Messing About In Sailboats

Saving The Planet, Week 4 - Spreading the Word

Despite Al Gore's best efforts, awareness of environmental issues is still too low and even among young adults it is not their biggest concern. In a recent Business Week article, the environment ranked 7th among issues that concern Gen Y'ers. If it isn't that big an issue to this generation, God help us.

The other day I noticed a simple way to get the word out - email. More to the point every email I send. And let me tell you I send a lot of them. I probably send 300-400 a week at work. Some people still print out their emails. I have no idea why anyone would want to print any of my emails but in theory, if everyone of my emails was printed out, it could be a 500 sheet pack in a week and half. Over a year, that's a lot of trees.

One of my colleagues, added this simple little tag to her email. I copied it and added to my signature, now everyone of my emails has a gentle reminder to save a tree. Many would say that this is probably the most valuable message in my emails.

Here is another one that points to Treehugger, the environmental site

Saving the Planet One Week At A Time - the Story So Far
Week 4 - Adding an environmental reminder in your email signature
Week 3 - Buying back the CO2 generated by my air travel
Week 2 - Switching to environmentally friendly light bulbs
Week 1 - Switching to recyclable toilet paper and paper towels

Saving the Planet Week 3 - Buying back my CO2

One of the joys of corporate life as Tillerman pointed out is flying. Oh what fun. I can't wait for my next trip. Sitting on the runway for 3 hours (hey, they left the gate on time so it's an on time departure), getting delayed for 3 hours coming back and that wonderful in-flight service - You mean I get a free soda? Wow!

The other less-than-wonderful thing about flying is what it does for the environment. For example, a 1,000 mile trip on a commercial jet uses up 0.6 tons of CO2. You can calculate this yourself with the handy little online calculator on Conservation internationals website. I travel a lot. I fly about 40,000 miles a year so I use up 20-25 tons a year in CO2.  Not something I am delighted about but it's not optional in what I do.

Thankfully I can do something about it. Because I live close to Newark, I am a captive of Continental Airlines.  They do a reasonable job but the other day I saw something as I was checking a reservation online that actually delighted me about them.

Continental makes it easy to buy back your carbon. They have have partnered with Sustainable Travel International to create a program called "eco-skies". For example, I paid about $9 to offset my carbon for a trip to Denver. It was incredibly simple and gave me options on who the money went to.

Frankly I think they should make it mandatory but I expect that with all the additional taxes, the price of fuel and the dire troubles the airlines have, that would be a pipe dream.

Saving the Planet One Week At A Time - the Story So Far
Week 3 - Buying back the CO2 generated by my air travel
Week 2 - Switching to environmentally friendly light bulbs
Week 3 - Switching to recyclable toilet paper and

Saving the Planet - Week 2

One of my two New Year's Resolutions was to do my bit for the Environment by making one simple change in what I do every week. Week 1 was changing to recyclable paper towels and toilet paper. No complaints yet from son and wife so I think I got away with that one.

This week's change is to switch is to change to environmentally-friendly light bulbs. Every light bulb saves 260 pounds of Carbon Dioxide a year. That's pretty staggering when you think about it. I weigh 190 pounds so I would to live off McD's and HGH to weigh as much as the CO2 I would save. So if I change all my light bulbs, I could save as much CO2 as the weight of the crew of Leopard.

“We are all seamen on the ship Earth.” - Frank O. Braynard 1917-2007

This week, Frank O.Braynard, the founder and CEO of Operation Sail passed away at the age of 91. The guy was a giant in maritime history.  With Operation Sail, he oversaw multiple Tall Ships paraded is NY Harbor, founded South Street Seaport, wrote many books on great ships and gathered a vast collection of ship memorabilia.

Here is an except from his obituary about the Tall Ships Parade to celebrate the bi-centennial in 1976:

One by one, on July 4, 1976, towering ships glided below the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, then unfurled their sails. There were nearly 300 large ships from more than 50 countries in the 18-mile-long caravan up the Hudson, including 16 of the approximately 25 masted “tall ships” remaining in the world at the time.

Among them were the United States square-rigger Eagle; the British schooner Sir Winston Churchill, with an all-female crew; the Romanian bark Mircea; and the Russian four-masted Kruzenshtern, out of Murmansk.

Mr. Braynard and Mr. Slotnick had traveled to Europe, Asia and the Soviet Union to persuade governments and private owners to send their tall ships to New York. They had sailed on the Kruzenshtern for three days in their lobbying effort. “Russian cadets who were in Op Sail ’76 told us that this was their first real contact with the United States and their first understanding that Americans were not devils, not the enemy,” Mr. Stanford said.

An estimated five million people lined the New York and New Jersey shores that day, and more than 10,000 small private boats bearing spectators were kept out of the parade route by 150 Coast Guard vessels. Millions around the world watched the event all day on television.

The quotation in the headline was in relation to his efforts to use this bicentennial event as a way to thaw the relations between the USA and USSR. He was very worried about the Arms Race and saw this event as a way to create some unity.

The line seems very relevant today as we face a threat with the environment as bad as the Cold War.  As the US Government continues to slow movement forward on global collaboration on the Environment, Frank's words ring especially true:

“We are all seamen on the ship Earth.”