ReGeneration Roundup: 2008-08-24
Saving the planet can be a very serious business, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have a little fun every once in a while. To this end, our friends at Greenwala have come up with an educational environmental vocabulary game called Treewala. The rules of the game are simple: match a series of environmentally related words to their definitions. They start out simple, but get increasingly more difficult until they are eventually ridiculously hard. The game is fun and my green lexicon benefited from playing it, but the best part is that you are actually helping the planet by playing it. Every correct definition you choose wins you a leaf. Each leaf generates ad revenue, which Greenwala uses to buy trees. Greenwala is partnering with the Marion Institute to plant trees as part of the Las Gaviotas project, and promises more partnerships to expand the planting project globally as the game is played. I made it to “Vocab Level 14,” but more importantly, I helped plant two trees. How’s that for 15 minutes spent playing a game online?
According to the market research firm Emerging Energy Research (EER), the US is on track to cross the 150 gigawatt mark for wind power by 2020. That number will need to double to 300 gigawatts if it’s to reach T. Boone Picken’s goal of having 20 percent of all power in the US to be generated from wind. As it is now, we don’t have enough turbines to even consider meeting this goal, but investment in wind energy is on the rise and is expected to continue to climb. Thanks to earth2tech for their coverage of this.
eWeek’s Mike Vizard conducted an interview this week with Dell’s director of worldwide regulatory compliance and environmental affairs, David Lear. In the interview, Lear spoke not only about the Dell’s recent environmental wins, but also about the impact green computing is going to have on setting IT budget priorities over the next couple of years. Also covered is the potential savings more energy-efficient products will yield, and the challenges associated with designing these products. Check it out when you get a chance. You’re going to be hearing a lot more of this in the future, not only from Dell and Mr. Lear, but from businesses of all types from around the world. What we are hearing now is only a prelude to the great global shift towards green energy and greater energy-efficiency.
