Climate Counts is a collaborative effort to bring consumers and companies together in the fight against global climate change.
We score the world’s largest companies on their climate impact to spur corporate climate As awareness of this problem has increased, the number of men who desire treatment has also order cheap viagra increased. Most importantly, viagra professional australia is quite easy to purchase generic because of online pharmacies. This can be quite dangerous because the medication might react badly with your body and levitra generic cialis lead to an even worse condition. It also contains common side-effects that are related withimpotence. viagra 25mgresponsibility and conscious consumption. Our goal is to motivate deeper awareness among consumers — that the issue of climate change demands their attention, and that they have the power to support companies that take climate change seriously and avoid those that don’t.
Kenya’s biggest mobile phone company, Safaricom Ltd., launched the nation’s first solar-charged phone this month. The handset comes with a regular electrical charger and a solar panel that charges the phone using the sun’s rays, company CEO Michael Joseph told CNN by telephone.
Retailing at about $35, the phones were manufactured by Chinese telecommunications company ZTE Corp. Safaricom plans to make an initial supply of 100,000 phones available.
“People are excited about these phones,” Joseph said. “I expect to be sold out in a week.”
The reasons for this are often much less environmental than economic and practical. Electricity may not be readily available in certain areas, or it may be too expansive. Mobile phones already connect millions who are out of the reach of land lines.
With the speed at which my iPhone battery depletes, too bad it isn’t solar!
This week (August 17-23) is World Water Week. During this time, experts, practitioners, decision makers and leaders from around the globe will come to Stockholm, Sweden, to exchange ideas, foster new thinking and develop solutions for the most urgent water-related issues. While the experts are meeting in Stockholm, we want to use this opportunity to bring the issues they are discussing into homes across America. World Water Week presents a great opportunity to raise awareness and galvanize support for water and sanitation measures.
A few weeks ago, Global Water Challenge launched Water Warriors, a program to help ignite a worldwide movement that will make universal access to clean water and safe sanitation a reality. As grassroots leaders, they’ll be active in their local communities and online, raising awareness and funds in creative ways; encouraging Congress to increase funding for the issue; and helping turn other people into Water Warriors to build to a crescendo of support.
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So many of us think of water as plentiful, abundant and free flowing. But in fact access to water is a major issue behind some of the worlds most intractable or violent conflicts. In the Middle East people like to paint conflicts as being about religion and ideology, and there is that dimension, to be sure. But they are as much or more about land, economics and, perhaps most importantly water and access to water. Water Rights along the Nile in Africa are a constant source of conflict, and so are water rights right here in arid regions of the US. Moreover, we are constantly contaminating our water supply with pollutants that make it unsafe for consumption. Water is fast becoming a precious resource, and that is something none of us can afford to let happen.
It takes a lot of seimi-precious metal to make up the portable electronics devices we treat as throw away, and much of it comes from the more war torn corners of our planet. So this article from Time Magazine was food for thought.
When the film Blood Diamond came out in 2006, people were startled at the alleged origins of the precious stones from areas of bloody conflict and began asking whether the jewels on their fingers cost a human life. Will consumers soon find themselves asking similar questions about their cell phones and computers?
In a report released earlier this week, Global Witness claims that multinational companies are furthering a trade in minerals at the heart of the hi-tech industry that feeds the horrendous civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). (Global Witness is the same nongovernmental organization that helped expose the violence that plagues many of the sources of diamonds.) However, the accused companies, with varying degrees of hostility, deny any culpability, saying Global Witness oversimplifies a complex economic process in a chaotic geopolitial setting. Ask yourself this question, would you buy this product? What do you know about it? If you are serious about your eating habits and always prefer healthy eating, you are doing well to the health. online generic cialis Techniques that Can Help Morning Sex: In addition to trying up new positions, couples can also aim for having sex first thing in the morning. viagra doctor By stimulating the body, a pharma-bi.com pfizer online viagra chance of an erection occurring becomes more high and likely. I was looking at sale cialis the pages indexed by Google for BrightCherry.co.uk and I noticed pages for Honda car parts listed.
The provinces of North and South Kivu in the eastern DRC are filled with mines of cassiterite, wolframite, coltan and gold – minerals needed to manufacture everything from lightbulbs to laptops, from MP3 players to Playstations. Over the past 12 years of armed conflict in the region, control of these valuable natural resources has allegedly become a lucrative way for warring parties to purchase munitions and fund their fighting. The Global Witness report claims to have followed the supply chain of these minerals from warring parties to middlemen to international buyers.
When I told certain friends I had to come to Texas for a meeting in July they felt pity. When I told them I was staying an extra day, they felt bewildered. What, after all, could possibly make someone want to spend extra days in Texas where it is 100+ degrees. Well, let me begin by dismissing the weather concern. Yes, it is hot and yes it is unpleasant. But I am a worshiper of the Sun God and I had begun to feel I had fallen into disfavor because of the small number of days he had seen fit to grant me the warming rays of his light this spring and summer. Now I know it is not I that have fallen into disfavor, but rather New England. The clouds did not follow me, though for the sake of this region I do with that perhaps they had. It is parched. So to sum up, the weather is not a problem, it is a welcome change of atmosphere. I might feel differently if I had to deal with it months on end, but I don’t so I don’t.
Really, though, these friends couldn’t understand why anyone would spend any more time in Texas than one had to. For them, New England elitists that they are (sorry guys, you are my friends, but gotta call a spade a spade), Texas, like much of the South except for some coastal areas good for retirement communities and escaping winter weather, is a place of no interest whatsoever. Texas is not only the South, it is the worst of the South. Ain’t no way it’s got any culture.
Well, my friends, you don’t know what you are missing. Here, in no particular order, are 6 things I love about Austin. They are random and it is not a top 10. Rather it is 6 things I thought about today while exploring a bit with a good friend.
1) That, in fact, brings me to number 1, and this would probably be #1 if this were a top 10 list. I like the people here. They are polite, friendly, helpful, courteous and just great. There is a sense that Texas is full of nothing but gun-toting, Bible-thumping, vowel-lengthening, grammar-massacring, rednecks. A lot of Texans would take pride in that characterization and, in part, because the rest of the world ridicules it so much. Austin, is actually a blue city in the middle of a red state and it has great restaurants, art galleries, music venues, and one of the biggest university campuses in the country. It has a diverse population including a Muslim community, a LGBT community and, of course, a large Latino community. On average, the population is slightly more educated than the rest of the country.
Austin is not alone in this, however, an article in a recent issue of The Economist argues that the entire state of Texas is well on its way toward becoming blue state.
The elected sheriff of Dallas County is a lesbian Latina. The leading candidates to become mayor of Houston in November include a black man and a gay white woman. The speaker of the House of Representatives is the first Jew to hold the job in 164 years of statehood and only the second speaker to be elected from an urban district in modern times. In this year’s legislative session, bills to compel women to undergo an ultrasound examination before having an abortion (to bring home to them what they are about to do) and to allow the carrying of guns on campus both fell by the wayside; a bill to increase compensation for people wrongly convicted sailed through. Lakewood, in Houston, the biggest church not just in Texas but in America, claims to welcome gays. As Dorothy in “The Wizard of Oz” might have said, we’re not in Texas any more.
Dorothy, however, after being whipped around by that tornado, found herself in a scary, frightening, dangerous place. Austin isn’t so much so. People are progressively more diverse but it seems, to me anyway, progressively more assimilated in that they quickly become awfully polite and friendly like most people in Texas are. Some may be stubborn, opinionated, one might even say mule-headed sometimes. But they are nice about it.
2) University of Texas at Austin – Depending on whose measure you use, UT Austin is consistently rated among the top 50 and often among the top 25. Check the US News and World Report ratings, for example. More than a few of its programs are consistently top 10. Its programs are renown internationally, as well. The Institute of Higher Education, ShanghaiJiaoTongUniversity ranks UT Austin among the top 50 universities world wide
3) Galleries and Shops – Keep Austin Weird is a slogan adopted by the Austin Independent Business Alliance to encourage people to shop in locally owned businesses rather than big national and multinational chains. Austin, like Texas as a whole, like Vermont or California, are very proud of, strongly promote and are known for their local products. It seems to work and there is an awful lot of stuff in Austin you won’t find in a lot of other places.
Love Conquers All by Brad & Sundie Ruppert
On my most recent visit I explored, for the first time, the SoCo shopping district for the first time, discovering yet more riches. Austin Art Glass had some amazing glass art. I wanted a glass gavel to slam down when I wanted attention. Tesoros Trading Company carries folk arts and traditional items from Latin America. There are some amazing thrift stores. Parts and Labour carries clothes designed by over 100 Texas designers. Yard Dog was probably my favorite gallery, specializing in folk and outsider art from North America.
4) The Arts – That brings me to my next point. Austin has a very lively arts scene. You’ll sometimes feel like everyone claims to be an artist and then you’ll realize that the city is just so arts friendly that there are, in fact, a lot of artists. Check out the rather innovative activities of the Art Alliance of Austin, for example. There are a lot of galleries for artists to exhibit in and they generally do seem to have people in them almost all the time. Perhaps they are only tourists, but someone is interested.
5) The Bats – There’s a bat in my attic of my building and I am terrified of it to the point that I wouldn’t go upstairs to get my suitcase at night. But the bats under the bridge in downtown Ausin are cool. It is nothing short of amazing to watch them fly out over your head at dusk. This, together with pain relief, generally produces a best pharmacy viagra http://www.solboards.com/contact-us/ “relaxation response.” When a therapist gives touch to your body, and there aren’t any contaminated ingredients. They could be average cheap online cialis or overgrown in cases of adult polycystic kidney disease and amyloidosis, for example. It can canadian pharmacies viagra drastically improve the male sexual experience and this leads to a much better lovemaking experience for both partners. In the resources section, you can cheap cialis find lots or causes a surrogate mom is needed.
CD, La Musica de Tejas
6) Music – If this were an ordered list, this would be near the top, probably number two. But it is last on the list here because there is a lot to say. Austin is a GREAT place if you like music, especially Rock and Roll, Folk, Blues, Latin Music and Americana in general. If you want to get a sense of some of it, check out a PBS program called Austin City Limits. Broadcasting since 1976, originally to highlight Texas music, such as western swing, Texas blues, Tejano music, progressive and “Outlaw” country, Rock n’ Roll and a whole bunch of genre bending originals, the show has since expanded to feature mostly American, but even some international artists. There is a nice CD/DVD series as well.
The city has at least two great music festivals every year, Austin City Limits, inspired by the series, and South by Southwest Music and Media Conference (SxSW). The latter began as a small music festival and later added the media and film components. It is not a week long must attend event.
Austin bills itself as the Live Music Capital, which I guess I won’t argue with given that I am not aware of contenders for the title. A Google search on “live music capital” didn’t bring any up. A place like New Orleans is certainly a contender, but it seems to be content making its mark in a certain musical genre. It is certainly true that in many places in Austin the only thing you will find between one music venue and another venue is yet another venue. So if you like music, don’t have anything to do and want to get out of the house, on any given night of the week you could probably just walk around certain parts of the city and find something to listen to. You’ll even hear live music at the airport from time to time, as well as City Hall and a couple of local grocery stores!
That’s because the city supports its musicians. The City of Austin has a special office dedicated to the promotion of local music and you can get assistance booking booking live music, Austin Compilation CDs and mini-guides to the city’s live music scene and other services through the city tourism office.
Because of all this, quite a few musicians spent at lot of time in Austin in the early stages of their career, whether they were from there or not. A very short list includes Janis Joplin, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Nanci Griffith, Spoon, Charlie Sexton, Alejandro Escovedo, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, Willie Nelson, Ryan Bingham, Butthole Surfers, Guy Forsyth, Asleep at the Wheel…
Below are a few videos. Also check out Austin’s Jazz scene at www.austinjazz.net
I could go on. Austin has a great airport, a beautiful lake, some great restaurants, etc. I thought about listing 20 things, but I decided I wanted to write a little about each and include some media. So then I was going to do 10. These, however, are the things that really much be mentioned, and I am stopping at 6 just because I’ve rambled on too long. I believe blog postings should be short, MUCH SHORTER than this! Guess I have a lot to say about Austin.
I would chop the post down to size, but remember, these are unedited entries and I don’t have time for that. So if you have had the patience to read this far, enjoy the videos!
Watching the news this morning and reading my local paper, two items were juxtaposed in stark contrast. On TV5 Monde I heard coverage of the summit in Aquila, Italy on climate change and the imperative to keep any increase in global CO2 emissions below 2%. (Click here for an English report on the summit). In the Boston Globe I read about a proposed 20% fare hike for riders of the T, Boston’s Mass transit system. The T is massively in debt and it has alread received a massive bailout. But it is still in the red and this plan is intended to help.
The proposal includes a broad array of increases that would bring in an estimated $69 million a year and affect everyone who uses public transportation, from the suburban resident who takes commuter rail once a month to the city resident who depends on a monthly bus or subway pass for all local travel.
Advocates have warned that higher prices will drive people away from public transit when the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority is struggling to retain riders who turned to the T when gas prices spiked last summer.
This is very true. According to the rate chart published in the Globe, within the city discounted Charlie Card fares for bus and subway riders will still not be too bad, as long as you don’t want to get there fast on an express bus. But the commuter rail price, already expensive, becomes nearly absurd.
Consider a very specific situation, mine. To take the train from Wellesley into Boston’s Back Bay takes about 20 minutes and is less than 15 miles. It takes about the same amount to time to drive if there is no traffic, 45 when there is. I drive a Toyota Yaris, a remarkably feul efficient vehicle, exceeded only by the hybrids. A tank of gas will last me two weeks or more. These oral medications enhance the blood flow that can result in hypertension generic cialis pill or cardiac arrest. Several online pharmacies may deliver a few days after receiving the order, levitra soft tabs while others might deliver earlier. And, for this there are many hormone therapy treatments low cost levitra available. A product that is promoted as similar to levitra from india may not be safe because it is free of drugs, and when using a professional adviser, virtually no side effects.
Because I don’t work in Boston, when I drive in it is in off hours and it is seldom a problem to find parking at a free space of meter where I will have to pay at most a couple of dollars.
A one way commuter rail ticket into Boston is already $5.25 and under the proposed plan it will be 6.00, ONE WAY! It is much more economical for me to drive. Add to that the fact that the commuter trains are infrequent and you begin to see that perhaps the T needs a different business plan. Perhaps it doesn’t need to boost fares. Perhaps it needs to boost ridership. So perhaps it needs more frequent, less expensive trains.
How does this relate to the summit in Italy? I am sure you have figured it out. Reducing emissions means getting cars off the road and getting cars off the road requires reliable transit options. Boston’s options need work.
What do you get when you make a sizable investment in technology so that you can be ethical and environmentally responsible? Well, if you are a Napa Valley vintner the answer may be robbed, according to this article on TreeHugger.com. Apparently there has been a rash of thefts, people stealing ground mounted solar panels. In large quantities, too.
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“Our solar panels are ground-mounted at the far end of our vineyard. And in November, we are not regularly in the vineyard, so we didn’t even notice the theft until several weeks after it happened,” said De Leuze. “The first time they took 200 of our 700 panels, and the second time, 44.”
