the building is high enough, the water flowing down from the tank can be fed through a generator to generate a small amount of electricity that can be added to the corporate grid.
3. Use alternate energy
a. Cover the roofs of each Yahoo building with solar panels or solar water heating. Check out Nanosolar's printable solar panels (link below). They are not available yet, but they promise to be much cheaper than the traditional panels of today.
b. Fill the back-up generators with biodiesel instead of regular diesel. Better yet, look into being a tester for stationary fuel cells as backup generators instead. (link below)
c. Prefer green projects or companies when considering investments for the corporate reserves.
d. Set up some windmills on the Yahoo campuses. Put big Yahoo logos on them so you can use them as advertising. Also, rent them to the cell phone providers as a cell tower -- that way, someone else will pay for them.
e. Buy electricity from green energy providers.
f. If you have corporate shuttles, see if Yahoo can sign up as a demonstration site for fuel cell busses for those shuttles. See the link below for info on ISE Corporation's fuel cell busses.
g. When making corporate charitable donations, donate to replanting organizations and efforts. More plants = more CO2 captured from the atmosphere.
h. If you have cafeterias in your buildings, only buy food products from sustainable farming sources in order to encourage it.
i. If you have corporate security, and the security folks need vehicles, buy or lease hybrids or maybe even get into some fuel cell testing programs. Actually, that goes for any company-owned vehicles.
j. Hire an energy-czar to implement all my suggestions. ;-)
Well, there are lots more suggestions, but that's all I have time to write right now...
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Other Answers (1 - 30 of 502)
- I think the first important thing to do is reduce your impacts such as through efficiencies in your offices, reducing paper, encouraging public transport instead of driving, etc. Then you can check out new technologies like fuel cells, solar, etc. Then you can look into offset projects like maybe methane gas recapture or encouraging upgrades in technologies in developing countries.
- That is a wonderful idea. You could consider ways to give your employees bonus's for their ideas. Also institute a bonus for following the ideas already presented.
You could start a Yahoo!Answers contest for an all expense paid trip (winner's choice with in budget, or options). Each participant would receive a Y!A hamster badge just for sending in an idea.
EDIT Have you heard of the new car? Lets all buy one!
"Calculate Your Emissions; Reduce emissions; offset emissions; evaluate frequently" See link belowSource(s):
- Hi David - It is so great to see you on Answers and congratulations for taking Yahoo! down this important path.
On top of the reduce, reuse and recycle program that you have already begun implementing I think you should look at the following ways to off-set your emissions through biological and geological sequestration projects and further research that takes us closer towards a hydrogen economy. I have worked in geological sequestration and hydrogen fuel cell technologies with some of the world's leading minds in the area from the US, Australia, Norway and parts of Europe.
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First of all, biological sequestration is a reasonably quick fix for now and will continue to be useful in the future if done correctly. This involves planting trees to offset your emissions.
Carbon is stored on Earth in a number of major reservoirs or 'sinks'. Carbon is continuously cycled between these reservoirs in the ocean, on the land, and in the atmosphere. Plants remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store the carbon in roots, stems, leaves and the soil in a process known as sequestration. As plant material decomposes, the carbon is released back into the atmosphere. This carbon cycle has been continuing naturally since plant life took hold on land about 400 million years ago.
Forests play an important role in the carbon cycle, removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and storing it as carbon in plant material and soil in a process known as sequestration. Half a tree's mass is carbon, so large amounts of carbon are stored in forests and they are the largest store of terrestrial carbon. Other ecosystems such as savannas and woodlands are also significant sinks. In most ecosystems, the majority of the carbon is stored below ground, either as roots and decaying biomass or as organic carbon in the soil.
Planting forests can provide a relatively cost-effective way of creating a carbon sink, where more carbon dioxide is being removed from the atmosphere than is being released. However, there are risks associated with forests turning into a carbon source. This might occur when a forest is burned in a bushfire or struck by disease. The factors that determine whether a forest is maintained as a carbon sink include rainfall patterns, bushfires, vegetation changes, nutrients, soil composition, evaporation rates and the interactions between them.
The good thing is that you can also calculate how much you are ‘sequestering’ in these sinks.
Of course, there are things to consider here.
-Where are you planting the trees? Will a developer come and chop them down in 10 years for development?
-Are they water-efficient? This is very important.
-Can the trees be planted in areas that get natural rainfall, rather than need irrigation?
-Are they native to the area to provide food and homes for the fauna and not introduce new flora that can take over the natives?
-Can you use the trees to help stop land degradation?
There are many companies now set up in the world that allow you to buy credits whereby they will plant trees to offset your emissions. It is worth asking these companies questions like this to ensure you are putting your investment in the right places. See source links.
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The next step should be helping projects that look at clean coal technology and geological sequestration.
Geosequestration, along with energy efficiency, renewable energy and using less carbon-intensive fuels, will help reduce the greenhouse gases emitted to the atmosphere. These gases are considered a leading cause of climate change.
Geosequestration, or carbon capture and geological storage is the capture of CO2 from power stations and industry; the
transport; injection; and the long-term storage of CO2 into deep, underground reservoirs, such as depleted oil and gas fields or saline aquifers that contain unusable, salty water. The great benefit of geosequestration is that large quantities of CO2 that would otherwise enter the atmosphere following the burning of fossil fuels can be safely stored in the deep subsurface. This would significantly reduce the potential impact of global warming.
There are already commercial scale projects that have successfully sequestered CO2 underground for years with billions of dollars already spent on the technology and they are becoming more and more economically viable every year. It is worth looking at how you can get involved with Statoil’s Sleipner Project, as well as the work of the US DOE/NETL, and Australia’s C02CRC.
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In terms of hydrogen fuel cells, there are many projects all around the world (for US see http://www.hydrogen.gov) that are currently being undertaken, such as in vehicles. The only thing these vehicles produce is water! This is amazing technology worth investing in.
Although they are not expected to reach the mass market before 2010, fuel cell vehicles (FCVs) may someday revolutionise on-road transportation. This emerging technology has the potential to significantly reduce energy use and harmful emissions, as well as our dependence on foreign oil.
Some really promising trials have taken place (for example in the US, Japan and Australia, see link below) where buses are powered through hydrogen cell technology, at full throttle, emiting only water. It would be great for Yahoo to further this by investing both money and people to further this work. Ultimately, our world needs to move towards a hydrogen economy.
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Yahoo! has some of the best minds in the world in technology. On top of that, many Yahoos are creative and creativity breeds innovation. In the US and all over the world, set up advisory groups with members from all over the company (engineers, product managers, developers, marketing, strategy etc) who can work with industry and government to further areas such as geological sequestration and help the world to move toward a hydrogen economy. By partnering with other companies and research groups you can avoid reinventing the wheel and add knowledge and experience to further these important causes.Source(s):
Worked in emission mitigation projects.
There are some really great resources that are worth looking at:
http://www.netl.doe.gov
http://www.co2crc.com.au/understandccs.h…
http://www.netl.doe.gov/publications/car…
http://www.statoil.com/statoilcom/SVG009…
http://www.greenhouse.crc.org.au/tools/c… - for calculating how much you offset
http://www.greenhouse.crc.org.au/links.c… - good set of global links
http://www.greenhouse.crc.org.au/reducin…
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/fuelcell.…
http://www.hydrogen.energy.gov/
http://www.dpi.wa.gov.au/ecobus/1206.asp
http://www.hydrogen.asn.au/australian-fu… - Go Green – Plants gardens on your grounds, support and help with developing gardens and parks in your communities. Or develop a nation wide Go Green (and Purple) project.
Develop a Green House Effect Awareness Program. Perhaps one that Y!A community members can implement in their home communities. - Support building of nuclear power plants.
- In the 60s, the apocalypse was to come from over-population, a term you never hear any more. Don't believe everything you hear! Scientists are generally *extremely* clever and love a good hoax at the unwitting public's expense. That's one thing that will never change.
Now, if beloved Yahoo wants to swap to wind-powered electricity, I'm all for it. It's a good option for countless reasons...many of which neatly dovetail with the climate change caution everyone's buying into today. (But I still *urge* you not to believe everything you hear...) - Ok: according to " Safer Environment you can use less
Carbon Gas by recycling & we'd suggested that "!Source(s):
Environment & Ecology - To believe mankind can affect the global climate is pure folly. Try researching the climatic history of this planet BEYOND the last 100 years.
If you're serious about trying to make Yahoo! "carbon neutral", close the doors or change the name. That'll insure Yahoo! never produces any more nasty pollution. - I still find it hard to believe that people think "global warming" is a severe problem. Earth has experienced many cycles exactly like what we're experiencing these days.
I was once greatly concerned about global warming. After doing research to learn more about what was causing it, I shockingly discovered very little -- if any -- CREDIBLE evidence to support this "environmental crisis" (much of what you hear on television is just speculation, like evolution).
I don't believe we should care less about the environment, but I also believe we shouldn't go too far as we are attempting to do today. I believe that you should save your investments in this matter. The environment is, in fact, not in as much danger as just about everyone thinks it is. You have to have a doctorate in geology and meteorology (which I have) before you make assumptions that the environment is in great danger (just like the first environmentalists to suggest a dangerous environmental situation and the so-called "O-zone Hole").
I wouldn't be supprised if we do more to harm the environment by putting so many restrictions on "greenhouse gas emitions". Plants (of course) take carbon dioxide out of the air and they need it to live. After chemical reactions with the plant change the CO^2 into oxygen and carbon, they release oxygen (O^2). Even before the banning of chlorofluorocarbons (CFC's), man contributed to less than 1% of the "greenhouse gasses" in the atmosphere because 96% of these greenhouse gasses is water vapor. NATURALLY, these "greenhouse gasses" that are "driving our environment to the brink of destruction" fluctuate by 21-38% every decade.
Thanks for hearing my opinion! :)Source(s):
professor of geology (me) - Discourage people from using computers. They are a terrible waster of energy!
-----------------------------------
No! Wait! Send your money to Al Gore at his "green" investment company: Generation Investment Management (link below)
Putting "green" in Al Gore's pocket will buy you tons of "carbon credit" absolution!Source(s):
- Hello!!! i LOVE YAHOO VERY MUCH, ANNOUNCING THAT UR GOING CARBON NUETRAL is a very good step in helping us to minimize global warming... In later month, global warming become a talk of the town... Here in our area in Batangas City, Philippines according to scientist our area may shrink and erase out of the map if people like us will not stop wasting our resources and continue to spill out, waste out everything. For us in order to save our beloved city. We plant trees, dispose our garbage properly, even organic farming are introduced and a good market in our area.
There are many steps that we batangeños are oing jut to combat climate change/global warming... Its good to hear that guys like you are thingkin' not just to earn but also to help us ease our worsening environmental condition... All i can advice are these: 1. Plan your steps for things and resources can never be wasted;2. Ask your self if you want it for regression is always at the end;3. Advertise, Yahoo has the power and use it. Advestise about environment. Freindlyness and in our simple action of wasting what future does our beautiful earth have...specially our children!!! and 4. Don't forget to pray and ask for the guidance of our LORD... HE knows everything, HE will enlightened us and I know somehow, someday, GOD will pay you back for what you have imparted to save everyone of us... Thank you for being a well - hearted company... May GOD Bless you and your company!!! - 1. I think they should digitize everything. No paper. No trees will have to die for it.
2. Put solar panels on the roof-top. California has lots of sun, I mean Yahoo! is in Sunnyvale, right? So there's the sun for power.
3. Plant lots of trees around the campus. The trees will look nice, and give great shade to the place. Plus get rid of CO2 out of the air. Did you know that one tree will get rid of at least a ton of CO2 during its lifetime? It's true.
Those are 3 simple ways Yahoo! could do it. Let's hope they'll actually take our ideas. - One way might be to cut down on energy used. Lights turned off in rooms that are empty (there are sensors that detect people in the room that will adjust the lighting,) non essential computers turned off. Active and aggressive car pool support such as car poolers get the good parking spots or public transportation vouchers and bus stops conveniently located; a company the size of Yahoo should be able to pull a few strings. Thermostats turned down. Hot water turned off in non-essential areas (try washing your hand with hot water in the restroom and how long does it take? It's finally warm by the time your finished and quite a bit if energy wasted.) The most basic and the most obvious are almost always the ones overlooked.
- Hello David,
First of all, thanks for being determined to do better for the environment. It is important that people with the means to implement beneficial policies on large scales do as such; because when large companies and markets begin to shift towards sustainability, it eases the strain on the individual and makes it easier for us all to do our parts.
At any rate, I've read through the few answers that have been given already and some of them are well thought out and nicely detailed. I don't think I could add much further; however I think buying renewable energy credits through power providers is paramount. Since Yahoo! is an information company, it relies heavily on electricity. Just make sure that electricity is coming from wind or solar, and in a pinch-water.
Also, it probably wouldn't hurt to promote, sponsor or support carbon neutrality policies else where. There are lots great ideas that could use some help in being pushed onto the decision arena or education programs that could help people see the effects humans have on the Earth and its resources.
Thank you for your time and your concern. - Yahoo is a great internet search engine. I believe Yahoo should research about carbon offsets along with focusing more on hydrogen based energy resources. Try carrying out a greenhouse gas assessment to establish baseline CO2 emissions. Identify cost effective ways to reduce CO2 emissions. Identify global carbon offset schemes to balance remaining emissions like solar power, technology in general, forestry, and lightbulbs. Finally, use carbon offsets to balance some or all remaining emissions. Check out the link for more info http://www.carbonneutral.com/
Source(s):
- That's easy. Make a yearly donation to this organization whose job it is to take the donations and use it to become carbon neutral.
http://carbonfund.org/site/pages/offset_… - Yahoo also can use it's global marketing power to spread the word that the cause is important, and showcase articles from experts explaining what we can do as citizens to help sway our government and what we can do ourselves in our houses and what not.
Yahoo has the marketing power to make a difference. - 96% of greenhouse gas is water vapor.
Think about that before you get all excercised about reducing a fractional increase in that 4%. - Produce a solar-powered cell phone.
-
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can only suggest taking small steps towards you're final goal, you want to try to be independent of the grid, yet not fall behind, or get lost from the goals of your business itself, they're making hybrid cars, and hybrid scooters,
http://world.honda.com/news/2004/2040824…
but there's still cycle power, and solar powered vehicles are always improving in designs,
http://www.recumbents.com/WISIL/speedrun…
http://www.solarelectricalsystems.com/ht…
and with such a need to replace fossil fuels, any replaceable and replenish-able substitute is welcome, you mention carbon neutral, yet with wood and corn oil being replenish-able, but producing carbon, you could replace those with batteries and windmills, yet you then factory's are require to produces those type of items, which in turn need fuel/ energy to produce, there's hydro dam and nuclear energy , to replace coal factories, yet then you tamper with nature’s wildlife and if not safely, the air we breathe, so you may have to eventually look to space, as a way of finding new resources and endless disposal, so back to taking small steps, walking, biking, staying healthy, recycle when possible, and still be able to enjoy your freedoms otherwise, good luck,☺
..Source(s):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Filo
http://brand.yahoo.com/forgood/environme…
http://www.davidsuzuki.org/Climate_Chang…
solar cycle,
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2005/04/…
also note being on first page of yahoo answers possibly means getting hundreds of obsolete votes, thus ignored,
suggest limiting these types of questions from being over ridden with voting/ scoring,
.. - You have ads, don't you? Start by having more of your advertisement toward saving energy. Create an educating website on Yahoo! and advertise it in all your webpages. Those who know less will click and learn something. You can reach the world, so start by all your users.
That's your greatest power.
Then give prizes to companies or people who work toward improving the environment, make it public. Make people want to be pro-envi.
Start with your offices, recycle, follow proper disposal measures for your batteries, printers, papers, computer.
Use energy saving buildings, be iso 14000. - Everyone, including all animals and insects need to quit breathing out, since that produces CO2 and for some reason that's a bad gas nowadays. It didn't used to be when we had global cooling, but now it's a bad gas and we have to reduce it or the whole planet will turn into a ball of flames within the next few years.
And if you buy that, I have a bridge in NY to sell you. - go nuclear, build more dams, windmills. I don't seany advantage to going carbon neutral. The plants need carbon dioxide to breathe. What do you want to do, starve the plants and make this place a barren desert.
- Use bicycle generators.
http://www.econvergence.net/electro.htm
It seems silly, but perhaps such silliness would bring attention to the issue. - The best thing any American can do is be productive and let our economy push foward. Our economy will bring forth new inventions and ideas that will bring us new technologies and energy sources in the future.
If someone wants to consume a little less of something that is fine but it is not needed and if it reduces your productivity then it shouldn't be done.
This "carbon footprint" stuff is non-sense. Most Americans love the environment and nature. Just because we consume energy or resources doesn't mean we do not care any less.
If your worried about global warming........don't be. There is little or nothing that man can do to affect our climate. Do you really think we can predict the climate in 50 years when we can't accurately forecast weather a week out? The climate has changed for millions of years, even before SUV's and gasoline. I doubt man had anything to do with that. Do you think there might be forces simply larger than all of us at work? The sun? Other complex systems within the Earth?
Be productive, move our economy forward and let freedom reign for all Americans. This is the best thing you can do. - Global warming is indeed an environmental issue that needs our attention.But as serious of an issue it it,some people are still not aware of global warming.Investing in educational tools is a step in the right direction,awareness brings about change.You need to start with baby steps.
- go to Mars and find out why they are having global warming - see if we caused it or if something solar is effecting both planets. If we have an ice age or global warming how did we cope before - we have always had these cycles - how do we know now we are at fault - answer these question and perhaps we can do more for global warming. Perhaps if we stop illegal immigrants our country will have less population contributing to global warming - then we will have lower amounts and Mexico or other countries will be blamed. Perhaps we should insist for China to be green. Best way for anyone to be carbon neutral - stop existing - close the door - go out of business - you will then have no effect
- First of all, Yahoo as a corporation must walk the talk if it's going carbon neutral. Otherwise, it will be meaningless and gives lip service to the public. Secondly, Yahoo will need to empower its employees to make decisions that help achieve this goal. Its employees will need to believe in the program and buy into what Yahoo is trying to accomplish. Lastly, employees will need to walk the talk as well. If the latter two points are not accomplished, Yahoo may as well stay the present course and actually fulfill an "Inconvenient Truth".
- Going "carbon neutral" is stupid. Carbon monox is part of the earth's atmosphere. There is a knee-jerk reaction right now to reduce greenhouse gas. If you want to use up carbon monox, plant more trees and let them suck it up.
- Wow. If you focus on effeciency and use half the suggestions posted thus far, you will reduce your carbon fingerprint and reduce your capital expenditures. This will not only be environmentally friendly but will give big dividends to the bottom line. More companies shoudl focus on this with an eye on how this will reduce their expendatures and increast their economic effeciencies for the future. Green is not only good for the envirnomnent but also good for the company's bottom line as well.
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