A new survey shows that Americans are all for being more eco-friendly, as long as it doesn’t make them uncomfortable or inconvenienced. The Shelton Group polled 1,006 American households about their buying habits. Sixty percent want green products, but most don’t want to give up their favorite modern conveniences like iPods and air conditioning. In fact, over one fifth of the respondents said they wouldn’t give up anything despite the harm done to the environment.

The survey showed that 62 percent of Americans wouldn’t give up their iPods, 65 percent wouldn’t stop using their dishwashers, 75 percent couldn’t part ways with their microwaves, 79 percent would rather hang on to their cell phones than be green, 86 percent said air conditioning was a must and 87 percent had to have their televisions.

So what’s the takeaway, other than the fact that Americans are a little spoiled and selfish when it comes to saving the planet they call home? Click here to read more

Powered by Bookmarkify™

Environmentalists in Canada have finally won the poop war. Victoria, the capital of British Columbia, on Vancouver Island is a tourist destination that boasts beautiful wilderness forests and an amazing marine coast along with prim shops, gardens and tea rooms. But despite the pristine reputation, Victoria is the only Canadian city that has been dumping untreated human waste into the sea. It goes right into the Straight of Juan de Fuca between the island and the North Olympic Peninsula. The city relied on water dilution and tidal currents, but a scientific report confirmed that’s not a long term solution for waste disposal.

Since 2006, the BC government has ordered Victoria to develop a sewage treatment plan. The city dragged its feet spurring a group called People Opposed to Outfall Pollution, that’s right, POOP. Even better than the organization’s name is Mr. Floatie, their 7-foot tall mascot, which resembles, you guessed it, raw sewage. No question, he’s an attention-getter. Ultimately the group wanted to shame the political powers-that-be into making the raw sewage change. Finally, years after Mr. Floatie made his video debut singing his theme song, officials have approved a plan that will build four sewage treatment plants to take care of the islanders’ excrements. Click here to read more

Powered by Bookmarkify™

Fact: the best universities in this country are expensive. If you’ve dreamed of getting into one of the Ivy League schools without becoming bankrupt, now is your chance! Thanks to YouTube EDU, you can now benefit from free online courses from the best universities in the US. Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Princeton, U. Penn and Yale are the eight private American universities which constitute the Ivy League schools. With YouTube EDU, no need to crush your SATs to learn from some of the best universities.

Google launched YouTube EDU about a week ago, giving access to numerous lectures by professors and world-renowned thought leaders. It brings together the content from over 100 American universities and colleges. Since we only want the best and we’re all about global environmental issues, we decided to give it a go! We tried to see if we could learn a little something about global ecology from the Ivy League schools. Here is what we found: Click here to read more

Powered by Bookmarkify™

The recent crossover of Twitter into the mainstream has made it a great new source to find jobs in an otherwise crummy market. While Twitter hasn’t yet developed a feature that will help pay your mortgage, this new application built on top of Twitter might help you land a job that’s good for you, the environment and the economy. With millions of users and growing, Twitter Job Search might help you find your next green job. We decided to give it a test run to see if we could find green related jobs and here are some of the results. Click here to read more

Powered by Bookmarkify™

This National Geographic video shows that global warming could do more than just melt polar ice.  Indeed, it could change our maps and displace people from cities and tropical islands.

Powered by Bookmarkify™