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Car services are a bit beyond my means, or perhaps I should say, I have no specific idea what car services cost because I've always assumed they are beyond my means. Which, I'm sure, they are. But enough about me.
Planettran has put the eco-twist on car service by putting into service a fleet of Priuses to ferry the swells around town.
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Americans finish 14th — out of 14 — in a new survey of consumers' progress toward making sustainable choices in their daily lives.
The Greendex survey, which talked to 14,000 consumers, calls itself the first to assess consumers' actions, rather than nations'. It was commissioned by National Geographic and conducted by the international polling company GlobeScan. Results were weighted toward the choices consumers actively make, but included those influenced by climate or the availability of green choices.
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When authors Michael Braungart and William McDonough conceived the title of their 2002 book "Cradle to Cradle," they were playing off the well-worn phrase "from cradle to grave," which they apply to the model of manufacturing since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.
From page 27, after a description of a dump:
In numbers that haven't been seen since the Vietnam War, US citizens of many backgrounds have been moved to demonstrate their opinions and feelings about the war in Iraq. We recently asked people from both camps to tell us what has motivated them.
FAVORING THE WAR
Annabelle Guerra, 19, student, part-time worker at the Environmental Protection Agency, Roslindale
If you want to know the magnitude of the problem, look in your
closet. Or maybe the basement, or the garage, or wherever you've put
your old TV, computer, or any other piece of technology that has since
been upgraded.
Someday you're going to want to get rid of that stuff, and so is
everyone else. Last year, 56 million PCs were scrapped, more than were
sold, according to Jim Gardner of Metech International, a Rhode Island
company that's making money by taking in all those castoffs and
returning their parts to productive uses.
Whenever I hear a cut from "Cosmo's Factory," the 1970 classic by
Creedence Clearwater Revival, I think Venezuela. That's because when my
family carted me there on vacation that year, I carted that cassette
among a shoebox full of others, along with a player that rivaled the
shoebox in size.
When I stepped onto the plane for the New Orleans Jazz Festival on
Thursday, I carried seven or eight times the amount of music on my
iPod, slipped into my shirt pocket.
Not because I ever expect to make one, but motivated by the same
interest that's led to viewing "This Old House" for 20 years, I asked
the Google search engine "how to build a deck." I found lots of
information among the 651,000 sites that came back, but the most
interesting tale among them was labeled, "How NOT to build a deck."
Joshua Weisbuch, 33, of Jamaica Plain says he's visited the iTunes
Music Store about 30 times since it opened less than three weeks ago.
Peter Wood, 24, of Beverly says he's gone at least once a day.
Barbara Mende, a grandmother from Waltham, says she's been only
three times. "I'm staying away from it," she says. "It's addictive."
David Nerrow, 36, of Acton intends to run from Hopkinton to Boston today, just like 20,233 others in the Boston Marathon. He'll start a couple of hours later than everyone else, though, because at 10 a.m. he'll begin pounding out 26.2 miles on a treadmill at the Puma Store on Newbury Street.
Why?
He has declared a goal of raising $100,000 this year for research into cystic fibrosis, which afflicts his 4-month-old daughter, Emma, and the Puma stunt will bring in $1,300 for the cause.
Airlines have long tried to mask the undeniable fact that to travel,
you have to leave home. Back in the '30s, for example, when Pan Am's
China Clipper began overseas service, it offered dining on fine china
and had beds.
Analogues of those amenities - hot food, blankets, and pillows for
all - eventually made it into coach. Other amenities were examples of
trying to make flying even better than home: movies, magazines, and
service at your seat.
