Category Archives: Awareness and Hype
While the Teslas of the world are putting their best resources and brains forward to truly create a world with renewable energy, Panasonic has surprised many. The company has announced that their upcoming solar panels will be a lot more efficient. Their upcoming solar-power harnesser will offer an efficiency rating of 22.5 percent. The previous best was a record held by SolarCity, who have been ousted by 1.4 percent. While SolarCity’s 22.1 percent of sunlight converting technology seems to be coming our way by next year, we hope that Panasonic’s offering isn’t too far in the distant future.
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Sweden has always been leading the charge of the green revolution with fellow Scandinavian nation, Norway. The country is not all set to comfortably settle in the position of the world’s first nation to be completely driven by renewable energy. The Ecologist reported the news that underlines the purpose of the $546 million investment by the country on creating renewable energy channels. Their climate change action is commendable. Solar energy alone has enjoyed a budget increase of up to 300 percent. “Sweden will become one of the first fossil-free welfare states in the world,” said Prime Minister Stefan Löfven at a press event. “When European regulations do not go far enough Sweden will lead the way”.
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It all starts with the big players when it comes to trends in the business world. So it goes with inspiring clean energy and sustainable efforts to preserve the planet. Some of the largest American companies including Walmart, Salesforce, Nike and Starbucks have committed to using clean energy that is generated from solar and wind sources. Spearheaded by a non-profit group called The Climate Group and environment data firm CDP, the group of nine Fortune 500 companies pledged to join the RE100 campaign. The Climate Group had also hosted a week-long event in New York to focus on climate change around the same time.
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Back in 2008, Norway, a country far away from all things amazon, decided to support Brazil’s rainforest with a payout of $1 billion to the latter. It’s been years and the Scandinavian nation is finally paying out its final $100 million to the Brazilian authorities with much pride and joy, all thanks to Brazil’s conservationists who have more than fulfilled their end of the bargain. The country has seen a reduction of amazon destruction rate by 75%. Brazilian farmers and rangers have saved more than 33,000 square miles of land, which equals nearly 14.3 million soccer fields, from being cut down. Since we’re talking numbers, the Norway-subsidized efforts in Brazil’s portion of the amazon has led to a reduction of 3.2 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions. This is how much America would save by ridding its streets of cars for three years!
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The Indian state of Tamil Nadu has made it mandatory for all new high-rises to include a solar generation facility. The state has categorized all buildings above 4 floors as high rises. The rule will apply to all group development projects that contain over eight dwelling units. This will cover almost 90 percent of all residential and commercial establishments in buzzing cities such as Chennai and Coimbatore. Chennai has been a leading Indian state with a number of green initiatives spearheaded by the government. Back in 2001, they made rainwater harvesting mandatory for all buildings. The state has also managed to generate wind energy at a capacity of over 8,000 MW.
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France has just done what pretty much the whole world should. A new law has been passed by the country that makes it necessary for new buildings and establishments to develop rooftops that either have a solar panel on them or plants, whichever is easier to maintain. This simple idea could inspire the way the world looks at tackling pollution and nonrenewable energy. Plants greatly contribute by creating an isolating effect to help reduce the energy needed to heat or cool houses. Another great advantage of having a garden on your rooftop is the ability of plants to absorb water and thus avoid leaks. Germany and Australia have already taken the challenge of expanding their use of solar panels.
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The “Going Green” initiative has been in existence for quite some time now, and it is finally starting to spark the interest of top industries. Big businesses are starting to consider the environment in their actions and taking necessary steps to curb their footprint. This long overdue consideration for the environment will go a long way in creating a sustainable future and making the world a cleaner place to live. Below are the top industries that are going Green.
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President Barrack Obama may have well initiated the nation’s most influential and powerful Climate Action Plan. Called the Clean Power Plan, this strategy will most likely enforce reductions of emissions from power plants by at least 32 percent in the next 25 years. The focus of the initiative will be towards creating renewable energy and is dubbed as the most significant step taken to combat climate change, in the history of the US. This would be the equivalent of taking 166 million cars off the road! States will have until 2022 to meet emission cut requirements. It goes without saying that the plan will not be applicable to all states with the same norms. They may be some concessions and flexibilities that will have to be worked out through the project.
Cleaning up power generation sources has always been the effort of the eco-conscious. The power sector alone accounts for a total of 30 percent of all emissions in the US.
[Via – Inhabitat]
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Being eco-friendly isn’t just a lifestyle choice anymore, with more businesses than ever choosing to step up their green credentials. Not only are environmentally-friendly policies popular with consumers, they also bring in more profit. The reason for this is simple – decreasing the amount of wastage or increasing the energy efficiency of a business is, of course, going to cut costs. It is not surprising, then, that we are seeing more startups making the environment their business. Let’s take a look at some of the most interesting eco-friendly startups in 2015.
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There, there now! Didn’t we warn you all about how addictive selfies could be? It seems to have caught up to plants as well. The Selfie Plant project from The Secret Life of Objects at the Copenhagen Institute of Interactive Design seems to have its noble mission underway. Students Shruti RNR, Haoyu Li and Manu Dixit studies selfie culture in the modern world and tests how plants would react to such a culture. A number of factors lead to the trigger of a selfie such as the mood of the plant, an occasion or even change in the weather. With the help of Arduino Yu, the plant snaps itself from the angle it believes to be the finest and then shares it on social media with the help of python script.
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