My company is starting a initiative “Go Green – Reduce Reuse Recycle” on ‘Earth Day’ i.e. celebrated around the world by earth lovers. This initiative includes:
- Travel smart - You reduce 1.5 kg of carbon dioxide pollution for every 5 km you don’t drive. Use public transport, avail of the company transport, or simply try car-pooling. You not only contribute to less pollution, you also cut down on fuel cost and stress pills because of less driving.
- Tree plantation – The company is providing 55 trees, to be bought, and will be planted in the company’s campus.
- Reduce paper – Resist the urge to print everything. A visit to the printer room reveals how much paper we waste. As a “green” measure, all printers are by default to duplex print. Also, hand dryers are provided in the wash rooms to reduce the paper usage.
- Vermi-composting on Company’s Campus - Vermi-composting is the technique of using EARTH worms to break down the organic waste generated out of food, paper etc. to create fertilizer. The company will produce vermi-compost fertilizer for all trees on the campus.
This seems to be a really nice initiative at a company level, but the success of it depends on the individuals. Company cannot enforce them, these are just suggestion and best practices. It is left up to individuals to realize their responsibility and find out ways how they can contribute in making earth a better place to live. Companies like mine have started a small but a significant step toward making a greener earth.
I think the demand of energy is directly proportional to the green house gases which are the main source of global warming. Consider this – the electricity used in IT to keep the industry running is huge. The number of computers is doubling every year. Each computer consumes a lot of power and generates a lot of heat. This is not all – to keep the computers cool, air conditions are installed, which again consumes the equivalent amount of energy or perhaps more. Big companies like Google & Microsoft have huge data centers with tens of thousands of computers. They consume massive amount of energy. There is a lot of scope of reducing this electricity consumption by having more energy efficient computers with generate much less heat or does not require any external cooling. I read somewhere that Microsoft was planning to open a big datacenter in Russia or Siberia. I wonder if that is the step to reduce the air conditioning bill…
We all know from our school days that the primary source of electricity are coal (thermal), water (dams), nuclear. Wind and Solar energy is tried at some places but they have not gained the popularity, primarily because ROI is not good. Electricity produces from bio-wastes have been experimented successfully, but again there is the problem of adoption. People tend to use things which are easily to install and use. Wide adoption of alternate fuels requires willingness from both the government and individuals.
Fuel seems to be the major source of contaminating the environment because when it burns it releases CO2 and other gases participating in green house effect. It is very unlikely that the consumption of fuel may be reduced because our demand for energy is only going to increase with each passing day. We need to find better and efficient ways of using the available resources. Scientists are busy finding alternates to currently available fuels option – like in Brazil, ethanol produced from sugarcane is used as an alternate to petrol. Ethanol is cheaper then petrol and produces less green house gases. More than 70% of the gas stations in Brazil now have ethanol available. This was only possible by the willingness and participation of government and citizens.
Government in US is forcing the auto industry to come up with more fuel efficient engines, with alternate to petrol and diesel. With each passing year emission norm are becoming tougher. Hybrid cars are the future, but they are a long way from adoption by common man. We have long heard and seen nuclear powered submarines, but that technology is still far from being used in cars & planes. But there will be one day when our cars will have a small nuclear battery inside that may never be required to be replaced for the car’s entire life.
All this is a big plan, most of them may not even see the light of the day, but as individuals we should thrive of discipline to use our natural resources efficiently. Charity starts from home, so shall any good cause.
Celebrate ‘Earth Day’, everyday!
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