Cows Eating Garbage

Sounds so simple, but saying is always easier than doing it. Follow these 5 tips from 1000 Green Steps to find yourself ‘cured’ from your littering addiction. Act now!

1. Think about the danger

Think about how one plastic bag left on the ground would affect your environment and soil. Think about the money that has to go to waste to hire people to collect that garbage. Are YOU ready to get blamed?

2. Get yourself informed

Do you know that the several trillion toxic cigarette butts littered worldwide annually are responsible for fatal fires and the deaths of numerous mammals, birds and reptiles that eat them? Get yourself informed and I’m 100% sure you will not litter anymore if you still got heart.

3. Make an effort

Try to find a trash can anywhere or simply keep a litter bag in your car at anytime. You won’t have an excuse if you do so

4. Just pick it up!

The simplest way but might happen to be the hardest one if you didn’t get use to it. Try it and you’ll regret why you didn’t start it earlier.

5. See the right people

Join the right communities such as these organizations 1000 Green Steps found for you: Keep America Beautiful or Adopt a Road program.

Happy Green Living!

Congress is considering a proposal to give drivers up to $4,500 in vouchers when they turn in old gas-guzzling cars any buy vehicles that get good gas mileage, reports The Detroit News and make that as their green steps.

The so-called “Cash for Clunkers” program is envisioned to run for four years and will encourage the retirement of up to 1million vehicles each year.

The cars turned would have to be:

• driveable
• registered in the United States
• have a fuel economy rating of less than 18 mpg.

Then, drivers would be eligible for reimbursement for purchase of a new or used car that:

• has a fuel economy rating that exceeds federal targets for its class of vehicle by at least 25%
• is priced less than $45,000 (manufacturer suggested retail price)
• is a 2004 model, or later.

Take green steps now and get some vouchers

“CLIMATE INJUSTICE”

After a long muddled arguments of politicians and country leaders, a deal was finally reached on Saturday (December 19), but it turned out that it does not solve everyone’s big question: ‘Is it that bad?’ From a conference that was originally intended to produce a successor to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, those gentlemen end up with an agreement among the world’s largest economies to take steps to curb greenhouse gas emissions, but no formal consensus on the part of the 193 nations present — and no prescription for what comes next in the global negotiating process that is nearly 20 years old.

Nations joining the accord will, by Jan. 31, list their pledges for long-term emissions control. Developed nations will declare cuts, fast-developing nations will sign up for reductions as a share of their overall economy. That surely will affect all countries’ market consideration, along with their economic stability. “A market is an engine,” said Peter Goldmark, who directs the climate and air program for the Environmental Defense Fund. “A treaty — or, more broadly, public policy, decisions and rules made in the public space — [is] the rails.”

Habitat Suites

When you are thinking about having an eco-tourism journey, be ready to rest your body inside an eco-friendly hotel. 1000 Green Steps recommend Habitat Suites Hotel as the most eco-friendly hotel in Texas considering ‘green’ features they offer to their customers. Those features include:

• They are solar-powered
• Grounds maintained with the use of natural, nontoxic fertilizers and pesticides
• Nontoxic, phosphate-free, natural cleansers used in cleaning
• Air ozonators/ionizers used for clean air quality in suites
• Biodegradable, recycled, unbleached paper products/recycling program
• Ladybugs populate our grounds, fostering healthy plants, the natural, chemical-free way
• About 20% of our energy needs are satisfied by our on-site 18 Kilowatt 108 solar panel PV (photo-voltaic) system

By those features 1000 Green Steps believe that they have good reasons to make Habitat Suites win awards and the latest was in 2006 they received the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce first ever environmental award, the “Greenbelt Award” and 2007 got us another “Greenbelt Award”

Room Rate starting from $137/night

Happy Green Living!

U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) already loan $1.6 million for Nissan to modify its Smyrna, Tennessee plant to build battery electric vehicles as well as the batteries to power them. The loan came from DOE’s Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program (ATVMLP), a $25 billion program authorized by Congress in 2007. Nissan has to be able to produce about 150,000 electric vehicles a year and 200,000 battery packs. Those vehicles will be ready at 2012!

Not just that, that same DOE ATVMLP loan had approved 8 other companies to do the conversion of USA vehicles into electric drive transportations. Those companies mentioned above are Tesla Motors, Maryland Science Center, Altcar, Maya Electric, Electrovaya, Exxon Mobil, IBM’s Big Green Innovations and IBM Almaden Institute.

Congratulation and Happy Green Driving!

Angelina Jolie as Goodwill Ambassador

Angelina Jolie is not exactly the greenest celebrities 1000 Green Steps have ever seen. However her effort to sacrifice her personal life to make people become greener is something we should give applause for. Jolie is a Goodwill Ambassador for the U.N. Refugee Agency for 5 years, which assists around 20 million refugees in over 100 countries.

Jolie even made a website containing her personal journal from her various visits to the world with the U.N., including Sudan, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Ecuador and Namibia. Angelina is one celebrity using her status to focus media attention toward something other than herself.

Jolie has received various awards including UNCA Citizen of the World by the U.N. Correspondents Association and the Global Humanitarian Action Award from the U.N. Association of the USA and the Business Council for the United Nations.

Now it is our turn to take the action. Start from trying to influence people around us to care about environment.

Happy Green Living

“It seems there are too few politicians in this world capable of looking beyond the horizon of their own narrow self-interest, let alone caring much for the millions of people who are facing down the threat of climate change,” he said.

“It is now evident that beating global warming will require a radically different model of politics than the one on display here in Copenhagen.”

Switzerland

In case you wonder what the greenest country in the world is, you don’t have to worry now. 1000 Green Steps is here to tell you the top 3 greenest countries.  This list is generated through Environment Performance Index (EPI) calculation.

1. Switzerland
Switzerland is a country synonymous with scenic Alps, posh pocketknives, fine chocolate, world-class watches, and of course, a clean environment. The country’s achievements and measures in environmental protection can be seen in people’s daily lives.

2. Norway
Through the action plan, the Government wishes to ensure that sustainable development is given a permanent place on the political agenda. The Government considers it important to link the sustainable development effort to central political processes and economic policy documents.

3. Sweden
Finnish national sustainable development policy is a wide-reaching participation of various societal actors both in the definition of the contents and implementation of the measures. The approach is already referred to as the “Finnish model”, in which broad-based, multi-stakeholder participation is combined with high-level political leadership.

Happy Green Living!

Environmental Traffic Light

There are environmental phenomena that are far from the experience and knowledge of people. For instance, when we speak of temperature and give it a value of 25 degrees Celsius, we easily have an idea of what it means, but when we talk about 2.1ppm CO2 it is not the case. The same occurs with phenomena such as humidity, air pressure, etc. which also cannot be perceived easily with our senses. For people to understand these phenomena they need to become familiar with them. It is necessary to start thinking about information systems, data visualization and the interaction with them that encourage understanding and contribute to disseminating this knowledge. Urban planning has provided rules for issues such as insulation, height, usage etc., but equally important facts like the various interactions of the ecosystems in which we are immersed are often ignored and neglected.

Just as there are traffic lights that help us regulate traffic vehicular and pedestrian, why not to talk about environmental signals that support decision making on environmental issues? They could give us information – not only phenomena but also the environmental state of our ecosystems. We can imagine these lights in different parts of the city, in parks – in contaminated or abandoned contexts.

The environmental traffic light consists of a series of units for independent phenomena; each has sensors displays that provide visual information to the public about the measurement on site. The collected data is sent over the network and stored for further analysis.

Happy Green Living!

Mr Ban told delegates there was still an “enormous amount of work to be done” if a deal was to be achieved. “No-one will get everything they want; but if we work together, then everyone will get what they need.”

Elsewhere in the conference, discussions continued – mainly behind closed doors – on some of the issues that continue to divide governments two years after the process towards a new global climate deal started and just three days before it is due to conclude.