Green tech resources galore
Because I am completely aware that I am nowhere near the be-all-end-all authority on matters green, today’s blog is simply a reference to three other compelling Web sites that will provide you with material for your personal or professional greening.
The first is one of those corporate-sponsored resources that I always feel so very conflicted about. The primary proponent is WebEx, and it actually hails from the United Kingdom. Called the “Green Guide to Your Office,” the site boasts one of those seemingly ubiquitous calculators that figures out your personal carbon emissions and offers information/tips on things you can do to improve your very own carbon footprint.
Of course, WebEx pitches itself as a green tech player because its conferencing services help cut down on travel. (Although I'd love to hear more about how much its data centers offset that.) Its partners on the site (read other sponsors) are its parent Cisco plus Fujitsu-Siemens, Vodafone and Quocirca.
The other thing I’d like to point out came to me in the form of a Facebook application from a company called MakeMeSustainable.com. The thing I like about this site is that it not only provides you with an estimate of what your individual impact on the climate might be, it provides specific ideas about simple things you can do to reduce that impact. Such as washing your clothes in cold water. Or adjusting your thermostat one way or another during extreme seasons. When you plug these things in, it recalculates your footprint.
The Facebook part of it provides you with a CarbonTree, so that you can actually see how your network of friends compares with you and with the Facebook community at large. This link lets you add their widget to your Facebook account.
You can also read about why the three young cofounders feel it is everyone’s moral obligation to think more about the environment and to actually do something after that thinking is done.
Finally, here’s a pointer to TheDailyGreen.com, a sort of viral community for people interested in taking specific action. The site’s founder, Deborah Jones Barrow, tells me that she’s primarily interested in user-generated content although there is a network of writers posting 15 to 20 stories per day on everything from organic foods to daily debates on some particular news of the day. Today’s rant, for example, muses about why Vladimir Putin and not Nobel Peace Prize winner and green crusader Al Gore was recognized by Time magazine as Person of the Year.