The amount of land dedicated to forests, particularly old growth forests, could significantly reduce global warming. Forests are an important use of land in most countries, and in modern times they take on a new, environmental significance. Plant life scrubs carbon dioxide from the air. Carbon dioxide is a main cause of global warming and can be eliminated just by being in the vicinity of certain plants.

Trees are the best carbon dioxide scrubbers found in nature. Old growth trees are especially good at removing carbon dioxide from the air and storing it within their cells. For this reason, old growth trees need to be preserved. The lumber trade argues that the old growth trees can be easily replaced by new trees, but this is simply not the case. New trees do not possess the abilities that old trees have of preventing global warming by trapping carbon dioxide. Some proponents of cutting suggest that certain new trees are capable of trapping more greenhouse gases than the old trees. This is not true when you compare the new special trees to trees that have many decades of growth.

Several studies have been done to estimate the potential impact on global warming caused by deforestation of tropical rainforests. Loggers do not just take out mature trees for lumber. People who want to clear a place to live, work, or farm in the jungle do so by cutting and burning large portions of rainforest land.

Deforestation increases other greenhouse gases, including methane and nitrous oxide. Global warming is a foreseeable reality when the rainforest and other forests are destroyed.

Preventing global warming should first focus on cutting greenhouse gas emissions caused by the burning of fossil fuels. However, deforestation comes in a close second as a cause and should also be part of conservation efforts.

When people learn that forests are important in stopping global warming, they can help preserve them by refusing to use lumber that comes from old growth forests and rainforests. Laws have been proposed to curtail logging as a way to prevent global warming. Bans on clear-cutting, a practice that destroys acres upon acres of old growth trees, have also been suggested.

It is easy and tempting to continue to blame the deforestation problem on “those people” clearing land in the rainforests. The truth is that a tree in your neighborhood is as valuable as one in the rainforest when it comes to removing carbon dioxide. It is important to think and strategize on a global scale but it is important to also act on a local scale. We may well have more impact on the actions of those in our sphere of influence than those half a globe away. Look in your backyard, is there room for a few more trees? If so go plant some.

Every day people do dozens of things that put more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. This gas is the main perpetrator of climate change, yet activities like driving, heating your house, air travel, and electricity consumption, are hard to stop. Individuals that want to reduce their carbon footprint, the amount of carbon dioxide generated in a year, have the option of buying carbon offsets, often called renewable

energy credits, or RECs

Carbon offsets are projects that decrease the amount of greenhouse gases (GHG) like carbon dioxide in the air to counterbalance the amount that an individual has emitted. These projects can include, but aren’t limited to planting trees (carbon sequestration), erecting wind turbines or solar panels, reducing methane (a greenhouse gas more potent, but less common than carbon dioxide), or updating manufacturing processes to use less fossil fuel.

To offset the average US household energy consumption of 10,656 kWh per year, 3Phases, a large wind company in the Midwest, charges $213.00. 3Phases will use this money to produce, in theory, 10,656 kWh extra in wind energy by building that many more turbines. This new renewable energy will be added to the grid in the place of conventional energy, like coal. The pricing of carbon offsets for alternative energy firms is based on the price difference between fossil fuel energy production and the alternative energy production per kilowatt hour.

In all cases, the money from the offset purchase must instigate additional reductions by the company. Otherwise, the price of the credit will not accurately reflect the amount of GHG reductions it caused. Community Energy Inc., a Pennsylvania-based organization operating in New Jersey, is one of several companies doing the same thing.

As offset purchases have become more popular, journalists and researchers have raised the alarm and cautioned consumers about offsets that do little more than make you feel good. The major concern centers on additionality. Carbon mitigation is only additional if it occurs at a level above the baseline level, also called ‘business as usual’. Ideally, the offset you buy should initiate extra reductions that could not have happened without the money you spent. Additionality is hard to measure: large firms are already working to reduce their GHG-producing activities, and offset purchases, especially small ones, may not actually instigate enough new activity to fully offset the promised amount of kilowatt hours.

A recent New York Times article publicized these problems. To many environmentalists, the carbon-neutral campaign is a sign of the times, easy on the sacrifice and big on the consumerism, Andrew Revkin reported in his piece Carbon Neutral Is Hip, but Is It Green? Revkin quotes Denis Hayes, a leading sustainability activist and expert; the worst of the carbon-offset programs resemble the Catholic Church’s sale of indulgences back before the Reformation, he says. Instead of reducing their carbon footprints, people take private jets and stretch limos, and then think they can buy an indulgence to forgive their sins.

In the past year, researchers discovered that Al Gore, director of the climate change documentary An Inconvenient Truth, has a carbon footprint twenty times the national average; his mansion consumes almost 221,000kWh (kilowatt hours) a year. Gore buys offsets to legitimize this enormous fossil fuel consumption, but many question if his offset purchase actually exempts him from his climate change sin.

Citizens in China use an average of 6 carbon tons per year, and in India, the average is less than half that. In the United States, however, the average person generates around 25 carbon tons per year. Many environmentalists feel we should be reducing our carbon consumption by taking big steps to change our personal and organizational habits and use different technologies and/ or fuels, instead of taking the easier path of changing nothing, and spending money to transfer the reduction responsibility to others. Different offset providers have different pricing schemes, which further complicates the issue of additionality.

Most people familiar with the offset market, including offset providers, encourage individuals first to take steps to reduce the amount of energy they use before making an offset purchase. Conserving electrical energy by turning off lights and computers at night, buying fuel-efficient appliances and vehicles, and being an informed consumer about the food you buy can all make significant reductions in your carbon footprint.After taking these steps, only carbon offsets can mitigate the remaining GHG emissions, allowing individuals to go completely carbon neutral.

In summary, trees don’t reduce carbon, they sequester it for as long as they live. Energy conservation is probably the best way to lower your carbon footprint.

Carbon offsets essentially fund additional carbon reduction that would not happen otherwise.

Individuals and institutions have 3 ways to lighten their carbon footprint:

1) Reduce your own energy consumption

2) Replace dirty energy with clean

3) Facilitate and fund energy conservation by others, particularly those who cannot afford to do it themselves

Everyone have become familiar if not in tune with the term carbon footprint and reducing ones carbon footprint. The term has only recently been revealed to people as this is something we are all unaware of doing on a daily basis from the comforts of our home. Carbon solutions have been instigated in the form of guidance for people to follow as a way of reducing ones carbon footprint. However, in order to make this fully effective, the first thing that would need to be put across is letting people know what carbon footprint is.

Carbon solutions are all about climate protection. One leaves their carbon footprint by producing an increased amount of greenhouse gases, which is released into the atmosphere. This is measured by the amount of CO2 emissions, which is the main cause for concern over global warming. Human activity is believed to be the cause of the increasing risk of global warming. One can measure how much carbon footprint they leave behind by measuring how much energy they use in one year.

Each individual uses enough energy, through their normal daily activities, producing a certain of CO2. One can produce plenty of CO2 emissions from travelling by car to work, leaving their computers on, leaving the light on, washing their clothes at forty degrees as opposed to the recommended thirty, or even use aerosol deodorants as opposed pump sprays. This can cause a problem for people looking to reduce their carbon footprint and pose a problem for the solution to this problem.

Climate change has affected many parts of the world, with the people in the UK noticing the difference of weather change. Climate change is a relatively new concept to which even experts are working on ways of find solutions to this problem. With people consuming less energy and partaking in carbon solutions, this may affect the climate change and reduce the risks of global warming. Green electricity is also a new concept, which uses sustainable and reusable energy sources, to produce the amount of electricity.

The Christmas is possibly one of the worst periods for energy consumption due to the amount of lighting put up for decoration, high consumption of food, gift purchases and paper wastage, higher usage of travelling vehicles and more electricity used in the home. This produces up to 650kg of CO2 emissions; the government aim to reduce to just 250kg. This is a difficult solution to instigate, however, this is possible with people practising the concept of recycling and learning to use energy saving equipment.

As winter grips the Northern Hemisphere and record cold snaps blanket the region in snow and ice, it’s difficult to imagine a phenomenon such as global warming. Of course, even as temperatures plunge north of the Equator, Australia is engulfed in a drought with catastrophic wildfires sweeping across the continent. Environmentalists place the blame squarely on global warming caused by greenhouse gases and increased emissions associated with humans. Global warming is the excuse for any number of unexplained phenomenon in the environment. Species extinction, climate change, shrinking polar ice caps are all blamed on global warming by environmentalists misquoting scientists who use anecdotal and sloppy research.

The fact is global warming is occurring; however no one is quite sure shy. Whether the mild temperature increase is a direct effect of humans is highly doubtful. The reason is not enough evidence exists to support any one theory over the other. Average temperatures are increasing by less than one degree per decade. This increase could be a cycle the planet has gone through several times in its four billion year history. Fossil records indicate tropical plants and climates in areas that now are buried under snow and ice for nine months out of the year. A miniature ice age occurred around medieval times, which some postulate is one of the causes of what is called the Dark Ages. The geological record indicates many ice ages have occurred and that they do happen with some frequency. If scientists are basing their theories on recorded temperatures, then they will find temperatures are increasing. Consistent recorded temperatures only go back just over one hundred years. Future scientists will more than likely record a decline in average temperatures and give environmentalists an excuse to blame global freezing.

It’s hard to focus on era’s lasting hundreds of years when faced with the immediate threats that are blamed on global warming. Increased iceberg activity can impact shipping lanes, which can affect delivery of food and goods around the world. Decreased habitat and changes in the environment kill off species, thousands of insects and reptiles that haven’t been discovered yet, or the more visible victims, like polar bears, which look cute and cuddly, but are actually pure predators. Environmentalists have championed global climate change as the cause for cannibalistic behavior among the bear population. It’s a great method of generating publicity despite the falsehood it promotes. Bears will eat bears because they are carnivorous, not because of climate change. No one has demonstrated that seal populations, a source of food for polar bears, has been affected yet. Environmentalists cling to the yet, because a worst-case scenario draws a lot of attention to the cause, which is combating global warming.

Global warming is not a hoax and the environmental impact is quite serious. But blaming humans for the phenomenon is incorrect. However, no matter what the cause, the effects on global warming will need to be addressed and only humans can correct it. Through conservation efforts, and an increased movement toward renewable energy sources, global climate change can be slowed or averted.

For more information on global warming, visit http://www.earthclimatechallenge.com.

Highlife Ski & Snowboard asked:


Last year with their partners, The Carbon Neutral Company, Highlife planted almost 3000 trees, neutralising the carbon emissions produced by Highlife flights to and from Geneva.

Climate change is perhaps one of the greatest social, economic and environmental challenge of this century. Companies and individuals who want to tackle climate change use carbon offsetting – this is designed to help reduce CO2 emissions, and delivers a measurable environmental benefit.

Being carbon neutral is increasingly seen an important responsibility, and a growing list of high-profile corporations have announced dates for when they intend to become fully neutral, including PepsiCo, Google, Yahoo!, Nike, Tesco and Dell. Events like the G8 Summit and organisations like the World Bank are also using offsetting schemes to become carbon neutral. Even artists like The Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd have made albums or tours carbon neutral!

Investing in a project that takes the equivalent metric weight of carbon back out of the atmosphere means that the biggest carbon footprint associated with skiing – the carbon emitted by the plane journeys – is compensated for.

Highlife was proud to be Ireland’s first ski holiday company to have joined the Carbon Neutral programme last year, and is delighted to take similar measures to offset carbon emissions during winter 2008.

Stephanie Ciccarelli asked:


One of the best ways to be found as a voice actor for freelance opportunities in this day and age is through search on the Internet.

The ways of the past are no barrier to success for savvy voice over entrepreneurs of the new Google Era. Google has brought more to our fingertips than any other web portal on the Internet, corralling relevant websites and taming the Wild West of the World Wide Web.

The voice over market was worth over $8.8 billion worldwide in 2005!

That’s right, a substantial amount of money was spent on language services and voice recording with $12.3 billion spent on language services and voice recording projected for 2010.

It’s no secret that there are many people who are online for this type of work, however, there are tips and strategies that are not quite as evident when it comes to differentiating yourself from the other people who do voice overs online.

Here’s an avenue that you may not have thought of when it comes to branding your voice and voice over services, but it’s quite opportune and timely considering the current state of environmental affairs in the world due to Greenhouse Gases and Global Warming.

It’s amazing how the increasing awareness of these issues has and continues to impact businesses directly.

Let’s visit this back story to get an idea of what is going on and how people are being affected.

Up here in Canada, there is a company I heard about on the radio that is actually citing “Global Warming” as their reason for shutting down one of their factories, a factory that happens to employ hundreds of people and is laying off veterans in the workforce who have served them for decades.

This company produces snow blowers and the like.

With a very mild winter and relatively no snow this past year, the company couldn’t justify producing additional stock for this year when there was still inventory that hadn’t sold from the previous season. Because of climate change, this company will need to look into manufacturing other seasonal products, perhaps golf carts or similar items as was suggested on the CBC Radio One Sunday morning program.

It is through these realizations and corporate decisions that new, enviro-conscious business deals and procedures will emerge.

By virtue of an ever-growing demand for environmentally friendly products and practices, the adapting global marketplace will propel this diamond in the rough niche for green branding opportunities worldwide for so-called green initiatives.

You may be wondering what this has to do with branding for voice overs… I’m getting to that, not to worry.

Essentially, as business changes for many corporations in the manufacturing industry, they will need to change their messaging or product offerings to accommodate Green Initiatives such as the Kyoto Accord or Kyoto Protocol.

While going green may pose certain financial commitments for companies and branding strategies, it does present new opportunities to market to their customers and prospective customers.

After making agreements and going green, these companies will want to flaunt their new status as an environmentally friendly company and will need to market that message through commercials, printed materials, updated phone system recordings, website voice overs, podcasts, public speaking engagements and more.

This desire to promote support for the environment will ultimately benefit you as the content producers, in this case, of voice over services.

New opportunities will arise for work as well as new opportunities for you to brand your image as an environmentally conscious voice over professional and businessperson.

That could mean updating your company colors, logo or even your entire brand itself to position yourself as an ideal choice for a company re-branding their images as environmentally sensitive.

Have you checked out the templates online that you can use for your website to brand your web presence?

There are a wide array of nature-inspired themed templates available to you through royalty-free image providers that you can use to make your website more appealing and branded to attract clients who are embracing the new way of going green in their business.

Some of these themes may focus on water, greenery, solar energy, floral patterns, and oxygen. There’s no shortage of images out there that you can acquire to brand your website for visitors who espouse saving the environment.

Branding your website with graphical themes opens the door to text branding as well.

Consider the following brands if you’d like:

- Green Voice

- Fresh Voice

- Pure Voice

- Solar Voice

- Aqua Voice

- Enviro Voice

- Organic Voice

- Clean Voice

- Pristine Voice

- Clear Voice

With those suggestions, you will be able to brand your own voice over business and be a trail blazer in the field of eco-friendly audio production services.

Reginald Ross asked:


Analysts and financial planners can play a crucial role in helping you get it right with alternative energy investing. “We don’t play around in the tiny cap stocks that have technology and not much revenue—the ‘hope’ stocks. We invest in companies with clear cash-generation plans in place,” are the words of Ben walker, who is a senior portfolio manager at the Gartmore Global Utilities fund out of London.

Still, the outlook is very positive overall—and healthy. “It is good to see that the number of renewable energy funds and the amount of money flowing into these funds is increasing,” according to chief executive of UK alternative electricity supplier Good Energy Juliet Davenport. “The renewable generation market is at an important stage in its development; it needs the continued support of the consumer, investor and government to ensure that it reaches its potential and really starts to make a difference to climate change.”

Many alternative energy investment portfolio advisors are confident that alternative energies derived from currents, tidal movement, and temperature differentials are poised to become a new and predominant form of clean energy. The French are actually fairly advanced at hydro power generation, and numerous studies are being made in Scotland and the US along these same lines. Some concerns are around the problems with the deterioration of metals in salt water, marine growth such as barnacles, and violent storms which have all been disruptions to energy production in the past. However, these problems for the most part seem to be cured through the use of different, better materials. Ocean-produced energy has a huge advantage because the timing of ocean currents and waves are well understood and reliable.

The reality is, the energy future is green, and investors would do well to put their money out wisely, with that advice in their minds.

Caroline Poynton asked:


In a capitalist market seemingly obsessed with profit, the green bandwagon suddenly appears rather ironically overloaded with corporates. Whether it be big brand retailers, such as Tesco, or technology giants, such as BSkyB, business now seems intent on winning the hearts and pockets of the environmentally-conscious consumer.

Financial-services firms are the latest businesses to show a keen interest in the environment, with several banks now launching ‘green’ credit cards. Barclaycard, for instance, is introducing its ‘Breathe’ credit card in the summer. Made from PETG – a recyclable and more environmentally friendly alternative to the usual PVC – use of the card will also help generate funds for carbon-reduction projects. In the first year of its launch, Barclaycard has promised to donate £1m to environmental initiatives, with 50% of its profits from the card going to green causes thereafter. In addition, Breathe card holders can enjoy a preferential annual percentage rate (APR) of 5.9% on purchases of environmentally-friendly goods and services.

Other banks are keen to compete. Virgin Money is also developing a green card, which it claims outdoes Barclaycard because it is bio-degradable rather then merely easily recyclable. The Co-operative bank has also long offered a range of affinity credit cards. With its Greenpeace card, for instance, the bank promises to donate £15 when you open the account, plus 25p for every £1 you spend on the card and 25p for every £100 you transfer to the card.

It all sounds very nicely in tune with current concerns over climate change. But it seems unlikely that a bank would go green purely out of a shared concern for the planet. Factor in other evidence, such as recent announcements that both Virgin and Barclaycard intend to charge customers £10 and £20 respectively just for not using their credit cards and you begin to wonder – is there a catch to the banks’ swing to green?

With growing interest in green issues, banks may wish to do something environmentally ethical if only to improve their brand reputation or consumer loyalty. There is, however, undoubtedly an opportunity for banks and other institutions to make an easy profit out of this burgeoning interest in the planet’s welfare. For instance, Barclaycard’s Breathe card has a typical APR of 14.9% (reduced to 5.9% on environmentally friendly products). This rate is below market average, but still not as good as some other offers currently in the market. Barclaycard’s own Simplicity credit card, for instance, has a best-buy rate of just 6.8% and there are still many opportunities in the market for 0% balance transfers, which may prove far better value than an eco-friendly card, if you don’t pay your balance off in full every month.

You may be delighted to hear that you can now get a credit card which will make donations to charities that you care about at no cost to yourself. But you still need to carefully evaluate the different credit card options to ensure that you are getting the best deal. If your overriding concern is the environment, then you should consider whether the bank has a good track record generally on environmental and ethical issues. If not, you may wish to make your donations through another party. Alternatively, by choosing a cheap credit card deal with a different provider, you could use the savings to make donations directly to the environmental cause of your choice.

“The environment is of prime concern to many people today, so seeing financial institutions donating to green causes will please many people,” said Sophie Neary, product director at BeatThatQuote.com. “You still need to be diligent in taking on any credit card, though. You need to weigh up all the benefits against any potential costs, whether those are higher rates or hidden fees. An eco-friendly card may not be the right option for everybody.”

There is one clear positive aspect to these latest offerings though. Banks are listening to their customers like never before and while profit will always be the imperative, we consumers have never been in such a powerful position to drive the market in ways that suit our pockets, rather than the banks’.

Enviro Saver asked:


Around the world, there are many climate change events that take place in order to bring awareness to the fact that our world needs us to change. There are many ways that people can change in order to have a positive impact on our planet. The many events that are held around the world each deal with a different way that people can change in order to bring about a more environmentally friendly attitude. Below are five examples of some events that are geared toward living in a greener way.

Earth hour is an international event that is held once a year in order to raise awareness about the need to change our habits regarding energy consumption. This is done on the last Saturday of March where everyone is asked to turn everything off for one hour in the evening.



Earth Day is an event that is celebrated once a year. The date of when it is held will vary in different places around the world, but the purpose is the same. This is a day that is meant to celebrate our Earth and show our appreciation for our planet. It is also a day when people are encouraged to reflect on what they can do in order to be kinder to our special planet.

Trash to Treasure Day is celebrated once a year in many places where people will put items out on their front lawns for one day. People going by who see something they like are free to take it if they feel they have use for it. This day works on the idea that one person’s junk is another’s treasure. This way, items that would have normally been tossed in the trash are being reused.

World Environment Day, which was created by the United Nations, is a week long event that is hosted by a different city every year and is meant to raise awareness about the state of the environment. Though the main focus remains on the environment, there will be a different environmental theme each year.

B.C. River Day is an event that is held in British Columbia once a year in the Fall and is an event that may very well be celebrated in other places around the world; the event just might be under another name. This particular event is meant to raise awareness about the state of our rivers, lakes and oceans and to encourage change that will help to improve the health of our waterways.

Kate Craig-Wood asked:


Does your business take green IT seriously? Well it should, because ignoring climate change could cost you money and harm your credibility.

There are now over 1.1 billion computers in operation worldwide, collectively producing about one billion tonnes of CO2 through their electricity requirements. E-waste is serious headache too with computers, mobile phones and electronic gadgets now accounting for 5% of the world’s garbage (www.unep.org).

But surely small IT companies don’t need to be worrying about that kind of thing? Actually, they do – there are solid reasons why all businesses should be going greener, and not just because of the do-gooder’s warm fuzzy feelings to be had! Over 70% of PCs will not be recycled when disposed of over the next five years, and globally we will dispose of 512 million. We are now legally obliged to dispose of PC equipment properly, and that normally incurs charges. Thankfully there is a free and simple, if underused, alternative; lots of people in the world are in dire need of our “outdated” computers, so donate them to the likes of www.computeraid.org. For safety, I would suggest you scrub your drives first (try dban.sourceforge.net). More regulation info at www.netregs.gov.uk.

Perhaps more importantly, consumers and businesses are increasingly taking note of how the products and services they use impact the environment. Memset (www.memset.com) became the UK’s first “carbon neutral” Web host last Summer and that has definitely helped us win more business, which is also probably why so many other dedicated server hosts are following suit.

Carbon offsetting

Things like travel, electricity usage and product manufacture have a “carbon footprint”; the quantity of greenhouse gases directly or indirectly produced as a result of those activities. Most activities are impossible to make 100% green, but you can offset the effective carbon impact by investing in carbon sequestration projects (eg. planting trees) or in greener power generation facilities (eg. wind farms), thus becoming “carbon neutral”.

Organisations like the CarbonNeutral Company (www.carbonneutral.com) and the Carbon Trust (www.carbontrust.co.uk) can guide you through offsetting, and it is neither expensive nor difficult. For example, an average small office with 10 staff might have equivalent emissions of 20 tonnes CO2/year, which would probably only cost around £200/year to offset.

As well as giving you more credibility in today’s increasingly enviro-friendly world, taking a few hours to review your carbon footprint can lead to some worthwhile cost savings as well. A simple example is turning off (or hibernating if, like me, you hate rebooting and getting back to where you were each morning) your PC at night. A recent study by Fujitsu estimated that the UK alone wastes £123m on electricity powering PCs left on out-of-hours. See www.energysavingtrust.org.uk for general energy-efficiency tips.

Virtually greener

Carbon offsetting is all good stuff, but when it comes to IT power consumption, prevention is better than cure. Demand for high-availability, centralised server resource is growing relentlessly, and high-density computing uses a lot of energy. Even a base-spec 1U rackmount server will burn 100-200 Watts continuously, and once you fill a few racks and add in cooling requirements you are looking at a whopping electricity bill! With energy prices doubling every few years datacentres’ power consumption is fast becoming a major issue for IT business, and is now the main cost underlying server hosting.

The oddity from our perspective is that the vast bulk of servers in our datacentres idle most of the time, with perhaps 90% never getting close to full capacity. While many applications are best hosted on their own dedicated server (better security, for example), few need the full resource of a modern multi-core, gigahertz machine. That is where virtualisation comes in; the latest generation of virtual machines, using the hardware-assisted virtualisation in new AMD and Intel’s chips (eg. www.vmware.com, www.miniserver.com), are operationally indistinguishable from a physical server but use 5-20% of the electricity. The reduced power and hardware costs give you significant savings while not costing anything you actually needed in the first place, and at the same time you are tackling climate change.

It can be argued that all such measures are a dribble in the ocean, and some have serious doubts about the efficacy of our whole approach to climate change. However, being more climate-friendly is not difficult for most IT businesses and almost certainly helps, so can you really afford to ignore the risks, or miss out on the benefits of going greener?