Tag: going green

By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Business-general, Energy & Sustainability, Green Business, Peace and War, Politics, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , , ,

All through the Vietnam era, we used to hear that war was terrible in so many other ways, but good for the economy. It put people to work, it allowed companies facing hardship to find customers, etc. etc.

This was always a misleading argument, as war spending created far fewer jobs than many other categories.

It seems today’s market is much more aware of the potential economic devastation of war. Consider this bit of news:

With the possibility of military action against Syria easing, investors sent the markets soaring to a sharply higher close with the Dow leaping 127 points to 15,191. Nasdaq climbed 22 points to 3729.

Incidentally, money spent on energy efficiency and going green has a much higher rate of return for the economy. Green energy spending creates more jobs, consumer spending, and long-term consumer savings that frees up cash for more spending, while war drives us deeper into debt.

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By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Corporate Social Responsibility, Energy & Sustainability Tagged with ,

As I repeatedly point out in my eighth book, Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green, going green can reduce costs and boost profits, as well as provide numerous marketing hooks. Here’s a great example.

From reusing the aluminum seat frames when replacing seats to changing to modular carpeting where only the worn spots get replaced, Southwest—often a pioneer—has shaved weight by more than 600 pounds per plane, drastically lowered its consumption of resources, and shaved costs. The long list of improvements Southwest has made toward greener flying can be seen here.

BTW, did you know that Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green (list price: $21.95) comes with more than $2000 worth of bonuses? Like going green, I try to make buying the book a win-win; click the link and see what else you get.

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By Posted on Posted in Corporate Social Responsibility, Energy & Sustainability, Ethics in Government Tagged with , , , , ,

More remarkable for who he is and where he posted than his actual content (which is good but nothing particularly new): it was a pleasant shock to come across this article on Huffington Post making connections between fossil fuels and endangered species by Major General Michael R. Lehnert, recently retired as the Commanding General of Marine Corps Installations West, entitled (somewhat misleadingly) “Top 10 Reasons to Support Clean Energy.”

I’ve known for a few years that the US military has been taking an ever-greater role in sustainability (perhaps to atone for its prior role as one of the worst polluters in the world). Still, it’s exciting when they go public like this.

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By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Energy & Sustainability, Entrepreneurship, Green Business, People Helping People Tagged with , , , ,

It’s nothing new to have bicycles as commercial haulers. In much of the world, bicycles are commonly used to haul both freight and passengers. In the US, where I live, I remember hundreds of delivery bikes on the streets of New York when I was a child: industrial-frame one-speeds with huge boxes on the front. More recently, many cities have added bicycle-rickshaws to their public transportation fleets, competing directly with gas-powered taxis. They’re cheaper and of course much greener than motorized ones, and in congested, traffic-clogged cities, often just as fast.

My much more rural area has had Pedal People, a bicycle-based trash-hauling and farmshare-delivery company, since 2002. Oh yeah, and when I was a high school student in the 1970s, I commuted by bike, 5-1/2 miles uphill in New York City traffic, when the weather permitted. It saved me half an hour each way over the bus, because the bus route was far from linear (although I could read on the bus and not on my bike).

So what makes this decade different?

First, the growing green consciousness. When people who are already disposed to lower their carbon footprint (and their costs) learn that bicycles are really viable transportation alternatives in many cases, the switch becomes easy.

And second, the rapidly developing technology of bicycles. The kind of high-tech freight-hauling bikes described in this article about a bike-powered cargo company in Victoria, British Columbia would have been unimaginable just a few years ago.

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By Posted on Posted in Energy & Sustainability, People Helping People, Shel's Personal Life, Uncategorized Tagged with , , , , , ,

Someone just asked on a LinkedIn group who inspired group members to go green. I decidced my answer is worth sharing here:

For me it was a gradual process with many key moments. Here are a few:

  • Age three, realizing I had some power over my environment and didn’t have to tolerate cigarette smoke in my own house. I destroyed several packs of cigarettes at a party my parents threw–their guests had left the packs lying on the coffee table.
  • Age 12, feeling injustice in a much more personal and direct way: I had to pay adult price for a movie ticket but sit in the children’s section. I started a boycott of that theater, and have not been back in 42 years–even though it was my neighborhood theater until I went to college.
  • 1974, doing a research project on the pros and cons of nuclear power, I discovered that there were no pros but a lot of very serious cons–and recognized that I had to be actively involved in changing this country’s energy picture.
  • Beginning to read (in the late 1970s) sustainability thinkers like Amory Lovins, Hazel Henderson, Ralph Borsodi, Helen and Scott Nearing–and to learn via magazine articles some of the ugly history of car companies buying up and yanking out trolley tracks, etc.
  • 1981, having an 80-something woman demonstrate to me that we could wash dishes with about 5 percent of the water I’d been using, by turning the water off, soaping them all, and turning on a small stream to rinse.
  • In 1999, learning so much from my fellow organizers of Save the Mountain—and proving that we could in fact harness enough citizen energy to protect our endangered mountain range

There are many more, continuing to the present day. Going green is a process.

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