Archives for "environment"

Posted by Hooman on 16th January 2008

Green Apple falls, but no one hears it in the forest..

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Today at Macworld 2008 Steve Jobs unveiled the company’s newest computer Macbook Air. The one feature of this new notebook that perhaps got the least applause from the audience was unfortunately it’s “green” features, and I felt, due in part to how Jobs presented this feature.. WIRED ran this story about the launch along with reactions and criticism from Green-Peace. After reading this article, it became clear as to why there was a lack of enthusiasm on Jobs’ part in delivering this message… He was afraid of being blamed for not doing enough company wide to reduce environmental impacts.. I’m reminded of a story I heard from Joel Makower of Greenbiz.com at an event about 4 years ago about how at that time Nike was one of the biggest if not the biggest purchaser of organic cotton on the world markets yet no-one knew about it. When Nike was asked why they did not make that info public, they said that if they began talking about the fact that only a small % of their cotton purchase was organic, then people would ask why the rest of their cotton purchase was not. Oh the internal anguish people inside companies must feel when they find hiding behind the truth easier than living in it, then and today. Apple can either be blamed for not doing better or they can be applauded loudly for taking the first step and equally held accountable for their second step(something that clearly did not happen at the show) We can only hope that in future events, Jobs can bring the same level of charisma to launching green features as he does when he introduces new colors for ipods. To check out more photos of the environmentally friendly features of the notebook click on the following link.. Continue Reading

Posted by Hooman on 28th December 2007

“Story of Stuff”..another way to look at how we consume!

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I can’t say enough about this video on http://www.storyofstuff.com/ …. If you have about 20 minutes, its time well spent. This is probably the first time I’ve seen a concise video that captures so well our society’s addition to “stuff.” The one thing that I feel this video lacks(though it touched on it briefly) is how we treat each other as humans.  Our ability to bring awareness to how we treat each other as human beings or our willing to tolerate how others are treated can go a along way towards sensitizing us to the impact of our “stuff” addiction.   Its not just about technical solutions to the global climate crisis, its also about bringing into our awareness the needs of people around the world…. I know I need to add that to my list of top 10 things to consider for the new year in 2008.

Posted by Hooman on 23rd December 2007

Green-poetic irony of oil spilled by Cosco Busan in SF-Bay…

 (image courtesy of San Francisco Chronicle)

If you didn’t catch this story, as reported on the San Francisco Chronicle article the fender that protected the bay bridge from the tanker Cosco Busan last November has now been repaired. When this incident first happened, it made me think of society’s true cost in maintaining the petroleum diet. For those of us who don’t keep up with the ins and outs of fuel usages by such vessels, it was our first introduction to the fact that they burn the lowest quality of oil, mainly the byproduct of the refining of crude oil into gasoline. Not only do we now understand the cost to marine life during the spill, but we are also awakened to the air pollution caused by such vessels when they burn this foul fuel… This was a wake up call for us to look at how much unnecessary products we consume, ones manufactured overseas which inevitably have to be shipped over here on these very container ships.

Now to the fun part of this post. Continue Reading