The Onion reports that Al Gore has taken drastic action to save his infant son from our burning planet. All hope is lost!Â
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A recent NY Times article points out that as far as major cities go, Houston is behind the pack when it comes to recycling. In fact, it’s the worst recycler among the United States’ 30 largest cities, recycling about 2.6% of its total waste compared to other cities like San Francisco, which recycles about 69%.
The city’s sprawling, no-zoning layout makes collection expensive, and there is little public support for the kind of effort it takes to sort glass, paper and plastics. And there appears to be even less for placing fees on excess trash.
To me, it is so amazing that there isn’t more pressure from the State of Texas to do more to encourage recycling. Clearly they need to start building more of an incentive-based solution to help change mindsets and behavior.
With the recent decline in oil prices and the break in rising pump prices, will consumers go back to their old ways? Personally, I think it is too little too late. Even if we see a decline in pump prices (we’re still at $4 per gallon!), my belief is that consumers have already changed their habits, and they are now more accustomed to conserving and reducing their gasoline usage. We now take public transportation more often, we carpool more often, we drive less, we combine trips, and we’re ditching our monstrous SUVs and trucks for smaller, more fuel efficient cars.
Unless we see a huge decrease in gas prices (I’m talking about a nearly impossible sustained decrease of 50 percent or more), I don’t see consumers changing their new habits any time soon. Unfortunately for the oil industry and fortunately for the environment, consumers have picked up some good habits they’re likely unwilling to change.
We’re obviously big believers in greentech or cleantech here at TTMYGG, so it was interesting to see this list of high-tech luminaries who have made the changeover. There are some big shots on the list, which shows that cleantech is getting serious.
- Vinod Khosla, Founder Khosla Ventures.
- John Doerr, Partner, Kleiner Perkins.
- Elon Musk, Chairman, Tesla, Chairman, CEO SolarCity
- Steve Jurvetson, Partner Draper Fisher Jurvetson.
- Bill Gross, Founder Idealab.
- Al Gore, Chairman Generation Investment Managment, Partner Kleiner Perkins.
- Bill Joy, Partner Kleiner Perkins.
Unfortunately, unless you’re a big shot, it’s unlikely that you’d be able to invest with them or in them, but one thing you could do is join them! Here, thanks to earth2tech.com, is a map of 101 cleantech startups. Take a look at what’s around you, or somewhere you wouldn’t mind living, and get in on the ground floor!
Remember my posts on palm oil awhile back? (here and here) Well, it turns out that deforestation due to the ever-expanding palm oil industry is causing the remaining 30,000 or so orangutans in Malaysia and Indonesia to lose their habitats…and die.
It’s estimated that orangutans will go extinct in 3 to 20 years. THREE YEARS? Come on people! Give me a f-ing break. Are we seriously going to let this happen?
From Plenty Magazine, here’s a really sad quote to put some perspective into what’s happening:
Hardi Baktiantoro from the the Centre for Orangutan Protection in Indonesia says,
“I find dead orangutans, they have starved to death. There is no food, no water,†he said. He tells me that on the Indonesian island of Kalimantan (formerly Borneo), more than ten orangutans are starving to death each day because of palm-oil driven deforestation. “The situation for orangutans today is very, very critical. The experts say the orangutans will be extinct in 2015. The orangutans will be extinct in next three years unless the government takes extreme action to save them. But instead they are planning convert 455,000 hectares of forest [in Kalimantan] into new plantations, mostly palm oil,†he said.
The workers on those plantations see orangutans as nuisances that trample and eat their crops. “The plantation workers have to protect the oil-palms. That is their job. To them the orangutan who is hunting for food is only a pest,†said Baktiantoro, clicking through slides on his laptop of orangutans whose fingers and hands have been mutilated by plantation workers, and others chained to workers’ dormitories.
This is just really, really sad. And totally shameful and egregious that we are letting this happen.