Earth Day is in full swing. Have you offset your carbon emissions yet? Well, there are plenty of apps and Websites out there ready to help you do just that and more. Green is the new black. Speaking of which, if you want to be green, you’d better avoid black cars and Websites with all-black backgrounds (like goth sites and sometimes even Google).
But don’t avoid us. We just decided to turn the background of TechCrunch black today in memory of Google’s noble effort last year, when its site went black in honor of “Earth Hour”. And don’t even think about printing out an e-mail (not that you would—unless it had really important information on it that you needed hard copy of like a contract or a map, in which case, be my guest).
Seriously, green apps are great and we fully support them here at TechCrunch. The first step to dealing with a problem is often to measure it. And theer are plenty of Websites that let you measure your carbon footprint such as Co2Stats, (for Websites) and Zerofootprint (for people). But all too often these turn out to be nothing more than green vanity apps, designed to make you feel good about being green, but not really impacting the environment one way or the other.
For instance, consider a Facebook app just that launched called GoRecycle411 (developed by Jerry Kelly, the former VP of finance at Mark Cuban’s 2929 Productions). You enter how many cans, bottles, newspapers, or office paper you’ve recycled and it tells you how much energy you saved and posts your achievement to all your friends via the Facebook News feed. It keeps a tally, and translates your energy into how many barrels of oil, trees, gallons of water, pounds of carbon dioxide, kilowatts of electricity, and cubic yards of garbage you save. It also keeps track of how much everyone using the application is saving.
The more you recycle, the more virtual points you get which you can spend on virtual gifts for friends like a polar bear, a windmill, or a tree. Of course, you can enter whatever numbers you want, and you still get all those good green karma points. All in all, it is better than a lot of other Facebook apps. Not only do you get to show off how green you are, but you get to shame your friends into recycling at the same time.
Another example is Greenbookings, a Dutch travel site that calculates the carbon emissions caused by your vacation and offsets that at the end of the year by investing in green energy projects. You pay nothing extra for the offsets, but you get to feel good about it and Greenbookings uses that as marketing lure to get you to book flights, hotels, and rental cars through its site. Why not, right? It is easier for one company to offset a years worth of travel-related carbon emissions than for each traveler to do so individually, and probably cheaper too. Except that who knows what Greenbookings is going to invest that offset money into. Last year, it put the money into a hydroelectric project in China. Water power is certainly cleaner than a coal plant, but isn’t China notorious for creating huge hydroelectric projects that wreak all sorts of other environmental and human havoc? I guess you just have to trust Greenbookings on that one
(Photo by Steve Jurvetson. Yes, the venture capitalist. Is it me, or is he channeling Thomas Kinkade, the “Painter of Light” in the image above?)
So since I am a total cynic I wonder how many users believe and care about whether a website or service is ‘certified’ though for example: http://www.co2stats.com
Thinking of signing up https://spideroak.com but would love some input!
Daniel
https://spideroak.com – Online Backup and Sync
“The first step to dealing with a problem is often to measure it.”
So the best way to deal with a fake problem is to pretend to measure it.
“The common enemy of humanity is man.
In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself.”
- Club of Rome,
premier environmental think-tank
consultants to the United Nations
Lots of Adams here, very very few doing justice to a good name.
All you carbon footprint people make me laugh. Other trends cost less money, go and do those instead! Unless the 100% planned and controlled economic crisis hasn’t affected you.
@Adam you sound so pessimist. Not all humanity is so…
marvin
http://yousuggest.us
I fail to see how the truth is pessimistic. Even if you don’t accept it as the truth, I still fail to see it as you stated.
By Tech Crunch hyping the carbon credit scam and what I like to call ‘the weather’, they are doing a disservice to the rest of us. Repeat things enough times and we start believing it. In this sense, the green scam is poised to change the world as we know it. Just like anything someone or some company pushes, they’ll only tell the positives and conveniantly leave out the negatives, when it’s the negatives which carry 10x more weight.
It’s not that I believe man is not good, its that I believe those who have the power to control man’s opinion are not good.
Before you go green, read heavily into the UN Agenda 21. Make sure not to miss what is written between the lines either.
adam you sound pessimist…not all humanity is so.
cheers,
marvin
http://yousuggest.us
I took a photo just like that. That’s Marin Headlands in California.
http://www.flic...57606821472866/
We have created a fun and innovative carbon calculator for the iPhone called, Twavel. And, to celebrate Earth Week, we’re giving it away for free! The coolest part is that your carbon footprint is displayed as an animated Avatar that changes depending on your emissions.
Try it out in the iTunes store: http://is.gd/r8ad/
Man-made global warming is a HOAX. Don’t believe the hype. Or the junk science used to prop it up.
I agree. These luddites greenies should turn off their lights indefinitely and go back to living in the caves. The haters of man’s achievement , since our ancestors came down from living on trees (ie, our homo sapien’s forefathers managed to evolve their brain to use reason and abandon the ways they were sleeping on trees via hanging uspside down) and came down to start building shelters on the ground. From there we evolved from primitive lifestyles to the transportation of modern day commercial airlines and SUV and this should make man celebrate those monumental achievements by joining the campaign for :
Exploit the Earth or die
All the pro Gaia , tree-huggers and greenies out there, must give up their computers, cars, electricity use, etc,… since they would be hypocrites if they don’t comply with what they preach.
It’s not that they hate human acheivement, it’s that they hate themselves. They are trying to compensate for their own shortcommings. They hate themselves because they are immoral. If they can come up with a fake cause to fight for, then they can lie to themselves and feel that they are doing good. But they are falling into a bottomless pit, and the feelings they think are good are as fake as their causes. They need to realize that feeling good only comes from actually being good, you can not fake it.
I think we need a reminder every year about this time to examine the folly of human endeavor and self-importance, as Sir Carlin famously ranted….
http://www.habi...ges/420992.html
good artical dear i like it .. but exactly it works or not ..people should change ther mind set………….
You can also check out which environmental groups are making the most difference. GreatNonprofits is hosting the 2009 Green Choice Awards – http://www.grea...s.org/green?/tc. From the NRDC to groups as small as a whooping crane migration project in Niagara Falls, you can see which local, regional or national environmental groups offer the best experiences for volunteers or impact for donors. You can contribute a review too.
We have created a very simple website http://www.20trees.com.
The idea is every person in the US emits about 20 tons of carbon every year. By planting 20 trees, oen can offset his/her footprint for a year.
The site uses affiliate marketing. Example is signing up with Netflix will plant 80 trees (no more driving to local rental); or buying a Kindle 2 plants 200 trees (e-reader, less printed books).
If you think those are cool, check out JogoGreen.com. For every 10 green trivia questions you answer, they plant an actual tree, for free. I think it was started by two Stanford students last year. So far they’re up to 100,000 trees!
That’s good to know!
20trees.com plant actual trees as well. And oddly we are Stanford alums too.
Nice post, Erick.
I’m the CTO at Brighter Planet. Very soon we’ll be launching a web app to help people measure, reduce, and offset their footprint in a social environment. We hope it’ll address the problem you mentioned with some of the current green 2.0 options out there — making a real dent in helping to solve the climate crisis.
Would love for those reading this post to sign up to be beta testers:
http://brighterplanet.com/beta
Also, check out http://earthtweet.com — something we launched a few weeks ago to help organize eco-conscious twitterers.
Cheers,
Adam
Interesting…looks like Web 2.0 can be used to make not only young people rich and more connected, but improve the environment, too. The hyped recession may be over though http://iamned.com/blog/ accordingly
There is no point whatsoever in being green. I am being completeley logical. You shouldnt even do it for an enlargement of your fanbase. This is because there is no point in being green wile china is still making an average of 50 coal power stations a week.
so there you go
Didn’t TC once have a post about Google’s black background actually being more harmful to the environment then the white; and now you are doing the same for Earth day. Strange.
It’s for all our readers who use CRT screens.
The Ray Tube readers now feels special
If you are looking to make your business a little greener and reduce its carbon footprint, check out the carbon footprint management tool available from Verteego.
Talk about vanity… Considering the termendous amount of change that has happened on Earth over billions of years, thinking you make a difference by having a black background or buying into shady carbon offsets schemes is the ultimate show of vanity.
The company I work for is offering 40% off on all our eBooks starting today, in honor of Earth Day, and running through May 31st. Check it out here:
http://www.peac...it.com/earthday
Erick,
I noticed (obviously) that you guys changed your background on TC to black, which I’m assuming is in honor of Earth Day to conserve energy on people’s computer screens.
BUT, I’d like to point out, as you probably already know, that the black background makes no significant difference on the vast majority of monitors out there for energy savings.
For more info, see here: Black Computer Backgrounds Don’t Save Energy or the Earth, Sorry.
GenGreenlife.com created a application on facebook called everyday is earthday that helps to bring awareness to the environmental impact of the use of facebook by offsetting all of the users that have downloaded this app on earth day. Check it out.
http://apps.fac...ngreenearthday/
75% less emissions.
Your CO footprint, reduce for Earth Day.
MPG CAPS
Add to your gas when you fill up your
automobile. If we all used this product.
Global Warming would be reduced by 75%.
It is good article dude but it will work or not the time will tell because everyone has their mind set
PrintGreen eco-friendly service widget FREE in honor of Earth Day. Save the planet, make $ on your web site or blog printgreen.xywidgets.com
i know a couple of Guys in Mumbai, India where they have been distributing plants for free. some youngsters.. with an amazing dream to green the world by planting, gifting, donating trees for free.
check them out at http://www.ektitli.org
I love the GoRecycle411 app! It’s amazing how much plastic and paper I use, and seeing the numbers makes me happy I recycle!
Happy Earth Day!!
Very good story on Earth day and very detailed.