If you really want to know what is happening in the outside world and eliminate unnecessary paper use from newspaper and magazine purchases, consider setting up a Rich Site Summary (RSS) feed on the internet.
One of the best ways to get the latest eco-geek (or any other type of) news, in the fastest manner possible; and where you can pick and choose what you get sent (without all the flyers and unread bits) is to subscribe to RSS feeds. Most websites have this ability for you to sign-up for notification in your browser and let you know when there is an interesting or provocative new piece of information that you must read.
If you want to know about green auto news for example, then check out www.autobloggreen.com, and RSS them. I also like geeky space-related info so I have an RSS feed from Space Daily and it gives me about 7 to 10 space news items every weekday and I can choose from the brief summary as to whether or not I want to take a closer look. I think it is a great system.
Another one I just signed up for, and I think I should rave about for a few sentences, is a listserve email system from NASA Earth Observatory. I signed up for new articles on observations from space and also for natural disasters. Both are excellent sources of what is happening to the planet, almost real time, and paints a vivid image of the changes on Earth due to natural processes and human-made climate change.
You can also sign-up for an RSS feed from GreenMuze. Just go to the line in your browser that shows you the URL– it should be at the very top of this page. To the right of this, in the same line (for Safari and Fireworks), you will see RSS or a little RSS symbol which is orange or blue with a dot and two curves. In Microsoft Explorer there is the same symbol just above the web page, on the right hand side and next to a little house and a printer. If you click on the RSS or the icon, you can choose to have an RSS or Atom feed.
It is that easy to set up a RSS or Atom feed with all the major mainstream and green news sites.
What’sInYourPaper campaign reports that paper is the single largest component of our landfills, where its decomposition emits methane, a gas with 23 times the heat trapping power of carbon dioxide. In its production, paper ranks fourth among all United States manufacturing industries in greenhouse gas emissions. The paper industry is the third largest industrial energy consumer worldwide.
Most newspapers are printed on virgin paper. It takes an entire forest – over 500,000 trees, to supply Americans with their Sunday newspapers every week, reports the City of Urbana. Using recycled paper instead of virgin paper for one print run of the Sunday edition of the New York Times would save 75,000 trees according to the Kingwood Green.
Time to opt for online news.
Trevor Williams is a University of Victoria Mechanical Engineering PhD candidate specialising in renewable energy, power grid modelling and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. He has a bachelors in Aeronautical Engineering, a Masters in Management Science and over 23 years international experience in the space industry, having worked on Earth observation and telecommunications satellites.
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