The recent Times article on the bike-sharing boom in Europe offers up lots of good stuff. For mayors looking to ease congestion and prove their environmental bona fides, bike-sharing has provided a simple solution: for the price of a bus, they invest in a fleet of bicycles, avoiding years of construction and approvals required for a subway. For riders, joining means cut-rate transportation and a chance to contribute to the planet’s well-being. The new... Continue reading »
There’s a lot written these days about the coming boom in home energy monitoring devices and systems. Eventually, we hope to see smart meters that dynamically adjust home energy use to conditions within the home and on the grid. Nobody in the room? Turn off the lights. Too much demand on the grid? Turn down the AC. But there’s a more basic step, which is simply letting people know how much their home is using... Continue reading »
LED lighting is improving all the time, but it’s not yet advanced enough to be able to replace CFLs as a standard for low-energy lighting around the home. One place you can definitely use LED lights is for decorating your house and/or Christmas tree this holiday. This year we’re selling LED holiday lights in our green store. How this helps The bulbs can last up to 50,000 hours (that’s over five years of continuous lighting... Continue reading »
As I was putting my children’s letter to Santa Claus into the freezer (because we all know that ensures express delivery to the North Pole), a thought came to mind: Forget save the polar bears, let’s save Santa and his reindeer. The North Pole receives over 6 million letters to Santa every year. Recently the National Snow and Ice Data Center said that there is a 50-50 chance that the already thin ice on... Continue reading »
With the recent financial market meltdown and related bailout, the term “free market” is not particularly in vogue at the moment. Instead, everyone seems to be looking for government intervention to force companies to do not only what’s right, but what in many cases is in the best interest of those companies. Much of such regulation is probably necessary. Corporate managers are notorious for focusing on short-term profits, even if it comes at the expense... Continue reading »
Well, it’s not quite Thanksgiving but around TerraPass we’re already seeing people buying gifts for the holidays. So we thought this would be a fine time to introduce our Second! Annual! TerraPass! Holiday Gift Selection. Please check it out. We’ve done our best to put together a range of gift ideas, at a range of price points. As you would expect, we’re mostly interested in gifts that reduce carbon emissions, though this year we’ve... Continue reading »
In the two weeks since the election, Barack Obama has stayed mostly in Chicago — and except for announcing White House staff appointments — has made few public statements. But the president-elect emerged today to deliver a video address to a gathering of governors and policy experts in Los Angeles. Obama affirmed his commitment to federal cap and trade legislation. He also renewed his campaign promise to put the U.S. back in the center of... Continue reading »
A few weeks ago, we kicked around the question of whether online shopping is better or worse for the environment than the traditional method. Recently Amazon unveiled a new program that demonstrates another of the efficiency advantages available to large retailers: The Frustration-Free Package (on the left) is recyclable and comes without excess packaging materials such as hard plastic clamshell casings, plastic bindings, and wire ties. It’s designed to be opened without the use... Continue reading »
Months ago we asked you for suggestions for a new name for the blog. We felt this venerable organ deserved something a bit more distinguished than the appearance of just another corporate blog. And so, today, we’re pleased to present to you “The TerraPass Footprint.” You picked the name yourselves. It was suggested by J. McIntyre of Colombus, Ohio who is now the proud owner of one of our wind-up mp3 players. Hundreds of you... Continue reading »
This is a big day for us here at TerraPass — we’re unveiling our 2009 carbon offset project portfolio. These are the projects that we support with the proceeds from carbon offset sales on our site and through our partners. The TerraPass Carbon Management Services team will almost certainly add more to the 2009 portfolio as we go, but for now we invite you to take a browse through the list - this year... Continue reading »
I’ve never had to wait for hot water. For my morning shower, I was always able to stand there with a hand in the stream until it was warm before hop in. Elapsed time — maybe 30 seconds. As a consequence, I hadn’t ever considered using one of the little ladybug shower adaptors we sell in the store. But two weeks ago we moved into a new rental house, and on that first morning,... Continue reading »
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